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• Part 2: The Next Big (Web) Thing

  By Burkey Belser

  Posted on August 6, 2007 at 5:14 pm

  
  
  

  You will learn:
  1. How the user has taken over the Internet and what this means for you.
  2. The four types of websites.
  3. Promotional strategies you thought you’d never use.
  4. What is next on the web horizon.

  Last month we learned how to build a community of viewers, reviewed the four legs of a Web site plus shared thoughts on how to deliver the brand, not just data. This month we want to tell the other half of the story: The new model for developing successful Web sites is getting clearer as the years pass. Here are some thoughts to consider:

  You Are No Longer In Charge

  Users are. Web 1.0 was about servicing the brand (“Hello out there, here we are, we do this, isn’t it great?”) Today, a clean, well-lit place is the price of entry. In the world of Web 2.0, marketers extend the collaborative brand (customer and company). That means you are no longer (and never were) in complete control of the whole brand. You can only deliver perspectives on the brand. Users complete the picture.

  Here’s how Razorfish describes the old model: the customer was a tiny moon orbiting the giant brand, a cathedral of graphic standards. Today’s brand is more like a paint blob with users participating as co-painters of the brand. This is a seismic shift in our understanding of “brand.” Now customers and sellers “talk” back and forth about what the brand is and what the brand should be.

  I hope you’re reading this carefully. Humor me and go back and read these last paragraphs again.

  Looking Like Everyone Else Looks Like Nothing At All

  Remove your logo, then compare your site to the sites of your competitors without logos. Yipes! They all look alike! Or, worse—they look like nothing at all.

  Sites should be designed to steward a brand by communicating an emotion, a message and a story; but most are “information slaughterhouses,” says Seth Godin. Look at your site. We are not telling visitors the story; we are showing them the library. Understand just two rules: “Keep it simple” and “Have a heart.” Connect! Price, convenience and utility close the sale but do not build the brand. Do you believe your site visitor is going to plumb the depths of your site? Visitors determine their impression of the quality of the firm within .08 seconds (The New York Times). 43% of visitors go to the search field as soon as they hit a site.

  Pause. Get a beer. This stuff is dense. Imagine a musical interlude on NPR. We give ideas away at Greenfield/Belser, but the most disturbing result is that valuable ideas are ignored. If your firm is ambitious, you’ll imagine how these ideas can propel your firm. If you’re ambitious but your firm is not, quit. Find a better match.

  Resume. We suspect your IT group is probably telling you there is only one type of site—those that inform. But there are really four types. Those that:

  • Inform
  • Create an experience
  • Urge you towards a transaction
  • Motivate you to act.

  Understand that functionality is a commodity. Task completion and usability standards are table stakes. Experience is not just an advantage, but a requirement. Design is the principal difference between a positive response to your firm and a neutral or negative one. Most companies live in neutral. A few live in negative. But some soar to the stratosphere with a positive experience like Apple or Volkswagen.

  Why and how do successful companies succeed? Experience is more than a value proposition—it is the full spectrum of touchpoints you give your clients and prospects: Web site, print, your professionals…

  Remember, research can only teach you about past experience—like with your Walkman. It cannot tell you about your future experience with an iPod. Watch out for the future! Be suspicious of research. Breakthrough ideas have no precedent and are, therefore, tough to measure through research (and we have a research company!).

  You’re So High and Mighty

  You may not be willing yet to engage your clients and prospects online—either because you haven’t imagined you could, you don’t believe you should stoop to this, or you don’t know how. Consumer sites engage customers through:

  • Personalization (“Hi, Dave. Welcome back.”)
  • Promotional offers (“Order two books and get free shipping.”)
  • Free samples (“Click here for your free copy.”)
  • Feedback (Then the site changes, in response to feedback)
  • Loyalty programs (“Earn points toward your free vacation.”)
  • Ambassadorships (“Volunteer in your neighborhood.”)
  • Integrating online with offline (“Return your films to Blockbuster.”)
  • User-generated content (“Loved your editorial on…”)
  • Micro-sites (special campaigns promoting specific issues, services, products)

  All of this is designed to gain intimacy with an aspect of the brand. Not the entire brand, but just an aspect that relates to “me.” Remember, a brand is no longer (and never was) uni-dimensional. A brand is collaborative. Find space for your clients to collaborate with their business life.

  Best (Design) Practices?

  There are best practices for design on the Web but no fixed standard for how things should sound and look. That gives you the freedom to manage your message and your visual presentation within an evolving standard for good design. Web sites fail to deliver good design for a million reasons—most generally, mediocre designers who do not understand Web technology ruin the site. But if your designers do understand the technology, I’ll bet you give them wide latitude, because you probably don’t understand the technology. That’s a mistake. Demand clear answers that guide your design.

  Technology Future Vision

  There are technologies on the horizon that will affect your Web future:

  • 3-D Web is on the horizon—it will intensify the total user experience
  • Bluecasting
  • Texting
  • Customer interaction. Businesses are already letting consumers design their final product (car, surfboard, skateboard). Matching professional services to prospects may be close behind.

  There is more here than you can manage easily. If I were to highlight any insight in this article, I would focus on the collaborative brand. Call your clients. Get them involved in your brand. Yes, it’s a big risk at first blush, but you’ll bring the conversation that is out in the marketplace under your tent. You’ll get credit for airing the good, bad and ugly. And you’ll change your evil ways and support your good ways based on that feedback.

  Tags:

  Site Usability, Web 2.0, Web Design 

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