No one wants their reading experience interrupted by a pop up asking us to subscribe for email updates. And yet every blog, news, and ecommerce site invariable follows the same template. Page loads. Wait 5 seconds. Pop up appears with tiny, hard to click close button, and the same damn passive aggressive guilt trip: “No, I don’t like to save money”. “No, I have plenty of leads.”
And we do it because everyone else does it. It works! Or at least, that’s what best practice dictates. Or maybe it’s because our marketing software made it easy to implement. Whatever the reason, it’s symptomatic of a broader addiction to best practices. And relying completely on best practice often means succumbing to marketing myopia – and focusing on our business goals over the needs of the customer.
We’ve got to start raising questions when we get too hung up on best practices, especially when they seem contrary to the customer experience. Or simply ask yourself: “If I hate this practice, why would I want to subject my customers to it?”