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The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online
 
 
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The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online [Paperback]

Gerry McGovern (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 15, 2010
The long-awaited new title from THE corporate expert on building the right web presence to drive sales!

In an age that is exploding with information, it’s now critically important for companies to identify what truly matters on their Web site. The web customer is a “stranger” online to web teams who must work in a medium where it is very difficult to know who is clicking around on your site. Every Web site has a “long neck” or a small set of tasks that are very important to its customers. If you don’t make these tasks easy and fast to complete, your customers will go to your competition. This book will give you practical advice and case studies on how to tune in effectively to deliver precisely what your web customers want to make the sale!

Gerry McGovern is widely regarded as the number one worldwide authority on managing web content as a business asset. Named as one of the 100 most influential figures in e-commerce in the UK and Ireland, he has appeared on CNN , CNBC and BBC television and has been featured in numerous print media publications.
 
Top 5 Tips for Improving Your Website by Gerry McGovern

1.    On the Web, content may be king but the customer is dictator. There’s one word to describe the web customer: IMPATIENT.
2.    Traditional marketing and communication is about GETTING ATTENTION. Web marketing and communication is about PAYING ATTENTION. When customers are at your website you already have their attention. Don’t waste their time by telling them things they already know.
3.    Every website has a small set of top tasks what I call the “long neck” that customers expect to complete quickly and easily. The customers’ top tasks are often not what the organisation thinks they are—or wants them to be!
4.    The BIGGEST key to website improvement and efficiency of “long neck” consumer tasks is most often overlooked: companies must do rigorous, methodical and continuous testing! Great web management is based on facts about your consumers, not opinions offered by the smartest people in your company.
5.    The Web is about doing, not talking about doing. A great website puts task-completion features on the homepage. In Web 1.0 you saw a picture of a hotel room on the homepage of a hotel website. Now, you book your room on the homepage.

Find out more in The Stranger's Long Neck

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The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online + Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand + Content Strategy for the Web
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Editorial Reviews

Review

'Our work with Gerry increased understanding across our team... The result is a significant improvement (+20%) in our customers' ability to find what they need in Pinpoint.' Peter Horsman, Global Site Management Lead for Microsoft Pinpoint 'Gerry's customer-centric approach to website development has helped us reshape and dramatically improve Cisco's Partner Central.' Luanne Tierney, Vice President, Worldwide Partner Marketing, Cisco 'We have used Gerry's real customer-centric approach to improve the ability of our employees to solve frequently performed tasks - in one area more than a 50% improvement was achieved.' Gabriel Olsson, e-Communications Director, Tetra Pak

About the Author

Gerry McGovern is the author of several influential books, including Killer Web Content (A & C Black). He is a sought-after speaker at international conferences on Web content management and has worked with many leading organizations, such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and major airlines. 

Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: A&C Black (July 15, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1408114429
  • ISBN-13: 978-1408114421
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A game changer for me for sure, July 20, 2010
This review is from: The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online (Paperback)
My review attempts to focus narrowly on this book and how it relates to my internet website only. I state this because there are so many tangents that a person can follow from Gerry's thinking, from political and sociological, from commercial to one's personal life. To me, the core concept is a multi-faceted prism through which I now view many aspects of life. I'm not sure Gerry realizes the potential applications of his thinking, but that's good. "The Stranger's Long Neck" is about website success and failure - how to achieve the former and minimize the latter.

I read Gerry's (1st?) book "Killer Content" several times, over a year ago. His core concept fascinated me and resonated with my beliefs, but I still couldn't figure out how to apply them to my small B2B brochure-type website. I worked and reworked a new home page design with my web designer many times over the past year but couldn't hit my target. I knew I didn't have killer content so we never got past changing graphics and navigation and keywords, blah, blah, blase. Finally decided that Gerry's concepts were for the big boys and didn't apply to a 5-7 page site. So nothing was ever settled - until a few days ago when "The Stranger's Long Neck" arrived by mail.

Overall, it's still aimed at really big budget websites, and I skimmed quickly over the data and statistics with blurry eyes. But something big happened to little-old-me when I acted on one of his tips. I discovered that even my little company had top tasks. They finally took a distinct shape that I could characterize as my company's long neck. I was then able to identify and discard the tiny tasks. Now I'm focusing successfully on the second step, as important as the first, creating the right links for visitors' successful completion of the top tasks. This is, as Gerry warns, hard and somewhat boring work, psychological not technological. But what a great feeling when that light bulb finally flips on. The rewards, until you achieve them, are inconceivable, literally.

My industry is highly competitive and 100% of my competitors' websites are failures, when measured against Gerry's work. I am going to have one of the first really small websites utilizing long neck strategies. I'm considering getting into the website design business due to the tremendous power I feel as a result of my realizations. Every site I visit now, I look at as if through Gerry's eyes. And I see enormous opportunity to help small businesses develop websites that really "do" work for them.

Here's the payoff for me from this book. Important to understand that I run a two person B2B service business with billing of under $200k annually. Ironically, 75% of the words and characters on the pages of "The Stranger's Long Neck" seemingly, didn't apply to me, and seemingly, weren't helpful, so you could say that "The Stranger's Long Neck" had a long tail for me. However, like watching a foreign film without subtitles, somehow I "got" the story and both my heart and mind were touched. "The Stranger's Long Neck" indeed does have a long neck, even for me.

Buy this book with it's companion, "Killer Content", also by Gerry McGovern. "Killer Content" wired the bulb. This book flipped the switch to "ON". Don't give up, and don't be put off by the illusory disconnect between the size and type of your project to the ones illustrated in these two books. If you don't get it first time, wait some time and then re-read. There's something of great value for every English reading human being in each of these books.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Practical Advice from a Highly Regarded Expert, November 7, 2010
This review is from: The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online (Paperback)
Anyone who has ever tried to persuade management or website content owners that "less is more" when it comes to website content will love this book. The Stranger's Long Neck provides a framework for understanding your users, the reasons they visit your website, and how you can succeed in meeting their expectations. Like Gerry's previous book, Killer Web Content, this one is filled with practical advice and written in simple, straightforward terms. Gerry has changed the way I think about websites and web content.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars McGovern's latest book is a must read ... like all his others, November 29, 2010
This review is from: The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online (Paperback)
I attended a Gerry McGovern master class in 2003 and I've been a subscriber to his weekly newsletter since then. I have read and continue to read every one of his books. It is absolutely amazing to me that after all that, his latest book is full of new insights and new methods, all with his trademark relentless focus on users and their needs. There is no substitute for Gerry's long experience in pinpointing what customers want and proving it through hard facts and figures, not wishful thinking. One constant through Gerry's work is the notion of continuous improvement. He follows his own advice with this book. If you think you know everything that Gerry has to say, think again. Buy this book. In no time, you'll have it dog-eared and tagged with notes. But the best part is, if you put into practice what he says, you'll have happier customers.
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