Too often, business owners think of their websites as nothing more than an online brochure. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead, a website is built of individual landing pages that work to convert a reader to take action. It may be to click and move to another page. It may be to sign up for a newsletter. It may be to retrieve a coupon. It may be to finalize a sale.
People spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the details – the colors, the fonts, the images – tweaking little aesthetic facets without worrying about what’s really important: making a person click. They talk about the product or service; they emphasize the features.
But that’s not what your prospects really want.
They click for several reasons.
- They have unanswered questions about the product, the company, or the industry.
- They have past experiences that are molding their clicks.
- They have specific needs and requests and find some things more appealing than others.
- They are looking for a way to move from where they are today, to where they want to be tomorrow. How does your product or service fit into that vision?
The real winners in the online world anticipate those reasons and incorporate them into every landing page they create. A page on their website may:
- Provide specific answers to a prospect’s most anticipated question.
- Show how their products or services are involved in real customers’ lives.
- Make an offer they can’t refuse.
- Give a reason to move to the next step and show the path that will lead them there.
That’s a tall order for any website, right? But it can be done. Just not on every page.
If you’ve ever developed a standard 5-page website before – a brochure site – you’ve missed the point. You can’t answer every question, fulfill every need, all on one page. You can’t address every issue through a list of benefits.
Benefits may work in copywriting, but they don’t work if they don’t make your reader engage. You’ve got to give them something else besides the offer to make them stick. And the way you do that is by understanding root motivators. These are what get people to act.
Motivate With Fear
We all have a need to feel safe and secure. This creates “what if” situations all the time. The easiest way to see fear in place is to listen to the daily news.
Fear pushes our pain buttons. And human nature dictates the last thing we want to face is fear. That’s why we buy insurance – we don’t want our houses to burn down, our cars to be totaled without viable replacement, or our health to be jeopardized in any way.
The best way to add fear motivation to your landing page is to ask yourself what deepest fear your customer really has about the product or service you offer. Is it a fear of losing something? A fear that things won’t work out? A fear they will fail? Whatever the answer, your goal is to calm the fear.
Motivate With Urgency
Nobody likes the hard sell. Don’t become the “used car salesperson” who tells you five other people are lining up behind you. Act now or else.
Instead, urgency should come from describing what will happen if they don’t act right now. What they lose if they take no action at all. We don’t like being passed by. We like compelling offers. That’s why sites like Groupon do so well. Visit Groupon, and you’ll know instantly you only have so much time left to buy, you’ll see how many other people have already bought, and how many coupons are left for sale. This teases every aspect of our emotions and makes us want to act.
Motivate With Results
Of course, human nature also dictates that we want to ensure we don’t face disappointment with our purchase. Buyer’s remorse can set in if a product doesn’t live up to its hype.
That’s why we like to try before we buy. That’s why guarantees and warranties are so important. It gives us a sense of expectations. It helps appease our satisfaction levels long before we hand over our credit cards.
There are many ways to show results on your web pages:
- Social proof
- Testimonials
- Reviews
- Before and after photos
- Earnings statements
- Charts and graphs
Calming your prospects nerves long before they even consider making the purchase instills validity in their decision making process. Comfort is everything, especially as the purchase price increases.
All of these should be tested to see how your audience responds. But then you know tweaking is one of the most important parts of any online marketers job. What works today might not necessarily work tomorrow. What works for one product may not work for another. Because there’s nothing more finicky than today’s consumer.
When they’re motivated, they want more. That means more click-throughs and more action.
Motivate With Specifics
Are you starting to see a pattern with the development of the content of your website? Are you starting to see why it’s important to be specific with every page you create?
A website is built with many different pages, each with their own purpose in mind. Each page is a landing page in some aspect, a place where people “land” after a click and determine whether to stay or go. To click or move onto another website altogether.
Making that page as specific as possible will ensure your reader gets what he came for.
Imagine for a moment that you provide plumbing services for your community. You unclog drains when they are backed up. You replace water heaters when they stop working. You fix pipes when they are broken or leak.
But a prospect who has a clogged kitchen sink has no desire to read about replacing her water heater. She also doesn’t want to read about unclogging a toilet; it’s her kitchen sink that’s the problem.
She’s specific in her needs. She’s specific in her searches. She’s specific about her desires.
Would she respond better to a landing page that describes twenty different plumbing services, or one that describes the kitchen sink? Which title would attract her more?
We offer many different plumbing services.
Or
What’s wrong with your kitchen sink? We can help you find a solution in under an hour.
With your online marketing, relevancy is key in everything you do. With every page you create, every post written, every ad you develop, every search that you do.
How effective is your online conversion process?
