I read an interesting article on editorialemergency.com that really hit home. I’ve seen this type of behavior on many Web site development projects that I have been involved with:

http://www.editorialemergency.com/content/view/181/51

The premise of the article is that people often come to marketers (print, Web, whatever) and say that they want to stand out, do something different, and capture people’s attention. So the creative team goes off and produces a design or copy that is edgy, unique, or different in some way, and often when presented with it, the client will shy away from moving forward and wants to revert back to what they see everyone else in their industry doing.

When organizations do something different, there is often the fear that they will turn someone off, or perhaps that they will not appeal to a broad enough audience. It’s that fear that produces bland designs and jargon-laden copy. If you are using the same style as everyone else, why would a customer choose you over your competitors? If you are willing to stake your business on luck, then go with that approach.

I believe the key is to first identify your target audience (everyone is not a target audience) and then find out what makes them tick. What do they respond to? Once you know that, don’t be afraid to get creative. There are too many other voices out there, and you can’t afford for yours not to stand out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Marketing & PR, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.