This week’s microISV volunteer for the Weekly Site Review is Michael Sica, founder of Ataraxis Software. Michael’s microISV Software as a Service (SaaS) application is Pudding, a Ruby on Rails online tool for reviewing, commenting and approving visuals such as web page designs, brochures and logos.

Overview:

Pudding is exactly the kind of application a freelance web designer, graphic designer or web developer could really use to streamline and improve their workflow, improve client communications and be more professional. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t do justice to the application – it lacks excitement and makes a cardinal mistake: It doesn’t speak the language of its market well enough to be convincing.

The Hook:

The purpose of the Hook on a site selling software is to be the first thing the first time visitor sees, and to give them a solid reason to spend even one second more on your site. That solid reason is the answer to the yet-to-be interested potential customer’s primary question, “Why should I care about you?”

The Hook needs to answer this question both in a way that connects with your target audience, and that moves them off their stance of indifference. Indifferent people don’t buy. Think of all the advertising you are exposed to in a day on television, on the web, on the objects you own, drive, wear. Only a tiny percentage of those marketing messages connect with you on an emotional level whatsoever. You want your site to be in that tiny percentage for the people you are selling to.

Unfortunately, Pudding’s Hook, “Get Your Clients Through the Review and Approval Process”, is about as uplifting as scheduling a trip to the dentist. While accurate, it’s a downer. The only emotional feelings it’s likely to stir are the mental echoes of all the times you as a designer suffered pain, anger, fear, frustration trying to get a client to approve what they asked you to do.

Now fear sells – just look at any of the negative ads by any of the candidates in the 2008 U.S. Presidential race. But hope sells better – just ask Barack Obama. Pudding needs to get into the deliberately selling hope business and out of the accidentally selling fear trade.

Here’s – in my opinion – a better Hook for Pudding:

“Faster Approvals. Happier Clients. Today. Pudding takes the pain out of the review and approval process for graphic artists and web designers.”

The first four words grab the attention of Pudding’s two specific markets. The last five words confirm just who benefits. Why Today – because we all prefer instant gratification of our wants and needs.

Benefits/Features:

The job of the Hook is to get the visitor to spend a minute or two more on your site and to define the key benefit to the specific market or markets that want that key benefit. Then, its job is done and it’s up to the rest of your home page to back up the Hook with credible and absorbable information.

By absorbable, I mean in the language and ideas of your prospective buyers, not your’s. Let’s see if we can cut this point down to size: have a look at this page on a medical equipment vendor’s site, MarketLab. There you’ll find for example, “Bladesmart”:

• Grab your scalpel and never get cut
• Safely rest your scalpel during grossing
• Your fingers will never get near the blade!

Now I don’t know what grossing is – and frankly, I don’t want to know. But it’s important to the people who buy their Hematology, Histology, Phylebotomy and Urinalysis supplies from MarketLab. It speaks to them, directly, about what they care about.

Not so Pudding.

Basically, Michael needs to do three things to the site’s copy. First, get rid of sentences like, “Collaborate like never before!” and “As flexible and secure as needed.” Exaggerations only hurt your credibility.

Second, boil down the copy to the Pudding’s actual feature set. Third, rebuild the benefits in terms web designers and graphic artist get.

So, “When security is a concern, Pudding can help. Choose a flavor with the SSL option and all communication to and from Pudding is encrypted via HTTPS.” becomes something like,

“Your clients are rightly concerned about the security of the work they do for their clients. Pudding is available with HTTPS encryption – the industry standard for securing data.”

There’s another problem with the benefits/features of Pudding – or rather how they are described because the app itself sounds very good. Too many words. Now if Pudding were for writers or librarians, the 404 words (yes, I counted) and the two small graphics below the main “hook area” (as shown above) would be fine. But Pudding is for visual people, not text people. More on this point below under visuals.

Credibility Markers:

Credibility Markers are the signposts the average consumer uses to judge whether they are going doing the right road – or are about to get mugged. When I can see where a company that wants my credit information is physically located, with a telephone number, I’m prepared to do business with them. No info – no money, and I don’t care what you’re promising on your site.

As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no company info anywhere at http://projectpudding.com or http://www.ataraxissoftware.com/ and that simply will not do.

Nor is there a single testimonial. Testimonials are powerful credibility markers and if necessary beg one of your web designer friends to write something you can use. The absence of anyone else saying pudding is good is a huge detriment to convincing people to subscribe to even the free trial.

Pricing is another indicator or whether the market should take you seriously. Five pricing plans is too many, in my opinion.

Visuals:

If you are selling to visually orientated people, you need good visuals. Pudding’s home page would could benefit from one of an iStockPhoto shot (cost $1-2 USD) of an interior of a graphics art shop, with those big draftman’s tables artists favor. Then build the copy around the image and keep it short.

Good visuals are a must have when showing off the product: buy a template from pixelmill or get one from OSWD for free just so the artwork Pudding is administrating and managing in your screencasts and other visuals is visually appealing.

Tech Support:

Pudding needs at a minimum an FAQ on its support page, not just an email link.

Blog:

The blog is good, the blog is fine. Looking for things to post about? Talk about (*with their permission*) some of your customers: what they do, how long they’ve been in business, what do they like to work on and incidentally how they use Pudding.

The Bottom Line:

Pudding as a service rocks – once you take the time to go through the screencast, you can see how Pudding would make it easier and faster for clients to review and approve visual work. But right now it’s too much work for most of your prospective customers to take on to get to that value. By making the site as exciting, interesting and credible as the application, I think Pudding would really jump in subscribers.

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If you’d like your microISV web site reviewed for free in public, or if you’re interested in a fixed price private web site review, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com.