Widget makers have it easy. Plaster photos on the website. We.Are.Selling.This.Thing.  It.Looks.Like.This.  (Do you want it painted in Autumn Glory, Technicolor Stainless, or Urban Soot?)

For those of us who sell things whose souls cannot be captured in a photograph, it’s not quite so literal.

Here are six reasons why your erstwhile customer can’t figure out what on earth you DO, actually. Even after visiting your website.

6. Representative Imagery. Someone let the agency get hip and artsy at the expense of the brand again. So much so that nobody can tell what any of that hip artsy stuff on the website actually means. Creating a whole visual and literary language in which the customer must be educated before they can actually learn something about how your company solves their problem… not cool.

5. Industry Buzzwords. True meaning is completely obscured in a thicket of industry benchmarks, certifications, technical jargon, association relationships, awards, TLAs… The site may be connected to many third party ideas and standards. But what does the company actually do or think to help its customers?

4. Vague Benefits. We do everything. For anyone. Just call us to find out what that actually is.

3. Steaming Piles of Features and Promotions. Do you need a _? How ’bout a _? Do you need a service contract with that? Would you rather buy _ and _ together, at a 1.208598% discount on second Tuesdays? A five year contract will get you an additional 0.00029% discount for the first 34 months!

2. Product Bureaucracy. The website has to explain our entire internal bureaucracy to you before anything else happens. Obviously our bureaucracy is the most salient benefit of working with us. Why else would we lovingly provide you with 16 different numbers to call in each of the 28 countries in which we do business? Heaven forfend that our service teams in any country should ever look like they could talk with you as a global team.  I mean, how weird is that?

1. The Very Nature of Intangible Products. If I’m buying a widget, I may actually have an affinity with the look or functionality of the thing itself. If I am a business person, and if I’m buying software or services, what I am really buying is an outcome. I don’t want accounting software. I want my accounting done well enough that the government doesn’t investigate or fine me over SOX compliance. I don’t want consulting, I want more productivity or more revenue or both. I want to keep my job and not be embarrassed by your performance. (Etc.) All the other hoopla is you trying to convince me that your intangibles will provide that outcome.

Related posts:

1. Buying is irrational…even B2B buying
2. 5 Reasons your customers and prospects don’t listen to you
3. If you can give it away, what have you proven?
4. People won’t buy what they don’t know about. Or will they?
5. Marketing voodoo…the fluff formerly known as collateral…and why we made the logo blue.

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