Avoid selfishness. It causes problems everywhere, and the world of eCommerce is no exception. To be successful, you need to know your audience, care about them, and go the extra mile to meet them where they are.
Maybe you are thinking of a new website: “My website is about me, my services and my products”
You may not be saying that explicitly, but it could still be your subconscious attitude. Most of us can relate to the joke, “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.”
If you they should think about your services and products, their benefits and limits. Think about yourself: your own limits as an entrepreneur. And if you want people to buy, think of these things in terms of your prospects.
- Who are they?
- What are they waiting for?
- What are they looking for?
- How do they perceive your products, your niche, your approach?
- How could I confuse or disappoint them?
It’s hard to escape our pervasive selfishness, also known as prejudice, a huge blind spot to see around us. The best way to avoid this is to survey your prospects and, if you can, observe their behavior regarding whatever it is you sell, do, or make.
For example, I’ve been planning to write an e-book on public speaking for six months, but I haven’t done it yet. I knew it was lower on my priority list, so I put an offer on my most popular public speaking webpages: “Take this survey and I’ll send you a free copy of this $25 eBook when it’s available!” – I already have about 50 answers. When the time comes to plan the contents of the book, I will already know what is most interesting for my target market.
Likewise, I took a poll when it came time to title my first alternative medicine book: I brainstormed 100 of them, picked my 10 favorites, and let my online health readers pick their favorite. The one they preferred was the winner by far. He wasn’t even close. He wasn’t the one I liked either. Watch?
Maybe you’re writing a copy: “I will describe my offerings in the most natural language for me.”
Sometimes that works. If you are looking to capture them with a particular flavor, you can use, for example, a popular language or a technological language. But that doesn’t always work. What if they don’t know your lingo? What if they don’t know your favorite words and concepts?
We become so comfortable with the words, phrases, and metaphors in our business and social circles that we forget that not everyone knows them. You can keep your jargon if you define it. Otherwise, translate it into everyday language. Even better, find out what the most popular keyword equivalents are and use them.
Trust me as an experienced writer and public speaker. Too many times I have found myself reaping confusion where I swear I had sown clarity. I no longer underestimate how much my audience will misunderstand my meaning. The burden of clarity is on me, not on them.
Maybe you are building a website: “I am organizing my website around my ideas about my business.”
That can work fine, but if it doesn’t, visitors get confused, don’t find what they’re looking for, and leave with no regrets. On a website that is new to them, they only click so many times before they are gone.
What you think about your offers doesn’t matter if you don’t know what your prospects need, what they care about, and what their problems are…
- How do your offerings meet their needs and solve their problems?
- What words are on their minds when they come looking for solutions?
- What referral search terms appear in your web analytics logs?
- Are you using those terms in your navigation?
Your prospect may have the problem you solve but not be looking for your kind of solution, or they may not call the solution or problem the same names as you. Jargon again. Find out what they call it and how they think about it. Find out what they are really looking for and call it that on your website
Bridge the minds of your prospects and your own, and they will flow en masse.
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