On I-85, between Greenville and Atlanta, there are a series of billboards that make me laugh. They don’t make me laugh because they are good, they make me laugh because they are impossible to read and I wonder what in the world the ad agency that did them was thinking.

See, the thing is, you’re going about 80 mph, talking on your cell phone, so you have about 3 seconds to read the billboard. For these billboards in question, there’s no chance you will pick up half of what they’re trying to say.

Isn’t that about the same thing with web sites? We have about 3 seconds, we’re talking on the phone and surfing the web and we come across a web page (billboard). Does it grab us? Do we get it? Do we know what the company does?

Zoom. We fly by and go to the next web site.

Back to the billboards. One company that I think has it right is Cracker Barrel. They’re “Comin’ up” campaign has one main image, their logo and a 5 word (large type) slogan — ending in “Comin’ up.” For instance (sorry, this was the largest image I could get):

Cracker Barrel Billboard

conveys Quality, Fast and Convenient, Wholesome, Good, Filling, etc. All in 4 words and one picture. They nail the brand messaging, and do it with an easy, simple approach. Remember, these are billboards so you have to keep it simple! Simple is what you have to do when you’re creating a billboard.

And it’s not much different for web sites. You have 3 - 10 seconds to grab the attention of the user and make sure they know what you do and why they need it. Big image. Simple messaging. Then send them to the next page–that’s the role of the home page.

Bottom line: Think billboards when you’re designing (or redesigning) your web site. Make the message easy to get, and your users will stick around.

A good salesman knows they need to ask for the business at the end of the meeting (and they aren’t afraid to ask).

For most companies, their web site is a sales tool. Yet many never ask the user to do anything except “contact us.” That’s like going to a restaurant that doesn’t provide you with a menu–you wouldn’t know what to ask for.

A great example are web sites that ask for donations. Web site owners make $1,000’s per year simply because they ask. Think of the tip jars. They earn their keep because they ask. I think of my four year-old daughter. She gets what she wants because she asks, asks, asks and asks.

Ask and you will receive. Don’t ask, and you still may receive, just not much.

Bottom line: If you want your web site to be a sales or lead generating tool, ask the user to engage with you.

Trust. It’s amazing how much our economy depends on this simple virtue.

Ebay is all about trust (I’ll prepay you and trust that you’ll ship it).
USPS mail (I trust that if I put this check in the mail, you’re going to deliver it).
Employer / employee relationship (I trust you’ll do the work and you trust that I will pay you).

When trust is established, transactions move seamlessly. But trust must be earned. What are you doing in your business, relationships or even on your web sites to build trust? Without it, you’ll have a hard time succeeding.

Look at your website. Does it convey that you are trustworthy? If not, what can you do to improve that?

Here are some ideas:
- add testimonials
- add a guarantee
- list your high-profile customers who have entrusted you already

Bottom line: Build trust to build your business.

Here’s how web development usually happens: Go into a dark closest and don’t come out until the entire project is flat-out done.

The problem? Web projects are a daunting, time-consuming task. 60% of projects that should be done never get started. 30% of projects that do get started never finish. And over 50% of all web projects fall way short of expectations, because they took much more resources (time and money) than originally allocated or estimated.

[By the way, I made those numbers up, but they are educated guesses.]

Web development firms are the worse offender of stat #1 (they never start). Firms usually have really bad web sites while their clients’ web sites shine. We just don’t have enough time to do our own.

But I think there’s a solution: Incremental Improvement. Don’t go into the dark closet and make sure everything is perfect before you come out. Take a section of your web site and improve that section. Make a tweak to your home page. Add some functionality to your services page. Liven up your bio pages for goodness sake. Make an improvement to your web site every month, and before you know it, you’ll have a new web site by the end of the year.

Merge will do an overhaul one of these days. But in the meantime, we’re going to do Incremental Improvements on our own web site. You’ll see the home page change, the portfolio section get updated and our bios get a little more zip. An hour here, an hour there. It’s not perfect, but hey, it’s progress.

Maybe Incremental Improvement is something you want to consider for your web site?

Yesterday I received the first “recession excuse” not to move forward on a project.

Wouldn’t a recession be the best time to invest in your marketing? It’s the same strategy of a successful investor in the stock market takes: buy when everybody else is getting out.

Here are 5 reasons why investing in your digital or traditional marketing during a recession makes sense:

1. Grab market share. Your competitors are most likely with the masses and are holding off. You aren’t. You’re aggressively marketing and therefore gobbling up market share.

2. Build Internal Confidence. When you move boldly forward in a recession, your employees will have confidence in you and the company.

3. Be the only voice. As your competitors slash their marketing budget, you rise to the top as the only voice in the market and you build not only market share, but mind share. “Awareness” is no longer a problem.

4. Get it while it’s cheap. Supply and demand, baby. Pay-per-click and other demand-priced advertising will get cheaper and cheaper as the demand recedes. Jump in and get more bang for your buck!

5. Claim your stake in the search engines. Your competition will become weaker in the search engines due to them cutting back on creating new content for their web site and the like. You of course will continue to plow ahead, and you’ll move up the ranks in the search engines.

If there’s a recession going on, don’t hold back and take advantage of it! If there’s not a recession going on, you’ll be very happy you didn’t place your marketing on pause.

This morning, Merge’s client, Visionworks, sent out a great newsletter: Passion and Performance, identifying the two have a HIGH correlation.

I highly recommend you subscribe. Visionworks sends out their newsletter on a monthly basis, and it’s one of the best executed newsletters I’ve seen and it offers a tremendous amount of value.

Go read it.

A web site’s main role for most companies is to market. Small to medium sized business want to get the phone ringing, get people in the door, etc.

Be careful of what you ask for.

Merge went on a small shopping-spree last night for our new office. I diligently found, online, all of the equipment that we needed to buy. The stores’ web site got me in the door.

First stop: Staples. The printer that I had found on their web site was out-of-stock. “And the other stores won’t have it either as we all carry the same thing.” What?! Then why was it advertised on your site? Frustrating, okay, but I can adapt.

Next stop: Lowes. After waiting 10 minutes for an “associate” to come to the appliance center, the refrigerator we had identified was…out of stock. I quote, “Yeah, we run really thin here. Most things are out-of-stock these days. We’re under inventoried.” I had him check another item that I printed off from the web site, “Out of stock.” I asked about a stool they had advertised on their web site. “Oh, we don’t have those either. Lowes got out of the furniture business awhile back.” Then why do you advertise them on your web site?!

Staples and Lowes just trained me: “Don’t trust our web site; don’t trust us. We’ll just put every product we can think of on it, and we probably WON’T have it in the store.”

If your web site is so effective it gets people in the door and then you can’t deliver, your web site is actually hurting you instead of helping you. So be careful what you ask for and make sure you can deliver on the promise your web site is making.

My wife bought a new Dyson vacuum to replace our 10-year old Hoover which was no longer cutting it.

Dyson’s strategy: Make the product look cool (so it doesn’t “domesticate”) and show all of the dirt the vacuum cleans up. The result: You feel cool vacuuming and you see it working right before your eyes.

I couldn’t help but make the correlation with selling services, whether it’s consulting, branding or web design. Show the prospect your super-cool process (Dyson’s cool design, the engineering). Then show them as much visually as possible (Dyson’s see through “results chamber,” where the dirt goes).

Too often (maybe I’m just speaking for Merge) we are selling concepts and what could be, but we try to paint the picture using words. Instead, use as many images as possible so the prospect can see the vision instead of trying to “get” the vision.

PS, by the way, I’m still learning. I realized after I wrote this blog, that maybe I should show a Dyson? Brother. By the way, my wife recommends Dyson.

Merge is talking to several prospects right now, and for a couple of them, there’s a clear advantage to be had if they’ll take the time to create content and position themselves as their industry’s expert.

Time.

The web site isn’t the most expensive part of the solution. It’s the time the business needs to take to create the content.

“They” say content is king. Web sites aren’t magical–they need the content mojo that makes the web site valuable. Your prospects want value. Invest in content and give the prospects what they want.

Merge is proud to announce the launch of a new brand and web site for Carruth Homes.

Merge provided the brand positioning “Mountain Homes Crafted by Carruth,” the logo, copy, web site design and programming.