Forum Moderators: not2easy
< side rant: These catalogs have now surpassed my college ‘intro into art history’ book I suffered through as truly the most painful reading I’ve ever done. end side rant >
Once I’ve read through this stuff, here’s what I’m doing with it. I’ve broken this information page into 3 parts. I’ll call the brand name of these products we sell ‘Freddy’. So this page is about “Freddy’s widgets”.
Part One - Here is where I give some brief reasons why you should buy this particular name brand. After reading through all the corporate speak, I’ve tried to determine why I would buy Freddie. What makes Freddy different? Better than his competition? You get the idea. So then I write a paragraph or so explaining this. I’m trying to use very simple, un-biased, good web copy to do this.
Part Two –This is where I tie Freddy and our site together, trying to use good web copy and provide links within the copy to the products.
Part Three – This is the section I’m leaving as corporate speak. I’m calling it ‘From Freddy’ and then basically adding the copy straight from the catalog. If it’s from the corporate site, then I’ll reword it a little.
This is the first time I’ve done something like this. What I’d like to know is…
Is this an effective way to add content to my site? If not, what else would you recommend?
Do you think visitors find this useful? What else could I add on this page to make it useful?
Will the writing style contrast between part 1 and 2 vs 3 work? Will it show how our voice is different than ‘Freddy's’ voice? Or will the contrasting styles only confuse people?
When I’ve had to use copy from a corporate site, will it be considered duplicate copy from Google? Even though I’ve made a few changes and the rest of the copy on the page is different?
I've been trying to steer my company away from "buzzwords" and towards "keywords". In offline marketing materials, we've traditionally been very fond of using certain (almost Dilbert-managementese) phrases to make things sound good without saying much. I've been trying to make a point that this is out of place on our website, and dilutes our keywords and phrases. We're a keyphrase-laden industry, with technical terms and acronyms everywhere. People will search for those. I want to use those as much as we can. Things like our products' names, and the names of the procedures our product (software) is meant to automate.
People are NOT going to do a Google search for buzzwords. Nobody who's looking for our product is going to type in "leveraging management potential" and then be excited when our website turns up. People just don't search like that.
So I've found that to be a major issue to contend with when web-ifying corporatese. (As an added bonus, if you strip out the buzzwords and replace them with relevant keywords, you end up with more relevant, informative copy, which I personally think does more to sell your product than glossy meaningless phrases. But that's just me.)
As far as the different "voices" contrasting, perhaps you should separate them visually as well, so that it is more apparent to the consumer that there's meant to be a difference. Like, put "Freddy's" copy into italics or a blue font or something. Try it out however you like, that's just a thought.
http://www.marketingprofs.com/3/bachmann2.asp
[edited by: engine at 8:18 pm (utc) on July 1, 2003]
[edit reason] de-linked [/edit]
Are there other ways you can make the switch clearer? Maybe use italics instead of regular? Or set the "From Freddy" into a table with a different colored (but complimentary!) background.
If people aren't completely clear that it is from Freddy and not your company, they could stumble across the switch, particularly if they then follow up to read the sections on Gina's Widgets, Harold's Widgets and Scott's Widgets too. This is when the change in tone in each piece becomes more obvious, because the reader has noticed it in each brand company page.
2. Get rid of the corpspeak, talk in the language of their customers. (usually laymans terms)
3. Get a microphone and read what you wrote, then listen to it. If it sound stupid it will read the same way. (and you better believe what your hearing or customers won't)
>I've been trying to steer my company away from "buzzwords" and towards "keywords".
Yep, this is key. I refuse to have the word 'solution' in any copy I write, just to name one of my pet peeves;) And this is so much more important for the web. When people are just skimming your copy, they don't have time for that.
I used to use bold once or twice a page for the KW phrases I was targeting because I read that Google might give a little more weight to this in their algorithm. Now I still use it, but more so to help draw the readers attention to what the page is about.
> I personally think does more to sell your product than glossy meaningless phrases.
>Get rid of the corpspeak, talk in the language of their customers. (usually laymans terms)
Yep, I agree.
netcommr, one question for ya.
>If you want to sell a companies product, don't ask the company what to say, ask their customers what they are looking for! what do they need, what are their concerns. There's your content.
This sounds great. Any recommendations as to where to find this information? I went to eopinions and looked around. But most of the products we sell aren't reviewed. I've also read through 50 of the quesions that were sent by visitors to our site. Most of these questions were specific, such as 'do you carry this type of model?'. There didn't seem to be anything I could use.
Get a microphone and read what you wrote, then listen to it.
GOOD IDEA!
Man, I gotta try me that.
I did try reading it out loud to my boyfriend but he automatically started saying "Yes dear" at every pause before I was a page into it.
Hint to all y'all out there wondering about the secrets to healthy relationships: Don't do that.
;-)
make the alt tags read whatever you want of course
you might also consider offering pdf downloads of the catalog stuff, as an "improved" way to display the corp-speak, and take it out of the site as content altogether
as for finding out what the customers want, that's a good use for your website, start putting in some soulcatchers - online questionaires (just 5 minutes and free autographed widget), subscribe to results of this survey, newsletter, so forth
Can you actually ask some of the customers that sent you an inquiry what they would like to see on the site, or the things they are specifically looking for? I've done that in the past when someone has said "your site is awful" - I've gone back and asked for specifics.
Other options are asking the Customer Service group and/or sales people what their top 10 questions are that they get all the time (either generally or on specific products). After all, they are the ones that have to sort through whether the customer needs a Freddy widget or a Gina widget and provide the best "solution" (sorry, couldn't resist! :) )
If you have access to the log files that is another place to see if customers are being referred from search engines and if so, what terms they come in on.
>soulcatchers
I like it:)
Hello, Eliza_Jane, Welcome to Webmasterworld! [webmasterworld.com]
>"solution" (sorry, couldn't resist! :)
Ya, I set myself up for that one:)
> Can you actually ask some of the customers that sent you an inquiry...
Not the way things are set up now.
>asking the Customer Service group and/or sales people what their top 10 questions...
I like this idea. I've been wanting to make an FAQ for the site, this would be a great start.
[edited by: engine at 6:18 pm (utc) on July 2, 2003]
[edit reason] fixed url [/edit]
If you don't have access to customers on the web, or even if you do. Go to the brick&morter competitor and ask them in real person. They tend to be very helpful, usually.
