I am tired of websites that shout at me and I am tired of hype. I am tired of headlines full of words like: instant, secret, laser, exposed, killer, and explosive.
I miss simplicity. I miss clarity and honesty. I miss being able to trust a website.
Stop shouting…talk to me.
I have been mulling over in my mind a concept this morning after a call from a interested snowmaking customer; we’ll call him Joe because that was his name. Joe had done his homework…and I mean REALLY done his homework. He knew about every home snowmaking site that existed and had questions about each one and how their products compared to mine.
I really had to be on my toes.
But at the same time I wasn’t worried. I trust my product 100% and I know its place in the snowmaking world and why it’s better than my competitors. With that trust and knowledge, I was able to easily respond to every question he threw at me without attacking my competitors or belittling their products. Plus, Joe was a great guy and very kind and interested, he had sincere questions and wanted simple answers.
After his barrage of questions, I got to thinking about which ones could be answered on the site and which ones couldn’t. To answer all of Joe’s questions would require A LOT of information on the site, information that most customers may not need. Information that, perhaps, would bog down other visitors to the point they would get stuck or lost and end up leaving. So, the question arises…how much is TOO MUCH information?
MarketingExperiments.com has found over and over that long copy converts better than short copy. However, how does long copy compare to really long copy, super long copy, and even the dreaded ridiculously long copy? Of course there is a medium between drowning the visitor in relevant but not necessary information and simplifying things to the point where the customer doesn’t dare take action because they have so many unanswered questions.
The trick is finding that sweet spot…if only they made oversized drivers for internet marketing with giant sweet spots…
