subject: Stand Out in the Crowd – or Stand Apart from the Crowd [print this page] Stand Out in the Crowd or Stand Apart from the Crowd
For years now web designers have been saying that you need a web design that will make your business stand out from the crowd in order to be noticed and get ahead of the competition. The concept is that if you make a spectacular looking web site it will get people's attention.
This concept is hollow for a few reasons:
What if your web market never sees it?
What if it only impresses the business owner?
What if your competition builds one more spectacular?
What this really says about the web design firm is that they do not know who your market is, and they can't help you to target what they don't understand.
They can help you to stand out in a crowd, but this still leaves you IN the crowd and the competition this crowd represents.
Stand out or stand apart
On the other hand, to stand apart from the crowd you would use a very different method of marketing. It is a 180 degree turn around from competitive push marketing to using attraction through pull marketing. Instead of you chasing after a market you make it so that the market finds you.
Pull Marketing takes courage and integrity
It takes courage to be different and to leave the crowd behind. Most people would rather compete within a crowd than to be different and on their own. That is why even within social networks people are finding the groups they want to belong to, and your web market is your group. These are the members you want to attract, but you cannot do this if your business is like every other business.
Pull Marketing is very similar to the way that social networks operate, in that it is your expressed values that attract buyers, because they recognize your values as being the same as their own values. This puts you in touch with your true web market.
Your business values are not tangible
Business people believe that their market wants tangible results, and this is often true, but this is not how your market will find you if your web pages don't have high page rank. Whatever product or service your business provides your web site is most visible by the business values being expressed. There are hundreds of online stores selling plastic storage boxes, but your market is looking for eco friendly, green or sustainable environmental products. Those are the values you share and the values you will be found by.
People that share beliefs and values are simply a group of like-minded souls, and when your business values match their values they recognize the intangible aspect of what your business represents. This is where trust and bonding begins.
When you use pull marketing methods you are not going out into the market place to chase down potential customers. Instead, you are building a community by expressing your business values and attracting your own group from the larger web markets. You do not find them they find you.
Speed up the trust and bonding process
Bonding with a business usually comes after there is customer satisfaction. It happens this way because people need proof when buying from strangers, but when the members of your market can plainly see your values this gives them something early on that they can bond with.
Although this is seen as speeding up the process of forming trusted relationships it is actually slowing your customers down in meaningful ways. Your page information reveals just how similar the business is when it comes to the things you value the most and this provides a relaxed state of enquiry as they take more time to get to know your business and your products.
Pull marketing provides a new business attitude
They are your market and you will serve them. This is an important attitude shift from push marketing that sees the market place serving the businesses needs. It is the difference between wanting to conquer the market -- to dominate market share instead of serving the market. As a member of a market segment it is obvious which business really cares about my needs.
When a web site remains true to pull marketing it will address the market by name because a business that pulls knows who they are attracting. A pull web site talks to the market by name and it also talks about the market, and the market likes being talked about.
Today many large corporations are attaching themselves to social media such as Facebook and it doesn't look at all like social networking. The main reason that social networking takes place is because individuals share their values and beliefs with other like members of a group.
With corporate Facebook accounts I see that many firms don't understand what social networking is all about. On the web social networking is about people finding groups to belong to, but what I see from corporate accounts is just more advertising and a way for disgruntled buyers to get back at the retailer.
People join Facebook to keep in touch and share values and experiences by way of discussion. Only a few corporate Facebook accounts talk about social values, a better world through green products or how they are supporting their communities.
Surprisingly it was Walmart that is doing this in some fashion and Sears does a better job of involving people and sharing tools and ideas. But many others are just on Facebook to cover their butts and not be left behind.
Opening a Facebook corporate account just to advertise on a social network is a sure way of wasting time, and therefore money. I won't bother going back to Best Buy or even Walmart for that matter, but I would check out Sears to make use of the web tools and discussions they offer.
Topics such as "hollow web designs", "standing out is not standing apart", "trust and bonding", and "corporate social media" are a few things discussed in this article.
