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Tell me what your company does

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Re: Tell me what your company does

#131

Post by inthewoods »

nicolasehrhardt wrote: post #64

I blame A/B testing actually. Too many folks run experiments without choosing which metric to optimize carefully. Here, marketers probably monitor click-through rates of their main homepage buttons. And unfortunately, if you change the landing page text from a few actually descriptive sentences to the BS described in this article, you probably end up with higher click through rates on your buttons.

Most of the B2B companies I've worked for don't have enough traffic to perform an A/B test in anything short of 6 months.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#132

Post by Aloha »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #124
Xcelerate wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... why is he wrong?

There are a number of reasons some websites do not list prices: 1. Pricing sets the wrong expectation for the true price you may actually pay once you get all the features you need and may not be aware of thus making the sale more difficult. 2. Pricing sets a transactional tone vs a mutually beneficial relationship 3. Pricing anchors your mind set to how much something costs vs how much value / ROI you get out of tha…

Yes - perhaps - but If I'm a small business looking for a thing that does X - I want to know if this is in the ballpark for me - or perhaps this is targeted at someone bigger. Price is a helpful way to determine that - because god knows, you can't figure that out from the marketing gobbledygook on the website anymore. The ROI doesn't matter if you can't afford the investment in the first place.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#133

Post by bluetwo »

dvdhsu wrote: post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

I see what you are saying, and I think you are right in that you have to target decision makers who can sign a check, not engineers who might be the people who use the product.

But I would at least expect a landing page that showed the benefits to an executive, even if it came off as too vague to an engineer type.

The examples here simply don't communicate anything at all.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#134

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

forg0t_username wrote: post #84
dvdhsu wrote: post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

You forget the people in a) who don't have the time to deal with bulshit calls. That's where you're losing leads.

If you can't spend 25 minutes looking for a good fit solution then you are not likely the type of customer anyone wants to deal with in the first place.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#135

Post by bluetwo »

nether wrote: post #105

Here's a fun one, from our very own YCombinator: > The Flex group uses technology to improve the range and fluidity of human expression. We invent new concepts and representations that amplify people’s ability to create, connect, and understand. We create tools that blur the line between using and creating, in order to provide a conversational medium for thinking and doing. What they really do is make graphical progr…

A good example of someone not knowing how to create a benefit.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#136

Post by hoodoof »

My theory is that if you can possibly do it, have no "explainer page", instead just BOOM you are now using the software.

Or maybe have an explainer page offered to the user as a dialogue when they first go to the website.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#137

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

paultopia wrote: post #31

Also, PUT THE PRICES ON THERE. Even more infuriating than a company that won't tell you what they do is a company that tells you what they do and then demands you contact them to be salespersoned at before they'll tell you the price. Fuck you, no.

You don't understand anything about business do you?

Re: Tell me what your company does

#139

Post by flukus »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #137
paultopia wrote: post #31

Also, PUT THE PRICES ON THERE. Even more infuriating than a company that won't tell you what they do is a company that tells you what they do and then demands you contact them to be salespersoned at before they'll tell you the price. Fuck you, no.

You don't understand anything about business do you?

I understand they aren't getting my business without prices listed. I don't get to make any multi-million dollar decisions (except maybe in the extreme long term) but several times I've been tasked with research problems where commercial software or external services may be part of the solution. The ones with no prices get taken out of the evaluation process because I can't evaluate if they're feasible or not.
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