Have you ever gone to a website that is full of good information, but
you aren't motivated to do business with the company? Why do you think
this happens?
One explanation is that the company's website is what I call
feature-driven. What I mean by this is that the company concentrates so
much on giving you information about what they do or describe the
products they sell, that it's like reading a parts catalog. (Which is
fine if you want your website to read like a parts catalog, but I can
guarantee you that you're going to make very few sales or generate very
few leads.)
Company Centric
Unfortunately, many companies make the mistake of wanting to talk
about what they do, their mission statement, and how many awards they
have won. They sincerely think that this information is important to
their customer because it is important to them.
Or a company gives you all the details about their services or
products and expects you, the potential customer, to use this
information to make a decision to do business with them.
This type of approach on a website is detrimental because the
marketing message is from the viewpoint of the company, and is not
looking at the situation from the viewpoint of the customer.
Benefits Please
The customers are looking for benefits. When they come to your
website, they typically are trying to solve a problem and are looking
for answers. So, yes they certainly do need the features information,
but they'll be getting that information on all the other websites that
are in competition with your website.
How you stand out, or differentiate yourself, from the crowd of
millions of websites is to present a marketing message that is benefit
driven. Tell your potential customer how they can benefit by using your
product or service. Be specific and don't assume they will be able to
figure things out by themselves.
"Don't make me think," is one of my favorite sayings about customer
behavior online. Your potential customers need information that makes it
easy for them to make a decision as to whether they should stay on your
website or click off in search of more information. They don't want to
take the time to read through a detailed description of a product or
service unless it is immediately obvious to them how they will benefit
from this product or service.
Emotional Thinking
The biggest problem with a feature-driven website is that you are not
creating an emotional connection with your potential customer. People
aren't typically logical when they make a purchase, they are emotional.
Logic doesn't sell the product, emotion does.
In fact there's a new book out called "Predictably Irrational" by Dan
Ariely that talks about how people make different decisions about the
same situation depending on whether they are thinking rationally or
emotionally. Participants were asked the same question in a "cold,
rational" state and again when they were emotional. Their answers
changed dramatically.
Use Bullet Lists
A simple approach to this problem is to use a headline of "Features"
with a bulleted list of important features customers would want to know
about, and another headline of "Benefits" with a bulleted list of the
benefits the customer will receive by using your product or service. An
excellent example of this approach is the website
www.FreshBooks.com.
Use Video
Putting video on a home page is really hot right now. I could write a
whole article about using video on your website, but let me say that it
is the best way to easily promote the benefits of your product or
service. Because people are drawn to motion and sound, they will
automatically click the video and be engaged immediately by the person
in the video.
Two good examples of using video to promote the benefits of a
company's service and product can be found at
www.ToolsToLife.com
and
www.OCShephard.com. Take a look at both these sites and you'll
see how powerful it is to use video on a website.
Integrated Approach
Another technique often seen on websites is to integrate the features
and benefits into a paragraph format that tells the story. For instance,
if you were a service provider, one sentence can explain the different
features of what you offer and then in the following sentence or
paragraph explain the benefits to your customer.
An example of this integrated approach can be found at
www.aweber.com. Notice how the company talks about what it offers
(the features) and then it talks about how this is advantageous for the
customer (the benefits.)
Conclusion
To make a sale on a website or generate a lead on a website, you have
to have an emotional connection with your potential customer. A simple
exercise to improve your website is to take a piece of paper and make a
list of all the features of your product or service and then right next
to the feature, write the benefit. Use this information to improve your
website and make it the marketing tool that it should be.
© 2008 Michelle Howe
