Facebook may be worth $10 billion, but millions of people don’t even know what Facebook is.
Joanna Young worries that advancing media technology may make writing obsolete, but millions of business websites cling to the old ways of splash pages and rampant animation.
RSS is one of the simplest and most potent technologies yet devised to deliver information, but most companies would have trouble even spelling RSS.
For the tech-aware, online marketing marches forward. But there’s a whole wide world out there that is not tech-aware, full of companies quite comfortable (comfortably numb?) with the marketing status quo.
I know this is true, because I’m caught in the middle, trying to help companies outside the tech sector learn and apply new methods of communication with the potential to transform their business. As I’ve said before, it can be a tough sell.
The Customer’s Customer Is Always Right
Not tough because companies are resistant to change – tough because company’s customers are resistant to change.
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
One of my clients, who will remain nameless, has a website that would make a wonderful exhibit in The Field Museum of Natural History. The site is replete with unoptimized content, distracting Flash animation, broken links, counterintuitive navigation, all wrapped up in a color scheme that’s louder than a paisley tie.
And their customers love it! My client knows their site needs work – but why bother when business is booming and customers don’t care?
Questions
- Should companies introduce new marketing approaches ahead of their customers?
- Are the tech-aware too insulated from a general market not ready to adapt?
- Can change that’s too rapid be self-defeating?
I’ll be examining the awareness gap from other angles in the weeks ahead. Is this subject as interesting to you as it is to me?
Hi Brad
Some big questions here! I’m nowhere near qualified to answer but will chip in my tuppenceworth anyway…
I think “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a good principle – but there’s another set of questions maybe about what more your customers could achieve with a different sort of site – a different customer base? the chance to develop a different kind of conversation with customers old and new…? anticipating the fact that their customers’ needs and tastes will change – even if they haven’t yet?
Joanna
Those are excellent questions, Joanna. Some companies have a hard time imagining there are different kinds of customers, but maybe I can help them do it.