Who Are You, And Why Should I Care?

Yes, that’s a pretty blunt way to start a new-client conversation. And yes, I have been roundly criticized over my career for opening discovery meetings with this rather direct, two-part question. But rest assured, there’s a method to my madness. 

First, a little background. As a creative director and marketing strategist for over thirty years, I have been involved in countless new client discovery meetings. Probably hundreds at this point. I prepare and send a questionnaire that can be completed in advance of the meeting, with probative questions about the organization, product or service offerings, the marketplace, competitors, and the potential client’s overall marketing objectives. By the time the discovery meeting appointment arrives, I’ve typically also invested a handful of hours, possibly more, of my own research time to get a glimpse into their world.

Despite this background research and preparation, I still love starting with that direct question. Who are you, and why should I care? Here’s why. That is how the marketplace reacts to your product, service, brand, or offering–that abruptly. And that harsh, instantaneous judgment is worse today than ever before. Imagine yourself scrolling through your Facebook feed while sitting watching television. Or perhaps you’ve logged into LinkedIn and are thumbing through the latest business news. What catches your attention? Is it a particular business you follow? Is it a product that screams look at me? The attitudes that shape your behaviors, what post you click on, whether you click through to the website are the same for your potential customers. Put yourself in their shoes. You must get their attention immediately and make them care enough to read on.

Let’s start with your website. According to experts in the marketing communications world, you have between 6 and 15 seconds to capture the user’s attention and cause them to read on, click or scroll further, and engage with your website. Audience attention span is a much-debated topic in marketing. For a more complete picture, check out this well-written article on the subject from Semrush, a leading search engine marketing authority. If the user arrives at your landing page via a paid traffic-building approach such as a Google search ad or perhaps through a promoted post on LinkedIn, the time to capture their attention is on the low side of the scale. If you or your digital marketing firm has done the hard work and gained organic ranking on searches relevant to your audience, users give your site a few more seconds and will be on the higher side of the scale.

So, what can you do to capture and keep website visitor’s attention? Here are a few simple steps to follow or use in working with your digital marketing firm or website design and development team.

1. Have a game plan for your website. Use a site like LucidChart to create a diagram and mockup a site map for your website. Understand and agree on the goals for each page and stick to them. Producing a blueprint for your website architecture with the audience marketing objectives for each page can make or break a website project.
2. Understand your audience. Motivate website visitor engagement on their terms, using their language and imagery. Remember that people relate to words and images about them. Don’t make your initial website messaging and visual presentation about you. Present a customer problem they can associate with and that you can solve.
3. Understand why your audience is coming to your website in the first place. They have a need, want, or desire that your company, via your website, may help them fulfill. Many businesses get trapped into trying to answer too many questions in the “hero” area of their homepage (the banner or “above the fold” area users land on upon arrival). What’s the number one thing your business does best? What problem does it solve in the marketplace for your potential customers? Make that the single focus of your initial text and imagery on your website homepage or campaign landing pages.
4. Don’t make the user experience too complicated. If your audience must burn many calories trying to figure out how to navigate your website and find the answers to their questions about your business, you’ve probably lost them.
5. Create specific calls to action. Do you want users to email you? Pick up the phone and call? Do you take appointments on your website? However, you want visitors to actively engage with your business (conversion), be clear about it, and make it clear to your website visitors. Early and often.
6. Hire a professional writer. Paying for a copywriter or marketing firm to develop the persuasive messaging and text for your website is one of the single best things you can do for your business’ website. A skilled marketing writer can help you develop your audience personas, cultivate a better understanding of their needs, and ultimately convert the features of your offering into the benefits and persuasive language your audience will respond to. This is a fundamental aspect of content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Ultimately, Google rewards your website with better ranking as your website text answers your audience’s specific questions about your product or service more effectively.
7. Don’t use tired stock photography images. At this point, consumers have been exposed to scads of images online. Even for the most unsophisticated user, it’s fairly easy to know when the images you’re using are not new or relevant to them or their needs, are drab, or unenticing. Original, professional photography, higher-quality stock imagery, or creative image manipulation with Photoshop, can make the images feel original to your business, better support your marketing messages, and inspire and entice website engagement. 

Following these guidelines as you design and develop your website or work with your marketing partner, can vastly improve capturing users’ attention and keeping it long enough to lead to a conversion. Your website will answer who you are and why customers should care. Of course, we’d love to help you with any of these steps or look at developing or refreshing your website to achieve your marketing goals. Contact us by email at connect@methoddigitalmarketing.com. We can put together a digital marketing strategy and plan to optimize your website and make it grab and keep users’ attention to grow your business.