Web Marketing Secrets Part 2

The next two elements to plan for are the features that your website will offer visitors, and the selling pages.

Web features

90% of my clients websites that are not working are really brochures on the web – 3-5 pages outlining what the company does and how to get in touch with them. In the 1970’s some TV adverts were still photos on the screen with voice-overs in the background. If you are too young to remember, you didn’t miss anything. They were soon eliminated because they stopped working. Video ads made the most of the medium and they soon consigned these dinosaurs to the rubbish bin. In the same way, the internet is a more interactive medium and it is used by people as an information resource. When planning your site you need to look for features that will be valued by your target customers because they are interesting to interact with (a quiz, or a game) or that provide information that they will find useful. I use the term stickiness to describe the characteristic that you are looking for in your site. A brochure site is a me-too offering that customers will quickly move on from. It is not very sticky. A site with high stickiness draws customers into the site from the home page and keeps them there to browse your products and services by giving them information and a rich browsing experience.

Web Selling Pages

After you have drawn customers into your site and persuaded them to stay and browse, the time comes when you must close the sale. This is a complex area and draws heavily from the techniques developed by the great catalogue business offline. To cover it fully would fill a book in several volumes, but I will give an outline of what to consider.

1 Allow several ways to search for products; by product family, by keyword, by manufacturer or by reference code. You are giving your customers ways to narrow down their choices quickly, before they get frustrated or decide you don’t stock what they want.

2 Make sure that your customers can get to complete the transaction in 3-4 clicks. Browsers get frustrated quickly.

3 Give the customers everything that they need to know to make a decision. For a simple product like a pen this is straight forward. For a PC, much more information is required including photograph of the front on the back of the unit, technical specs, add-on options, pricing, availability and delivery. If possible, brief info on the next cheapest and next most expensive model should be offered for comparison.

4 Use all your powers of persuasion. Put yourself in the place of the customer and write compelling text that focuses on the benefits of the product or service before you list the features.

5 Give customers a reason to act now. Faced with massive choice and a lot of uncertainty, it is easy for customers to decide which product they prefer and yet not make that final step to purchase. We know from behavioural research that this happens a lot. You have no guarantee that they will come back to your site again, so tempt them to act now.

6 Reassure your customers at each step. The web is an unforgiving place and there are many stories around which could give cause for concern. Do this by:

            Branding – if you resell global brands use the logos on decision pages

            State all charges – if you charge for delivery say what this is

            Customer referrals – make the statements as specific as possible

  Guarantees – as well as their legal rights, a no quibble guarantee is an
  effective comfort to shoppers.

  Tell customers about your payment methods and how secure they are.
 

Test your selling pages on people that you know and ask them about anything that makes them stop or hesitate and try and remove whatever obstacles that you find.

Go to Part 3