Web Engagement: How to Sell on The Web

I recently received a tweet leading me to this article on Web Engagement professing that what websites are doing today is giving you more sizzle and less meat . The author Gerry McGovern feels that websites need to develop more content and less campaigning to attract consumers. I honestly beg to differ just slightly with his opinion.

Marketing is about engagement and finding new ways to have people interact with you. When all of the details are spelled out specifically what you get is less interaction, which usually means less sales volume. While it is wonderful to be informative and provide a lot of information on the web (which I do condone) you also need to wrap it with SIZZLE, so that consumers don't instantly leave your page.

As younger generations become who we are selling to the attention spans of who we are selling to become smaller, and the more flashy we become the more attractive our products are.

Several months ago I attended an online presentation about online presentations and the main point was focused around catering to the decreasing attention spans of who we are speaking to. The suggestion of this presentation was to make presentations more like television.

So when Gerry McGovern writes an article basically saying that websites need to be more like newspapers, I have to disagree. We need images, smiling faces, videos and great content to keep us attracted, and if we don't get it quickly we will just most likely go somewhere else.

What is your opinion on web engagement and content?