WebSites that Engage!

Focus

A good website can do many things for your business. Your website might look good, but does it work? Think for a moment of all the things a web site might do for your organization? 

• Is your site focused on educating and informing your target? 
• Is your site generating sales leads?
• Should your site be focused on selling? Does it generate leads?
• Will it answer a question? Support a marketing campaign?
• Provide after sales support?
• Allow customers to review their accounts?

The best websites are planned, designed and developed to achieve a single business or organizational objective.   What is the one thing that you would like your web site to do?

Generating Sales Leads
Many business sites are focused on helping the customer make a buying decision and generating a sales prospect. Think for a moment what kind of people will arrive at your site. Your site will have many different kinds of visitors:

• Competitors and Tire Kickers
• Sales Suspects and  Sales Prospects
• People who came to your site accidentally or found you in a search engine
• Existing Customers 

Visitors to your site have a real interest in the products or service your business provides.  They are loking for something.  That is why they are there.  

For most visitors you will never know they were there.  You don’t want a web site that just sits there.  You want a web site that is as engaging as your best sales person would be.  You want a website that engages the visitor.  

To be successful your site must engage the visitor.

 The Engagement Page

Your web site needs to engage the visitor. How? Offer them a place to make a purchase, to build a quote, get an ROI analysis, subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a survey or enter a contest.  You must have something to generate interest and so a serious visitor will enter their name and a phone number. You must have something to get them engaged.   

To achieve the objective the site design, promotional emails and print marketing need to drive the visitor to the page that “Engages” them or what at immediaC we call the “Engagement Page”. 

A simple first step is to make sure the site invites visitors to join a mailing list or enter a contest.   

Then consider how you might get more information from them.  If you are in the chocolate business, consider what you might ask them about their chocolate preference?  A survey about their chocolate eating habits would allow you to learn a bit about the visitors. 

Think about activities that you can put on your site that help make informed buying decisions. 

As a method of qualifying visitors and turning them into sales prospects, offer to send the visitor useful information, after they provide their email address and phone number. 

• Free Trials
• Free Surveys or Quizes
• Coupons and Discounts
• A Price Quote or Free Consultation
• Case Studies and White Papers
• Return on Investment Analysis (ROI)

Key Concepts of Engagement Pages: 

1. The entire site needs to be focused on moving visitors to the page where they enter their information
2. Supporting email can be sent to direct traffic to the engagement page
3. At each step of the process any information that is entered by the visitor is captured and saved to administrative reports.
4. The client automatically receives an email acknowledging their activity
5. The client receives a call from the owners of the site to follow up on their purchase or inquiry.
6. The best web site should be as engaging as your best sales person would be.