Here’s a case of great design that isn’t remotely successful. The email below is one I received from Network Solutions recently. It’s not that it looks bad, it’s not that the information in the email isn’t accurate or easy to read. The problem is that it’s certainly not targeted at someone like me. But it is rather insulting to me, and has absolutely no chance of getting results from me. Now I’ll grant you that the average consumer isn’t as knowledgable about this subject matter as I am, and it’s a mass-email sent to (presumably) hundreds of thousand of people. But they sent it to me, and it’s a great example.
A nicely designed email advertisement? Only if I’m an Internet idiot.
As you can see above, the email’s primary message is that Network Solutions offers Cloud-based hosting. The main message is also the main problem. Can you tell me what hosting (from any Internet Hosting Provider) is NOT cloud-based? Of course not. All hosting is cloud-based, otherwise nobody but you could see it. Duh! Let’s move on to the next problem. Apparently they think I’m blind and wouldn’t notice the fact that the $5.99 per month is only for the first three months. No mention of what it is after, not even in the disclaimer. I could spend an hour listing the reliable hosting companies that offer cheaper prices than $5.99. Clearly they’re hoping I don’t do research before paying for a service. The fun doesn’t stop there…
Next I am told that I’ll receive powerful features like FTP, popular programming languages, a blog, online file sharing, and storage. Wow. Storage! Considering that every hosting company offers FTP where you’ll have storage which you can use to set up a blog and share files, I’m not sold yet.
To be thorough, they go on to tell me that they offer free domain name, 1,000 mailboxes, 300GB of storage, unlimited data transfer, and FTP accounts. Again, most every hosting company offers these items. In fact, my current hosting provider offers more of everything they list for half the price.
But wait, there’s more! I can get a free website builder tool (which nearly all hosting accounts offer), worry-free uptime reliability (which nearly all hosting companies have), and access to a huge open source library – though I’m not sure dozens constitutes huge. To top it off, they offer affordable tech support. Hmmm. I’m hard-pressed to find a hosting company that doesn’t offer free tech support.
Now let’s look at this same email ad again, only I’ve blacked out all the completely useless, over-hyped, and utterly meaningless bullshit.
The only remaining information they have left to rely on that I don’t think is worthless bullshit to sell me on their service. What do you think their chances are? Not much, eh!
See what I’m getting at here? This email, was a really nice design. Unfortunately it was wasted by providing the wrong sales pitch to the target (me). There are numerous things they could have sold me on, but they chose to use a cheap, predictable, and relatively basic feature list to sell a high-end user. They clearly didn’t target this advertisement.
The worst offense… I already use Network Solutions as my domain registrar. They KNOW I already have hosting, and who it’s with, because my domain is pointing to the hosting company’s servers. Had they used the very same layout and design, but offered something useful to me (security certificates, anonymous registrar info, or any number of other premium services), this email might have been successful.
At the other end of the spectrum, my current hosting provider’s website is fairly ugly. But it speaks to both novice and professional users in a clear and simple manner. Because they listed power-features right up-front, the design though ugly, was successful.