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Your Customers Don't Care About You
When your customers or potential customers come to your website, they don't really REALLY care about you. This is the sad honest truth about marketing via a website. I've been asked about marketability via a website before and till today, I still feel that in order to sell something to someone you don't know (or someone who doesn't know you) via a website, words do the work. Not the color scheme, the pictures and certainly not the flashy stuff that you have to pay through your nose to come up with!
In the meantime, here are some things that you should know about selling through a website.
Your customers don't care about you.they care about them
This is a marketing principle that applies across the board and is pretty simple to understand. Everyone knows it because it's logical, right? But in our bid to sell and run our business, we sometimes forget. In our bid to make ourselves sound and appear bigger than what we really are, it's too easy to forget this principle. Then here's my reminder to you.
For those who don't understand, let me take some time to explain to you. For example, a customer who walks into a retail outlet selling lampshades. As they set foot into the shop, what they're looking for is 'what's in it for me?' Customers are an extremely self-centered bunch of people.to put it bluntly because they are looking for advantages, benefits and value for money. The sales person could go on and on and on and on about how wonderful the company is and how many years they have spent on research and development.blah blah blah.the customer's going to nod his or her head. If this goes on, the customer gets wary and runs for his or her life and out of the shop!
So, instead of saying "This lampshade is made out of so-and-so material and our customer is the first in our country to sell this type of lampshade..", we should say something like "This will make your room look really cozy and warm". End of story. If they think the concept is what they like, they will buy it or ask for more information. If not, they've move onto another lampshade.
What's this got to do with websites and online marketing?
Simple. What I find lacking in most websites is the content that they place on their HOME page. It doesn't matter how much you've spent on research and development. It doesn't matter how wonderfully technology-driven your company is. It doesn't matter how many thousands of employees you have. You DON'T put it on your HOME page! No.never! That's the golden rule.
What should be placed on the HOME page are the benefits and advantages of your products and service. Capture their attention with a good headline, follow it up with a clear but concise sub-headline to make them read on. And then some copy to lure them into your net.
And since they don't care about you, all the copy about whatever your company's worth should only be put on your 'about us' page. 'Blowing of trumpet' should only be done there because that is where your customers go to when they DO want to find out more about you. Otherwise, keep the focus on the customers and how your products and service would eventually benefit them.
I am not a marketing guru or anything like that (FAR from it!) but I DO know that words work and the words should be about your customers.not you.
Marsha Maung is a freelance graphic designer and copy writer who works from her home in Selangor, Malaysia. She loves nothing more than blowing bubbles in the park with her 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She designs apparel and premium items at www.allmomstuff.com and is the author of "Raising little magicians", and the popular "The Lance in freelancing". More information can be found at www.marshamaung.com
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