Over at Merlin Mann's 43 Folders website - he has a great page called simply called HowTo: (http://www.43folders.com/howto) whose purpose is to challenge its visitors by asking why they have visited his site today. The subtext being to help you A) decide if you really needed to visit this site; B) what do you actually want, no really, what do you want!
The tone of voice used is that of an impatient, ever-so-important, person who immediately wants to know if you are serious or not; a straight-talking, no bull, cut-to-the-chase kind of person. Allow me to give you an example, the website opens with a very bold statement to frame the page's intent: [this page is] "A very simple guide to leaving here quickly so you can get back to making something awesome."
This almost irked me, but it didn't, because as I scanned down the page I was presented with a question: What Sucks? This question made me stop, in my tracks, and really think before progressing. This put me in the right frame of mind to
This is just brilliant, he is really asking ME what sucks today, with the promise of answers - I was hooked - and now I am thinking how we can adopt this and by using our own tone of use this for our own website and those of our clients.
Thing about it how could you pose a simple question, with a personal set of possible answers that relates to your business, brand, service... Could, In fact, you the what sucks question? Here is my initial thinking for i-KOS's (a digital agency) under the banner 'What Sucks?' to thus direct views to the "answer"
- My website sucks
- My CMS sucks
- My marketing sucks
- My SEO sucks
- My branding sucks
- My colleagues really suck and we need new ideas fast
- My e-mail marketing is non-existent and this sucks
- My understanding of analytics sucks
- Our PPC campaign sucks so much we concluded it doesn't work
As you could tell I started getting into this towards the end of the list. Anyhow I will update this post as we develop this kernel of an idea and inspiration into our own website which we hope inspires others.
You should follow Myles on Twitter (www.twitter.com/mylesdavidson) to carry on the conversation and you can add to this blog by posting comments, asking questions or challenging my thinking.
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