Customers won’t read this

Customers aren’t sitting there waiting for us to impress them.

Here’s the truth about websites: Customers won’t read our copy, they won’t watch all our video, they won’t even make it to the end of our headlines and what they do take in, probably won’t be absorbed in the linear way we imagine. And here’s another thing, most people will judge your website within seconds and decide if you are for them or not. So looks count. And attitude counts. And what you say counts. And so do first impressions. And one more thing, we need to understand that even though they’ve turned up, they may not be as keen as we are. It’s like speed dating someone who’s got something better to do. It’s our job to hook them.

So we need to think in milliseconds and of all the different ways we can get them to hear our story. It’s not just an elevator pitch, it’s breaking that pitch down into simple single thoughts and feelings and filling the page with different hooks because although we might have a reasonably good idea, we don’t really know where they’ll bite, where they’ll look first, what will ring true for them. Creative is about delivering enough to pique the interest of a disinterested eye. And because what worked today may not work on the same person tomorrow, because situations change and even profiled people are different, the UX and the content need to cover more bases without making a big deal of it. And if we want it to be a proper relationship so they come back again and tell all their friends about us, then the conversation we have with them needs to be about them, not us. It needs to develop, become more personal, be more focused, we need to be able to think on our feet, reflect what they tell us and respond to them dynamically so that they feel they are the most important thing to us. Sounds cynical doesn’t it? But it’s a grounded way to think of it, and leads to more satisfying customer experiences.