I'm so tired of the ego-busters. These kinds of generalizations are so 2001. Look, some people do care. The people promoting it.
In this community, the same population of people are promoting blog posts that say no one cares about your website while also promoting blog posts that say, "Code doesn't matter, you have to market your website!"
Well, seriously. Which is it? Do you want people to market their website or keep their traps shut?
My opinion, I love hearing about people's creations. I love hearing about things that are new and vibrant and created by passionate people.
I can't figure out if you didn't read the article or just totally missed the point.
He isn't talking about coming to a site like HN and posting a "hey, take a look at my new webapp" thread, where people want to give you feedback and try out your new site. Instead, he gives two specific examples where some web designer or online department's pride got in the way of him accomplishing the task he came to the site to do in the first place.
The point of the post is about customer messaging. When you're talking to your customers, you should focus on the things that matter to them, not to you. The redesign of your newsletter very rarely falls into that category, and cheering loudly about it just looks clueless.
My girlfriend is on tour right now and the last time I went to visit her she was excited that she got a new plant. Now I personally didn't see what the big deal was but I was there with a friend of hers and they went on for about an hour on how plants "brighten up a room" and such.
Point of the story: Some people do care about things like new design and the authors of the e-mail, the one's this blog author accuses of being marketing hacks who don't speak from the heart, are probably in fact speaking from the heart. Because some people care deeply about aesthetics.
In other words the author of the blog post mistakes "I don't care" for "no one cares" and that's why he is, imho, wrong.
It's funny, I wouldn't mind being told about someone's new site design, but I would mind if it was some company "interrupting" (seriously? e-mail isn't real-time; I must have the metaphor wrong; why do I think of it as an interruption?) me to tell me about it. A third party can say, "Hey, check out this guy's redesign" and it's news, but when it comes straight from the company, I for some reason don't want it, unless I have established ferocious brand loyalty with them, like Nintendo, and their e-mails to me feel intimate (like I'm part of an in-group and they get me and I get them) instead of markety (unlike Nintendo, which feels spammy)
Edit: What introspective drivel is this? Nobody cares what I think about whether or not anybody cares what anybody thinks about anybody's website.
Oh, I mean no offense to you. It's always better to post links than to hesitate. Let the community decide. But always try to bring good stuff to the community.
I think this [edited to add: meaning Air New Zealand's marketing team thinking that previous customers would care to receive a mail saying they updated their website] is a consequence of certain people involved in the creative process wanting to know that what they do matters. However, since many of them are fundamentally old-school marketers, their metric for matters is Successful Product Launch and to do a Successful Product Launch you have to make a lot of noise. Indeed, absence of noise means a failure.
Six weeks later it isn't their problem anymore.
This is not how I would suggest thinking about web design for most people here. Web design supports business goals. Redesigns support business goals. You measure business goals, when they go up as a result of a redesign, you bust out the freaking party hats. When your talented design firm goes off and produces a heartbreaking work of staggering genius that succeeds in reducing conversion by 23%, you thank them for their time, exchange a firm handshake, and do the next project better.
Now, as a fact of life, you are probably going to learn that "pretty" and "converts well" have very little to do with each other, and that a lot of iterative improvement beats the everloving stuffing out of big-bang redesigns. (Don't take my word for it. Collect data and run the numbers. I'm right, but your designers won't believe me until they see the numbers. They probably won't believe me after they see the numbers, either. That is when you fire them.)
I know a lot of designers chafe under the notion that the best possible use of their time is probably creating 96 different versions of the signup button in slightly different shades of red to test against each other. Yeah, life sucks that way -- I didn't get into CS to do SQL optimization for CRUD reports, either. I suggest taking up a hobby. When you're on the clock, do productive work.
A lot of people are attacking the article, but aren't really engaging with its central point:
If you run a bricks and mortar business, you don't need to notify people to tell them that you've redesigned your website. Your customers are probably not interested in your website, except as an analog/support for your core business. If the redesign makes their life easier, they'll notice. If not, they probably won't care. In either case, they'll find out soon enough.
I am reminded of the orientation for a volunteer organization I was a part of. They served lots of Vietnamese, and one of the experienced volunteers was explaining little differences in culture.
"And this thing with saying 'Thank You' -- in our culture we do not thank people for doing what they are supposed to do. And when we get the electric bill, and it says previous payment...Thank You for Your Payment! We think -- who are they kidding!?"
"I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it!"
I took the tone of the article as quasi-facetious, but there is a kernel of truth to it. The fact is that for the most part visitors don't really care how a website looks as much as we care about the content on it. People usually get to sites from Google search results, and Google only sees content, not fancy graphics, transparency, and rounded corners.
The company I work for (to remain nameless) makes millions from generic community forums and website acquisitions that haven't been redesigned since the first internet boom. When we redesign them it is mainly to convert them to vBulletin for forums or a cms for other sites, or Windows/ColdFusion/ASP to LAMP. Updating the look of a site is a byproduct of improving the user experience and maximizing revenue, never an end in itself.
I'm a little bit tired of how many blogs out there are trying to grab my attention with blustery 'ground breaking' opinions about how the iphone is actually crap or how Twitter doesn't work or how customers don't care about anything or won't pay for anything or will pay for things or how any other number of attention getting subjects that waste my time and leave me cold. I've got a ground breaking opinion I want to share with tech and marketing bloggers: If you've got nothing of substance to say, please don't post anything this week. It takes me half the article to realize you're full of hot air and there isn't enough time in the day.
I read things like the and just think "oh, get over yourself".. So you've put yourself above email marketing? Just be content that your smart enough to know Air NZ isn't actually a good friend of yours. We all get it..
I don't believe these companies think anyone would really care if they have a redesigned site or newsletter, I think it's more about having a reason - any reason - to contact you with something more than a ticker tape of latest fares/deals (even if it's all we really want).
It's easy enough to be shrewd about marketing, but it's working on someone.. Someone else of course!
I think it typically boils down to the following: "We spent quite a bit of money on the website/newsletter redesign that we need to justify. The big bosses want to make sure we promote it"
I'm so tired of the ego-busters. These kinds of generalizations are so 2001. Look, some people do care. The people promoting it.
In this community, the same population of people are promoting blog posts that say no one cares about your website while also promoting blog posts that say, "Code doesn't matter, you have to market your website!"
Well, seriously. Which is it? Do you want people to market their website or keep their traps shut?
My opinion, I love hearing about people's creations. I love hearing about things that are new and vibrant and created by passionate people.