Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking Deliver Awesome Results for Users. Their eNewsletter. Not So Much.

In perhaps the ultimate  irony, I am using Dragon Dictate from Nuance to write this blog post which criticizes their eNewsletters.  I use Dragon Dictate to compose 80 to 90% of everything that I write from blog posts to book content.   So, it does pain me a bit to brand their eNewsletter as mediocre.

Oddly, even though their eNewsletter is a major missed content marketing opportunity, Nuance has a tremendous amount of content available. As an example, they have a wonderful series of YouTube videos that teach you how to get the most out of Dragon  Naturally Speaking, the PC version of their software.  That’s compelling because, although dictation is the most critical component of their software, you can also use Dragon to  search the web, give application commands, find documents, etc.  In addition to the YouTube content, their website actually provides very useful and well organized training tools to get you started and to turn you into an advanced user.

In other words, they have a ton of raw material that could make for an incredibly useful and compelling E-news letter that would be must reading whenever it arrived in your inbox.  Alas, hardly any of that content found its way into their May 2012 eNewsletter.

5 Ways Their Newsletter Misses the Content Marketing Boat

1.  Their email header gives you no information about the content of the eNewsletter itself. For those of us who receive tons of e-mails every day, we need a headline that hits us on the head about why we have to open this e-mail right now.
2.  The eNewsletter itself has no headline that clues us into compelling content to follow. Headlines! We need headlines!
3. 2 of the 3 lead stories are really all about Nuance. The 1st story urges us to buy a Dragon product for our mom if she happens to be a PC user (of course, this newsletters aimed at Mac users).  I’m not sure that moms, generally speaking are the ideal target for Nuance products.The 2nd story asks us to ‘Like’ them on Facebook.  Why?  Well, so they can “keep you up to date on all the latest happening, special deals and offers, and much more.”   Why not offer to tell us how to use our Dragon product more effectively?Finally, the 3rd story is a great case study about a gentleman with Parkinson’s disease who uses Dragon Dictate to stay productive in spite of his illness. This is terrific and inspirational.
4. The newsletter is chock-full of words–more than 800 of them–but  essentially bereft of useful tips on how to use the product.  In fact, the only tip offered is a minor process point that even a casual user would certainly know.  And, that comes three quarters of the way down the newsletter page.
5.  Although the newsletter refers to a number  of useful resources, the reader is forced to click on a link to their website without knowing exactly what help will be available at the end of that link.  In fact, there is great stuff on the Dragon website. But, that’s not obvious from the content of the newsletter.   The newsletter could and should have been chock-full of tips that, in turn, linked to their website, to YouTube, to Facebook, etc.

 Deliver Great Content That’s All About Your Customers

Unlike Lynda Foster’s helpful and inspirational Monday morning newsletter, the Dragon folks make us work way too hard to find nuggets of useful information. Moreover, whereas Lynda’s newsletter is all about her customers and colleagues, the Dragon newsletter is mostly about Dragon.  The good news for entrepreneurs, who are also content marketers, is that you can clobber even large companies by delivering great information that reflects the needs of your target customers.

 Nuance has terrific products that I love and use every day.  If they would create a monthly eNewsletter that’s just as terrific and targeted to the needs of their customers, they would directly benefit both their customers and themselves.

Tens of Thousands of Disappointed Users Expected Much More from Jeff Bezos and His Crew

As many content marketing thought leaders have pointed out, Amazon is a superb content marketer. When it comes to books, for example, the content they provide increasingly replicates and replaces the individual attention that independent stores have provided for hundreds of years. Amazon learns what you like, makes great suggestions, invite you to participate in evaluating books, music, videos, and tons of other products.

Although they were not the first to deliver an e-reader, the Kindle quickly came to dominate the e-book marketplace. Moreover, Amazon was brilliant to enable Kindle functionality on your PC, on iPad, on an iPhone on a Android phone, and pretty much anywhere you are likely to consume books.

So, naturally, those of us who are genuine Amazon fans expected much more From the hugely hyped Kindle Fire.

I, along with hundreds of thousands of other Amazon fans, pre-ordered the Kindle Fire, expecting that it would be the kind of game changer represented by the original Kindle. Imagine my surprise to find that it was deeply flawed. I believe that these flaws stem from the critical content marketing rule that Amazon violated with the Kindle Fire:

They didn’t understand their customers’ needs.

It’s safe to say that many buyers of the Kindle Fire are already users of the iPhone, the iPad or a smart Android device.  Moreover, a high percentage certainly read Kindle books on non-Kindle devices. They are used to Amazon’s open approach to delivering content.

Therefore, their expectations would include a high level of tablet computing functionality and a first-rate set of apps that would at least come close to matching what the iPad delivers.  I can only assume that Amazon figured that a $300 savings versus the base iPad would dramatically lower expectations from customers. If so, that was a most unfortunate assumption.

How did they abuse us? Let me count the ways:

• the Fire suffers from a generally cumbersome interface that only reinforces how good Apple is at making it easy for their iPad and iPhone users to be super functional, almost from the get-go.
• they overhyped the Silk browser, which turned out to be very slow–in fact, dramatically slower than the Safari browser on the iPad and iPhone.
• The Wi-Fi antenna requires a very strong signal to deliver acceptable throughput.
• The homepage with the scrolling set of icons representing most recently opened content is pretty lame
• And, the fact that you cannot delete any of those icons means that every family member will know what every other family member was doing on the Fire.
• Because you set up one-click ordering with no password, your kids–or pretty much anyone–could purchase what ever Amazon sells. Yikes!
• The Amazon app store is missing some of the most popular apps that are available on the iPad, iPhone and even the Android marketplace. To get at this stuff, you can sideload or jailbreak the Fire, but that’s not something the typical user is capable of doing.

How are users reacting? Not very favorably judging by the reviews on Amazon.com. More than 20% give one or two star reviews. That represents a lot of very unhappy customers. Here is a representative comment from a 2-star reviewer, who otherwise loves Amazon:

The bottom line is it’s just not the Kindle I have come to know and absolutely loooooove…I soooo wanted to love the Fire but was just disappointed and became more and more so as I kept using it…printed out the return label already…I ordered the Kindle Touch for my mom for Christmas so I’m going to see what it’s like (hopefully it’s exactly like my old Kindle Keyboard 3G except with a touch keyboard instead of the physical one) and if I like it then I will order the Touch 3G for myself. If it is also a disappointment then I’ll go back to the Kindle Keyboard 3G. Rarely ever disappointed with an Amazon purchase but seriously so with the Kindle Fire.

Amazon has shown in so many ways over so many years that it loves and understands its customers. But the Kindle Fire demonstrates that, at least this once, it has broken the vital content marketing rule, "Understand your customers."

I, and zillions of others, are still pretty confident that Amazon will listen to the cries of customer dismay and respond quickly and appropriately. Their customer understanding will have come late, but hopefully not too late to salvage a product with so much potential.

Let’s hope that it does not become the Yugo of tablet computers.

Learn What Not to Do from One Very Boring News Release

Press releases still pack a punch for marketers.

With content rich releases, smart marketers engage not only the press, but thousands of customers as well. But, ineffective press releases benefit neither a company nor its customers.

As with so many things, it’s probably easier to explain what’s important in a press release than it is to execute effectively. Fortunately, it’s much more common sense than it is rocket science.

Effective press releases incorporate core content marketing concepts:

• Understand your customers’ information needs
• Create content that responds precisely to those information needs
• Explain how you can solve their problems whether personal or professional
• Make that content immediately engaging with a strong, benefit-laden
  • headline
  • subhead
  • first paragraph
• Be certain that the lead-off content is all about the customer and not all about your company.
• When it’s time to talk about your company, make sure your unique benefits shine through.

Much of this may seem obvious. But it’s surprising how many marketing professionals seem to get it wrong. This makes for an awful lot of ineffective press releases that sit around mostly unread, cluttering the Internet.

Lessons to Learn from a Snooze-Inducing Press Release

The good news is that we can learn from both great press releases–those that are not quite so great. In the latter category, see if you can figure out what you might take away from the following, real-life news release headline:

BDD Corporation Plans to Utilize Twitter Research 

Unfortunately, this headline gives us almost no reason to continue reading further. And, it doesn’t get much better as the press release proceeds.

Unless we already know the company, we cannot even guess at how they might use Twitter research to our benefit. The headline does not explain how they will use Twitter research nor why they are using it.

Following the headline, we get a quote which essentially serves as a subhead. But, we are still left hanging in terms of precisely how a prospective customer might benefit:

Twitter has announced the release of a new "viral research" technique. BDD Marketing and Management plan to incorporate these techniques into future SEO marketing strategies.

Although we learn that "viral" and "SEO marketing" are somehow involved, we still don’t really know how this new tool will solve the marketing problems of a potential customer.

In the first paragraph that follows, we get a bit more information, learning that "The new form of online research is a new social search platform used to research trends and feeds of twitter accounts all over the world."  Okay. But, how exactly would a customer put this research tool to work?

The next paragraph essentially narrates the story of the company that created the tool, which it says is aimed at "marketing professionals and business owners… And that it "will allow users to be able to gather information from a unique 1% of their potential customers."  What does that mean: “1% of their potential customers?”

It’s not until the third paragraph that we learn that it will enable business owners to better understand their target audiences and shape marketing, events, and social media practices around the likes and dislikes of users.

It Takes Way Too Long to Tell Customers Very Little

We still don’t know exactly what makes this new tool uniquely important. After all, isn’t all research designed to let us know our customers better? We need specificity. We want an example of a unique, powerful insight that was gleaned from this tool. We want a client company to tell us  precisely how they benefited.

Oddly, after these first several paragraphs the press release veers into talking about a completely different research tool that has absolutely no connection to the headline of the press release. It appears to be designed to reinforce the devotion of BDD to leading edge research tools. That’s good. But, it’s much more about the company than the customer.

The Final Paragraph That Provides BDD’s Company Information Leaves Us Hanging, Too

We learn only that "BDD Marketing and Management is a full-service company. Founded on a deep value system and backed by a highly motivated staff, BDD is a company with a fully customizable menu of business options to fit every need."

Yes, but what exactly do they do? What makes them unique? What sort of full-service company are they? Do they offer absolutely every kind of customizable business option for every need?

BDD probably has a strong set of core capabilities and has done great work for its customers. Unfortunately, this press release pretty much leaves us guessing… Guessing about how we would benefit from the new research tool… And guessing about what makes this company uniquely valuable to solving our marketing needs.

A Missed PR Opportunity That Great Content Would Have Solved

We don’t really know why the headlined research tool would deliver a unique benefit to a business customer. Sadly, there is probably a great story buried somewhere about the new research tool that would have engaged all of us who are desperate to really understand our customers.  All of us, would have devoured that story from start to finish.

Your Content Marketing Must Make It Easy for Your Customers to Understand How You Benefit Them

You may not love Apple or Steve Jobs or their groundbreaking series of  iPhones first launched in 2007 Conversely, you may love much of what Microsoft has brought us in terms of operating systems and office productivity applications.

But, it’s hard not to love the way Steve Jobs keeps it simple and compelling as he introduced the iPhone 4 at their Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2010.  And, it’s hard to find much to love about Steve Ballmer’s own recent presentation on their upcoming smartphone strategy.

So, when you present information, I recommend emulating the Jobs’ simple and graphical approach: Few words and powerful images.

He begins his introduction of the iPhone 4 by saying that it has more than 100 new features but that "I get to cover eight of them with you." He says it simply and colloquially. He doesn’t use gobbledygook speech, as Steve Ballmer does below. Behind Steve initially is the giant word "iPhone" which then segues into his first point, "the first one: all new design."

To reinforce each of his points, the screen behind him shows huge images of the iPhone and of its specific features.

Basically, you have a very smart guy explaining in a non-highfalutin way why we would be crazy not to buy the new iPhone 4.

Microsoft: Complicated Visuals and Convoluted Explanations, Oh My!

Contrast that with some slides that were part of Microsoft’s recent analyst’s conference.  There is a awful lot going on with both his slides and his explanations

This is the Windows Phone 7 Slide

Huh?

Here is Steve explaining some Microsoft strategy elements:

Part of what we’ll be doing is driving kind of integrated set of thinking, branding. We’ll be really aggressively marketing Windows Phone. Both Windows PCs in all form factors and Windows Phones will get pretty aggressive marketing support, if you will.

Huh?

If you think I’m all way off base, you can watch Steve Ballmer’s analyst presentation.

Admittedly, he did have to address a complex set of product  issues. Nonetheless, he could have used more, but simpler slides so that viewers would walk away with a clear understanding of the core elements of Microsoft smartphone strategy. For example, in the Windows Phone 7 slide above, it has no headline and no clear focus. I have no idea what to take away from this slide. Imagine how much explanation would be required to clarify what this slide actually meant.

By contrast , I’ll bet that most viewers of the iPhone 4 presentation will remember specific visuals and most of the eight new features on which Steve Jobs focused.

The key to content marketing–and presentation–success is to keep it simple, make it visual, and focus on the most important and memorable points that will be beneficial to your customers.

On the other hand, to paraphrase an old aphorism about advertising that may well apply to Microsoft , " If you can’t create a compelling presentation for your product, you have a product problem, not a presentation problem.”

Gulfshore Insurance Shows They Care How the Hottest Issue in a Generation Impacts Their Clients.  Big Bank/Insurance Giant Ignores It.

I think we can all agree that the health insurance reform legislation of 2010 will touch each and every one of us. It will impact both businesses and individuals.

If you are a business owner, it is vital that you understand how it will affect you and your employees.  Why? Because, unless you are a very small business, you will either have to provide healthcare insurance or pay a penalty for failing to do so. You will have to make some tough decisions in the years to come about how to handle your employees’ health insurance needs.

Because of the dramatic impact of this legislation, there is an urgent need for comprehensive and understandable information so that business owners can plan intelligently.

This creates a uniquely powerful opportunity to provide relevant and compelling content for your current and prospective customers. You can demonstrate thought leadership at a time when business owners are desperate to find an information source they can trust.

One local agency is doing exactly that.  Gulfshore Insurance in Naples, Florida is doing a superb job of content marketing at the exact moment that the health insurance paradigm shift looms large for everyone in the United States.

When you go to their website, you can find a broad range of information about the kinds of insurance coverage they provide, how they help you manage risk, and exactly who they are. That is always important.

But, what is urgent right now–and for years to come–is trustworthy content about healthcare reform. Gulfshore Insurance brings that information front and center on their homepage with their Health Reform Tools and Resources link. 

That link leads you to a wealth of information that is both comprehensive and timely. In the case of health reform, timeliness is vital because so much is undecided, in process, and apparently changeable.

The timeline chart below is a great example of the hard work they have done to help their clients understand what’s in store.

In short, Gulfshore Insurance is executing a content marketing strategy that genuinely benefits their customers and will therefore benefit to them well into the future.

Billion-Dollar Bank/Insurance Agency Completely Misses the Same Once-In-A-Lifetime Content Marketing Opportunity

BB&T is a huge regional bank which has in recent years acquired numerous local insurance agencies. In Southwest Florida, they bought an excellent local firm whose management team and employees continue to provide great products and services.

Unfortunately,  they are missing an unprecedented opportunity to show authentic thought leadership. During this turbulent time in American history when healthcare and healthcare insurance is changing forever, they are missing in action online.

If you go to the old local web address or the parent company insurance agency address, you will find absolutely nothing about healthcare reform. Moreover, they have eliminated any kind of local information on the website to tell you about the kinds of professionals that you would deal with in Southwest Florida.  If you drill down several layers, you can find telephone numbers to call but no e-mail or individual contact information. Even worse, they tell you absolutely nothing about the local company.   If I were not already familiar with that company, I would be at a complete loss to know why I should become a client.

The bottom line:

The Good–

• Gulfshore Insurance is showing authentic thought leadership that will resonate with clients and prospects for years to come.
• By providing lots of relevant, localized information, Gulfshore Insurance enables search engines to rank them highly and prospective clients to find them easily .
• Gulfshore Insurance shows up high on the first page of local search results for terms such as health insurance, business insurance, and personal insurance. Great content has a lot to do with that.

The Bad–

• BB&T has lost that same once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show thought leadership and engender trust.
• They provide almost no information about their local presence in Southwest Florida.
• Their search engine performance is abysmal. Neither their current website address nor the predecessor local website shows up at all when you search for health insurance in Fort Myers or Naples–our two largest local markets.

If Your Visitors Have To Search for It, They Won’t.

I continue to be surprised by the number of marketing and advertising companies who have websites that hide examples of the great work that they do behind a bunch of content clichés that fail to distinguish them from every other similar company. 

I recently stumbled upon the website of such a company who is missing its primary content marketing opportunity. They have great stuff, but it’s really hard to find.

Content marketing is all about providing relevant, compelling, and easily accessible information to your prospective customers.

In this case, what is genuinely relevant and compelling is the work that this agency has done on behalf of of its clients. That  visual content represents potential solutions to the problems that its Web visitors are facing.Unfortunately, the content that counts is lurking behind some same old, same old verbiage.

The copy below is from the actual website that I happened upon  They appear to do some really good work. But,  as a potential client, I would have to be truly driven to find that work. First, I would have to wade through all the generic copy that promises pretty much what any good marketing/advertising company could do for me :

“Fill in the Blank” Advertising Company creates custom marketing solutions from strategy through execution to help build and transform your business needs. Let us get to know you inside and out. Let us become instrumental in helping you develop breakthrough solutions to meet your brand objectives and increase your profits. With smart planning & execution, we strengthen your image and reputation as the world around us changes. Change is reality.

We differentiate your company from the competition……

A genuine irony flows from the website copy that makes the promise: "We differentiate your company from the competition."  Sadly, there is almost nothing in the copy that differentiates this agency from its competition.

Actually,  there is a differentiation to be found on this website–but not easily found. That differentiation consists of the proof behind the copy clichés, that is, the actual work that this agency has done. But, you have to struggle to hard-to-find it.

Making It Too Hard to Get to What Really Matters

To get to the good stuff,  you must click on a small  link called, "The Work,"  that sits at the bottom of the page. There, you will find a wealth of visual examples of excellent marketing and advertising projects done for a broad range of companies from relatively small to very very large.  You can even watch videos of commercials that are memorably amusing and interesting.

Moreover, the agency’s work examples include several very well-known brands that add implicit credibility to their skills and experience.

There is another missed opportunity, however. In an era of quantification, none of the work examples are accompanied by information about the objectives of the work and successful outcomes. I’m sure that there were plenty and that they would provide plenty of trust building content for potential clients.

The simple lesson: When you have great work to show, make sure that it is front and center on your website so that impatient visitors find it immediately. Then, use that work to power the copy that populates your homepage and the rest of your site.  Content marketing fails when you cannot find the content that counts quickly and easily. Only pirates love buried treasure.

In other words, when you can show specific successes, you do not have to rely on generic copy that fails to differentiate you from dozens of other similar companies.

Oh,and be sure to avoid clichés like the plague.

A Sadly Wasted Effort for a Mystery Event That Might Even Have Been Worth Attending

I just received an email promotion that was so wrong-headed that it makes a perfect negative case study.  As always we can learn from what is terrific or, in this case, not so terrific.

Here are 4 Major Email Promo Mistakes that You Should Avoid:

• The header: This is the email header I saw in my inbox: “invitation for March 17”.  It doesn’t tell me what is happening on that date or why I should care. Since I, like all of you, receive way too many emails, I have no earthly reason to open it. 
  Your header must entice the recipient to open your email by showing quickly that your reader will benefit. It plays the critical role of a headline in a news story or an advertisement and is even more important because it’s the only thing your recipients may see in their crowded in box.

• The sender: The sender was Pearl Collier, but I neither know her nor can determine who she works for by looking at the sender name. That makes me nervous. If I take the trouble to cursor over the name, I can figure out that her email address seems to come from a large local R.E. developer. But, I bothered to do that only because I was motivated to write this article.
  Your send address mustn’t be mysterious. Unless you are mass mailing to folks who are inclined to open something from you because they know or respect you, you should use inexpensive software such as Constant Contact or MailChimp that lets you show a company name as sender in order to give you credibility.
• The message body: This tells me nothing other than the fact that an unspecified event is happening in an unspecified location at an unspecified time for an unspecified reason. I can see that the sender is connected to ‘Verandah’ but I don’t necessary know what Verandah is or what on earth the event is all about.
  Your message body should include everything your target needs to know to motivate them to take the next step whether it’s to attend an event, visit your website, get a free report, etc., etc. Make it obvious and enticing.
• The attachment: Since I don’t know this person and am paranoid about viruses and evil spyware demons, I will not open something that might wreck havoc on my PC.  Even if I knew the sender, she hasn’t given me enough explanation about why I would benefit to justify opening it.
  Your attachments should be rare or non-existent in promotional mailings. Put what you need to communicate in the body of the message. Make it super easy for your recipients to do what you want them to do.

A Sadly Missed Content Marketing Opportunity

What’s really unfortunate about this promotional mailing is that it is almost certainly promoting an event that is important for the company, expensive to produce, and most likely enjoyable to attend.  But, few recipients are likely get past the marketing hurdles that make it hard for them to justify taking action.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure that your header and your message body provide relevant and compelling content that motivates your prospects to take the next step toward becoming your customers.

Your honest interactions with customers are critical to your content marketing success. So, please don’t make the mistake that this get rich quick marketing vendor program made with their fake ‘live attendant.’ 

This lame attempt at artificial online intelligence was amusing, but appalling.

I was awake late one night not too long ago and wound up on a marketing product site that didn’t want to let me go. Up popped the following dialogue between the fictional Lacey and my canine alter ego.  Her enthusiasm for her product never flagged in spite of my devious doggy replies.

See if you’re smarter at spotting a prevaricating PC pooch than ‘Lacey’ was in this actual dialogue (or dogalogue).

Woof, indeed. 

You Must Persuade Me to Act or Your Beautiful Promotional Piece Will Sleep with the Fishes

I was perversely inspired to write this because of a recent gorgeous direct mailing I received from local French restaurant.

They did a lot of things right. There was some beautiful photography that captured the essence of this charming little bistro. They described how the restaurant and its cuisine were uniquely appealing. They shared some impressive awards and recognitions for their excellence. They included their Web address. And, they even provided a little map that showed me exactly how to find it.

There was only one thing missing. But it was the most important thing: They failed to make me an offer that would entice me to dine at the restaurant. In fact, there was no offer at all.

So here’s a lesson we all learned long ago from the Godfather: make me an offer I can’t refuse and I will respond promptly and positively. For this restaurant, there were certainly plenty of possibilities. It could’ve been free appetizers, free glasses of the house wine, buy one entrée get one free, 50% off a bottle of wine or free desserts. But they offered me nothing.

Even worse, there was no call to action, offer or no offer. On one side of the 3" x 7" promotion piece the name of the restaurant served as the headline. On the flipside, the only thing resembling a headline was "recipient of many awards".  They didn’t ask me to take any action at all.

For me and I’m sure for most of the recipients who aren’t familiar with this restaurant, we will probably toss the promotion piece without taking any action. It appears to be a pretty expensively produced item so that means between postage, design, and printing they have spent a lot of money. But, I think most of that money was wasted because they neither asked me to come to the restaurant nor offered me any compelling reason to do so.

I am not a direct marketing expert, but I do know this: If you make me an offer I can’t refuse, you increase the likelihood of taking the action you want me to take by orders of magnitude. Moreover, if you had told me to bring an offer-containing promotion piece to the restaurant, you could have measured the results of your marketing efforts precisely. Finally, whatever you gave away would have been more than balanced by the money I spent on everything else during my visit–not to mention the money I would likely spend on future visits.

The direct marketing lesson: When you make your prospective customers an offer they can’t refuse, it will work for you just as effectively as it worked for the Godfather all those years ago.

You must be clear on what you do and how your customers will benefit

I became aware of the Metwell website as a result of a promotion they had sent me via Twitter. Their website is full of unintended ironies as they offer online marketing advice which the website appears to ignore.

It’s also a good example of a website with a pretty good layout that is undercut by a lack of focus and a serious shortage of relevant and compelling content.

I found it hard to understand exactly what Metwell does or how they could help me after a quick–and then a more in depth–visit to their website The company seems to know content is important because their site attempts to provide a lot of content, at least on the surface. But they misunderstand the essence of content marketing by failing to make their content relevant and compelling to prospective buyers.

Here’s what I find to be most problematic:

• They have a big visual slideshow on the top left of their home page but this doesn’t necessarily relate to what they do. Rather, it seems to be a sharing of widely varied business news/concepts.
• Below this big section, they have a very quick slideshow which reviews seemingly unrelated services they provide. But once the slideshow is finished there is nowhere else on the home page that tells you what they do.
• Below that slideshow they have an article titled, "What to Do with a Good Idea." This is fairly interesting but I still don’t know if they can help me as a businessperson take a good idea to market or not.
• To the right they have a headline, "Hire Your Kids?" This relates to potential small-business tax benefits. But, again, I have no idea from what I see on the home page whether this company is either willing or capable of helping me with tax issues.
• At the bottom of the page, they have a section called Differentiate Your Business. Unfortunately, on their own website’, they fail to differentiate their business from thousands of others who may do exactly the same kind of things.
• If you click on the Our Services button, you get a bullet point list of the many and varied services they provide. But, it is so varied that you would be hard put to trust their expertise in each and every one. Moreover, because they offer absolutely no explanation of what they do for each of those bullet points, we are really left hanging.
• The website includes no information about any of the company principals so that we are completely in the dark about their knowledge and experience as it might relate to our needs.

How they miss the point on the importance of relevant and compelling content

High up on their website they have a news section in which the lead article (with unintended irony) is titled, "What Makes a Great Website. The entire content of the article, pasted directly from their website, is as follows:

• Hire a professional and we will build you a great website.  Rembember, five mediocre website designers working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one super-star.
• Avoid being clever – use insight.  Many websites scream "look at me" our goal is to design your website and customers will say "here’s what I’m looking for"
• Update your site continuously. Keep your content fresh and always have new products on your virtual shelves.  This will generate business and keep the search engines visiting your site and better ranking
• No great website was ever conceived by more than 3 people.  One voice, one vision.
• Metwell will design a great website for you and maintain it or show you how to do it.

Not only is this article bereft of content, it appears to be more infomercial than legitimate information.

From those five bullet points, one derives a single piece of advice: Customers  arriving at your site should say, "here’s what I’m looking for." The rest of the content seems self congratulatory and clichéd. Moreover it’s incomplete.

If they meant to share with us the essence of a great website, they fail to do that. If they meant to tell us why they are perfectly positioned to create our website, they don’t do a good job of that either. In fact, they failed at proofreading because the very first bullet point misspells the word ‘remember.’

The final irony of their website is that several of their bullet pointed services relate directly to website design and development

The lesson we all have to learn is that good design is critical, but without great content even the best design is simply wasted effort.