Sometimes I think we business people go out of our way to annoy potential customers
It seems we'll do anything except delight them with great customer service and value.
Take for example those websites that seem to delight in using typefaces which are far too small to read. They also use typefaces that are hard to read. Apparently they want to evoke an emotion in you that will encourage you to buy. A recent prospective client used a typeface like this and complained his website didn't work. When I suggested he might try a me legible font he was most resistant. A few minutes later I suggested he might find one of my competitors a better fit and suggested he asked him to advise!
It isn't only on websites. What about those romantically lit restaurants .. you know, the ones where you need a guide dog to find your table. Small type on the menu doesn't encourage people to return to these restaurants.
Just as bad are those restaurant and hotel toilets where they provide soaps and hand cream. It's a lovely thought if the font on the bottle is big enough so you can tell which is which! Many aren't.
Using light fonts on light backgrounds or even dark fonts on dark backgrounds doesn't help either. And that applies to print or digital.
But of course we need to find the restaurant, shop, hotel or whatever before we can buy from them and problems can occur here as well. Directions and postcodes that make no sense to man nor SatNav are just as bad for business.
For example in my previous home the postcode sent SatNav owners to a disused railway over half a mile away. It was full of wildlife but it wasn't our office, so we had to provide better directions than just a postcode.
None of these irritating little things are expensive or impossible to put right. So why do some businesses persist in them?
More importantly do you make some of these mistakes.
In my business I probably make a few errors but I'm determined to help my provide clarity for my customers wherever I can. So I've edited a book called Creating Business Growth: 21 Successful Marketers Reveal Their Top Business Marketing Secrets.
It does what is says on the tin and contains advice from people that market for a living. These people are the sort that use their own money when marketing and have successful track records. They include a TED speaker, several best selling authors, a former White House speech writer, and experts on email marketing, lead generation, sales, value propositions, website conversion, website traffic, PPC, Facebook ads, Google Adwords, PR and much more.
This book is going to be available to readers free on Amazon for just 5 days and the way to get a copy is to pre-register via the Creating Business Growth website.
Stefan Drew
