I have a story to tell

Seth Godin tells us that stories sell product. Even if we don't really have a real story, we lay our literature or powerpoints out in a sequence that makes sense, in essence telling a story, something like this:

Logo > product shot > features > benefits > detailed shots > detailed specifications > options > contact/order info

Logical order right? Slowly introduces the reader to the product and all of the concepts and details that go with it. Salespeople can use it as a guideline for making presentations. Customers can absorb full concept of what is being offered. The story gets told!

The Web
But the web is different. It isn't linear. Okay, you can try to make it linear, but the prospects may land on a deep link, or skip leading content to get to the specifications. Or to the price, god forbid.

Don't agree with me? Look at the average page-view times for your product pages.

Yes, I realize that users may do the same with our literature, but I would argue that it doesn't happen nearly as much when you have paper in your hands. It would be nice if we had view-times for paper to prove the point :)

I just think that the way surfers use the web, and the way we build our product pages, throws out the whole concept of 'story'. They are hunting up info, and we are 'writing for the web' and serving up snippets of info for them to find.

But the story is important to making the sale.

Solutions???
How do we slow them down and convince surfers to listen to 'the story'? Change their mode of surfing to model other behaviors:

• Literature PDF to print out
• Embedded PowerPoint (ala SlideShare.net)
• Embedded video

The point being is that to make the full case for our product on the web, we need to have some tricks up our sleeve. Changing their mode of surfing and consuming info is the way to accomplish this.