Why Corporate Websites Suck, and some ideas for fixing them

This post has been brewing in my head for a while and today I saw an item over at David Weinberger’s blog JOHO that told me it was time to write it. There is lots of good stuff on his blog, but the thing that got me going was a brief reference to an article he recently posted on Worthwhile magazine: Oh why cahn’t the marketers … learn … to … speak

Corporate websites suck for a lot of reasons, one of which Weinberger’s post nails on the head. We have forgotten how to speak in simple, direct sentences that clearly tell the listener that we a) understand his need/problem and b) have a product/service that can help her.  Instead we fill the space with jargon laden positioning statements, sexy flash movies, feature lists and product specs, interactive demos (that show all the features), white papers and tons and tons of press releases.

And just to show that we haven’t forgotten our customers, there’s a section for Support (mostly aimed at removing the need for the customer to ever actually CALL us) and a Case Studies section with a bunch of well written, but highly edited Success Stories.

But very rarely is there a public place where the company and its customers come together in a dialogue … dare I say a community.  If something like this does exist, it is most often behind security to protect it from the prying eyes of people who are "not us." Competitors. The media. Prospects (heaven forbid they learn of a possible problem before they buy. Let’s get the money first.) Or if the Forum is public, it is moderated so "bad stuff" can be better managed.

Now, I sense that this is changing as blogs permeate the fabric of the Web and our lives. But for the most part, this is the world as I have known it.

And full disclosure, in many of my past assignments, I have been a willing participant in crafting positioning statements about the leading provider of state of the art blah blah.  I’m actually pretty good at it. But I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t work. Because what this behavior has created is corporate websites that suck.

Define suck, you ask. They suck because the site covers all that stuff that the company thinks is important. Product features. Why our widget is better than the other guy’s widget. Demos of products. Death by Powerpoint.

They forget that fundamentally your prospects aren’t really that interested in your product. They are interested in satisfying a desire or solving a problem. What your site should be doing is clearly communicating to the prospect that you understand his problem and then showing her how your product can help. To be fair, many websites TRY to do this. We try to stay focused on needs first, our benefits second. But we don’t go far enough and that is why we still suck.

So what do I think is far enough? I think we have to stop being afraid of our customer and let her voice speak on our websites. In her own voice, not just in edited case studies. By all means, write case studies. They are useful marcomm tools. Some of your printed collateral may even make it back home from the trade show (and not in the hotel rubbish).

But let your customers speak, and in public. Create unmoderated support forums where customers can help each other. Create public spaces where your customers can meet with your employees to talk about issues of mutual interest — yes, your products, but also regulatory issues, business trends — whatever is at the intersection of mutual interest. These can be old-style forums or blogs, or whatever suits your fancy. But if you’ve got happy, contented customers, help them tell others about how great you are. It is word of mouth on steroids and it will resonate with your audience far better than ANYTHING you could ever say.

That doesn’t mean you should stop all traditional marketing efforts. I think that all those other things we do: direct mail, advertising, newsletters, PR, trade shows, etc etc all have an important place in our marketing mix. But it is time we stop treating our website as an electronic brochure, and really embrace the possibilities that the WWW offers us for engaging in a conversation with our customers.

Oh, and if you are afraid of what your customers might say, or that your product sucks, fix that first. Don’t keep trying to hide behind a corporate website that sucks.