Over the course of my life I have seen two movies that I wanted my money back for. These movies stand at the top of my list for the pinnacle of awful. The first (and most terrible) is Miami Vice with Colin Farrel and Jamie Foxx. Seriously, the whole movie they just walk around making one face.
- Example One:
- Example Two:
- Example Three:
- Example Four:
And, just to drive my point home, here are the movie posters:
It’s like watching a tragic version of Zoolander. But enough of my seething hatred for that movie, let’s move on the the topic: Napoleon Dynamite, and fear not intrepid readers for this is relevant to web marketing.
Napoleon Dynamite was a critically acclaimed film focused on quirky humor and the growth of the socially awkward teen. That right there is enough to send me into a mouth-frothing bile-spewing rage (take that Michael Cera). Anyways, the main reason I am not a fan of Napoleon Dynamite (aside from the stupid voice, character development, and general pain involved with watching that movie) is the complete lack of plot. Now before all the fanboys/girls out there start telling me that is the point of the movie, I would like to point out that I know this. My point is this: while critically acclaimed, the only thing memorable about Napoleon Dynamite is a single character. And while Napoleon himself might live on, the movie will not. It will fade into obscurity to be studied in film school as “how to get away with selling a one-trick pony 102”.
While thirty years from now “give me some of your tots… gosh” might still be uttered by the neo-hipsters who think of 2004 as retro, the movie will be dead and buried. So how does this apply to web marketing? Well let’s look at the structure of a good comedy. An outstanding comedy has great characters, great non-sequential jokes, and a great plot. Napoleon had ok characters, “great” non-sequential jokes (I guess), and no graspable plot. It was missing two of the three components.
So, this brings me to web marketing. If you have ok design, great seo, and no social then you will go the way of Napoleon. You will find yourself with a large spike in traffic for a while. But people will eventually spend the time to look at your site and find that it is poorly designed. This will ultimately drive them away. When they go to tell you about it they will find no social channels to do so. You have just lost your customer.
Which brings me to my final point: if you want prolonged service with strong conversion and a strong brand online, you need to have all three parts of the web marketing puzzle. And that is not all; they need to work together to achieve the highest traffic and conversion possible. The whole idea behind web marketing is synergy, and if you cannot get all three pieces together then you might see a spike in traffic, but it will amount to nothing and your site will ultimately fade into obscurity and your only repeat viewer will be this guy:
I hate that guy.