Pybop: Exceptional Web Content for Exceptional Businesses : Web content company, Web content strategy, Web content writing services from Shelly Bowen and the Pybop Team.

Shelly's Pybop

How to Open the Closed Minded

Friday night I attended a 10-year photo studio anniversary party in Seattle. A couple hundred people; most I didn’t know. But they had Web sites, and they were all asking me what I do.

Aha. Perfect opportunity to perfect my elevator pitch.

Half the time I was received with “Yes! We need that.” The other half, not so much. I got a “Why bother? Our site is good enough.”

It’s much easier and less time consuming to market to your current demographic — those people who “get” you and your products. So I didn’t press those conversations. But yesterday, Seth Godin reminded me that marketing to an audience who thinks like you may be the easiest way to grow your business, but “the most effective way to grow is to inform those who disagree with your position. More data in palatable form.”

Why Bother Improving the Content and Customer Experience on Your Site

It’s hard for me to tell you how you might show your “why bother” audience how your product or service is worthy — I don’t yet know you. But if given another chance, at another party, here’s how I might do it for my own.

Improving your site content can help you:

  1. Look more polished than your competition
  2. Better represent your brand
  3. Show up in more places on the Internet
  4. Be talk-worthy; encourage word-of-mouth (the best marketing of all)
  5. Reduce support calls
  6. Increase purchases
  7. Attract the right audience for your product or service — organically
  8. Increase repeat visits and loyalty
  9. Make your product or service easier to understand, faster

If my captive audience is still unconvinced, I might toss out a few metrics (results of course vary widely). Imagine,

  • A few copy changes can increase your conversion by 10%+
  • User experience improvements based on best practices can increase sign ups by 98%+
  • Incorporating key words in the right way can increase search engine traffic by 300% (SEO)
  • Decreasing support calls can decrease your overhead costs (and headaches) by 65%
  • You could make your competition worry at least 15% more …

Next time, next time.

Posted by Shelly Bowen on Sep 24, 2008. Filed under Content Marketing, Web Content Inspiration

 

No comments yet | RSS feed for comments on this post

Add your thoughts. Comment on this Pybop post.