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Ten Website Dos & Don'ts
by David Weston
DO make sure your homepage gives a clear message of exactly what you are offering (ie selling - if you are selling something), how to find out more, how much it costs, and how to buy. (Sorry if this sounds basic, but I am constantly being amazed by sites - even of large and prestigious companies who have clearly spent a lot of money on their site - who have forgotten to make clear exactly what they are offering and to whom.)
DO think about your site from your client's point of view: what are they looking for, what will attract them, and are you giving it to them?
DO make your site navigation clear and foolproof - menus down the left-hand side, header across the top, and always a link to the "home" and "contact us" pages.
DO "layer" information intelligently: concise and punchy on your homepage, with clear links to more detailed pages for those who are eager for information (and don't forget, as even the fustiest museum knows, to "lead them out via the shop").
DO remember that the internet is primarily a reading medium and your readers are looking for specific content to read. Unless you are selling pictures, your site's images should add to and support your copy, not be used for cheap decoration. So many sites take up lots of space with bought-in stock photos which look pretty but are irrelevant or confusing to the message.
DO keep your site simple. Remember its purpose: just because you can add a gimmick (and you always can), it does not mean that you should.
DO keep checking your search engine ranking by doing searches and seeing where you come - and let your web people know if you are not happy with the results!
DO get unbiased, critical people whose judgement you trust to look at your site and tell you honestly what they think. And be brave - and grateful!
DO think about the most likely search words your chosen audience would use, and ensure your site's "meta-tags" are based on these (your web designer will know the technicalities). If your clients are searching for "cheap calls", don't use "inexpensive telecommunications services".
DO promote your site with a well-planned emarketing campaign. Just having a great store is no good if nobody enters!
DON'T sign up with a company offering to automatically submit your site to hundreds of search engines. Most of these are so-called "link farms" and using them may actually harm your search engine ranking with the major search engines.
DON'T be tempted to indulge in a slick, "flash" animation page before your homepage: most people skip them, they slow down websurfers with a dialup connection, and they can hide your site from search engines, so reducing your ranking.
DON'T use small, unreadable type, put type over images or "reverse" type in white out of a dark background: all these actively discourage readership.
DON'T waffle, overuse cliches or "pad out" your copy: use concise, readable and relevant copy, to convey your message with clarity.
DON'T let web designers or agencies confuse you or blind you with science: make sure their work is simply enabling and reinforcing your powerful sales message. Science should follow salesmansip, not the other way round!
DON'T SHOUT when I'm right next to you: don't fill your site with neon colours, flashing banners, animation and exclamation marks. Once your reader is there, the attention-seeking can stop: they want content.
DON'T talk about yourself and your business, talk about your client and the benefits you can offer them.
DON'T try to give your site mass appeal if you are after a tiny band of enthusiasts or cognoscenti - there is no value in alienating your buyers by attracting non-buyers. Focus on your purpose!
DON'T boast, make overblown claims or exaggerate: your readers are intelligent, remember - just like you.
DON'T use slang, bad grammar or mis-spellings: your readers will not want to do business with you if you lose their respect.
Finally, rules are made to be broken and the above list simplifies and generalises. Discuss YOUR requirements with a sensible and knowledgeable web enabler, but never forget: you are their client, and salesmanship must come before science!
Know Your Price
by David Weston
(A shortened version of this article was published in Travel Weekly, the UK travel and tourism industry professional journal)
We hear & read so much about branding and advertising, and relatively little about other, less glamorous, elements of the marketing “mix”. You can’t blame the media – a company rebranding is dramatic and highly visual, so makes great copy. And advertising revenue is after all, the media’s bread and butter. Marketing professionals themselves, of course, are unprejudiced – or are we?
If I were cynical I might say that it is easier for an agency to sell a new logo or ad campaign, both of which involve large fees and can be “bolted-on” by outsiders with no real understanding of the business, than to help the business by getting to grips with its fundamental marketing economics and making low-cost changes which could boost profits more effectively. A perfect example is pricing – easy to dismiss as boring or “not my job”, but in fact a fundamental element of marketing and one where profit can be boosted without spending any budget.
Taking a notional tour operating business, Blogg’s Tours, making net profit of £50k on sales of £1m, with a gross margin of 30%, overheads of £150k, and spending 10% of turnover on marketing: raising sales 1% will increase profits 4%; cutting “cost of sales” (product net cost) by 1% will increase profits by 14%; however raising prices by 1% will increase profits by 20%. Of course, this assumes unit sales are not reduced by the price hike – but even if they fall 1%, profit still grows nearly 14% and if they fall 2%, profit still grows nearly 8%. Unit sales have to fall 3.25% to cancel the profit effect of a 1% price uplift.
Of course, spending an extra 25% on marketing – maybe on rebranding - MIGHT be spectacularly effective, but it would have to be – it would have to add nearly 12% of sales to our imaginary business to leave profits where they were. If it had no effect on sales, profits would dive by 50%. The branding consultancy might win an award, though.
My advice is: don’t ignore pricing, and don’t leave it to the accountants! Don’t leave it to the sales or product people either. Where the Finance Director will tend to price to give him the gross margin he wants (whether or not you can sell at that price), the Sales Director will argue for undercutting competitors in order to make his job easier and boost his sales-related bonus, and the Product Director will take a mechanistic, “cost-plus” approach which doesn’t put profits first.
Of course, your overall business strategy may dictate your pricing stance – for example, a luxury brand may need to add ‘snob appeal’ by being expensive, or a newly-launched volume product may need to establish a break-even market share by being cheap. Most products in most markets, however, simply want to find the pricing policy which maximises their profits.
It is not always a matter of simply raising prices – sometimes lower prices will increase profits, by transforming sales volume and saving advertising costs. The point is that there is an optimum pricing strategy (price levels, and pricing complexity – lead-in, add-ons etc.) for your product and your business.
“Low cost” carriers are, as anyone who regularly compares their prices knows, not always low price carriers. The two key elements of their business model are their low cost base, and their fluid pricing systems, which raise or lower prices dynamically according to real-time demand. On easyJet’s website the other day, Gatwick to Nice seat rates varied from £15.90 for a Tuesday at 06.00 to to £145.90 for the previous Friday at 13.35 - and this price variation of over 800% is for the same seat on the same aircraft on the same airline on the same route, midweek and within a four-day time period in October. This level of price adjustment sophistication demands “fluid” pricing – no pre-published price table could cope.
This illustrates how clever Bloggs Tours needs to be: that overall “1% price rise” may well in reality be a 10% reduction on the attention-grabbing “lead-in” price, combined with a 20% price increase for peak-demand dates. If Bloggs’ lowest off-peak is always undersold and their highest peak always sells out, this makes sense, as easyJet understands very well.
Bloggs Tours are now on the first steps towards fluid pricing. This is seen as one of the black arts in many quarters, just one step away from blood sacrifices and voodoo. My old friend Bruce Treloar, the friendly face of Trading Standards in the travel industry, can wax eloquent against it, as can “Which…?” and the other usual suspects in the consumerist lobby, but I’m afraid Bruce and co. are trying to hold back the incoming tide. Fluid pricing has started with the low-cost carriers and will continue its advance in the travel industry until all sectors embrace it completely, from package holidays to hotel reservations and car rental - the advantages to profitability of dynamically adjusting prices are just so strong.
Progress is limited not by regulators, watchdogs or even (thanks to easyJet and Ryanair) customer resistance but simply by the technical ability of antiquated travel reservations systems, all designed many years ago. Once the technical ability is there and operators learn how to use it, the law will simply have to change in the face of commercial reality.
© David Weston
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