Getting out of your own way
Posted by Marty Gruhn in Design, Marketing, Usability on March 10th, 2010
If you are pondering your next redesign, it’s worth taking a moment to consider an excerpt from Mike Moran’s latest blog “The Internet Marketing Industry Needs a Reality Check”.
The core of this discussion is around why Google’s ‘real time search’ features don’t really matter. Frankly, they don’t matter to me either, but there’s some truths in this discussion Web teams should remember.
“Wouldn’t it be better to truly understand how the vast majority of people use the tools that we talk about all the time, rather than assume that everyone does what we do? Maybe the industry struggles at times because we completely miss the point: Most people simply don’t care about the details. They want results. They don’t have time to waste and they are not all under the age of 30 and completely wired.”
Mike’s talking about search. I’m talking about Websites. Why do so many Web teams spend valuable resources and time trying to stuff that last piece of content on an already overloaded page? Why do companies squander budgets on bright and shiny objects that allow everyone to have a high five moment – but never get any real traction on the site?
The longer I look at sites, the more the KISS principle applies. Don’t focus on who I am or what I do. Focus on the results I’m trying to achieve. And get everything else out of my way.
Why Tech?
Posted by Marty Gruhn in Uncategorized on March 8th, 2010
A lot of people ask me why we focus on technology sites. Their reasoning is simple. There’s plenty of other interesting Websites out there with cooler designs and more doodads.
They’re probably right.
On the other hand, good (and even great) IT industry Websites have something to teach everyone.
They market and sell a complex range of products and software – plus the services that make them work. HP.com, for example, has over 10,000 SKUs. A small tech site can have upwards of 10,000 pages under management.
They reach and woo huge, diverse and demanding audiences. Consumers who are shopping. CIO’s who are bonding. Project managers who are planning. Tech heads who are developing. Investors and journalists who influence the market’s pace. These sites will easily serve over 14 million visitors a month. When you have that many people knocking on your door, there’s not much time to make mistakes.
And that’s just for starters. Once the deal is done, tech sites must deliver mountains of product support information to cranky users 24/7. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, entitled extranets maintain relationships with huge global customers, and distributors and partners selling the company’s wares.
All things considered, tech sites have more moving parts and business strategies than anyone else on the Web. Amazon.com might have “fall off a log” ecommerce, but it doesn’t have to fix my egg cooker when the cord falls out. My banking site does a great job of displaying my accounts in real time and letting me pay the bills, but it doesn’t have to deliver a gazillion software downloads a day, or contend with millions of developers who are fiddling with the product.
That’s why we focus on technology sites — and why you should too.
Why Websites are like flag poles
Posted by Marty Gruhn in Branding, POV (point of view), strategy on February 20th, 2010
I learned a fundamental truth this weekend – which happens to align with what I knew already, but forgot. You are never too high in the food chain to not be your own customer. I learned this years ago from IBM, when Steve Mills spent some quality time on the Software Group Website. Let’s just say, there were plenty of troops saluting by Monday morning, and the troops embarked on a two year campaign to clean up its online act.
I had the same experience this weekend when I decided to spend some quality time in our best practice case studies library. Look and feel was good, top level behaviors were fine – but when I started to really drive it I had a Steve Mills’ moment. If I were a customer, I’d be less than impressed. Let’s just say that there was plenty of saluting this weekend and there’s a new best practices case study library available to our clients Monday morning.
Which brings me to what my dad always told me. “The higher up the flag pole you go, the more your ass hangs out.” If you are at the top of the flagpole, you represent the reputation of your organization – and change always happens from the top down. Wherever you are on the flagpole, you need to be your most critical and important customer. If you aren’t, they will be . . . and that will ultimately affect your bottom line.
The social media marketing director: high speed, low drag
Posted by Marty Gruhn in Branding, Marketing, POV (point of view), social media marketing on February 17th, 2010
I just finished a great blog by Paul Dunay about why you should fire your director of social media. Paul, and his muse, RIM’s VP of Digital Marketing, Brian Wallace, posit that social media directors should have a two year shelf life while they evangelize and manage a company’s social media evolution – and then this position should be eliminated to avoid fostering the kinds of silo behaviors and infighting that run counter to driving social media into a company’s DNA.
I think this is a brilliant assessment, and one that speaks directly to the organizational problems that already plague companies with a broad Web presence. This problem was perfectly summed up by an IBM manager when I asked her how IBM’s teams work with each other. “Don’t think of us as a nuclear Web family” she quipped, “think of us as a largely dysfunctional family of foster children.”
Is your social media marketing strategy destined to go the same way?
