THE PRINCESS AND THE WEBSITE: AN eBUSINESS FAIRY TALE

The wise eBusiness King promised his daughter's hand in marriage to the first suitor who could accomplish three tasks. The first two tasks were difficult — slay a Dragon and defeat the Black Knight — but the third task, which should have been easy, proved impossible. It involved a dark labyrinth, deep quicksand and ugly monsters…

The third task was to use the King's website!

Each suitor had five minutes to find the Princess's phone number, which was buried somewhere deep within the site's unfathomable maze of internal logic, distracting graphics and dead-end passageways. None were successful, leaving the Princess without hope of ever finding a Prince.

"Using my website should be easy!" thought the King. "Are all the suitors fools?"
Then the King devised a radical plan to see for himself if they were fools: He would disguise himself as a servant and serve tea to the suitors as they used the website.

The day's first suitor was a brave young man from the village, for whom the King had great respect. "Surely he will succeed," thought the King.

The suitor looked in vain for the Princess's number on the site. The Contact Us button yielded only email addresses. The Royal Family section listed only past generations. And a search for "Princess Phone" returned only a pop-up ad for AT&T.

The King could watch no longer. He yelled, "Don't be a fool, man! Click on Solutions then click Grow the Kingdom then click Future Generations then click Marry the Princess then click the Pink Telephone Icon! She loves pink!" (Then the King realized this was not very intuitive.)

With only seconds to spare, the young man found the princess' number. A month later, amidst much pomp and circumstance, the Princess and the young man were married.

Once the eBusiness King realized how counter-intuitive his website was, he redesigned it from the outside-in, to reflect the goals of his clients and prospects rather than the goals of the Kingdom. This made him very popular, and his Kingdom prospers to this very day.

The Moral of the Story.
If you want to grow your Kingdom, look at it from the outside-in, not the inside-out. Success depends on your ability to present a clear, consistent and compelling story that makes sense to your audience. That's the essence of marketing.

We can help you grow your Kingdom from the outside-in by designing simplicity, clarity and consistency into all your communications — online and in print. Plus we offer design and usability consulting for existing websites and works in progress.

For more information contact Patrick Miller at 877-857-4782.