Back in the days when I was kid and you could actually label
a breakfast cereal Sugar Smacks and get away with it, there was that little
iconic mascot Dig ‘Em, the cartoon frog that hawked his sugar rush inducing
product in between Saturday morning cartoons. My brother and I were exposed to his cheery pitch repeatedly
as we tuned in to Bugs Bunny and we decided that we absolutely had to have some
of his cereal, the power of marketing at work indeed.
It took us weeks to finally wear my parents down enough to
actually buy a box, it was expensive for cereal at the time, and both my mom
and dad tried to tell us that we wouldn’t like it. We couldn’t understand how they could think that, after all
we liked sugar, and Dig ‘Em had assured we would in fact…well…dig ‘em! Whether tired of fighting off our
arguments, or to simply teach us a lesson that all that glitters is not gold,
we brought home a box and could hardly wait to dive in the next morning. Cereal was dumped in bowls, milk was
splashed and poured and spoonfuls were shoved into our waiting mouths and guess
what…yeah, we hated it. However,
with our parents standing there nodding sagely waiting for their moment of
triumph as we admitted defeat, we looked at them and simply said, “It’s good!”
and kept eating.
Now why in the world would we do such a thing? We didn’t like the stuff; we weren’t
being forced to keep eating it or even say it was good, so why did we do it?
The answer lies in the fact that after investing so much in
the acquisition of the product, the time we put into it cajoling and pleading
with our parents to buy it, the assurances we gave that they were wrong and we
were right, to admit now in front of them that in fact we had made a mistake
would have been far too painful and embarrassing a moment for us to endure. We would have to swallow a lot of
pride, and it seemed easier to simply swallow the awful cereal instead, that
way we could convince ourselves that maybe after so many bites we would
actually learn to like it. Maybe
if we choked it down every morning we would get used to the taste and no one
would be the wiser that we knew it was bad and yet had put up with it anyway.
I see this same scenario played out a lot as I meet with
businesses every day to discuss their online marketing efforts, particularly
with company websites. We meet
with owners on a regular basis that are struggling to admit that their online
presence is not effective, does not represent their company well, does not
bring them any results, could actually be a deterrent to people engaging with
them, etc.. This is especially
true when the work that has been done is fairly recently when we start talking
to them. That internal struggle
many times is a result of the fact that they spent time and money to develop the
site with another company and to admit now it simply is not good would be
embarrassing, and a bitter pill to swallow because it essentially says the
money and time had been wasted. So
they try to smile and convince themselves that while it may be ineffective, or
poorly done, they can just make the best of it and perhaps it will grow on them
and their target market segment. I
can fully sympathize with the frustration of buyer’s remorse, and the internal
struggle against spending more money on something you have already invested in,
sometimes the expenditure is still even fresh in the checkbook. I can even identify with the need to
justify in one’s own mind why it’s too painful to reinvest in something that
only recently had been changed.
That being said let me lay out a few points to consider if you find
yourself and your business in this situation:
1.) The cost of inaction may be much greater than paying a
firm to build the site correctly.
Poorly designed sites actually actively COST you money every day they
are live, because people directly base their buying decisions on what they see
online. If you know in your heart
the site is not effective, chances are your target market segment thinks it’s
bad too and are choosing to move on from your business if they think that it
represents the quality of your goods and/or services.
2.) While you are busy trying to convince yourself that you
like what you received originally, your competitors may be moving around and
past you with a web presence that actually produces results, leaving you behind
the 8 ball to play catch up.
3.) You can compound the frustration and loss by simply
engaging with another website company simply on the grounds that they represent
a “cheap fix”, the proverbial band-aid on a mortal wound so to speak, because
you think this will save you money.
Far too many times businesses throw good money after bad, thinking
that to make “cut to fit and patch to match” type changes are cheaper than
making the upfront front investment for a well researched and thoroughly
strategized site.
The bottom line is, your business must have an effective
website to survive, period.
What should matter most to you is converting web browsers to real life
buyers, because that’s what makes your revenues go up and that becomes the
plumb line for the effectiveness of your web presence. Don’t make the mistake so many have
made of forcing yourself to put on a smile and call something good when you
know it’s not, even if that means some initial pain or pride swallowing.
Your business deserves more for a web presence than a
symbolic bowl of soggy Sugar Smacks and a gritted teeth smile of acceptance,
and now may be the time to dump the whole cereal box and start from scratch
with some that really DOES taste great and really IS good for you!
