What’s An Interactive Website?

One way to classify websites is the degree to which a visitor can affect the content which is presented to them.  Those websites which ask for a higher number of visitor clicks (interactions) are termed to be more interactive.  Just like a conversation, when a salesperson talks at a prospect nonstop and hardly takes a second to understand what the person is looking for, that can be a described as a non interactive conversation.  The same applies to a website.  An interactive website is like a good sales call where the salesperson starts with some qualification questions for the prospect and continues to seek some feedback throughout the conversation.

The Ultimate Data Opportunity

Interactive websites represent the ultimate opportunity to generate valuable data about your visitors.  By taking full advantage of the click activity required on an interactive website, a company can create an environment which simultaneously delivers more targeted information to a visitor while capture the behaviour to build profiles of visitors to the website.

Websites are often built with design and messaging in mind first and then analytics is added at the tail end to allow for site performance data to be captured.  In our client projects, we bring the analytics decision making into the earliest stages of the website design to incorporate the needs of our clients for data about prospects.  Client actions can then be added into key content areas to create more data points for analysis.

This data is useful beyond just website fine tuning — its usefulness extends to all areas of your marketing decision making where a lack of data can make meetings painful and driven off of perceptions rather than fact.  One of our clients recently said that he looks forward to our regular analytics reports more than his management meetings now for getting a pulse on the state and direction of his business.

So why not make every key page on your website a landing page?
The tendency on many web sites is to treat web pages like the pages of a brochure — only one first page and one last page — the rest are part of the sequence.  Not only is this an incorrect approach, it reduces the potential of each page to add value to your traffic generation strategy.

A highly focused website page has:

1. specific audiences in mind (not necessarily just one but some finite defined audiences) at which it is aimed
2. specifically chosen content to satisfy the different entry points from which a person will land on the page
3. clear exit points to the logical next step in the website flow

Now doesn’t that sound exactly like a landing page?

We know how companies work

Everyone is too busy and things that require extraordinary attention fall by the wayside most of the time.  This can have a huge impact on your online marketing efforts — if you have to design and build content for a new landing page everytime you want to run a new AdWords campaign, most of the time the new campaign won’t happen.
That’s a huge price to pay in your business simply because of a lack of preplanning.

We’ve built websites for clients in many industries that have targeted and focused pages that are also effective landing pages for AdWord/SEO/email campaigns.  One recent client had 14 pages related to individual pain areas and 6 pages related to specific product features.  Add to that 7 industry focused pages and they already had more than 25 landing pages ready for focused marketing campaigns.  These were all part of the normal website flow (not specialized) landing pages.

Consider this strategy as a way to create efficiency in your online marketing operations and giving visitors a more focused experience on your website.

1. Where they’ve been
2. Where they want to be

The power of this approach is that it connects your with your prospects at their most important level — pain.

Where They’ve Been:
There are several dimensions that describe where a prospect has been.  In the context of looking at a product or service, it usually implies a negative “place”:

1. difficult situations
2. negative emotions
3. pain or need areas unmet
4. business or personal challenges
5. unmet goals

If you study a good sales call or great marketing materials, they inevitably include the effort to connect with the “place” that a prospect has been.   Why? Because to build a product which solves a problem, a company needs to understand to a good extent the nature of that problem.

Where they want to be:
Along the same dimensions, there is “place” where prospects are want to be in the context of looking at a product or service.  As expected, this a positive “place” which reflects an ideal of some sort with respect to key dimensions like:

1. good situations
2. positive emotions
3. benefit received
4. challenges overcome
5. goals met

In the effort to convey the “value” of your product, your success will substantially be determined by the prospect connecting your product or service to reaching their desired “place”.  Describing credibly how your offering will take them from where they “are” to where they want to be, will create the perception of value which allows for sales to be completed.

This represents a key part of the fundamental perception shift of what your website about.   In another article, we’ve discussed the new paradigm that successful online marketing efforts are built on: your website is not about your company or your products, its about your prospects and their needs.

These work in close visibility alongside your conversion options. Let’s see some examples

-          Limited enrollments. (Eg only 12 students max in a class)

-          Assured privacy.

-          Skill assessment Quiz to decide a course.

-          Offers with 15-days trial, no-risk, no-questions-asked, money-back, 100%-satisfaction guarantee.

-          Effective testimonials from your students which specifically talk about the benefits they got – and not standard lines which seem more as a place holder.

What you Gain

i)                    Your website’s results (sales or conversions) will see a marked improvement.

ii)                   You have less of visitors leaving without converting.

iii)                 You beat the competition by being more visitor-friendly as compared to them.

All the above needs a high level of  strategic thought which lets the visitor get an experience that is almost at par with a one-to-one conversation. These conversion ideas need industry specific knowledge coupled with cross industry practices to add effectiveness.  The combination of wise implementation and expert advise should get the optimum benefits.

This article is published by The Web Strategy Company, the online resource for industry specific strategies and tactics. We publish articles on a daily basis that focus on using your online presence to address key business challenges including sales effectiveness, business growth and financial results.  This website is a knowledge centre produced by AftertheNet, a leading global web strategy consulting company. We have worked with clients across the globe in many industries, bringing them ideas, process and expertise in making their online presence a strong pillar in addressing business challenges.

There is an widespread belief that because the web is a different medium,everything is somehow different than in the “real world”.    Maybe that was true a few years ago, but now, the web is as real as a “brick and mortar” store.    The same hurdles that you have to overcome offline you will face online.

Visitors will still be impatient and rapidly lose interest in less relevant content.   Some content, offers and conversions will work better for some segments than others — you’ll still have to test their effectiveness.   You’ll still want to probe your prospects to see if you can learn more about their demographics and pain areas.   There is one requirement for your website to be an equal partner to your offline business operations: an INTERACTIVE WEBSITE.

An interactive website is built with your key customer segments in mind.   It allows you to:

• change the content presented by reacting to visitor self classification
• gain visibility into visitor preferences, pain areas and demographics through onsite tracking
• test messaging, offers and conversions within specific segments
• provide visitors with a more tailored, fine tuned and efficient experience on your website.

Much like your top sales person, a well built interactive website can help your business in the areas of Sales Effectiveness and Visitor Data Gathering.

Talk to any physical products packaging expert and they will tell you they love the challenge of fitting a marketing message on a box which is sometimes less than 10 square inches.

What sets the good packaging guys apart?  You’d think it was design skills and communication skills.   Everything I’ve seen through working with a large number of companies tells me the top guys win the game before they start writing or designing anything.     I’m talking about TARGETING.

The top guys will tell you the only way to do packaging right is to target specific customer segments with your design and messaging.  Powerful packaging and marketing content is concise and focused and to the point.

So why is unlimited space on your website a curse?

We all have a lot to say about our products or services and all that space lets us be verbose and unfocused.   But the fact is a tiny box on one page of your website might be all the TIME you get from a key part of your website visitors.

So my point is: don’t get fooled by all that space on your website.   Define who you’re targeting and, in the fewest words possible, put across only the information that your target segments need.

Sure, creating new pages and extending pages is easy, but neither of those steps increases the amount of time a visitor gives you to get your value proposition (for them) across.   So think like you’ve got only a small cracker box to get your message across and you’ll find your visitors rewarding you with greater conversions.

People are now holding themselves accountable for what they purchase.    And even more importantly, companies are holding their employees responsible for what they purchase.   The standard is the same — whats the real value of the purchase item?

Most companies we’ve come across in our web strategy practice have incorporated benefit selling into their business strategy.   The problem is that not all benefits are important to all buyers.    And these days people are looking as hard for reasons not to buy as reasons to buy things.

So what’s the trick?  It comes in three parts:

1) Recognizing that benefits have to be presented from the visitor’s angle.   Avoid spending time on things you think are cool about your product.  Focus on what visitors will find is valuable about your offering.

2) Customer Segmenting:  Always an important strategy — now its critical.   Consider the ways that your customers can be divided into sub groups.   But remember, its not about their industry or demographic, its about identifying groups with common pains with respect to your product.   The goals is to be able to create customized messaging that excludes things that are not contributor to the perception of value for each segment.

3) ROI not Convenience: Focus on tangible and important value, not nice-to-haves.   Companies and people alike are working with fewer dollars and higher standards for spending.   Products or services which make their lives easier are no longer on the list for many buyers.    Ensure that your benefits are tied to meaningful and longer term ROI (value) for the buyer.

In the current economy, valuable products with strong benefits will still do well.   Companies which sell them will just have to work that much more precisely to communicate the value to each of their customer segments.

This subject is first big “a-ha” (wide-eyed) moment we have with most of our clients.  Your website isn’t about your company or its products.   Its about your potential customers and their needs.

So what does this all mean?

When companies start to build (or rebuild) their website, they usually draw a site plan map which has the company’s name at the centre.    Big mistake — erase it and put a descriptive title for your key customer segment in the middle.  Then start brainstorming on all the information / content they might need to decide to contact you or buy your product online.

We do this everyday at AftertheNet and it transforms the websites of our clients into client centric lead generation machines.

The funny thing about this paradigm shift is that it isn’t just about content.   That mindset shift makes everything easier in building a new web presence.    Many more ideas and a greater degree of focus come from putting a firm image of your target customers at the centre of yourwebsite planning.

Try it out and tell us what you find.   Of course, we can help since we do this everyday in a variety of industries.