Web Critic

It is difficult to believe that this actually happens. In the world of domestic heating oil suppliers, there are departmental managers and sales staff that should be weeded out and publicly humiliated for total incompetence.

Imagine this…you send an email enquiry to a company selling heating oil explaining that you have run out of oil, live locally and would like a call back as soon as possible. 4 days later you are still waiting for a call….the house is freezing, the children are blue with cold and the Aga won’t work because there is no oil.

So you ring them up and explain that you needed some oil last week…” Oh, I was out of the office that day”  What! Nobody covers for this person and checks her mails? Worse than that, I was told that usually everybody gets a call back within 7 days. 7 whole days without a call and then you expect to get their business…how are things in Fairyland?

The whole point about web enquiries (web based sales leads) is that they are hot, very hot indeed. The customer is in “buying mode” so call him back quickly before he goes elsewhere….we are talking minutes, if possible. The web is different, so try and understand it and take advantage of it. Sales leads are the life blood of a company especially in the highly competitive market of heating oil, a commodity product that is very price sensitive. So please,  just try and give that little bit of exceptional service to customers. It is likely that your price and product alone will not be sufficient to win that order.

Just ring them back quickly…it’s as easy as that! Unless you really don’t care if your customers are freezing!

Till soon,

Warmly yours,

TWC

You can send anything you like in the post, by email, by smoke signal or by video. But are they receiving it?

YouTube specifically recommend the MPEG4 format (DivX, Xvid), a common compressed video format at 320×240 resolution with MP3 audio. YouTube deliver video at 200kb/s in Flash Video (.flv) As a guide, this is 40 times smaller than a commercial DVD.

So a short uncompressed video at standard definition is not even close to being suitable for delivery from the web/website…just too large! Nobody has the patience to download 100s of MB of video or tolerate endless buffering, so present it nicely please!

Decision time…you must either scale the video down in a video editing suite like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro and deliver via the web… or if very high quality is essential, use good old disc media.

And then there is the receiving of this information. If it’s a corporate client that’s receiving it, check that they have Flash or Quick Time installed. A high percentage of corporate servers and PCs don’t allow it to be installed so they can’t watch it.

The web is  great for sending many things but please understand and check that the client can receive them. The web still has some way to go!

After all, it’s about them, not you.

Till soon,

TWC

Form follows function? Not even remotely likely if you are an ad agency.

Ad agencies really have got a big problem with understanding the new technology of the web. For them it is still a question of pushing creative image and design through the new medium of the web. Ad agencies have failed to understand the vast difference between push and pull marketing.It is wholly inappropriate to try and deliver old marketing messages through the new medium of the web.

Why, oh why is that then? Before I even get to disability and partially sighted access websites, let’s just think about what a website is for…It could be brand reinforcement, lead generation, e-commerce or plain old info sites. It’s not just to “show off” one’s own creative talents. I have yet to find an Ad agency with a decent website that conveys an appropriate corporate image. OK, they may want to be a creative looking company but as a corporate customer, I’m looking for a corporate partner that understands ROI and business strategy, not fancy designs from the kid just out of college.

So the ad agencies continue to put up their creative looking websites. There is a famous Leeds based agency that has broken all the rules of convention, accessibility and usability. Their site is all in Flash so that means a high percentage of corporate clients will not see it. Why? Because many companies will  not install flash on their servers. Flash is for streaming voice and video, not for watching a half rate presentation that deserves the “Skip Intro” treatment. Just how many times have you Skipped Intro? Many ad agencies will get their whole site skipped by website visitors.

As a company’s brand depends on what customers feel, see and think about you, do the ad agencies just want to be regarded as creative only? It must be…they are not projecting anything else, not even website functionality.

C’mon ad agencies, get to grips with what it’s all about! …try and present some other sides to your precious image. Mono images are dull.

Till soon,

TWC