Are You Impressing Your Customers with Your Website, Or Yourself? 

We've all been there. And we've been on the receiving end. Not just with websites, but with emails, heavily-worded presentations, elevator pitches, the works. Copy like:

"Dynamic integrated solutions provider emphasizing client success and software integrity to optimize and drive business results."

I could jam a few more buzzwords in there, but after reading that bad boy a few times, do you even know what I'm selling? 

It's a crime that many companies, across industries, commit. More often then not, positioning is reacting to competitor's statements, or how simple language or being more straightforward may appear to potential customers - especially at the exec level. 

But here's the deal. If you want me to do business with you, and I'm clicking around your website to figure out what exactly you do and how you do it, I'm not going to expend mental energy translating corporate speak into human language. At the end of the day, will you help me do my job better? Do you understand my issues? How can you help? 

It's an epidemic that I'm hoping is on it's way out, but it's not looking super promising so far - as long as older marketing mentalities continue to sign off on final web copy, email marketing, and other initiatives surrounding outward-facing company content. B2B businesses, and other "boring" industries are especially susceptible to copy-bloat. But they don't have to be - if they are willing to take that chance. 

This reminds me of a favorite Seth Godin mentality of mine around putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, believe it was from his book "The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?" It always struck me how scared people are to take something they created and present it up for the world to see, and say "I made this". This is often due to the fact that we are our own worst critic, and imagining the world of possibilities where reactions to what we say could go horribly wrong instead of allowing the "what if they like it?" possibility. 

I get it - your brand is on the line. Your reputation. Your employees, your customers. Throwing out the perfectionist guidebook and "how it's always been done" is scary. But what if you took baby steps to shake up your messaging a little bit. What if you B2B folks tried some B2C tactics - because you are after all, marketing to humans?

Some stuff might not work, some stuff might. It's about making your company vulnerable, like actual humans are, and be open to making mistakes and learning from them - because I can tell you that corporate speak websites are NOT resonating with any form of your customer.  Are you up to the challenge of figuring out what will? 

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