subject: Writing For a Selfish Market: Part 2 [print this page] Writing For a Selfish Market: Part 2 Writing For a Selfish Market: Part 2
Marketing is more about common sense than it is about Madison Avenue brilliance. On the web people come to your business site because you attracted them through keywords. But are they your keywords?
When you use popular keywords you are not calling out to your own web market, you are just calling out to everyone passing by on a busy street corner. What kind of business can operate on a busy street corner? A fast business can survive because it caters to the moving traffic that always has somewhere else to go.
If you are selling any products or services that take more than a few seconds to make a decision then the fast street corner is not your market place. For making decisions involving anything more than a few dollars on impulse your market place will be quieter and provide a slower pace to think, and to feel.
Your web market is the boss, they hold the mouse clicks. When you are not greeting them or talking to them and about them (because they are selfish) then you do not have their attention. What does your home page do to greet your market and get their attention?
You really need to feel the question
Your visitors want to be treated in ways that respect their time. They want to be greeted with useful information that they came to your web site for. This is the information that talks about their problem, and offers a solution.
Your page will have to get down to business quickly and focus on what your market wants from you, and it comes in threes.
Page Information:
What does the product/service do for me?
What does it cost?
Why should I trust it?
Web Site Design:
Am I getting something accomplished?
Am I comfortable with the site?
Can I find what I need?
I just took a look at some natural fibre clothing sites and what I wanted the most was not in plain sight, and I never did find it. My first visit didn't tell me anything about the product itself. How it was made, what it costs, how it wears and who would benefit the most, and why I should buy it.
Nope, nothing about the product, but there was a lot of information about the beliefs and values they sell along with the product. I'm not being cynical, it is the values they trade on -- just as we all should do. Even so, I wanted something more tangible than environmental and social values. It's a good start but even those values fail if the product falls apart after the first wash. I wanted something that I could measure, and that information is somewhere, I'm sure, but not on the site.
The business owner doesn't buy the products
Most business web sites talk about all the things that the managers wants the market to know about the product or business, and yet the market isn't interested. So, why is the page devoted to what the owner wants when it is the market that buys?
The company information is down the list of priorities that any market has. Your market cares about its own needs first, and not about the C.E.O. or the company's bragging rights. If your business location is a tiny room in the basement of your home your market won't care so long as your solution will work for them.
Before they buy from you they will need to trust you. But building trust won't be accomplished with your opening information, so stick with their need to find a solution for their problem and start building trust.
What does your market want to know?
You are a business owner and you think like a business owner, but to know what your market needs you need to switch channels and think like they do.
Do not make a big deal out of this because you switch channels all the time and you became the customer the moment your supplier sent a salesperson to your shop.
When a supplier's salesperson comes along with a new product then you've got questions about the latest items and you want to know why you should buy it. Those are the same questions your market needs answers to.
Questions we all want you to answer about your product/service:
How does it solve my problem?
How is it made/developed?
What is it made from/come from?
Where is it made/developed?
Why is it made/developed?
And why should I buy it?
Your web site is your salesperson
Providing the most useful information also builds trust. A page with answers to basic information about why, where, how, and even who, will go a long way to building the trust you need to make a sale. It is like a full disclosure and your market will feel that your web site has been very open and honest.
Perhaps you see a different picture now of how to write for your selfish web market. This article pointed out the need to get down to business quickly by providing the information your market wants from you and some of the questions they want answers to.
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