What are your customers thinking when they come to your website?

August 29, 2011 |   3 minute read

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What are your customers thinking when they come to your website?

I was shopping for a dehumidifier this summer. I knew very little about dehumidifiers. I had to make a purchase that day, but I had no idea what I was looking for. So I started reading the boxes (because even disinterested customers still do 'research').


Fortunately the boxes had content on them (some better than others) and  I quickly became educated enough to make an immediate purchase.

I was thinking exactly like most customers do when they punch some keywords into a search engine. 

  1. They're ready  to buy.
  2. They'd like to make an educated purchase and tick the purchase off of their "to do" list.

But the real challenge is to communicate what you can do on your business website in such a way as to let the customer make up their own mind. 

 

The reason I bought one dehumidifier and not the other three was because one company gave me the benefits of buying and not just a feature list.

The winning company = the one who explains the benefits of their features.

The company who got my business was the one who explained why I should use them. They gave me all the benefits of using their dehumidifier, and then let me make up my own mind; so I could see if their product was what I was looking for. You might not realize, but this is exactly what customers are thinking everytime they come to your website to do 'research' on a purchase.

Here's how the winning dehumidifier company helped me choose them over their competitors.

  1. 65 pint capacity which covers a 1600 sq ft room. (the other boxes didn't tell me to which size room the pint-capacity referred. Since I'm not an expert on pint-to-room translation, how was I supposed to know what size I needed? Thankfully, these experts told me so I knew I could buy from them and have my needs fulfilled).
  2. 2-speed fan for a quieter running (and I thought: "yeah, that would be handy, I want the dehumidifier to go in my TV room". I wouldn't have known this was an issue if the writing on the box hadn't told me).
  3. Automatic shut-off once the dehumidifier is full to avoid spills. (Presumably, the other boxes also had this essential option, but they didn't tell me about it, so it was easy to ignore them, whereas the winning company caught my attention and gave me one more reason to choose them over their competitors. So choose them I did.)
    Prospects are looking at your website. What more could your website content explain to get them to choose you?