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Why Create Confusion When You Can Generate Leads?
Imagine that you go to a store to buy a shirt. You enter the door but instead of meeting a guide or salesperson, you are given thousands of other products to sift through, wander by, and get lost in with no one to help you. Meanwhile, all you want is to buy a shirt. But you can't find it because the store was so busy impressing you with its fancy lights and amount of products, that no one took the time to make it easy for you to find what you are looking for.
Sounds confusing? This scenario is acted out every day on the Web, by consumers who want to affiliate with a site, trust the person, and just...
==>STOP...AND SHOP. Why won't we let them stop?
Because we have forgotten the traditions of advertising and journalism, of guiding the visitor through the information to what they want. To create a sale, you must have a USP (Unique Sales Proposition), which I translate into needing a UWP (Unique Web Proposition). Consumers are looking for what they want and who can provide it to them. What makes your site unique? The way if affects, integrates, and invites the browser to stop and shop, to stay in your site and see what you have to offer.
They are looking for their own comfort zone, where someone understands what they want and gives them a place to talk to the business. Many people think this is just about content, but content is the most overrated element of a Web site. Don't get me wrong, you need great content, but too much content overwhelms people. They get lost in the philosophy and forget the commerce. It's not the information, it's the way you present it. But more importantly, it's the way you let the audience take what they are interested and fly...with your site as the expert, with your UWP, and the way you close the deal. To begin, you must understand:
First rule of the Web; we don't meet because of who we are, where we are, what time it is, or even why we are -- we meet because of what we are interested in. You have to make your audience interested and integrally involved in your Web site. Think of the Macintosh and the Wintel (Windows + Intel, if you missed it) machines; both could help people process information. Both looked similar to a new comer. One was easier to use, the other was marketed better. Now 80% of computer users are jumping up and down because Windows is now Plug and Play, something Macintosh has been since the mid 1980s.
What made Windows unique? Bill Gates and his marketing force, creating a comfort zone where you understood about the product and felt part of a bigger crowd in buying it. So you bought because it was the best quality for the best price; Apple was a little better quality, but at a much higher price. The difference in quality wasn't intelligible to the majority of people who use computers to crunch words and data. Which would you rather be, the person selling Windows or Macintosh?
==>Create a comfort zone for your audience so that they start identifying with your site.
A business is only as good as its close; if you're not closing, you need to improve your UWP. Begin with the end in mind...begin with the close...let's begin.