So, you have a product or service and you want to sell it through a website. Or maybe you have a client who wants you to help sell their product through a website. There are some people who have a knack for being charming and creating website content that sells and for the rest, there is this blog. Here are 5 ways to get potential clients to fall through your sales funnel like Alice fell through the rabbit hole.
1. Create buyer personas
Simple yet often overlooked. Having a buyer persona can be crucial to understanding the buyers psychology and what triggers them to buy a product or service. Give them a name, throw in some demographics and dive right into the character you’ve created. There isn’t a perfect standard for creating a buyer persona but some basics are:
- Background information
- Demographics
- Characteristics
- Goals
- Challenges faced
- Our solutions offered
Once you’ve created your buyer persona(s) make sure everyone in the company knows these characters. It is important to have a cohesive effort when tackling customers so if the content is tailored for the persona but other marketing efforts are not, the mismatched messaging may end up backfiring on you. Remember, these personas can be used for all marketing efforts around a given company.
2. Learn the vernacular of your customers
Knowing what your customers want is one thing but knowing the words they use on a daily basis to talk about their industry is entirely different.
Part of your website content strategy should be to understand what your customers really sound like. Customers are always looking for someone who knows what they are talking about. Using key terms in your content will draw in the customers who you really want. The customers who have invested their time into learning the product/service.
You can learn these terms by having conversations or interviews with past clients. You can also do simple google searches to see what keywords are being used in your particular industry.
Another interesting method is going through reddit threads. You can find trends and fads in that particular industry. You’ll also find some of the more hardcore fans of products having conversations there using jargon that you’ve never heard of.
3. Less is more
When you want a customer to purchase something, the less distractions the better.
Having a sales page loaded with info might seem like the intuitive thing to do but let’s consider a basic customer approaching a website.
The customer wants to purchase a subscription to your service so he opens your website up. As soon as he lands he sees big, bold words talking about all the various services you offer.
Sounds good.
He scrolls down and see’s info about why your company is so trusted.
Scrolls further to find past clients you’ve worked with.
All of these points are good and well but the potential customer simply wanted to sign up and all this extra information may just confuse him.
When creating website content for the express purpose of sales, you want to drive them down a funnel towards a bright, attractive call-to-action button which has a clear goal.
Which brings us to the next point. Call-to-action buttons.
4. Call-to-action buttons that actually convert
The infamous CTA button.
A good one will increase leads by a factor of 10. A bad one will leave the potential customer more confused than ever. How do you know what will work for your product or service?
You want your CTA button to be somewhere easily accessible. Preferably right when you land on the page it’s staring you dead in the face. It can be on top and at the bottom or anywhere appropriate but it should be clear in it’s messaging and lead potential customers through an intuitive funnel.
The wording should be a clear call-to-action. Common ones include “Get Started” or “Learn More”. While these work in general, it’s better to cater your CTA to the specific goal in mind.
For example, if you have a site selling a book, it may not be the best idea to just put up a CTA button which allows people to purchase the book immediately. You might want to give more info on the book or the benefits the book brings.
So, your CTA button may say “Find out more here” with a little text above the CTA button stating “This book has helped more than 5,000 clients grow their sales by 25-65%”. By stating how your book has helped over 5,000 clients, you draw the attention of potential customers. The clear CTA button then pulls them into the sales funnel by having them invest their time into finding out more about the book and how it helped it’s readers.
5. Write about why they need the product
Customers don’t care about the incredible features of your product or the amazing new service you have to offer.
What they care about is how it can benefit them.
Tell them those benefits.
So, don’t say “Our new model of X car has an improved airbag system” , say “Our new airbag system reduces bodily damage by 40%”.
Don’t say “Our razors have 5 blades”. Instead say “ Shave in half the time” with the “5 blades” information as an afterthought.
When customers know specifically how the product or service will benefit them and their particular problems, they won’t hesitate to pull out their wallet.
Try some of these tips next time you write website content and make sure to share the blog if you found it useful.