My sites break a lot of rules. Someone pointed out that, although I push my clients to design sites with high contrasting fonts on a light background, our new media agency site is designed with a dark background and light fonts… much more difficult to read. Other friends have pointed out that it also doesn’t fit on a small resolution laptop.
I know.
The truth is, I don’t want to attract visitors with netbooks or older laptops. I want to get attention from people with huge resolutions. I don’t want to attract companies who won’t upgrade from Internet Explorer 6. I don’t even want people to read my site. I want them to browse it and wonder whether or not I can help them… and have them click through on a web form.
If you disagree, you’re not my prospect.
Good marketing execution should DISqualify those who cannot buy. Sales people qualify; marketing people disqualify. Those of us in marketing need to remember that it's not about impressions and number of leads, it's about impressions and leads from people who can buy our products. In my old team, once we started thinking about getting qualified leads, we stopped doing giveaways that generated tons of unqualified cardscans and focused on disqualifying leads. Our sales team was delighted to get a short stack of only good leads.
What about your web site? Is it attracting the wrong people? It's fine for the unqualified to download your white papers and read your articles but you shouldn't bother to gather a lot of information unless the inquiry has the potential to buy. Social media experts agree that you should give away your thought-leading content, knowing that the qualified buyers will return to you when they're ready to buy.
