A Website’s Like Advertising, Right?

No!

A website is not like advertising. Put simply, a website’s purpose is to serve the customer, not sell the customer. It’s about what the customer wants to know or do, not what you’re trying to tell them or get them to do. If your site serves your customers well, they’ll do the selling for you, for free, by recommending you to their friends.

Advertising is Interruption Marketing

The purpose of advertising is to get a message in front of you, to get you interested in something or persuade you to do something while you’re trying to do something else.

Advertising works by interrupting you. Very few people look at advertising for its own sake, except people who work in advertising agencies. TV ads interrupt the programs you’re watching. Newspaper ads are interspersed with the news content so you’ll see them. Magazine ads use gimmicks like insert cards or pages that are smaller or larger or thicker than normal to interrupt your browsing or reading. Billboards interrupt your driving concentration to get you to look at them. Website ads, like print, are interspersed with the site content or they flash or move or even obscure the site content to get you to look at them.

A Website is Your Place of Business

A website is very much like your actual physical place of business. When someone comes to your restaurant or store you don’t need to interrupt them, try to get their attention or entice them to drive over. They’ve already made that choice. They’ve gotten in the car and driven to your place and are ready to see the menu or find what they’re looking for. The advertising, the interruption if any, happened somewhere else, while they were doing something else. It got them in the door. Now, it’s your job to satisfy their needs.

Think about driving to a restaurant and finding some guy on the sidewalk in front who won’t let you see the menu until you listen to his little canned sales spiel? Even if you could push him aside to get in, how would that make you feel about going inside?

Nobody Sees Your Website Until They Actually Go There

If you think about it, using your website for advertising makes no sense at all. Unlike a real store, nobody ever just happens to be passing by a web site. Remember, your website is invisible until someone decides to type in that URL. Flashy graphics and music aren’t going to attract anyone, because no one sees it until they’ve already made a conscious choice to go there. They went there because they are ready to buy and wanted to know something. Anything you do that delays them finding what *they* want is making them unhappy and likely to leave, just like that guy on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

Nobody Wants to Look at Ads

The most effective thing that advertising does on a website is drive visitors away! Think about that guy on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Would you go into that place after being interrupted on the sidewalk outside? I certainly wouldn’t.

The Customer wants Control

If a customer comes to your place of business, they don’t want to be subjected to your idea about what they should see. They should drive the experience completely. If they want to see a video, certainly let them choose to, but if all they want to know is what vegetarian choices there are, they should be able to find out as quickly as possible. For a restaurant, I have to believe that the vast majority of people just want to see the menu and the prices. That’s why restaurants post their menus outside the door. That puts  the customer in control of the experience and the decision.

Good Design

Now, does that mean your storefront shouldn’t be beautiful, clean and inviting? Of course not! But once someone comes to your place of business all the design should be oriented toward making them comfortable and at ease, not putting them on guard against selling pressure.

If I’m trying to decide where I want to go for dinner, yes, a beautifully designed site is a big plus in setting my expectation for a quality experience. But it has to be passive and unobtrusive. Anything automatically animated attempts to put the seller in control of the experience, by definition.

In Summary

Treat your website visitors the same way you would treat a customer who walked into your store. Help them, don’t make them endure the sales process.