Many times I hear people say, I need a new look, how about a new haircut?
I recently followed the thundering heard of male pattern baldness men (isn’t there a group on Facebook for that?) and shaved my head. Yeah, hard to face the fact that male pattern baldness had taken it’s toll on me and I had very limited choices as to a new look. So out came the razor and bamb! Now I am sporting a new hairless hairdo.
My change in hairdos got me thinking about many clients and their dated websites; Is it time your website got a haircut? Seriously, is your website active and working for you to put visitors in your sales funnel or sales process?
A friend of mine was recently stuck in a hotel for a couple days on the Texas plains waiting out a spring blizzard which closed the roads, so he could drive a company vehicle back to Denver. He said he was so bored in the hotel room surfing the Internet that he reached the end of the Internet! Reaching the end of the Internet seems like an impossible task but since the majority of websites are not using their internet presence to capture the visitor’s attention, create a connection and maintain a conversation, most website traffic just bounces from the page and the browser remains just that, a browser… not a buyer.
So is your website in need of a haircut? Most of the time the answer is yes. Before we get out the clippers, lets take a look.
Hit your website. Ok, now ask yourself, is this site a “me” focused website or a “them” focused website? The me being your organization, the “them” being your customers and partners. Remember them, they are the ones who pay the bills!
Does your website just tell people about you rather than invite them into a conversation? Does your website make it easy for customers to learn how to buy from you rather than try and sell them? In three easy steps or less, can a customer be engaged in a conversation about how to buy your products or services? Are you using video, audio effective content and social media to educate your customers?
What about your technology? do you have static web pages that make it so you have to call a developer and send money each time you need a sentence changed? Do the forms from your website kick off automated workflows and content delivery to the website user as part of the buying conversation?
I recently engaged with a company that has franchises across the United States. Great company, good momentum, great services, promising future but their website looked like my high school senior pictures… feathered hair! The only thing worse was if it had been an frizzy Afro of a website.
The company had fallen into the trap of overwhelming the consumer with information of how cool their services are (me focused) , was laced with technical jargon(me focused) and it was so “me” focused that as a potential customer, I got lost, my ADD took over and I bounced off the page and tried to make the next hop to the end of the internet.
Sound familiar?
The effective website of today needs to teach the buyer how to buy, how easy it would be to have the product and service and because all internet users are ADD, it better not be more than 3 clicks away. The term browser is not just for software and our society has become very short attention minded. You want buyers, not browsers.
The websites that are effective are the ones who exchange content for contact information so you as a organization can establish a conversation and help stay connected to the buyer through their buying cycle. Key thing to remember is that buyers buy when they want to, not when you want them to, so your website better be able to grab the user’s attention, make a connection and provide you the tools to maintain the connection of the customer.
Is your website educational? Is it linked to social networks? Does it keep your customer’s attention…
The Attention Connection… its so important today.
As for technology, is your site built in static HTML? Does it take a developer to make changes? If so, you need to migrate to the new content management systems that can be self administered.
Ok, put down the scissors, turn off the clippers. Don’t lash out and act like my daughter when she was 2 and whack off her hair.
You need to look at 4 things when it comes to your website as a tool to fill your sales funnel.
- Strategy
- Process
- Content
- Technology
The good news is it only takes a few days to give your website a new look and turn it into a tool that creates and maintains the Attention Connection.
Let me know if you need a bit of coaching? A bad website is worse than a bad hair cut.
