Making it sticky.
Back in the eyeballs are everything era, one of the big objectives was to make whatever you were doing sticky. The theory being, if through customization, sign ups, and whatever, the customer got all set up; they would be less likely to move to another offering that competed with you.
Like everything during Tulip Mania 2.0, this sticky stuff was misunderstood, mis-used, abused, and generally didn't produce the desired results.
The lasting legacy of that sticky stuff is the insane sign up, click here, etc, etc crap that web sites put in your way to when you want to get something they want to give you.
You Software remains my prime example of a web site done right. Email and phone numbers on the home page right along with no hassle downloads of stuff they want you to try out. Well done.
Consider this simple scenario:
Like me, you probably use on-line travel sites to get hotels, air, etc. Also, like me, you get confirmation emails that typically have generic subject lines like "booking confirmation."
We could rant on the mindless nature of companies who can't spend some brain cells making the subject lines meaningful, but that's for another day.
Here's how I solve the problem. When the email arrives, I open it, click on the subject line, edit it to something meaningful, hit the escape key and say yes when Outlook asks if I want to save changes.
Then I toss it into a folder named travel and I'm done. No more looking at endless generic subject lines or dealing with the reading preview pane trying to find something.
The above just works as a default in Outlook 2003.
Now, the Type A's in the crowd are already saying, I know this, yeah, so, I'm reading this blog why?
Well, as it turns out, most people don't know this. Most people just file inbound email and deal with the fallout if they need to hunt for something. In fact if you google "outlook tips" and "subject line", you get about 232 hits with only two that mention what I've previously laid out.
There are two points here.
The first is that sticky can be the simple everyday things that are already in the product. Sticky can also be defined as comfortable.
People who get comfortable with something don't like to change. They get into habits around that comfort and it takes a big big effort to move em off it.
And here's a hint, free isn't always the solution. Just because it's free, doesn't make it comfortable for the customer to use.
The second point concerns corporate blogging. A current 'big thought' running around is this notion that corporate blogging puts a human face on big faceless companies.
The example often pointed to is uber blogger Robert Scoble who works for a small software company in the Pacific Northwest.
With respect, I think the jury is out on Scoble's impact in or out of Microsoft.
While entertaining and interesting, I'm not sure anybody really knows the long term value of his activities as it relates to the company's business. Don't flame me. I've never met the guy, am not taking a shot, and haven't drawn any conclusions. It's probably like chicken soup, it couldn't hurt.
In my view, the best corporate blogs are those that help the customers get comfortable with your offering.
I'm much more interested in knowing that every Office product uses F7 for spell check, Ctl-B for bolding something, etc, vs. the internal saga on whatever.
I'd also like to know what kinds of rules people who built Outlook use to filter mail. It's a safe bet they know how to build rules in ways I don't. Armed with this knowledge, my Outlook experience will be more comfortable and I'm less likely to shift.
That type of blog can, I believe, present direct value to the company and the customer. Again, I'm not saying people blogs are bad rather customers, I believe, want comfort first, then the social aspects of who sold em the product.
This applies to any product/offering not just Microsoft's.
Taking the time to build an RSS feed with Tips -n- Tricks about your offering is a great way to get customers to stick around.
Comments