Tomicide Solutions October 2009: Eight Lethal Mistakes That Screw Up IT Business Websites
By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan
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Do you know that David "Screaming Lord" Sutch, as leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, was Britain's longest serving party leader from 1983 to June 1999, when he hanged himself?
This fact may seem to be about as trivial to our topic as the lovemaking habits of pregnant skunks relative to the phase of the moon, but it can be important for you if you consider that so many IT companies are actually hanging themselves on instalment plans by missing certain vital elements from their websites, and repelling otherwise qualified visitors by the truckloads.
What's the single most important thing that IT companies could improve on their websites? It's not broadband. It's not more graphics. It's not a new webmaster. It's not even brand new servers.
It's... better writing.
It's better messages to attract, screen and qualify website visitors.
In general, IT companies' web copies range somewhere between poor and awful. One reason for this is that some people write like anal retentive English professors, while others who write web copy know no more about writing than a demented bee.
Oh, and there is a third problem. Most IT companies know how to sell but don't know how buyers buy.
There is a proverbial Grand Canyon between how sellers present their expertise and how buyers receive and digest it.
And this leads to a conceptual problem right out of the gate. Sellers are working harder than a convict in a Gulag camp somewhere in Siberia, but most buyers ignore those efforts.
And many IT websites are the same. They present IT companies from the seller's perspective essentially communicating...
"Let us sell you something so we can make money and keep our owners and investors happy."
Somehow no one mentions how buyers get better off by buying that stuff.
So, let's look at a few errors many IT companies make on their websites and in doing so compromising their attraction factor to their target markets.
Lethal Mistake Number 1: Thinking That Someone Cares About You, Your Company or Your Products and Services
You cannot sell your merchandise by selling your company. Face the facts. People are looking for benefits for themselves.
Claude Hopkins expressed this in his masterpiece, Scientific Advertising (in Chapter 3: Offer Service)... in 1923.
"Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or your profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising. Ads say in effect, "Buy my brand. Give me the trade you give to others. Let me have the money."
That is not a popular appeal.
The best ads ask no one to buy. That is useless. Often they do not quote a price. They do not say that dealers handle the product.
The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They cite advantages to users. Perhaps they offer a sample, or to buy the first package, or to send something on approval, so the customer may prove the claims without any cost or risks. Some of these ads seem altruistic. But they are based on the knowledge of human nature. The writers know how people are led to buy."
"We're celebrating our 10th anniversary!" - A Canadian IT firm is bragging on the opening page of its web site. That's great but in the real world nobody really cares about the celebration.
And what is the result? After ten years in business, salespeople (at annual attrition of almost 200%) are still cold calling to get new business. And management tries to make more money by pushing more - mainly unnecessary - billable hours to existing clients and encouraging technicians to do half-repairs so the company has to be re-hired in a few weeks.
The company once hired me to fine-tune its marketing copy.
So I did.
And then the president complained that I hardly mentioned in my copy how hard he had worked over the years to build up his company. When I tried to explain to him that the copy was not about him but about prospects, he suddenly terminated the project and fired me.
Hey, it was presidential ego at stake, and a dirty little copywriter told the "almighty" president that he had done something wrong.
Today the company's web site is back to the old copy (lots of Flash and unnecessary design bullshit), and it keeps struggling to get new business. Happy 10th anniversary! It may well be the last one.
Lethal Mistake Number 2: Just Dribbling On And On
Now there is an argument between long copy and short copy. You too may have seen it on many forums on the web.
Some people say nobody reads long copy however good it is. My contention is that even fewer people read short crap copy.
As a result of learning from such copywriting geniuses as Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, David Garfinkel and some others, I have learnt the power of long copy. The longest sales letter I have ever written has been 31 pages, and created just under 17% response rate in the direct mail world in which the typical response rate is less than 1%, and 2% is called outstanding.
No, it's not because I'm so good. Although that too. But the reason for the success is the structure. But when you learn the trade from Halbert, Kennedy or Garfinkel, this is definitely not a fluke. I just follow the structure they've taught me and fill in the blanks in the company's style.
The fact is that when you send out living-breathing salespeople to appointments, would you tell them to start packing after they have uttered 500 words? That is about three minutes?
I don't think it's about short copy or long copy. It's about copy that properly explains everything and addresses readers' potential concerns. If it takes 1 page, that's good. If it takes 30 pages, that's good too.
And you may have also heard the phrase...
"The more you tell, the more you sell."
This applies to copy as well. But not just more but better.
Sales copy must be brief and succinct. But there is a difference between short and brief.
And now the dribbling bit...
This illness is caused by the collaboration between executives and copywriters with journalism background.
Executives want to see lots of "Look at me how cute I am!" stuff in the copy. And journalists can write that stuff really well.
But most executives and journalists don't know how to sell in writing. So, the copy often becomes meaningless dribble.
But the magic is not in the number of words, but what actually those words say.
Lethal Mistake Number 3: Spelling And Grammatical Errors
Sadly, every error on the website is a strike against the company's credibility.
Now there is a catch here.
Many of the readers may have poor English, and as we know, the poorer their English are, the more vehemently they argue that the writer is an idiot.
Hey, when I bankrupted myself a good few years ago and lived in a homeless shelter for about two months, there were several residents in the shelter who regarded themselves as experts in various financial matters, like real estate investment, foreign currency trading expert or stock traders. Yet, they were chronic welfare warriors.
In reality they were newly released convicts, drug dealers and gang thugs. But they called themselves financial experts. And their financial expertise stretched as far as drinking up their welfare money on the very day they received it.
And they vehemently defended their status as financial and investment experts.
Well, we all can get hit by hard times, but these people were chronic welfare warriors and repeat customers for the Canadian penitentiary system. They had been in and out of prison for many years.
Yet they pretty vehemently defended their status as financial and investment experts.
Being educated in the UK, I speak and write Queen's English, so I spell "recognize" as "recognise".
For little differences like this, I've had many magazine editors chuck articles back into my face and telling me that my articles were littered with spelling mistakes. And this raises an issue about editors' education in English.
And even if you hire pro copywriters, hire pro editors to edit the copywriters' work.
What many people miss is that writing and editing are two distinct skills. Most editors - even the best ones - can't write, and most writer- even the best ones - can't edit their own work.
Yes, there are exceptions, but they are about as rare as white ravens.
But the good news is that editors come at a lot lower price tags than copywriters.
I have a client who uses three different copy editors. I write the copy and send it to them. Then when the editing is done, we get together on Skype for a conference call, and look at every single edit together and find the best ways of writing it.
Yes, it takes a bit of time, but at her level of success, my client is very fussy about the messages that leave her firm. And it seems to pay off quite well.
Oh, and one more thing. These editors should be freelancers. Employees don't risk their jobs by speaking up on mistakes.
Many companies operate on a "kill the messenger" basis, so employees just keep quiet about errors.
Lethal Mistake Number 4: Writing For Printed Copy
There are some differences between off-line copy and online copy. Most principles are the same, but...
When you read off-line copy, you focus only on that one piece. But when you read online copy, you have your mouse right under your trigger-happy "mouse finger".
As reading the off-line copy, when you hit a boring section, you just skip to the next subhead. When this happens with online copy, you click away never to return.
So, I believe you have to be careful with online copy to draw people's attention and hold their interest.
The other difference is that off-line copy can be a bit more "salesy" but online copy must be informative.
By the time buyers receive printed copy, they are deeper in their buying processes. But when they read online copy, they may be just at the beginning, so you have to engage them carefully without hard-core sales techniques.
Also, on the web you also have two readers that read drastically differently: One is the search engines and the other is the humans who read your site. In a way you have to create a message that satisfies two totally different audiences.
As the saying goes it's hard to ride two horses with one arse, but here somehow you just have to manage it. Otherwise you can fall between the two horses and they can kick you in a rather unpleasant manner.
Imagine you are the speaker at a health-related event. You have a mixed audience. In the same speech, you are talking about breast cancer for the women, and about prostate cancer for the men. Do you think you can pull it off, so both audiences can enjoy your presentation? Maybe you can, but you will sweat bullets in the process.
Lethal Mistake Number 5: Not Knowing How to Write Online Headlines
The headline alone can make as much as 2,100% difference to your response rate, so it is a pretty good idea to invest some time in developing good headlines.
Keep it as brief, clear and descriptive as possible. Never mind about being clever or cute or unnecessarily short. Also make sure that your headlines contain your site's most important keywords but also make sure it sounds real to humans understand it.
So what makes good headlines? I like making them questions that outline the target market's problems in a curiosity-raising fashion. I may change the question to a statement but leave the other two factors.
Why are they important?
The human brain is a problem solving device, which means that we walk around all day tuned into our problems.
And why curiosity? Because it's a strong emotion. I could play with emotions like fear greed and guilt, but that goes against my personal values, so regardless how effective they are, I don't do it.
And when I present problems, that's not fear-mongering but reality.
What's the difference?
Let's look at a salesman selling alarm systems...
"Mr. Prospect, according to data compiled by the local Fire Brigade, last year alone 137 children died in domestic fires in your area."This is reality.
"You wouldn't want to have the same dreadful fate for your children, would you?"
This is the use of guilt.
And the interesting thing is that whichever emotion you use to land a new client, during your relationship that same emotion could well become stronger in that client.
If you land a client using greed, gradually this client becomes even greedier, and eventually a pain in the arse.
That's why I like using curiosity, and position my services as a bridge to the client's future. That is, we build a bridge that leads clients to their goals while fulfilling their deepest personal and organisational values.
What's the use of achieving great ends if we have to use scumbaggy means to achieve them?
Lethal Mistake Number 6: Ignoring Copy And Content Altogether
This is what so many, IT websites suffer from. They regard copy, the words that actually engage people and eventually sell, as some kind of filler material on fancy designs.
Many so-called web designers have no more idea about the importance of copy and content than a brain-damaged Billy goat.
Yet, in most IT companies who is in charge of the website? A web designer. It's like building a car and putting the painter in charge.
Yes, he knows how the car is supposed to look like, but there are some other vital components too, and he doesn't understand them.
And you can have the best looking car with the greatest paint work the world has ever seen, but if that car can't take you from A to B, then the paint work alone is useless.
Maybe you can put the car on public display for a price and you have money to buy a bus ticket.
A website project should be in the hands of a marketing person who coordinates the other professionals, like graphics designers, programmers, web designers, etc.
You have probably come across many one-page web sites where the whole site is one single sales letter. No pictures, no JavaScript, no Flash stuff, just pure, unadulterated shit-hot sales copy. And guess what? Those sites sell like crazy. So, how come designers don't use it? Because those sites are not cool, whatever cool means in this context.
But from the look and feel standpoint, Google's website isn't cool either. But it's functional.
But a website must be functional not merely cool.
And whatever you sell, your copy defines whether your stuff is perceived by the market as the proverbial Miss World beauty queen or a toothless $2 whore.
Lethal Mistake Number 7: Doing It All In-House
This is a biggie. According to the Outsourcing Institute, companies that do non-core activities lose 38 cents on every single dollar they earn. That's the price of doing things incompetently.
IT companies are IT companies for a reason. And the reason is that they are experts at IT. And if they focused on better marketing and selling their expertise, they would have plenty of dough to hire great copywriters to write kick-arse copy for their websites.
This mindset of doing it all in-house also creates another problem.
It may sound woo-woo, but what I've observed over the years is that IT companies that delegate non-core activities are also more widely delegated to by their clients.
When we hire others because we recognise their expertise in certain subjects, somehow the market recognises our expertise in our areas, and we get hired more.
As the saying goes, nature abhors vacuum. So if we fill our lives with non-core activities which we do at a barely mediocre level, we have no room left for being hired to do what we are brilliant at.
This is logical. If I do everything in-house, I send a message that I don't recognise other people's expertise in their professions. So, is it surprising that no one recognises my expertise in my profession and no one hires me?
Also, we have to recognise that just because something has a low cost of entry, the total cost of ownership can be pretty high.
A General Motors car costs very little to acquire. Then it costs a small fortune to maintain over the years. A Japanese car costs a bit more to acquire, but then it costs very little to maintain.
Doing non-core activities in-house can look cost-effective on the surface, but can be pretty costly in the long run when we consider the opportunities we miss because we're so busy fiddling with something we shouldn't even have touched in the first place.
Client Eastwood put it right in Magnum Force after blowing his corrupt boss' arse to hell...
"Man's got to know his limitations."
And if we keep ignoring our limitations and try to do everything in-house, that too can blow up in our faces and send great opportunities to Kingdom Come.
There are many areas of expertise for which you don't need full-time staff. What you need is access to top-notch talent on an as-needed basis.
Lethal Mistake Number 8: The Wrong Person Writes Marketing Copy
Most IT companies in the SMB category don't employ in-house copywriters because they think that would be too expensive. And they are right.
A copywriter worth her salt can get private contracts without being employed on a full-time basis.
This also means that those copywriters who can't get private contracts can't sell themselves, and since copywriting is salesmanship in print, as we've learnt from copywriting legend, John E. Kennedy (1864-1928) of Lord & Thomas in Chicago, what would be the point in hiring them?
So, by definition, copywriters who can't get private contracts and rely on paycheques, should be instantly disqualified from employment because their copies don't produce results.
So, where is the problem?
Look at most IT companies' ads for copywriters. What sort of money do these companies offer? A few of them offer as high as $20 per hour, but most of them offer between $12 and $15 per hour.
That's a little bit higher than the starting wage at McDonald's and about the same as unskilled construction labourers make when they drop out of high school at age 16.
And since most IT companies don't want to pay the kind of money that is in alignment with the value copywriters bring to the table, these companies are forced to hire very low-end writers from the bottom of the unemployment scum barrel.
So, what happens?
Company A has kick-arse products and services, but all the marcom copy is written by a $15 per hour "writer".
Company B has "merely" great products and services, but hires a kick-arse copywriter to communicate this greatness.
Which company do you think is more profitable? I vote for company B.
Why?
There is no bloody way a $15 per hour copywriter can effectively communicate the "kick-arse" aspects of company A's products and services.
Company B's marketing materials hit the market with an eardrum-splitting bang, while Company A's materials go to the market with a barely audible dull hum.
And at this point there is nothing Company A can do to repair the damage and it reaches the point of FUBAR[1] in its marketing.
The dull hum creates the market's perception, and as we know, in marketing, perception becomes reality. So, Company A's products and services are likely to become ho-hum bits and bobs sold like sacks of potatoes... on price.
But the good news is that...
Most Small And Medium Sized IT Companies Don't Need Full-Time Copywriters
First, copywriting is not something that is performed every day on an ongoing basis. Copywriting is a project (specific start and end points) not a process (ongoing with no end). There is a process within each copywriting project but that's another keg of worms.
Second, copywriting is brainwork, so you can't force copywriters to work on a rigid time schedule. It's retarded. Good copy must be carefully crafted, as freelance copywriters do and not mass manufactured, as most advertising agencies do or internal writers are forced to do.
So, instead of hiring a full-time copywriter at an affordable salary, hire the best copywriter you can afford on an as needed basis. Here is a little comparison to make your life easier.
| External Professionals | Internal Professionals |
|---|---|
| Broad experience with other companies and similar industries | Narrow experience from a limited number of sources |
| Direct experience of solving similar problems before | First time of facing specific problems |
| Fresh perspectives and frames of reference | Stale perspective and frames of reference depending on length of employment |
| High ROI | Low cost |
| Speaks up when noticing organisational dogmas | Keeps quiet in order to keep job |
| Hard to manage[2] but easy to collaborate with | Easy to manage and mould into organisational dogmas and orthodoxy |
| Peer-level relationship | Superior-subordinate (a.k.a. master-slave) relationship |
Disclaimer: Some people may say I've written this part because I'm a freelance copywriter too. Yes, I am. I'm also busier than a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest with my copywriting projects, so I already turn down 90% of requests for copywriting.
In Summary
I believe websites should be functional not merely pretty.
They should communicate how the company's target market gets better off by working with this company not merely touting capabilities.
They should connect with the market in a conversational manner not through a stuffed, stiff-arse, "pinstripe" manner.
Content matters. Great content makes your organisation look great. It sells more of your stuff, you have happier clients and your brand is enhanced.
Remember, just as bad business is worse than no business, crappy content can be worse than no content at all. Amateur content will make your firm be perceived as a bunch of third-rate punks. Web sites should be managed by marketing people not by designers or programmers.
And one more point. Writing for humans or writing for search engines. The view is split on this topic. Based on the SEO experts (Planet Ocean, Jill Whalen and Aaron Wall) I follow, I want to write first for the humans and only then for the engines.
When it comes to business development, relying on the engines to have your website found is only one way of getting traffic. Besides, boardroom calibre executives don't spend a significant amount of their time browsing the web and doing Google search on certain keywords.
So, we have to reach out to them and join them in their buying processes.
[1] Military: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Continue where you've left off...
[2] Read: Oppress, threaten, create and sustain fear of losing job, manipulate and cajole. Sadly, a huge part of the science what we call management still revolves around the manipulation and intimidation of employees. Continue where you've left off...
Attribution: "This article was written by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan who helps privately held information technology companies to develop high leverage client acquisition systems and business development teams in order to sell their products and services to premium clients at premium fees and prices. Visit Tom's website at http://www.varjan.com.
