Website Marketing Profiles
Websites are generally of a brochure design describing products or services offered by a company to the public or other businesses. This is all well and good if you have a specific offering the visitor is seeking, they know how to use it, and you are among the few places they are able to get it. For the rest of us successful online marketing involves appealing to potential customers by showing them how it is that what we are offering will benefit the prospect, knowing who that prospect might be, and knowing how to reach out to them specifically with something that meets their needs or desires.
Developing Buyer Profiles
You may be fully aware of what it is you’re trying to sell while having only scant knowledge of who will benefit from what you’re offering. What every website needs to do is focus on the buyers of the products and services they hope to market to. Too often, particularly in the business to business (b2b) market, websites are filled with industry jargon that may have meaning to those “in the business” but have little or no meaning much less appeal to their prospects. While having detailed brochure content is often necessary, on the web it is also necessary to have content that speaks to individuals.
The importance of search for all web based endeavors changes much of the approach used to garner customers. While much of a site’s detail about a certain product or service may show good results for search that approach will leave many who are searching based on a need or desire left untouched. They may know little about the product but are searching based on the need they are looking to satisfy.
A re-seller for Cisco Systems, for example, may think the Linksys Wireless N Router the hot ticket every home network user must have. Their site will boast of the benefits of “N” over the “G” protocol, the firewall, the number of ports, etc. But much of what would be on the brochure would only include terms a geek might use for search. Your prospects might be searching for “setting up a home network”, “… wireless network” or perhaps “network printing.” In addition to your product details page develop web content the addresses what your prospects may be searching for. Additional pages that detail solutions to these problems using the subject router will capture a wider audience.
You also want to explore who other than your prospect might be searching on their behalf. Most men would know that television ads for male “E.D.” are not directed to them but to their partners; most of us just don’t break into song and frolic around like that. Likewise, educators know that parents often spend as much time on the web in search of suitable colleges as do their college bound offspring. And while the student might be equally attracted to campus and community social activities as they are about academics their parents are more likely to be attracted by security and housing as well as the academics.
Create a page for every profile or use. Link these to your product page. Also, create a child menu on the product page that links to your profile pages. You may find a wider market segment than you currently reach. [wb_14]
