Three Things Every Website Should Do
by Alan Rigg
Published on this site: July 8th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
When I started my company in 2002, I knew I needed to have
a website. Why? To provide credibility! How can a company
be "real" in this day and age if it doesn't have
a website? So, like many companies, I published an informational
website that explained "here's who we are, and here's
what we do".
I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about my website. I
certainly didn't think of it as a strategic weapon in my company's
marketing arsenal. That started to change in the spring of
2004 when a newsletter was forwarded to me by a fellow member
of the National Speaker's Association. The subject of the
featured article was something called "internet marketing".
The article caught my fancy, so I subscribed to the author's
newsletter. Over the next month or two I picked up an eBook
and a CD that were recommended in newsletter articles. The
concept of internet marketing really started to intrigue me,
so I decided to do some serious research.
During the next four months I invested several thousand dollars
and a couple hundred hours learning about internet marketing.
My conclusion? I was missing out big-time with my company's
website! In fact, I concluded that just about every business
website would be vastly improved if it was re-designed to
do three things:
- Help visitors RAPIDLY answer two questions:
* What does this company do?, and
* Is there anything here for ME?
- Encourage visitors to opt-in to receive free information
resources.
This keeps website visits from being one-shot deals. If
you offer visitors the opportunity to opt-in to receive
free, value-added information, and you provide truly useful
information on a regular and consistent basis, you will
earn trust and build relationships. This increases the likelihood
that your website visitors will buy from you over time.
- Motivate Action
If a website page is going to motivate a visitor to take
action, the focus needs to change from you, your company
and your products and services to your visitors and their
problems.
Web pages that motivate action are not distant and aloof.
Instead, reading them feels like a one-on-one conversation
between you and the reader. The copy invokes the reader's
emotions, plus provides enough supporting details to enable
the reader to feel comfortable making a decision to buy
online or to contact your company for more information.
This very specialized form of copywriting is called a "sales
letter". You have probably received sales letters in
the mail, or seen a similar type of advertising in television
infomercials. Some sales letters and infomercials sound
pretty "cheesy"; yet, for decades sales letters
have repeatedly proven to be one of the most productive
forms of direct marketing.
The biggest criticism you'll hear about sales letters (usually
from corporate website designers) is, "This copy is
much too long! Nobody is going to take the time to read
that much information!"
You know what? The critics are almost right. Probably 95%
of readers will not read any given sales letter in its entirety.
That's OK, because sales letters are not written to appeal
to everyone! They are written to appeal to specific individuals
that have the specific problems the sales letter addresses.
Most people will skim a sales letter.If it has a compelling
headline or sub-headline that catches their attention. They
may read a paragraph or glance at a few bullets. If the
paragraph or bullets are compelling, they may read another
paragraph. Once they have read several compelling paragraphs,
they may decide to go back and read the sales letter from
the beginning. At that point it becomes much more likely
the reader will take the action the sales letter recommends.
Conclusion
If you want your website to generate online sales and/or
leads, it needs to do three things:
- Help visitors rapidly figure out what your company does
and whether you can do anything for THEM
- Encourage visitors to OPT-IN to receive value-added communications
(so that you can build relationships and earn trust)
- MOTIVATE action
To motivate action, change every page that describes one
of your company's products or services to a sales letter.
Make sure each sales letter includes a "call to action",
whether it is making a purchase or contacting your company
for more information.
Change the focus of your website from you, your company,
and your offerings to your visitors and their problems and
watch the online sales and leads roll in!
Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20
Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform and What
to Do About It. His company, 80/20 Performance Inc., supplies
specialized sales assessment tests and consulting to help
organizations build top-performing sales teams. For more sales
and sales management tips, visit: http://www.8020performance.com
|
