How to Use Your Website to Engage with Your Customers | CustomerThink
How to Use Your Website to Engage with Your Customers
In this increasingly digital world, a company’s website is one of the first customer touch points. A website is not so much about the organization as it is about its customers. Therefore, the website of an organization has to engage its customers and talk to them from “their” point of view. Sounds logical and simple. Yet, you would be surprised to see how many websites overlook this fundamental concept. Hence, there is no harm in revisiting it.
Here are 5 tips to make your website engaging and useful to your customers.
Talk to Your Customers About Their Need
Gone are the days when you could populate your website with just ‘your’ information. Today you still do it, but you do so keeping the needs and interests of your customers in mind. It is about addressing ‘their’ need, rather than telling them ‘about’ yourself. The content is not so much about telling them who you are as about demonstrating how your services or products are going to help prospects solve their problems or address their needs.
When it comes to existing customers, they already have a relationship with you – they are using your products. They might come to your website in search of some additional information, they might want to see how your product works or they want to fix a problem. So, it is important that you anticipate what your customers are likely to look for and ensure it is available on your website.
Address Your Audiences Individually
You may have existing customers, and you will have potential customers visiting your website. You need to show prospects how your products will help them solve their specific problems. For existing customers, the website should be a place that offers tips and suggestions to make the most of the product. Testimonials and case studies of existing customers are also useful to reinforce your product stature. You can also provide cross-selling and up-selling options to customers.
You may have retail customers, corporate customers or customers from multiple domains. If your products address diverse groups of customers, you will need to create individual spaces that talk about how your products meet their specific needs. Having broad, general information applicable to everyone does not really help an online visitor who is looking for specific information. So, it is important that you address your audiences individually.
Focus on the Solutions You Provide
It is very easy to fall into the trap of giving a detailed description and the features of your product, but it makes no sense unless you support it with information on “how’ those features are going to help your potential clients. Remember that the first person who searches for you on the Internet may not be technically savvy and might be a junior executive given the task of shortlisting potential clients for the desired solution. So, it is important that the words you use on your website, even if yours is a sophisticated, hi-tech product, are jargon free and simple.
Offer Resources – Videos, Tips, Domain Knowledge
Videos are great resources for both prospects as well as existing customers. Potential customers get a good idea seeing your products in action. It could be a good selling factor. It is the next best thing to physically handling the product and seeing it in action. Very often, this becomes the decisive factor to move ahead with a particular company.
For existing customers, product videos can be used to show best practices, how to guides, basic troubleshooting and other such reasons. The idea is that if the problem is minor, your website should be able to help customers handle it by themselves, instead of coming to your service help desk. This way, your customer service personnel can handle more complex issues that cannot be resolved online.
If yours is a B2B organization, you can share your domain expertise and industry knowledge with your customers in the form of whitepapers, digital eBooks and newsletters. This way, you are engaging with customers by sharing key knowledge with them and also reminding them of your domain expertise. You can get people interested in your resources to fill a form and they can be part of your leads’ database. You can interact with them periodically with unique offers and information that is otherwise not available to the general public.
In an increasingly mobile world, it is imperative that your website is compatible with mobile devices. It means, when your audiences open your website on their Smartphones or tablets, the content has to fit into the limited screen space instead of appearing messy. That way, all your resources will be available to more number of audiences, thereby increasing the chances of your reach and authority in the domain. You also need to ensure your website is mobile-compatible because Google ranks such websites high and if you want to be in the good books of Google, it is essential that you make your website compatible with mobile browsers as well.
Websites are no longer for only big companies with huge marketing budgets. It is important for small and medium enterprises to have good engaging websites that cater to the needs of their prospects and customers. These tips will help you get started toward having a website that is in tune with the current trends and customer demands. It can also be a good lead generation source that will enable you to compile information about qualified leads who may not essentially be your customers immediately but can become so in future.