(Editor’s note: The Marketing Minute, provided by Associate Member Mary Gillen, normally provides a few quick tips to help you market your home inventory business. Last month, Mary introduced you to an excellent way to market your inventory service and blow your clients and others in our industry away! Part 2 is below. If you didn’t read Part 1 yet, Titled The Talking Web Page, click here, or click here to read the entire article on her blog.
Hear It for Yourself – Monotone vs. Conversational
As an experiment, I decided to use part of the information from a web page about an e-book I’ve authored called “PDF Accessibility Remediation: How to Fix 40 Common Errors.” You can see the original page here. For this test, I reduced the script to certain sections of the content for a shorter test.
I sent Frank the script and he produced and returned an MP3 file that I could place on the web page using an accessible media player called Able Player, an open-source fully-accessible cross-browser HTML5 media player you can use to embed audio or video within a WordPress page.
I also made an audio recording in MP3 format of the NVDA screen reader announcing the same script I sent to Frank.
Some items to note:
In the NVDA Monotone example, the tone is flat. You can hear the screen reader also announce information about some of the HTML elements it encounters:
- the words “heading” is announced before a headline is read
- the phrase “list with four items” is announced before reading the bulleted list of items
There is also an announcement glitch on the word PDFs: The word “PDFs” is read as “P-D-F-S”
In the Conversational Audio Example created by Frank, the tone is enthusiastic. The information simply flows and is more easily understandable due to the emphasis on certain words and pauses. There is a clear call the action that attracts the user’s attention.
(You’ll want to hear the remarkable difference between the Monotone and Conversational examples! Visit Mary’s blog article at https://accessiblewebsiteservices.com/talking-web-page-for-products/ to listen to each.)
An Important Review
Yesterday I demoed the Talking Web Page test for John. When he heard the screen reader version of the audio, he was not impressed. But when he heard Frank’s version, John clapped his hands and exclaimed, “Yes, that is what I am talking about! I have no need for your PDF remediation book, Mary, but now I understand what it offers. Such a simple process. And I didn’t have to read a word.”
Give It a Shot
Remember: the senior population is growing. By 2030, people over the age of 65 are predicted to make up 20.6% of the population of the US. Vision loss is by far the most common disability reported by elderly individuals.
If seniors can make use of your products and services, make it easy for them to hear about your offerings via Talking Web pages.
You’ll be outsmarting your competition and increasing your business.