The Blog on Branding

Achieve Higher CR: Your Website at Its Best, Part 2

Last time, we discussed the first two steps of the e-tail process, awareness and interest. I discussed how to create them within your visitor and how to ideally drive them to the next stage in the process. In this article, I will be discussing the final two steps in reaching your ultimate goal, the conversion, or selling the product, since I’m focusing on the e-tail aspect.

In this article:

• Desire
• Action

” Desire and Action? Sounds like a spy film!”

Desire

As you’ll recall, last time I compared getting a visitor to buy from your site with winning someone over in a courtship. So now you’ve made the object of your affection aware of your presence (the first step) and you’ve made them interested in you (the second step). The next step in your relationship is to make them want you or desire.

In a romantic relationship, awareness and interest might only last a little while, while desire can last a lot longer. An e-tail relationship is no different. Awareness and interest can last only a few seconds, but the desire stage may capture the visitor’s attention for minutes or even hours.

Just like in a romantic situation, you don’t want to move to fast, though or seem too desperate. Instead you want to give the visitor some time to get to know the product and your Web site. Give them some time and enough information so that they can build trust. This is why it is not a smart decision to have a BUY IT NOW button, sending them directly to the purchase page.

Tim Ash has ways to fix this. In an article on the desire stage, here are some basic rules he puts forward to create desire within your visitors:

• Make the visitor feel appreciated. Just as in a romantic situation, appreciation is key. The Internet allows Web page hosts to provide their visitors with tons of information at minimal cost. This information can make visitors feel knowledgeable, powerful, and understood. Providing it for them says you care.


” Appreciation is simple, yet often overlooked.”




• Make the visitor feel safe. Like romantic partners, there are a lot of untrustworthy Web pages out there. To let them know they can trust you, it’s important to be completely open, honest, and transparent. Feature stories about how credible your site is from others in the form of testimonials, awards, and trust symbols to further ease fear.
• Understand that the visitor is in control. Like romantic relationships, being too controlling is not good. Give visitors control over timescales of their interactions, the order in which they get things done, the ability to stay anonymous for as long as they want and the format in which they are presented information.

Almost everyone gets puzzled what it is that women or men really want in dating. Do they want a rockin’ body or someone to listen and understand them? The big question for e-tailers is what their visitors really want. There are four basic things that people look for in an e-tailer when going through the desire phase. They are the abilities to:

• Research. They need to be able to do this thoroughly, too. Many times at this stage, they do not even have a good idea of what they want. Therefore, it’s important that you provide them enough information to rank and re-rank features as essentials, bonuses and non-necessaries. Present these through informational articles, buying guides, quizzes or demonstrations, such as the Will It Blend? videos.
• Compare. Show at least five alternative solutions/products that they might be interested in. You are no longer relying on the essential features. This step basically comes from the bonus features, features they like but don’t necessarily need. Giving them side-by-side details really helps them to stick to your site. Comparison sites, like Consumer Reports, are particularly useful in this stage borrow or link to them in order to help your visitors out. You want to make sure that your comparisons both feature choice of features for the product and choice of competitors. Make them want a specific product, and make them want to buy it from you.
• Get Details. At this step, provide even more details. Make sure to provide complete and objective information. Don’t avoid negative information just because it’s negative. Giving this to your customers will help your credibility, and if you leave it out, chances are they’ll find out anyway.
• Customize. Allow your visitor to personalize the product in order to get them to mentally envision themselves using the product, driving them to the action phase.

Action

So now you’ve gotten the hottie you’re after aware, interested and they now desire you. It’s time for the action stage. However, the desire and action stage are more intertwined than distinct stages. They are a continual give and take.

The same goes for e-tailing. Even if your Web site has what they want, that does not necessarily mean that they want to get it from you. You need to present yourself as the most reasonable and trustworthy company to deal with in order for them to take the leap.

In order to do this, you need to provide both the best price and the most reasonable terms of purchase. My dad does this all the time. He used to go to Best Buy to get information about a product, because they could tell him the most, but he would actually buy it from Costco or Circuit City, because of their price and return policy.

There are five important factors when visitors decide on who they are going to buy from:

• Brand Strength. How well do they know your brand? This can help increase trust and credibility, as well as top of mind awareness. I mean face it, we don’t search things we Google them. And many times we get people Kleenex, instead of tissues. Chances are you know every one of the top 100 brands, and even buy products from most of them.


“This is proof of the power behind brand strength.”




• Previous Resource Investment. Consumers aren’t going to spend forever comparing every single offer. More than likely, they will look at a few well known ones and settle for the best one they feel. In other words, the more effort that they have invested previously, the more likely they are to settle.
• The Total Solution. To have this, you need to enmesh the desire and action stages. Offer value-added services or other options not available from your other competitors, such as base price, free shipping, etc.
• Risk Reducers. Things such as guarantees, trial and introductory offers, privacy symbols, etc. will make your customers feel more at ease and less like bad things are going to happen.
• Validation and credibility. These are signs that your Web site is credible and valid. They make customers feel better about the product or the site. These include media awards, media coverage, endorsements, testimonials, studies and surveys, etc.

Use all of these things in order to get the girl/guy and to win the customer!

Nicole Carretta Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.