Could Blind Spots Cause Your Marketing Strategies to Fail?
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in marketing, tags: marketing strategies, sales marketing coachingTechnically a blind spot is a distortion or absence of sight in a small area of the eye. In practical business terms a blind spot represents the challenges, mistakes, and oversights we face in our own businesses. We all have blind spots.
What’s so frustrating is the fact that everyone but you can see the mistakes you are making yet no one tells you about them. Mostly because you don’t ask and also because people don’t want to hurt your feelings, or worse yet, make you mad.
If you’ve ever tried to sell your home or watched HGTV you know that most home owners don’t see the things about their home that make the home less attractive to buyers. Sometimes it’s an easy fix to get your home buyer ready. Other times it requires some major work. Yet the result is worth the effort.
Now I’d like to demonstrate how this can happen in your business as well. The easiest way to do that is to show you two successful online businesses and demonstrate the impact. First, I’d like you to go to Yahoo and take a look around. Even if you’re a regular Yahoo user please take a moment to visit the sight and really look around. Try to notice things you haven’t noticed before.
Next, go to Google and take a look around. You can’t miss the difference. While Yahoo has all kinds of things to look at and click on Google is very sparse.
Here’s why Googles approach has worked so well for Google and Yahoo’s hasn’t worked as well for Yahoo.
When someone new comes to your business whether online or offline that person has three questions you must immediately answer or they leave never to return. Here are those questions:
- What is this business/website about?
- What can this business/website do for me?
- Is there a good reason for me to do what I can do here?
It seems pretty obvious when you think about it doesn’t it?
When you compared the Yahoo website to Google did you notice how cluttered and confusing Yahoo seemed in comparison? There were so many different things you could do. There is so much stuff on the page it doesn’t feel like there is a clear pathway to the information you want. Yahoo simply looks like a whole lot more work to use than Google.
In contrast Google’s sparseness is easy to look at. There is a simple pathway to well defined information. Plus there is one clear action on the page, enter a search phrase in the search box.
A clear path to one action is huge.
That’s exactly what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing strategies. You want the right people to take an action that connects that person to you and your business. And that’s all you want.
Everything else must come later after they’ve decided there is a good reason to connect with you.
When you try to do too much, ask too much, and give too much information YOU LOSE! Even when you are as big as yahoo.
Going back to the concept of blind spots I want you to realize you can’t see what your potential buyers see because you’re too close to your business and too invested in what you’ve done. So get help from some outside impartial eyes and really pay attention to the feedback you get.
This is something we can help each other with right here. If you’d like to get constructive feedback about your online presence for your business tell us about your business in the comment box and include a link to your website so others can view your site.
After you view the other person’s website come back here and give constructive feedback about your impression and recommendations for improvements.
Don’t be shy this is an opportunity to get some valuable help!
photo credit: Marcin Wichary
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