Fairy Godmother Marketing Syndrome

By B.L Ochman

Even now, with hordes of dot.coms on the brink, the same marketing mistakes are made again and again by companies desperately competing for customers. 

Many failing or struggling companies subscribe to the theory that one great email campaign, or the right banners, or the ultimate press release could rescue their business. I call this illusion the Fairy Godmother Marketing Syndrome.

The size of ads is on the rise, the variety of novelty emails is growing, as is the sheer volume of press releases. But no medium can solve the problem of a hard-to-use site or a boring site. As my grandma used to say "Always clean your house before you invite people in."

Despite the lessons of a slew of failed dot.coms, an awful lot of online companies present half-baked web sites. How many times have you left a site in frustration because you couldn't find what you wanted, couldn't deal with the complex order form, or were just plain annoyed by the amateurish level of the content? Judging from the number of abandoned shopping carts and two-second visits to sites, a lot of people are just plain fed up with online businesses. 

To make sure you don't turn into a pumpkin while waiting for your Fairy Godmother to make everything all right for your business:

• get your site in order before you begin a marketing effort 
• then avoid these top five marketing mistakes
  
  1. Making people work to do business with you
  Let's say that yours is one of the less than 20% of emails that I actually open and read. And let's say I click onto your website and don't immediately find a way to sign up for the offer you told me about. 
  
  Perhaps you want me to sit through a flash presentation about your business and click through several pages to get to your offer. Or maybe you expect me to click 10 times to place an order.
  
  Did you hear that sound? Click! That was me leaving.
  
  2. Not testing email offers
  Your ROI will drop precipitously unless you test, test and re-test your emails before you send out a large number. Direct response is scientific. You can measure what works before you go live on a grand scale.
  
  3. Not capturing customer information on your site
  Making yourself heard through the marketing noise and getting people to your site is no small feat. So why would you waste the opportunity to capture every visitor's email address? An email address and permission to use it is still the most valuable thing a netizen can give you.
  
  4. Advertising before your metrics infrastructure is in place
  Don't advertise until you have mechanisms in place to measure and analyze the responses. Otherwise you can't measure which offers, lists and copy work best. And that's kinda like winking at someone in the dark.
  
  5. Blaming your tools
  No medium can do all the work for you. It will not matter whether you use direct mail, advertising, PR or any other form of marketing if your site is not optimal, your order process is not 100 percent intuitive, your customer-interface is not completely intuitive and your content is not clear.

Better take heed, dear, before those coachmen turn back into mice!

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What's Next Online works on a project or retainer basis to evaluate, develop and execute Internet and traditional marketing and business strategies for Internet and Outernet companies. Ask us how we can help your business build global traffic and sales.

Contact B.L. Ochman BLOchman@whatsnextonline.com  212.369.8312

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