Folks do their research online precisely so they don’t have to interact with someone – think of your visitors as the most introverted people you ever knew. They come to you with curiosity, expecting you would understand what they need and to lead them along a comfortable path of enlightenment and delight.
The Persuasive Process
It doesn’t matter whether your business is “Business-to-Business” or “Business-to-Customer, whether your sales process is simple or complex – these may influence the details of your tactics, but they won’t change the fact that every e-business is about persuasion. Structuring a persuasive process will always begins with answering the same basic questions:
You usually want to persuade your visitors to fill in a contact form when the goal is generating leads, download a white paper or demo, register, opt in to a newsletter or e-mail list, or forward your content to a friend.
Once you have created the personas, constructions that represent your “who’s”, and identified the action you want them to take, you then turn to designing an online experience that incorporates your answer to the third basic question: How can you most effectively persuade them?
The Message must be Relevant
Identify what really matters to your visitors. What motivates them to seek you out? What problems do you solve for them? What friction points do you reduce for them? Identify the benefits and value your products or services confer. Find your visitors’ buttons, and then push them by serving up a nice, juicy, relevant message.
No Jargon
Unless you’re marketing to a selected audience that totally requires you to communicate credibility via insider speak (jargon), stay away from the stuff. Jargon convinces that you aren’t really interested in talking to them, so they’re far less likely to pay attention. If you must include specific terminology, give it a low profile. Those wanting to know if you can really talk the talk will look to find it.
If you’re not sure how folks talk or think about your products or services, conduct online consumer research and speak with the people who interact directly with your customers. Using your customers’ language on your Web site does not only help them feel as though you are speaking to them, it also boosts your chances with the search engines.
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