What "Joe the Plumber" Can Teach Us About Internet Marketing

In last night's debate between Senators Barrack Obama and John McCain, the "undecided voters" were introduced to a person some of us political junkies had known about for several days. Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber and hopeful entrepreneur, confronted Obama at a campaign stop in Ohio about the higher taxes he'd pay if the Senator from Illinois had his way.

Joe felt cheated. As if he were being punished for having some success in life.

After all, he'd been working about 15 years to get to the point that he could afford to buy a business and improve his family's quality of life only to have someone come in, under threat of penalty and imprisonment, to take away what he earned through his hard work and effort -- not to mention the capital he put at risk.

Obama responded, (paraphrasing) "Well, you'd be taxed more now, but for the 15 years leading up to this point, you'd have been taxed less under my plan. I just wanna spread the wealth."

(Or, as Joe heard it, Obama wants to spread Joe's wealth.)

Now, before you run away, this isn't about Joe's, Obama's, or McCain's politics.

It's about Joe's desire to be free from someone telling him that they're restricting his freedom for his own good. 

It's about the audacity of anyone to suggest that people perched high in their offices (political or corporate), know better than the Joes of the world how their time or the fruits of their labor should be spent.

Sadly, in spite of a wealth of information that should discourage the practice of such tactics, companies still fall victim to the same, navel-gazing mindset -- particularly on the Internet.

• They hide critical information (such as price) because they're afraid the customer might get "sticker shock."
• They force users to complete a form that requires more information than is really needed.
• They bloat a website with marketing fluff instead of clear, concise content germane to the user's task.

The intent of the marketers is not to "punish" their visitors. Quite to the contrary. They covet and need these people as customers. So why do they insist on getting in their way? Don't they know that damages their brand?

They just don't understand what's required of them with respect to visitors who have plenty of options to get their questions answered.

Hint: It usually starts with a Google or Yahoo search.

But the marketplace doesn't succeed or fail on intentions. Its success rests on the the participants' ability to deliver. Since Web users are absolutely ruthless in pursuit of their goals, companies need to check their egos and their fears long enough to get out of their customers' way -- or else they'll be gone before the company even knows what happened. 

And once gone, it will be terribly expensive to get them back. - Cam Beck