Typefaces and Grades
College design student, Phil Renaud, has an interesting theory about the impact of typography on term-paper grades. This is insightful and fun reading!
March 12th, 2006
Archive for March 12th, 2006
A Common Mistake: Online Marketing is Active, not Passive
Why doesn’t a glitzy online catalog cut it in the world of online commerce? Lately, a number of streams of thought have been running through my mind. I’ve been busy designing Web sites, talking to people about marketing, and watching people with varying personalities working to make a go of online commerce - and, of course, reading books.
Here’s the big idea. Those who talk big about the Web and eCommerce as a way to make money easily either know more about marketing than I do, or they are completely unaware of the values of most people who browse the Net .
Instead of using Web based tools to engage visitors as individuals with opinions and feelings, the natural path for most of us is to assume that people visiting our Web site are there as passive rather than active viewers. For example, a Web site that tries to sell its products by simply creating an online catalog and adding “Buy Now” buttons, and doing little more.
Though in reality, the affordable eCommerce solution that most businesses need is not more technically advanced than this, it also should include an attempt to seek feedback about the products offered and to provide information that is useful to potential customers. The difference between treating a customer as ignorant, suggestible, and passive and engaging them as active participants is largely psychological, not technical.
Including a Blog or other software package that publishes valuable information about your products and company can help facilitate two-way communication. By doing everything you can to foster two-way communication, your company no longer is treating its customers as impulse purchasing couch potatoes and is acknowledging them as intelligent contributing individuals with unique reasons for their purchasing decisions.
Though an eCommerce initiative needs high-quality products, an excellent offline marketing strategy, and clear vision (not to mention financing) to succeed, it is my opinion that the most commonly missed component of an eCommerce strategy this: We fail to view our customers as intelligent - collectively certainly more intelligent than our company. As a result, we fail to engage their imagination, contribution to our vision, and ultimately, their dollars.
This oversight is, according to Blog Marketing author, Jeremy Wright, a holdover from television marketing where a passive stance is assumed. The Web is active, and companies can either harness that energy or they can let someone else do so.
3 comments March 12th, 2006
