Unless you’ve marketed your small business website to everyone and anyone under the sun, you’ll have a healthy mix of visitors to your site who are interested in your products and services. Not everyone fits into a neat little box, but in general, visitors to your small business website will fall into one of four general classifications: Pre-Prospects, Prospects, Leads, and Customers. Identifying each type of visitor and where they are in the five stages of the buying process are key to your website’s success.
To maximize your website’s potential, you’ll need to create clusters of content aimed at satisfying the individual needs of each classification of visitor. The goal is to target each visitor type with specific content relevant to their current stage of the buying process — Enticing visitors on the lower rungs of the buying process to take the next step closer to buying from you.
The following profiles will help you identify the most common types of visitors to your small business website, how they are influenced, and what type of information and website content they’re looking for.
- Pre-Prospect – This type of visitor is barely on your radar. They have a problem or a need, but may or may not even be aware they’ll require your help. Pre-prospects are primarily looking for educational information on your small business website to help them understand the problem better and to begin identifying what products and services may solve their problem.
- Prospect – A prospect is already armed with general information. By the time a prospect gets to your small business website, they’re aware of their situation and needs, and have a strong understanding about what product or service they should buy. At this stage, you’ll want to provide helpful content on your small business website to persuade the prospect that your company and brand of products and services are just what they need. Because the prospect is in the process of vetting firms and reviewing specific brands of products, you’ll want to provide content that promotes your experience, brand identity, service and price.
- Lead – Lead visitors to your website typically fall into two sub-classes: 1) those that are committed to contacting you for an initial consultation about your service or product, and, 2) those who have already met with you, or have purchased from you before. All you need to do is provide supporting collateral marketing material to facilitate first contact and reaffirm your commitment. A little hand-holding and reassurance helps close the sale. Leads are primarily influenced by your professionalism, ease of becoming a customer and support after sale.
- Customer – Customers are a slightly different breed than all of the above. Customers already believe in you, but they need continual reassurance that they’re making the right decision. Focus your small business website on providing excellent customer service and after-sale support, clear communication and ease of service fulfillment. For many customers, website features such as: an extranet for services-based businesses or preferred customer login sections for products-based businesses, e-mail newsletters and web notifications about service or product updates, adds value and improves customer retention, and encourages repeat purchases.
Keeping the above profile of small business website visitors in mind, review your website’s content, layout and marketing strategy. Do you have content devoted to each type of visitor? Is your small business website properly designed to “pull” visitors through the buying process, converting Pre-prospects and Prospects into Customers? Does your small business website provide additional value to your current customers, strengthen relationships and help them become better clients or repeat purchasers?
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