Fresh Eye for the Marketing Guy

I have a special favor to request. I'm re-launching my company Web site. Please wander through the beta version and shoot me any input you have about it at any level, from graphics to content. Thanks!

Typically, an email message like that would result in a polite, “Wow, great site—love what you've done to the place.” However, seeing as I was checking email at 4 a.m., I decided that the only way to cure my insomnia was to review yet another Web site from yet another colleague who believed he had cracked the code for cutting through the clutter of consultant gobbledypoop.

Yeah, right. I mean, the company's tagline was “A Strategic Communications Company.” (Have you ever heard of a non-strategic communications company?) The pages had enough sound and fury signifying nothing to make Faulkner weep. I knew better than to look for something clever. But this site was the marketing version of a lobotomy.

The site had “All the Necessary Stuff,” which was the problem—and one that's been replicated faster than those Agent Smiths in the Matrix sequel, albeit with less charisma.

Several years ago, The Cluetrain Manifesto (if you are not familiar with it, get a clue at http://www.cluetrain.com) begged us to get real, be inviting and maybe just a bit dangerous. And while we marketers were exhilarated and intrigued and climbed aboard with aplomb, we've pretty much continued down the same old marketing track.

Time to face facts: our strategies are stale and our customers are exhausted and (worse) bored. We need something in the mix that is enticing, a new approach without all the preservatives and additives. We need marketing that hits home like comfort food.

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Linda Zimmer is CEO and Gary Goldhammer is President of MarCom Interactive (marcominteractive.com), a fresh-baked marketing services and Internet broadcasting firm. Reach them at thepeople@marcominteractive.com.