Take advantage of what your customers want in a website
As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we are proud of our success, and we should be! It takes a lot of determination and guts to get where we are.
But entrepreneurs and small business owners often think also objectively when it comes to your website.
Here are three ways they miss the mark:
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They feel like they just need to share what they do or provide or the facts about why they are rated.
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They focus on the specifications of the product or service, not on how they can improve the lives of their customers.
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They get lost in the humble, or not so humble, bragging about their achievements, state-of-the-art facilities, high-tech, or highly educated team. When that happens, you lose the story of how they connect with customers or why they are passionate about what they do.
This is not at all what your customers want in a website, nor is it the way people make decisions to buy or revisit your business.
I have three great ways to make your eCommerce site focus on your customers, not you:
1. Use empathy-based marketing.
Empathy-based marketing has become a hot topic since COVID-19 hit. It already existed before then, but it has really gained momentum in the last six months.
Basically, empathy-based marketing means thinking like your customers and putting yourself in their shoes. (It sounds similar to compassion, which is related to sympathy.)
Here’s an example: You have a retail store that caters to a wide range of age groups, and you notice that older people don’t come around as often. Your think as one of your clients. Perhaps you are tired, frail, or extremely anxious about COVID-19 because you are immunosuppressed.
So, as an empathetic small business owner, update your site content and create store signs for this segment of your audience. Between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., your store will only open for people over 65. Everything will be sanitized, there will be free coffee, and staff will be on hand to help people shop.
Now here’s a real-world example: When hundreds of Delta Airlines passengers had to sit for hours on the runways due to extreme weather, the airline ordered hundreds of pizzas.
The passengers were in a much better mood and I’m sure they were much more likely to use Delta again or give positive feedback thanks to the extra cheesy empathy.
2. Don’t create an e-commerce site for yourself.
Often times when small business owners are building their ecommerce site, they focus on the design aspects they prefer.
Loving green or having a collection of images already purchased from a stock photography site are not good reasons for them to be a part of your e-commerce site.
It’s all about doing your research before creating a website for your target market. It is important to do an in-depth analysis of things like:
- Your target audience. Are they empty nests of middle age and high income? Or tech-savvy moms short on time? You need to speak their language; Show them that you care and get to know them.
- The values of your target market. For example, if a questionnaire you send to your customers shows that most of them are very concerned about sustainability and the environment, images of happy people drinking from disposable coffee cups could be a deterrent.
- Your competitors. You don’t want to copy a competitor’s site design into your space, you always want to be unique!
This is why I frown when buying a pre-made theme. It has been used by hundreds, if not thousands, and your unique brand will not stand out as a result. But doing proper research can give you an idea of what look your audience might gravitate towards.
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READ: How To Improve Your Ecommerce Website
One of the main reasons why now is the best time to maintain an e-commerce site is that consumers are online more than ever.
Once forced to shop online due to COVID-19, many consumers will continue to shop online, now accustomed to the experience and convenience.
Because your target audience will be spending a lot of time online, I share some common problems that come up often and how to improve your eCommerce store.
Read more on our website.
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3. Keep everything simple.
We can get so caught up in giving our customers so many options or telling stories about our brand that we don’t even realize we’ve created absolute chaos!
Before starting to publish content or products, it is essential to plan your navigation. Adding multiple drop-down menus or tabs on the fly, without a well thought out plan, is a recipe for disaster.
When you create a website for your target market, every image, content, and CTA must have a purpose.
Concise, bold headlines will turn heads, while large chunks of text will look overwhelming. What customers want in a website is a clear path to a call to action to guide them smoothly, not randomly placed buttons.
And don’t be afraid of blank spaces! Clean areas of blanks will do wonders for your site. White space makes your copy much more legible and creates a contrast to your other items that visitors love.
By cleaning up clutter and guiding people to your products or services through responsive navigation, it offers a much more enjoyable experience than hitting them with walls of text, multiple drop-down options, and confusing calls to action.
Hope this gives you a clearer idea of what customers want in a website. By truly listening to your audience with an empathetic ear, you can create a connection to your ecommerce site and products or services that will keep them coming back.
If it’s time to update your website to attract the right people with the right message, hire a professional web development agency that understands the role psychology plays in great web design.
For the success of your business,
Susan
