What you say, how you say it, and when you say it – these are the components of content that can make or break your Internet Marketing. Right from the very first words (and images) displayed on your web resources, to the last call to action you hope entices contact.
The process of compressing everything you want to say into a handful of words and a couple of images is a challenge. It is also the most important thing you will do when marketing, whether on the Internet or anywhere else. It is why a good marketing director or advertising agent can be paid a small fortune for what might amount to 100 words over the course of a year. If you can capture the spirit of your corporate voice and entice your audience to action all with a short phrase and a pretty picture, everything else will flow from that starting point.
Take for example the process we are going through with a client right now. This client has established an image for herself as a budget-conscious interior designer on the back of a static, somewhat cluttered presence. Her work and business ethic speak volumes for her, but she realizes that the Internet image she projects has handcuffed her to a limited audience. It is time for her to shine in the light of her personal image, and to get a message across quickly and effectively online.
It is our job to bring any visitor to this new website towards that image. Our initial discussions on the language of the home page for this new website illustrates the concern for tight focus upon her talent and high-end appeal, and still manage to convey her attractiveness as a designer for the budget-conscious. Say too much about “budget” or “affordable” and you turn off those looking for talent over cost, or even those without budget limits (got to love those!). Say too little about affordability and you lose your bread and butter clients who have more limited operating budgets.
You’ve heard the expression “a picture is worth 1,000 words”? Well, that doesn’t always mean that the words are the ones you want. So we are dancing around images as well, trying to send the simultaneous messages of “You Can’t Afford NOT to Use Me” and “You Can Afford to Use Me”. The very best work my client does for those with monetary constraints often leads to images that look much more costly than they were to create. In other words, the 1,000 words of some of these images might include “Wow – this looks too expensive for me!”.
As I mentioned, we are in the design phase right now and are having some fun working around the idea of “The Look for Less”. We are both pretty anxious to get through this phase and into development so that we can start to realize the vision, and begin some serious marketing. I’ll post on this client again when we get there – then you can decide if we managed to get the message right.
