I had heard about banner blindness and I probably “suffer” from it to a certain degree, however I had never really spoken to anyone about it until the other day.
One of the sites that we setup is a speed test site for broadband users. The idea is very simple. You go to the site and run a simple test to see how fast your download and upload speeds are.
Of course it’s a free service, but the site is quite heavily branded (or at least I thought it was) with our logo and ads all over it.
The other day I got a call from a gentleman who uses the site on a regular basis. He is not a “techie”, but like so many Irish broadband users he likes to know how fast his connection really is, as opposed to what his ISP is telling him.
Mr X and I had quite a long chat about his requirements and of course I had to ask the question – “How did you find us?”
It transpires that he found us via the speed test site, as I already mentioned, however, what shocked me was that he had been using the site for months and was completely unaware who was behind it and what they did.
I asked him whether he had seen our advertising on the site and his reply was an honest “No – I never really paid any attention to the banners”
I buy advertising space for the company in both print and digital (online) media. People’s “blindness” to online advertising is a matter of some concern to me.
I would not go so far as to say that online advertising is “dead”, or anything like that, but I would wonder how we, as businesses, are going to have to face the challenge of people’s blindness to advertising.
A number of people have mentioned marketing techniques on their blogs in recent weeks and their reflections were very interesting and probably very honest and realistic. Piaras’ latest post rings so true it is almost worrying – it’s as if he had read my mind.
Marketing online (and offline) has to change.
Big fullpage adverts in magazines and newspapers are not without their merits, but they are probably not as successful tools as feedback from an existing client of a company published on a forum or blog.
Guerilla marketing and PR is probably the only way forward unless you have huge financial resources behind your marketing campaigns.
I can only speak from my own experiences working in different areas (I wasn’t always in this sector!) and some things are hard to avoid.
As a CNET article pointed out:
“The entire industry is delivering high-quality products, which are allowing consumers to have more confidence and be more accepting of products earlier on in their life cycle,” Harris analyst Joe Porus said in a statement.
(full article)
Although CNET were talking about technology products and services there is no reason to think that the same is not true of other sectors.
Recent conversations I have had with sales prospects echoes this sentiment.
People are not stupid. They may make stupid choices from time to time, but they do learn from their mistakes and that of their peers. When they go to make a decision on something that is of importance to their business’ day to day functions they assess many different factors before choosing a service provider. However, if some of the recent conversations I’ve had are anything to go by, the difference between the “top” choices is hard.
How can we overcome this perceived difficulty?
I have my own ideas on how I intend to make our offering stand out, but regardless of how successful my plans may be the hard fact remains that the public perception is that there is little difference between their “top” choices. They know who to avoid and what to look for, but once they’ve narrowed their selection down to a few select candidates it is increasingly hard for them to make a “snap” decision.
Price alone is not the deciding factor.
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