TheWayoftheWeb

One of the great things about my job at Bauer Media is that I get to help out a hugely diverse range of brands. One such brand is FHM, which is relaunching with a new website. I haven’t been involved in the main site itself, but the excellent team working away on the new site seem to be happy about my input, and most encouragingly, they see this as the start of an evolution, rather than an end result.

Click on the image for a fancy flash Homepage Tour:

There are a couple of interesting challenges for the small part I’m playing initially:

1. FHM has had a number of disparate social media outposts, and I’m spending time finding all of them, and updating as necessary. And then putting them all into a cohesive plan. It’s a bit of a change from the usual job of starting from scratch - and it’s going to be interesting seeing if it’s possible to reawaken some groups from stasis.

2. Because FHM is enormously popular and has so many different editions being published around the world, it means there’s a lot of different properties on the same social networks, and ideally I need to work out when and where they can work together - and at the same time try and eliminate the scammers using the FHM name.

Hopefully I’ll be able to come back with some examples of successful solutions shortly!

For a while I’ve read various people debating whether ‘traditional’ terms for people online are still effective. Do we really just want ‘visitors’ - as if they turn up, pay their museum entry fee, look at the exhibits and then leave? Or is it fair to assume they’re users - as if we’re peddling heroin? Especially as a ‘user’ is linked to user accounts and usernames. And only those who actually make a transaction can really be termed ‘consumers’. (They’re not ‘Unique Users’ in analytics/metrics, they’re Unique IPs…but I think that’s not something that can be changed now!)

I think it’s a shame that ad agencies and computing have sewn up ‘client’. It’s more informal than consumer, and yet infers a bit more choice and power on the part of the individual than the other terms. And like an agency, any website publisher has to constantly evolve and adapt to meet the needs of their clients…

I did try to work out a reason for renaming the audience Flibbertigibbets, but even my tenuous grip on reality struggled with that one.

So, like an age old riddle, what’s someone who can come and read a website and leave, come and interact, or come and take part in spending money?

So far, my best effort is ‘Participant‘. If we accept that participation starts at going to a url and observing the content, and goes up to spending every second of the day interacting, posting, uploading and purchasing. And if you look at the Wikipedia entries for participation, it starts to make sense:

‘Participation, in addition to its dictionary definition, has specific meanings in certain areas.

• Participation (decision making), a notion in theory of management, economics and politics
• Participation (VR), a notion from virtual reality
• Participation (ownership), sharing something in common with others
• Participation (Finance), getting some benefit from the performance of a certain underlying asset

• Participation constraint (ER modelling), a special case of a multiplicity constraint’

So it can incorporate decision making, benefit, multiplicity, sharing, and being involved in a virtual reality? If you really want, you can split it into Reading Participants, Posting Participants, Uploading Participants, Buying Participants. You can even have a past participle if it makes you happy!

I’d be interested to know if other people think it’s a change worth making, and whether it’s worth participating or not?

The most important element of a successful website isn’t the technology, the content, or the marketing. It’s having a clear and defined proposition which is understood by the entire team - and most importantly, by the users of the website.

I’d always been implicitly aware that the likes of Google, Ebay et al had a clear purpose upon which they’d built success, and yet I’m as guilty as anyone of putting the cart before the horse, and trying to fill something with content, and market it, without  ensuring that there was a clear proposition in place. That’s even true of this blog, which has evolved over time, but really began as a general internet/tech blog. Even now, posts like this are somewhat at odds with my main focus on community and social media marketing!

Anyhow, since moving from editorial to marketing, I’ve had the chance to see how much a clear proposition helps the titles I work with - much of it driven by great work by one of my colleagues, Charlie Watson. Suddenly there’s a clear purpose and drive which can be lacking, particularly on sites which have been going for some time without direction.

But it’s also important to remember that direction and proposition may need to change over time, and be adapted in response to your audience. And that was underlined by a great meeting with the Ditto team yesterday. I can’t say what’s changed quite yet, but I can say that I’m constantly impressed with the way they respond to their audience, whilst maintaining a clear focus and proposition.

I guess it great propositions boil down to:

• Define a clear and simple aim for your site which differentiates itself from competitors, and aims to answer the needs of your audience.
• Monitor how effective the proposition is, and be open to changing it. Noone has ever got it exactly right first time - but the biggest websites listened and evolved more quickly than their competitors.
• Don’t be tempted to keep adding ‘and also this’ to the proposition. It needs to be so clear and simple you can convey it with one look at your homepage, or in a few words in ad advert or message board. Or even in a logo. You can’t do that if the proposition is 3 paragraphs long with an appendix! Google’s proposition is summed up by a logo and search box.

Oh, and if that does help you build the next big thing, my commission is around 10%!

They may or may not be beneficial to your health, but stress and panic can be two of the biggest motivators around - particularly with a deadline looming. So why don’t more companies look at how they can answer these problems? As Seth Godin posted a while back, “That thing you’re marketing… Does it add to stress or take it away?”

It seems that there would be a huge marketing advantage in reducing stress and panic across every industry, but some would find it could be their biggest advantage over their competitors, particularly when it comes to markets like insurance or finance.

A great case in point is insurance. I recently needed the insurance documents for my car, which appear to have gone missing when I moved house. And I needed them fast.

So I rang my car insurers at Direct Line. By post the documents take days to arrive. And despite the fact I was personally authorising (and almost begging) them to fax me a copy, it’s against their company policy. (It might be against Data Protection rules etc, but the stated reason was company policy). So their company policy is effectively to ignore the fact a customer is asking them to fax a copy of documents showing details of that customer.

So the next step was to take a look online. Hidden on the Direct Line homepage is an option for existing customers to log in and access and service policies. Which could theoretically solve my problem.

Looking good, isn’t it?

Nope.

Because to register and use this function, I need to include an ‘Online Customer Code’. Which has to be requested and then sent, via post! And to request an online customer code, I need to use my policy number. Which wasn’t in the same location as my computer.

So despite the fact I’ve been a customer for years, and the myriad methods of communication available, I’m still relying on someone printing a certificate, putting it in an envelope, and sending it to me days after I actually needed it.

The solution?
There are lots of methods available, and I’m not a Data Protection expert. But why couldn’t I specify an email address when I first apply for insurance, and have a PDF copy of my insurance certificate emailed to me? I’m far less likely to misplace my laptop/email account than a piece of paper?

Or why not automatically register me for the online service when I set up my insurance? That way, the confirmation would be sent with my certificate (or separately around the same time), and it might prompt me to log in, set a memorable password, and then be able to access it when I really need it?

Either method, or a suitable alternative, would have seen Direct Line get a valid email address to contact me with - rather than having to post endless direct mailings to try and get my home insurance with them (It’s actually already with them, under my partner’s name!), or to take out a loan.

It would have also meant I wouldn’t have rushed around in a panic, turned the house upside down, and now have the stress and panic prompting me to think about changing my insurance company when my policy comes up for renewal. Which is actually just a couple of months away!
And I’d be busy recommending a company that had reduced my stress, rather than made me waste my time on the phone and online to find out my simple problem wouldn’t be solved.

Avoidance:
So to avoid similar feelings towards your company, ignore technology, silos, separate teams etc. And just get together at the start of the consumer/user process and think about what it is that the person will want and need, and also why they might need these things in a hurry at some point. Then just work out if there’s a way to pre-empt these problems without running into legal or Data Protection problems. If so, use it. If not, then make it clear that there is a legal reason for the stress, rather than simply ‘company policy’. Unless your ‘company policy’ is to piss off your consumers.

N:B I fully intended to give Direct Line a right to reply, but it appears you can only contact them via the postal service, or by paying the cost of phoning an 0845 number.