Communicate Your Way to Increased Sales

By Aaron Wolski
Posted Sunday, November 28, 2004

An article outlining ineffective communication as a reason why most business fail to generate results from their websites and how they can recognize their poor communication with customers and what measures they can employ to correct the problem.

Businesses often focus on developing a website out of a need to communicate more effectively and economically with customers and prospects than traditional mediums allow. Yet so many fail to be effective in those communication efforts.

When was the last time you visited a website where you felt the company communicating with you understood the problems of your business and offered useful solutions ?

How about visiting a website where the company communicating with you was too busy talking about all the wonderful things they have accomplished, awards they have won, etcetera, while forgetting to tell you in full detail what it was that they actually did ?

We see these tactical errors all too often in many business websites. Perhaps you recognize it, even in your own site ? This failure to effectively communicate solutions to customers problems wastes thousands of dollars, and loses the business an unknown number of prospective clients.

There are two reasons why many businesses fall into this damaging practice:

Non-Existent Research: No investigation to determine what your customers and prospects (i.e. your target market) want to see on your website. What can you offer them that they would find useful in their own business ?

An Egocentric Mentality: Everyone likes to talk about themselves, how great they are, how long they’ve been in business etc. But not everyone wants to listen to it.

An egocentric mentality is not hard to spot. Navigate to your website and casually read its’ content. Once you’re done, read the content again, this time paying close attention to the words you’re using to describe your services.

Does the site make a lot of reference to “I” or “We” in its’ copy? Now put yourself in a prospective clients shoes. Is this company focusing on you the client ? Does the copy specifically talk to you with words like “you” and “your”?

Think back to your own experience in purchasing products and services. Did the company you ultimately purchased from speak directly to you about what they could offer you ? Or was their promotion entirely focussed on their own success, and why you should purchase from them ?

If your website doesn’t give you the impression 100% of the time that it’s focussing on your prospects and customers then there’s a good chance that you’ve fallen victim to an Ego Centric Mentality.

If that’s the case, don’t worry – we’ve all been there ! Once you have recognized the Ego Centric Mentality of your website, the key is to correct the problem. This leads us to the first reason that businesses fail in effective communication – Research.

Conduct Research to Understand your Customers Better
A successful website should be an extension of your business image and marketing efforts. As such, successful marketing is based around targeting the needs of your customers and offering solutions to their business problems. Market research and analysis is the only way to ensure your website fulfils their needs.

Surveys & Focus Groups
One method of market research involves holding focus groups and surveying current customers and prospects to find out exactly what information they would like to see in your website.

This survey process can be very beneficial as it allows you to almost read your customers minds to determine exactly what they think, and what their problems are.

Surveying customers and prospects also promotes customer loyalty. There is a sense of honour among these people that you value their opinion, and as such they feel compelled to promote the site to colleagues and associates because of their initial involvement.

Realistically speaking, most people are more than happy to tell you their problems in hopes of finding a solution. This presents a huge wealth of information. Ways to gather this information from your clients and prospects include:

telephone; emails; fax; snail mail; or web-based surveys

Tip: Offer a small gift of appreciation for providing such valuable information can also significantly boost your survey response rate.

Keyword Research & Analysis
Another approach to conducting market research in an effort to understand problems of those who might be visiting your website is to use keyword research and analysis.

Keyword research is a unique concept that uses your knowledge of your business and industry to create a comprehensive list of keyword phrases that generate active search queries within the major search engines. Once your keywords and phrases have been identified, your site copy is developed around them.

This Keyword approach takes the guesswork out of website development and copy preparation because it guarantees that you are using phrases that attract and target the needs of visitors and potential customers. Content is King on the web. Developing well-structured sales and marketing copy based around keyword analysis not only makes sense but is also a cost effective alternative to surveying and holding focus groups with prospects and customers.

Rebuild It, then Watch Them Come
Remember back to the opening paragraph about why businesses develop websites - to communicate more effectively and economically with customers? Just as with any other marketing campaign, your website must generate results for it to be a success.

A Website that doesn’t generate results for your business fails. Not because the Internet doesn’t work for your business, but because proper research and planning hasn’t been done (insert the dot-bomb companies here) to understand the problems of your customers and communicate your solutions that solve their problems.

Knowledge is a powerful thing. Your business can benefit from and generate results because of its' website. Arming yourself with the knowledge of what your customers’ problems are and how you can solve them, will ensure success for your business.

Prosperous Communicating!

About the Author
Aaron Wolski is Managing Partner and Project Manager for Martek Business Solutions Inc. - an Internet Marketing and Development firm in Richmond Hill, Ontario Canada dedicated to providing results oriented services embodied by sound business practices.