You know that feeling when you get a new enquiry through your website and it’s from the perfect customer?
The phone rings, or an email lands in your inbox, and as you find out more about what the client wants, your heart rate quickens just a little bit and you get that tingly feeling that comes with knowing you and the customer are going to be a perfect match.
This is why you put some much effort into your marketing. These are the moments that make it all worthwhile.
To grow your business in the way you want, you don’t just need more customers.
You need more of the right type of customers.
So how do you get more of your best customers from your website?
1. Identify who your best customers are
This might seem obvious, but the first thing you need to figure out is who your best customers are.
Most importantly, which ones make you the most money?
How to find your perfect customer
Once you’ve worked out who your best customers are, you need to get to work on your image.
2. Get your brand right
Having a strong, clear brand identity is the most important thing to get right to position your business properly to your customer.
Make no mistake, a good brand identity is important for all businesses, regardless of size or type.
The right brand image can help you:
- Increase your prices.
- Position your business as high quality.
- Be remembered by your customers.
- Demonstrate you’re a reliable, experienced business.
- Stand out from your competitors.
With the right brand identity, you can attract the right type of customers, willing to pay the right price, and you’ll find it easier to convert enquiries into sales and orders.
Do you need to improve your brand identity? Talk to us to find out how we can help.
Once you’ve got your brand identity right, you need to focus on giving your customers what they want.
3. Get your website content right
To plan your website effectively, you need to start with your content.
What does your perfect customer want to find when they come to your site? What are the questions they’ll have in their head they’ll want answered before they decide whether to buy from you?
One of the most effective ways to do this is to think about the questions you most often get asked when you’re talking to a prospective customer on the phone or face-to-face.
Let’s say you sell fancy kitchens. When someone walks into your showroom, they nearly always ask:
- Do you design the kitchen for us?
- Do we need to pay for that?
- Do you just do traditional/modern/large/small kitchens?
- Do you install the kitchen, or do we need to find an installer?
- How long will it take?
- How do I know it won’t go wrong and I’ll still be waiting for my tiling to be done six months later?
- Do you have the fancy slide and hide Neff oven off of Bake Off?
- How much will it cost me? Can you give me a rough idea?
You need to make sure your content answers these questions. So, you’ll probably want to include these messages or pages on your site:
- A page that says you do the design (and that it’s free)
- A page showing all the different types of kitchens you’ve done, and how amazing they are
- Testimonials from customers saying how creative the design was and how smoothly the installation went
- A page about installation, your installers, how they’ve worked for you for years and are really reliable, and how long it usually takes
- A page about the appliances and brands you sell
- A bit about roughly how much they might need to budget
At this stage, you’ve got the basis for the structure of the site, and an idea of how the customer might move through the site (this is called the User Journey).
Now you’ve worked out your site structure and user journey, you need to decide what you tell your customer, and how you tell them.
The first is your message, the second one is your tone.
4. Get your message right
Your message should be approached from your customer’s point of view;
Why should they do business with you? How do you give them value? Why should they continue to interact with your brand and not go somewhere else?
When a prospect visits your site, tell them everything they need to know about you as quickly and succinctly as possible.
The average attention span for a visitor to your website can be measured in seconds. That’s not long to work with.
Ideally, you want to have one clear message about what sets you apart.
If you’re struggling to narrow it down and you end up with two or three key messages, that’s fine – but don’t have too many.
What you’re trying to do is tell them why they should buy from you instead of someone else.
For our Kitchen Designer, the message might be:
“We do everything for you from start to finish. We’ll look after everything and you don’t need to worry about anything going wrong.”
How you get that message across is your tone, which needs to fit in with your brand identity and the impression you want to give.
5. Get your tone right
There are lots of different ways you could write the Kitchen Designers’ message, and each one would give a different impression.
“We’re here to help you every step of the way.”
“Your dream kitchen, taken care of from start to finish.”
“Quality craftsmanship to bring your dream kitchen to life.”
“The only thing you need to worry about is whether your shoes match your tiles.”
“Quick, easy, affordable. Great kitchens with the minimum of fuss.”
“Quality kitchens you can trust.”
Ideally, you’ll have developed a tone of voice as part of your brand identity development. This helps you be consistent and stay ‘on brand’ when it comes to writing your copy.
You might not think it’s very important, but even if just some parts of your website sound different to others, customers will notice – and the inconsistency undermines their faith in your business.
Now you’ve got your brand image right, your message is clear, and the tone of voice is spot on, you’ve established you’re the right fit for your customer.
Now you need to make sure you convert them into an enquiry.
6. Make it easy for them
Have a clear and consistent call to action throughout the website, in all the places where customers might be making their decision to get in touch with you.
Include a link or a button at the bottom of all your pages, so when they’ve finished reading, they know what to do next. Consider adding calls to action in other places on longer pages, or where the customer gets to the end of a section.
How do you want your customer to contact you? Do you close more sales if you walk the customer through the process from start to finish? If so, you might want to encourage them to call you, or even make an appointment to visit you. If you need to have some information up front, an enquiry form might be better.
You can also use your call to action to qualify enquiries for you. If you have a minimum price level, and can’t help customers who have a smaller budget, you can filter them out by asking them how much they have to spend, and give them a choice of options starting at your minimum price.
Your website is a valuable asset
Don’t forget how valuable an asset your website is to your business. Even if you have a simple brochure/credentials site and don’t see it as an important part of your marketing effort, how it looks and works will influence your customers as to whether they’re going to buy from you.
Get it right, and you’ll get more of your best customers contacting you more often.
You’ll have to get used to that tingly feeling 🙂
If you want to get more of your best customers from your website and need some help – or don’t have the time to tackle it yourself – get in touch.