In my last article, I talked about why it is important to choose a target audience. In this article, I’ll talk about putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes.

Too often, companies design their websites to be little more than online brochures. They then wonder why their website isn’t generating any leads, conclude their website was a waste of money, and lose interest in updating it. The main problem with these sites is that they’re not very helpful to visitors. Sure, they tell you everything you could ever want to know about the firm’s history, services, and recent news - but, let’s be honest, that’s boring.

When you sit down with someone for coffee, do you immediately monopolize the conversation? Do you start talking about your life history, the problems you’ve had up until this point, how the future is looking good or bad, and on? Do you talk so fast the other person can’t get a word in? I hope not. Most people sit down to a conversation and both people engage each other - talking about their day, listening, empathizing and genuinely caring about the other person. That’s what your website needs to do - anticipate what your prospect is bringing to the table and talking with them about how they might solve their problems. So how do you do that?

Creating Personas To Understand Your Prospect’s Goals

The first step to understanding your prospects is to think about who you want to do business with. If you’ve been in business for some time, think back to past clients. For the last 5-10 clients you’ve had, answer the following questions:

• How did he/she find out about you?
• Why did he/she need your services?
• What was his/her role in making a decision to hire you? Who else was involved (ie boss, spouse, family member, coworkers, etc)?
• What were his/her major concerns about hiring you?
• What kinds of questions did he/she ask you to explain?
• How long did it take from initial contact to signing an agreement?
• What was the best thing about working with this client?
• Would you want to work with this client again? Why/why not?
• Did any problems come up when you worked with him/her (ie not paying bills on time, not managing expectations, any arguments, etc) If so, what could you have done to avoid such problems?

Now, write a 2-3 paragraph story summarizing each person’s goals, motivations and behaviors. Why do this? When many people sit down to think about marketing, they start thinking about generalizing. Everyone they’ve ever done or will do business with becomes lumped into the same category and they start generalizing about how all clients want this or all prospects want that. When you start to look at each individual story, however, you break that mode and can be more relevant to each person’s concerns.

If you’re just starting out in business, this exercise might be a bit more challenging. Go out and talk to people that might be potential prospects. Read the magazines they’re most likely to read. Go to a local bookstore and browse the titles on the shelves in your area of expertise. Take a class or go to a seminar or trade event and get to know people in your field. Then, sit down to write personas based on your research.

Using Personas To Plan Your Website

Once you’ve written your personas, your next step is to prioritize which ones you’d like your website to be most relevant to. Which clients did you most enjoy working with? Which were most profitable? Which do you hope never to work with again?

When it comes to any marketing (websites, ads, newsletters, etc), the general rule of thumb is that the more specific you can be, the more likely it will be relevant to someone. And being relevant to someone is far better than not being relevant to anyone. We’re exposed to over 3000 marketing messages a day, so we’re very good at filtering out things that aren’t relevant to our lives. Yet when something is relevant, we start to see it everywhere - once you buy a new car, you start to see lots of people with your make, model and color.

When it comes to your website, your personas will help you make decisions about features, navigation, and informational content should be on your site. It switches the focus from your personal preferences to how prospects will interact with your website.

For instance, instead of focusing on your preferences like:

• What features should we have on the site?
• How can we generate more leads or sell more of this product?
• Should we use this for web copy?
• Where should we put this content?

you focus on your main persona’s objectives:

• What is Sue trying to accomplish on the site?
• How can we help Sue accomplish her goal?
• Will Sue understand this web copy?
• Where will Sue look to find this content?

In the next article, I’ll talk about identifying your competitors and doing a competitive analysis.

Random Posts

• MarketingSherpa’s Search Engine Marketing Survey
• What is a Domain Name?
• Just the Stats
• Back to Basics in Direct Marketing
• How Web Directories Can Improve Your Search Engine Rank