Three Reasons

In preparation for changing my Profitable Sales and Marketing Web site, I’ve been looking at quite a few Web sites lately.  Most of them take me back to when I initially thought of putting up a site.  What should I include? I had wondered.

My answer was, Everything I want to tell customers about my business. 

I see that same answer in most of the Web sites I have recently visited.

In retrospect, I realize that I had the wrong focus.  While I thought I was communicating with my customers, what I was actually doing was talking at my customers.  I was telling them what I thought I should say rather than giving them the information they were seeking. 

I was looking at the situation from my point of view, not my customers’ point of view.

After I had come to that conclusion, I read a post from Hubspot about what visitors want from your Web site.  The article suggested to identify the three main reasons visitors come to your site and create a landing page for each of those reasons.  Make each of the landing pages easily accessible from your site’s home page so that visitors can immediately find what they want. 

On each of the landing pages offer the information a visitor is seeking on that subject and have links to other pages with further information.  When you are finished, you will likely be offering much of the same explanation about your products and services.  However, you will be presenting it as a solution to your customers’ problems rather than a slick presentation on what your business does.

Setting up your site with easy answers to visitors’ questions makes a great deal of sense.  Doing so gives visitors reasons to click through.  It prompts visitors to learn more.  It encourages visitors to linger and to buy.  It establishes your business’s concern to the customer.  It helps develop customers. 

What are the three main reasons visitors come to your Web site?  Answer that question.  Give it some thought.  Ask a few customers.  Once you have the answer, apply it to your Web site. 

The change will yield profitable results. 

This week's marketing trivia challenge is  What Web site have you visited that immediately gave you the information you were seeking?  E-mail me your answer.    

An Eight-Year Mistake

A commercial from Mattress Firm that I have seen a great deal lately caught my attention.  The commercial begins with a woman saying, “I went to a department store and made an eight-year mistake.”

Next a guy echoes, “I went to a furniture store and made an eight-year mistake.”

Finally, another woman states, “I shopped at the wrong mattress store and made an eight-year mistake.”

Then an announcer informs, “If your mattress is over eight years old, you need to replace it.”  Prominently placed on the screen is an insignia “Replace every eight years.”

The commercial ends with each person adding to the repetition of  “Don’t make an eight year mistake.”

This commercial communicates very well in several ways.  First, the concept of changing your mattress every eight years is introduced.  Not only is the concept stated, but the eight year mistake is repeated six times during the thirty second commercial.  People respond well to repetition.

Second, the commercial tells people what to do:  Change your mattress every eight years.  After seeing the commercial, many people are figuring out how long they have had their current mattresses.  Mattress Firm tapped into a top-of-the-mind concern of people by coupling that with news stories about dust mites and bed bugs in mattresses.  The company turned this concern to the store’s advantage and told people to get their mattresses changed.

Third, the commercial reinforces the eight-year mistake by having three different people state the mistake.  Each references separate locations where they made the mistake.  All are competitors of Mattress Firm.  They imply that the only place to ensure you don’t make an eight-year mistake is Mattress Firm.

The entire commercial is framed in red with the Mattress Firm name at the top and the Web site and 800 number on the bottom.

Take a look at your marketing messages.  How are you employing repetition, current events, and information?  How are you telling people what to do?  How are you setting your business apart as the place to fix people’s problems?

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What marketing message told you what to do?  E-mail me your answer. 

Congratulations Monica, who answered the last question, How have you used sampling in your business this way, “I started making chips over the summer for Chip Magnet Salsa, and she always wanted chip samples to give away. Being a tight budget, fugal business owner, I couldn't justify giving away chips with no promise to buy. But Chip Magnet always gave away salsa samples at every event and market so I thought I would give it a go, too.

At the very first market, I gave them about 20 bags of chips and about three pounds of chips. Three pounds of chips could have made nearly 4 bags of chips. Before the first hour of that market was complete, every single bag was sold. Everyone that tried them, bought them. When all 20 bags were gone, there was still about two pound of chips remaining. So for less than the cost of one bag, I was able to sell about 20 bags.

If I didn't have the samples, it is impossible to say how many would have sold but I really believe they would not have sold nearly as well.”