How A Pest Control Company Got My Attention

Yesterday I was deliberately plodding through a stack of business cards, checking out their associated websites and looking for signs of Social Media integration, when I happened upon a website that grabbed my attention. It at once amused me, interested me, and got me to stay on their site for much longer than I had the time to, even though I had absolutely no interest in their services. And now that company’s name and brand is in my head, in my memory, waiting for a future moment when I will need their services (and hopefully I won’t).

What was it that kept me on New England Pest Control’s website for a good ten minutes?

They made me laugh. First, they have a unique and fun landing page that seized my attention, and secondly, they’ve incorporated fun, quirky audio sound effects into their menu.

The sound I heard when the Big Blue Bug dropped into the page made me smile, and then I looked around the page for social media information.

Having Too Much Fun To Leave

Nothing there. But the menu items were quirky, with a retro style, and the next thing I knew, my mouse headed for one of them. As my cursor approached the cartoon image of a woman standing on a chair screaming, she — well, she screamed!

Now I started hovering over each link to see what sounds they had associated with them, and then I started playing games with myself, hovering over the links in different succession. Maybe I’m easily amused. But what I did next is what they hoped for:

I clicked a link.

In this case, I clicked “About Us.” Then they had me, and the wooing began. Their “About Us” was interesting enough to keep me on the site even longer, poking around until I realized I had spent too much time already and went back to work.

New England Pest Control’s web designer used Flash on their website to get the audio effects that entertained me.

Scott explains, “New England Pest Control’s website uses Flash to create a more interactive multimedia experience than just text and images can produce. Flash allows you to animate graphics and embed audio (including sounds, music, voiceover, etc.), and gives your overall brand a unique approach to design. It’s like a standard website on steroids.”

To increase conversions (visitors who become customers), there are several ways to implement audio on your website besides what New England Pest Control has done.  We’ll cover those in later blogs.

By the way — I only remember one other website from the whole stack of business cards I went through.

Good job, New England Pest Control. You made me look!

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Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.