Just a formal note about a site I launched a bit ago: WhichDigi? — http://whichdigi.com. It’s just a simple microsite to help people decide which type of entry-level camera to purchase.

The concept was to cut through the overloading of technical information surrounding digital cameras, with some simple and direct advice. Just spend a few hours on a site like Digital Photography Review, and you’ll quickly realize that having all the information possible, doesn’t make it easier to make a decision — especially for those new to photography.

Not that simple

Designing this site was easy. I’d been itching to make a very visual, simple product pitch page, and this project gave me a great avenue for that — big, juicy, product photography with dramatic rollovers. Hoo-ha, I’m in heaven.

Writing the actual copy and coming up with a strategy for the site — that was difficult. My hat goes off to any copywriter or agency who has to tackle how to market and promote a modern camera. It’s unbelievably painful. You see, digital cameras are just little black boxes packed so densely with technology, it’s amazing they can function at all.

But how do you market pure technology? All these cameras have roughly the same feature sets. They all take mostly the same quality of picture (for type, price range). They nearly all look identical.

Give benefits

I was lucky enough to have Tiffani around to help to sort through the copy dilemma. Originally, I had resorted to the crutch of listing features like “this camera has xxx sensor that blah blah blah”. Obvously, this is a flawed approach — who cares? To list a feature presumes that the reader can translate that into a reason to care. One should never place the burden on the customer to understand why they’d benefit from a feature.

So we scratched our Marketing 101 itch, and came up with a list of benefits to pitch these cameras on — what does each camera do that makes a user’s life easier, or photos better. Focusing on benefits also helped me articulate why I thought these cameras stood out — in a crowded market, they offer some real-world benefits to beginning photographers.

Anyhow, just a little insight into how complicated and challenging even a ‘little’ project can be. Strategy and writing are always the most important elements of any project — even if they’re the most difficult.

Share the love

In the new year, I’ll expand the site a bit, recommend a few other camera types, and give some links to photo resources for beginners. It’s still a work in progress.

However, if you know of anyone looking for a new digital camera, pass ‘em the link. Both are solid, unique cameras that offer an awesome value for the money.