|
By Brian Carter
Avoid selfishness. It causes problems everywhere, and the e-biz world is no
exception. To succeed, you must know your audience, care about them, and go the
extra mile to meet them where they’re at.
Maybe you’re brainstorming a new website: “My website is about me, my services,
and my products.”
Maybe you don’t go around saying that explicitly, but it still might your
subconscious attitude. Most of us can identify with the joke, “I’m not much,
but I’m all I think about.”
Yes, you should think about your services and products – their benefits and
limits. Think about yourself - your own limits as an entrepreneur. And if you
want people to buy, think about these things in terms of your prospects.
§ Who are they?
§ What are they expecting?
§ What are they searching for?
§ How do they perceive your products, your niche, your approach?
§ How might you be confusing or disappointing them?
Our pervasive selfishness, also known as bias, is hard to escape- a big blind
spot to see around. The best way to get around it is to survey your prospects,
and, if you can, watch their behavior around whatever you sell or do or make.
For example, I’ve been planning to write an ebook about public speaking for six
months now, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I knew it was further down my
priority list, so I put an offer on my most popular public speaking webpages:
“Answer this survey and I’ll send you a free copy of this $25 ebook when it
comes out!” – I’ve got about 50 responses already. When it comes time to plan
the book’s contents, I’ll already know what’s most interesting to my target
market.
Likewise, I did a survey when it was time to title my first alternative medicine
book- I brainstormed about 100 of them, chose my 10 favorites, and let my online
health readers choose their favorite. The one they preferred was the winner by
far. It wasn’t even close. It also was NOT the one I liked. See?
Maybe you’re writing copy: “I'm going to describe my offerings in the language
most natural to me.”
Sometimes that works. If they’re looking to grab them with a particular flavor,
you might use, for example, folksy language or tech-speak. But that doesn’t
always work. What if they don't know your jargon? What if they don't know your
favorite words and concepts?
We get so comfortable with the words, phrases, and metaphors from our business
and social circles, we forget not everyone knows them. You can keep your jargon
if you define it. Otherwise, translate it into everyday language. Even
better, find out what the most popular keyword equivalents are, and use those.
Trust me as an experienced writer and public speaker. Too many times, I’ve been
surprised to reap confusion where I swear I had sown clarity. I no longer
underestimate how much my audience will misunderstand my meaning. The burden of
clarity is upon me, not them.
Maybe you’re building a website: “I'm organizing my website around my ideas
about my business.”
That may work out just fine, but when it doesn’t, visitors get confused, don’t
find what they're looking for, and leave without regret. On a website that’s
new to them, there are only so many times they’ll click before they’re gone.
What you think about your offerings doesn’t matter if you don't know what your
prospects need, what they care about, and what their problems are...
§ How do your offerings meet their needs and solve their problems?
§ What words are in their minds when they come looking for solutions?
§ What referral search terms are showing up in your web statistic logs?
§ Are you using those terms in your navigation?
Your prospect may have the problem you solve but not be looking for your kind of
solution, or they may not call the solution or the problem by the same names you
do. Jargon again. Find out what they call it and how they think about it. Find
out what they actually search for, and call it that on your website.
Make a bridge between your prospects’ minds and your own, and they’ll stream
across in droves.
|
