Finest Web

Is your website focused on you, or on your clients?

by Jeremy Woollen, July 2007

Business is all about communication; about reaching out and connecting with customers and providing them with a product or service they desire. The key to any successful marketing initiative is the understanding that our customers have to want what we are selling. We can engender this desire in them, by pointing our how much better their lives will be if they purchase our product. If they do not see what's in it for themselves, then obviously they are not going to buy.

Effective marketing is like a proper conversation; it engages and connects with its audience... it does not emphasize the person speaking, but on the person listening.

This is such an obvious fact — the basis of any business transaction — that it's surprising, judging by their websites, how many companies ignore it. The focus of so many business websites is on the business itself, and not on the people to whom they are trying to sell.

We have all had the experience of being in a “conversation” with another person, yet not fully connecting with that individual. Perhaps we struggle to find common ground with the other person, and are bored with what they are saying. Perhaps we are put off by their personality or attitude — they talk only of themselves, and of what interests them. We look quickly to withdraw from such situations, tactfully or otherwise. A proper conversation involves two or more individuals engaged and connected together in mutual interchange of thoughts. We love to engage with people who share our interests, people we connect with, who 'get' who we are.

Effective marketing is like a proper conversation; it engages and connects with its audience. A good marketing initiative does not emphasize the person speaking, but on the person listening. Businesses need to stop talking about themselves, and start talking about the individuals they are trying to reach. They need to speak a language that their audience connects with, and is drawn to.

“1,000 songs in your pocket”

In the late 1990s, a Singaporean company, Creative, introduced one of the first MP3 portable music players to the market. It had little competition at the time, and was in a position to revolutionize the way that music was purchased and stored. It was marketed as a “5GB MP3 player”, and enjoyed some commercial success. In 2001, another product was introduced with similar specifications. It was marketed as a product that would put “1,000 songs in your pocket.” The Apple iPod, nearly two years late to the market, has become the best-selling digital audio player in history, having sold over 100 million units worldwide by April 2007.

“1,000 songs in your pocket” speaks so much more eloquently, and meaningfully, than “5GB MP3 player.” Consumers have connected with the iPod in a way that they have not with rival players. In fact consumers connect with Apple as a whole. Their company slogan “Think Different” embodies the idea that Apple exists to challenge the status quo, to improve and simplify our lives. All Apple's products, their employees, culture and marketing, embody this idea. Buying an iPod means buying into this philosophy, this ideal that holds more appeal to consumers than the actual product itself, and makes the customer feel that he is part of a cool group of like-minded people. BMW, Disney and Harley-Davidson are examples of other companies that have successfully consistently engaged their customers with their marketing efforts.

All the decisions we make in life are based on “what's in it for me.” If we are in business, we should understand that people don't care about us, they only really care about themselves. We need to understand what our customers really want, and strive to fulfill that want.