Watching the “computer-screen episode” (“Connection Lost” Season 6, Episode 16) of the situation comedy Modern Family can provide lessons related to the challenge small business marketers (and marketers at businesses of any size) face when trying to reach customers online.
“Watching the episode is a lesson in how people
rarely use technology the way marketers imagine.”
Fortunately, the lessons are delivered with great humor and deftness. The entire episode is presented as if the viewer is looking over the shoulder of the character Claire Dunfey’s as she uses the internet to solve a family crisis.
What can a small business marketer learn by looking over Claire’s shoulder?
(Note: The following contains NO spoilers.)
Seeing Claire use her computer–and recognizing in it how we each use our various computing devices, but perhaps not as expertly as Claire–reveals the flaws in so much of what we are led to believe are the ways marketing should take place on the digital screens and devices many of us use in our jobs every day and night.
- We are led to believe that reaching customers online is all about Google ads or social media or posting photos and video.
- We are led to believe that having a website that is designed a certain way (often referred to with terms like “usability”) will be preferred by visitors to our business websites.
- We are led to believe that paragraphs need to be a certain length or contain specific words or we won’t have the appropriate optimization for Google, that we’re going to somehow flunk SEO.
Watching the episode is a lesson in how people rarely use technology the way marketers imagine.
Watching Claire expertly bounce between applications and web content should remind us that users come to our company websites for a purpose, and rarely is that purpose to marvel at how wonderful our website looks. They judge a site on how quickly and accurately it provides some utility or knowledge, not on what typeface is used or colors we’ve used.
That said, it is also insightful that Claire, in her few seconds of trying to find sanctuary from the crisis being dealt with in the show, goes to a website that is a product-oriented e-commerce site that is beautifully designed.
Most important, the episode underscores the reality that a growing percentage of time spent online by customers will continue to migrate to mobile. In the same way marketers have had to shift their understanding of marketing to a digital, networked world, they must now shift their understanding of marketing to a digital, networked world that is primarily on the smallest of screens we use.
No longer is the competition for your customer’s time the commercial airing on another channel or at a store down the street. Competition now comes from a multi-front battle for attention we’re only now beginning to comprehend.
Bottomline: Customers use websites, they don’t merely visit them. Making sure your website serves customers in the context of their busy lives is the highest priority of your online marketing. Take care of that first before chasing fads and trends.