I was just thinking about disappointment. When you expect something and what you get doesn’t measure up. Something I saw on the web just wasn’t as “magical” when I saw it in reality.

Which, of course, made me think of marketing…especially online.

Underpromise and Overdeliver is the marketing mantra applied to everything, over and over again.

But can you underpromise your image?

When you’re on the web, any company can look like a million bucks. A guy in a basement can call himself a hosting company and have a business site that looks even more professional than a real, reliable company.

You find a web site that looks really professional, but when you actually make contact, you realize that the image and the reality are incongruent.

But does that mean your company web site should match your office? If yours is a 10 attorey firm with an Office-Space style, no-frills layout, should your web site be highly stylized with artistic imagery and lots of flash? Or should it reflect your, ahem, sense of minimalism?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying it should or it shouldn’t. I’m just wondering whether a lot of web sites are just setting clients up for disappointment.

And as always, let me defend the blog here. Since a blog is more about the ideas and the commentary, business bloggers are actually demonstrating their knowledge and expertise. In blogs, the content is the focus, whereas in many corporate sites, the image is the key.

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