We all know what friction is. It slows things down and stops them.
It’s the same thing in marketing. You’re trying to get someone to move – buy something, walk into your store, call you up.
Any marketing is an effort to get someone to take action. And anything that slows or stops that from happening is your enemy.
The general term is “friction,” and it takes many forms. Identifying and eliminating it is one of the major tasks of good marketing.
If a printed piece – or a page on a website – is in a difficult to read font, that’s friction. If the copy is hard to understand, that will slow or stop someone from getting your message and taking action.
How about a slow-loading website? A website that’s hard to navigate? Contact forms that ask for more information than needed? Every question someone has to answer before they can communicate to you, literally slows the prospect down.
FRICTION, FRICTION, FRICTION.
Enough of a slowdown and you get a stop. The visitor leaves the site, goes elsewhere for what he is interested in.
The more clicks it takes to make a purchase, the less likely a sale will occur. The farther someone has to read on a page to get the answer they were looking for, the likelier they will abandon it.
You won’t get very far down the road with one foot on the brakes. The good news is once you know about friction, it’s usually not hard to spot. With experience and understanding, it often stares you in the face. Sometimes, it takes digging. Usually some kind of survey or test to find out what’s going on. Heat maps showing where a web page is being abandoned can point you right at it.
Friction is a big issue. A lot bigger than it once was, say 150 years ago. Things were slower and simpler and consumers more trusting, and yes, better educated. The smoothness of your marketing – the opposite of friction – must be MUCH better than you might think. So pay attention to it.
Make your marketing smooth as glass. You’ll be pleased with the results.
