More Than Meets the Eye: Engaging Website Visitors with a Sensory-Rich Experience

We experience the world through our five senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. The more of our senses that an experience engages, the richer and more memorable that experience is likely to be. Visit a nice restaurant, and you’ll see how that establishment works deliberately to engage all five of your senses. The food will, of course, entice your senses of taste and smell, but its presentation on the plate will also play to your sense of sight – as will the lighting and décor. Consider as well the music being played and the feeling of the fabrics and textures on your chair and table: what kind of sensory response do these things elicit? All of these elements work together in synchronicity to define your experience at this restaurant. When it comes to website design, we have traditionally focused our attention on only one of the senses – sight. While sound comes into play on occasion, it is the sense of sight that we tend to think about first and foremost, as websites have long been considered a visual medium, similar to printed content like books, magazine or newspapers. However, one of the most powerful aspects of the Web is the fact that we can, indeed, engage more of the senses than we can with a paper document. With the benefit of today’s technologies and looking ahead to what the future may hold, we see that we can begin creating experiences that stimulate multiple senses to immerse visitors more deeply in our sites, thereby creating more lasting, memorable impressions. Let’s take a look at how we can use our websites to create sensory-rich experiences and how recent advancements in technology are unleashing new possibilities for how we can engage with our users through the Web.

Sight

Let’s start with the primary sense that has long been associated with websites – sight. Yes, the look of a website is important, and its design is meant to captivate a visitor’s sense of sight. But exactly how we use the tools of visual design leaves a lot of room for creative experimentation and variety. Many sites today employ movement and animation in their designs, whether it’s a rotating carousel of images on the home page, buttons that change color or size when a user hovers over them or embedded video. Amazon’s recently announced Fire phone takes the way that a screen can engage our sense of sight to the next level with a feature called “Dynamic Perspective.” This feature allows users to interface with the content on the screen by tilting the phone in different directions. A simple move of the wrist allows access to shortcuts, opens navigation menus or scrolls the page. This technology has the potential to immerse users more deeply into digital environments with a unique perspective that allows them to look under, behind or around elements on the screen. Currently, these perspective features are being utilized as part of the phone’s native operating system and by a few select apps, but how long before other devices introduce similar features and web designs begin creating pages that can take advantage of different perspectives and dimensions? If movement and animation can attract a user’s attention and engage them through their sense of sight, just think about what this dynamic perspective may be able to bring us in the future.

Sound

Today, the most common way that websites engage a visitor’s sense of sound is through video content. The ability to involve multiple senses in a single experience is a powerful thing, and video content is a perfect example of this principal in practice. By combining visual and audio, video content can accomplish important objectives on a website, whether that’s explaining a complex concept or showcasing product features, While videos are a great example of how sound can be used effectively to enhance the user’s experience, there’s also a dark side to sound on the Web, which, if used improperly, can undermine your site’s success. Just as in the restaurant example we cited previously, background music or sound on a website can help to create atmosphere and mood, but if that sound is too loud, inappropriate or obnoxious, the tone it sets will be a very negative one. Soundtracks on websites, a feature that was popular years ago when many companies wanted immersive Flash-based sites, often backfire. Visitors who may be listening to music as they surf the Web, or those who do not want a website to suddenly begin blaring music at them (perhaps because they are at work or in some other environment where being surprised by audio will be an unwelcome experience) are likely to be annoyed if they get audio content that they did not want or need. Unlike the audio associated with a video that helps engage the user, audio added to create “atmosphere” is rarely used effectively, and you should be very cautious if you decide to go this route. For all audio content on your site, whether it’s part of a video or some kind of music or background sounds, be sure to allow visitors to initiate that audio on their own, and do not surprise them with it. The shock of their sense of sound being engaged unexpectedly is what you want to avoid!

Touch

Touchscreens have been available for many years now, but until the release of the iPod and iPhone, they were not widely used in consumer devices. Today, touchscreens are everywhere. Not only do we all carry around touch-driven smartphones and tablets, but touchscreens are now readily available for laptops and even desktop computers, too. With the rise in the adoption of touchscreens comes the ability to engage our visitors’ sense of touch, allowing them to interface with our site in a more physical way as opposed to only through mouse clicks. This ability to touch our sites allows us to connect with our audience in a literal sense. While most sites or applications currently focus on gestures and movements to scroll pages or access features and content, there are also organizations working on tactile touchscreens that can make interfacing with screens a completely different experience. Looking again at the new Amazon Fire phone and their Dynamic Perspective feature, I can only imagine how powerful an experience we could create by combining that technology with actual tactile sensations on the screen as people interface with our content. Talk about being pulled into a digital environment!

Smell

You wouldn’t think that the sense of smell could possibly come into play on a website, but emerging technologies hint that this may soon become reality. Harvard scientists recently transferred a scent from Paris to New York using an iPhone app (the smell they sent was “champagne and passion fruit macaroon” – yum!). They did this using a platform called the oPhone, a new technology from a company that is “working to bring olfactory wonder to mobile messaging.” Yes, they can actually send smells. The future is here. While this particular technology, which includes more than 3,000 scents, requires the use of specific oPhone hardware, the fact that innovators are actively advancing the possibilities for integrating the sense of smell into the digital world prompts us to think about the kind of fully immersive sensory experiences that might lie just over the horizon. For example, what if a restaurant could transmit the scents of their food as you peruse their website’s menu page. Or what if you were shopping for scented candles online, and you could actually smell each product just as if you were standing in a brick-and-mortar retail store? What if you could take a video tour of a bakery, see the products as they’re being made, hear about how they’re created and smell the delicious aromas of cakes and cookies baking in the oven – engaging sight, sound and smell all at once. Sound unbelievable? It may not be as far off as you think.

Taste

What about the sense of taste? Will we one day be able to transmit tastes through our websites? It sounds crazy, but then again, the ability to project a smell online seems equally implausible until you hear the story of the oPhone. Who knows, maybe one day soon we will not only be able to send the aroma of a freshly baked cookie but also allow customers to sample a taste of that cookie as well. Again, it sounds incredible, but almost all technological advancements seem like wishful thinking until someone figures out how to make it happen.

Looking ahead

Who knows what the future holds, but I for one am excited to see how we will be able to expand our ability to engage our website visitors’ senses to create more powerful – and certainly more memorable – user experiences.

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Eight Steps to Conquering Local Media

Anyone charged with the task of growing a business salivates at the idea of landing in the national media spotlight. The lure of the massive exposure that just one mention on CNN, Good Morning America or Oprah or in the pages of Bloomberg Businessweek or USA Today delivers is the driving force behind many PR campaigns. However, it's important to remember that the cardinal rule of real estate also applies to media relations: location, location, location. Of course your potential customers are tuned in to news from the national players. But these customers also exist as members of their local communities. They live locally, shop locally and do business locally. They also read, listen to and watch local media outlets. No matter the size of your business or the scope of your target market, it's critical to develop a systematic approach to leveraging local media. That's why no matter the size of your business or the scope of your target market, it's critical to develop a systematic approach to leveraging local media outlets to increase awareness, build trust in your brand and boost sales. But if you want to make an impact, you must get strategic. Even at the local level, the competition is stiff for airtime and column inches. Here are the fundamentals of breaking through the clutter and conquering the local media markets where you do business.

1. Do your homework.

Every market offers a wealth of opportunities for media coverage. Make it your mission to uncover all of the outlets available to you in each market and then narrow your hit list according to the demographics of your target market and their media consumption preferences. For print media, you'll want to identify the major daily newspaper as well as smaller suburban weeklies and specialty publications that serve niche audiences like parents, women and retirees. Even the humble neighborhood association newsletter can be a valuable tool for showcasing your expertise or increasing awareness of your services. On the broadcast side, local television news programs are a given, but don't forget about local daily or weekly radio and TV talk shows, which often have strong loyal followings. Morning and afternoon drive shows in particular attract a huge number of listeners during the daily commute. Locally produced call-in and talk radio can also be ideal targets for your promotional efforts, particularly if you can offer an expert to field questions or provide insight on topics of interest.

2. Go grassroots.

In your efforts to canvas the traditional media outlets in a given market, don't forget to also investigate the opportunities that may exist to gain exposure among locally based online communities. In today's digital era, companies have unprecedented access to highly active, motivated and powerful influencers who can use social media platforms to disseminate information through their networks of friends and fans. A successful local social media-driven PR campaign begins with researching the popular websites and blogs that cater to that specific market as well as identifying individuals have a strong following on Facebook or Twitter and whose needs and interests overlap with your offering. Once you've pinpointed the sources that are the best fit in terms of both size and scope of their influence, that's when it's time to put trustcasting to work. You must strive to create authentic relationships with these individuals who hold a position of leadership within their tribes. You must also overcome the burden of proof that your company and your products are worthy of their recommendation. By giving you their endorsement, they're putting their reputation and their credibility on the line. Make it worth their while, and they'll make it worth yours in return. For example, when Just Focus Massage & Wellness in Charlotte, North Carolina, needed to build awareness for their new FocusForward wellness seminar series, they identified popular local lifestyle blogs and approached the owners with the opportunity to attend the series free of charge in exchange for sharing their experience with their readers. For a minimal investment, Just Focus was not only able to gain exposure to a highly targeted audience, they also reaped the benefits of the inherent trust that comes with the word-of-mouth recommendation of an established tribe leader.

3. Get to know the gatekeepers.

It's always a good idea to get to know the talk show hosts and reporters who cover topics of relevance to your products or services. However, it's important to keep in mind that many of these individuals have relatively little control over the stories they report. The real power players in local media are the editors (print), producers (radio) and assignment editors (television) who tell the writers, hosts and reporters where to be and what to talk about. If you can get to know these gatekeepers and how to get in front of them, you'll greatly improve your chances of gaining the coverage you seek.

4. Develop genuinely local angles and events.

It's tempting to distribute the same press release or pitch to every outlet on your hit list, especially if you think your story offers a broad-based appeal. However, going the extra mile to enhance your story with local interest will pay dividends in securing coverage in the markets that matter most to you. For example, let's say you're an HR consulting firm pitching a story on the rising costs of health care. This is a compelling story that might gain coverage simply on the merits of its timeliness. However, you could significantly boost your chances of catching the eye of a local newspaper editor simply by including a few relevant details like how local cost increases compare to the nationwide average or the contact information for one of your consultants who is based in that location and can offer expert insight on how these changes are affecting the job market in that city.

5. Don’t forget the fundamentals.

Give your press release the “Would I read it?” test. In addition to giving local media stories that offer local angles, local impact, local data and local people, you must also make sure you’re obeying the fundamental rules of good storytelling. Give your press release the “Would I read it?” test. Keep it simple and find hooks that tie into universal themes. Time your pitches to correspond with news cycles and seasons. Offer compelling visuals and expert spokespeople. Learn the audience demographics and the hot-button issues for each media outlet you plan to approach, and shape your story accordingly.

6. It’s all in the delivery.

Even the best pitch can fall flat it it’s not delivered in the correct manner and at the appropriate time. An important part of building relationships with media professionals is getting to know how and when they prefer to be contacted. Does he live and die by his Blackberry, or will your e-mail just collect dust in his inbox? Would she like to hear from you, or would a phone call be an annoyance? Timing is everything. You must make sure you’re on the radar when editorial decisions are being made and that you’re not trying to get attention when a reporter is up against a deadline. Make sure you’re on the radar when editorial decisions are being made. While every news organization works differently, there are a few rules of thumb that apply in most cases. Deadlines generally fall in the afternoon for daily print publications and three to four days ahead of publication for weeklies. Radio show producers typically have either weekly or bi-weekly meetings to plan upcoming topics and guests, while assignment editors for local television news broadcasts make their final determinations about where to dispatch camera crews and reporters on a daily basis, usually very early in the morning. It’s important as well to be realistic and bear in mind that there can and will be times that no matter how strong or well-timed your story idea might be, no one will bite based on prior commitments or breaking news. Simply accept this graciously and move on to the next pitch.

7. Don't underestimate the personal touch.

Always remember that there are people on the receiving end of your stories. "Media relations" can be a bit of a misleading term. It implies that you’re sending your press releases and pitches to some nameless, faceless news-generating machine. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Always remember that there are people on the receiving end of your stories, so put your best relationship-building skills to work. Call and introduce yourself to local writers, editors, bloggers and producers when you have nothing to actively pitch. If possible, invite them to lunch to discuss their needs and interests as well as how they prefer to receive information, and demonstrate consideration for those preferences when you contact them in the future with story ideas. Do keep in mind that many media outlets have strict policies regarding gifts, so be sure to know and play by the rules.

8. Give ‘em the goods.

Product placement can go a long way in getting free advertising for your company, especially in radio. If you run a bakery, deliver a tray of your most popular treats to the afternoon drive show personalities. Or if you own a day spa, invite the busy mom who hosts the morning show to enjoy a free day of pampering. While there are no guarantees, chances are good that you'll at least get an on-air thank you and maybe even a genuine, glowing review of your products or services. Additionally, radio and TV producers are always looking for prizes for promotional giveaways and sponsors for events. These opportunities tend to cost much less than traditional paid advertising on the same stations but deliver high-impact exposure and referrals.

Let the conquest begin.

Remember: if you want to win the war of PR, you have to win the battles being fought in your own backyard. By employing these time-tested tactics, you can help to ensure that your pitches will stand out from the crowd and establish your company as a trusted source for local media outlets in the markets where you do business.

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