Online Conversion

"Virtually all web sites have a persuasive purpose. To change what people think and do online, you need first to clarify your target outcomes and then make sure everything leads to those outcomes. Thousands of design firms can create beautiful and usable websites: few firms really understand how persuasive works"

 - BJ Fogg, Ph. D., Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and author of Persuasive Technology


 

 

Example of Relevance and Online Conversion

Alan Jones is a man who knows what he wants! He is looking for a new wireless music system for his home. He walks into the music goods shop and asks the sales assistant to show him what he has that includes:

The sales assistant knows instantly that there's no bull!*!* this guy. He shows him the latest in audio products and answers his questions as best he can, promising to get answers for those he doesn't.

After all, nobody knows as much about this stuff as Alan!
 
Now lets say Alan does not go into a shop, but instead goes online to look for his new wireless music system. He searches on 'wireless music system' on Google and he hopes he can improve his knowledge and find a new system.
 
He looks at the first organic description,

'Philips Streamium WAS700/05 Additional Wireless Music Centre Station ... This system is a wicked idea and when i bought one me and my son were very excited'   Alan thinks this looks interesting and clicks on the site.

He's interested in finding out more about the 'Philips Streamium WAS700/05 Additional Wireless Music Centre Station'.

But, what does he find when he clicks on the site? Well, at the top of the page there are ads by Google? Not very encouraging he ponders, maybe it'll get better? He sees a big button that says check prices, so again he clicks and this times he's redirected to another site!

There is no sign of any technical information about the system and Alan is already fed up and hits the back button to the original search results. He sees on the next results that the ,

'Product or Page Unavailable Sorry, the product or page you're trying to view is not available in your location. Please browse the rest of our site to learn ... '

This is not going well at all and Alan is really getting upset. He looks at result number 3 and see a wireless system for the PC. Not what he is looking for.

Results number 4 is a article from a magazine on the rise of digital music,

Finally on result number 5 he lands on a manufacturers page and gets to see basic product information. But Alan is not happy! There are no detailed technical specifications anywhere. He decides to try again, but with similar results each time.

Why do most website fail?

They speak at the customer and not to the customer.

Alan is typical of the reasons why there is only a 2% industry conversion rate for most online businesses. If the online assistant is not as attentive as the offline assistant and if there is no relevance to what he is actually searching for , then there is no customer!

In the example above it's easy to see what most business are doing to drive away 98% of their audience. They are not providing relevance to all their audience. They are speaking to their average customer. There is no such thing as an average customer online.

Online businesses are lost in their own selling process without taking the time and effort it takes to understand the customers buying process.

The solution for dramatically improving conversion rates does not lie in helping businesses sell better . It lies in helping businesses marry their sales process with their visitors buying process - in essence, the business must provide a structure that helps the prospect buy better.

If this story rings a bell in your head and you want to radically improve your online strategy, then please contact us.

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