Are You a American Web Page Inventor?

I’ve been watching the American Inventor lately and boy-howdy can you get some useful tips about marketing and presentation! If you haven’t seen the show, here’s a quick overview: The inventors get a 60 second shot at presenting their product to a panel of 4 Entrepreneurs, each are marketers and interested in promoting a new product. What’s at stake? A million dollars! And a chance to become famous!

What’s interesting about this process is that the judges ‘tell you’ that the ‘inventor’ (you)…how you present your case, even if your product is bad, is equally important to their decision when choosing a new inventor. NOT ONE INVENTOR HEARD THAT MESSAGE. Each person is so embedded, so over-focused in their own product, they aren’t paying attention to advice the panel just offered about what the panel wants to see, and as a result most seriously bomb because they design a presentation ‘they think’ the panel wants to see! As a result they can’t ‘convert’ the panel of judges to buy in on their idea!

The same thing happens with web page designs. Sites fail because they don’t pay close attention to the customers will want. We tend to build what WE think our customers want instead of researching exactly what they want. On the show the inventor gets 60 seconds to sell the panel on their product…a web page gets 2 seconds! Your challenge is far greater than the inventor.  Where on the page do you think you’ll be able to grab someone’s attention and keep them focused on YOUR presentation? The headline…simply put. You see, ‘words’ sell not logos, or funny objects….words. Yes…I know you want to brand yourself…great go ahead and brand yourself, but listen up…branding doesn’t convert…read on.

The message should speak to your customer in a way that keeps them on your page as they continue to read your proposition. It doesn’t matter how great or poor your product is…if you instantly speak to your customer and provide them with what they want…they will most likely buy. Remember, people don’t buy because they need, they buy because the want, it’s up to you to create that emotional connection and convince them to want your product. 

Here’s an exercise: Take a moment, step back and take a look at your pages and ask yourself: “do my headlines keep me on this page? Does this page compel me to buy?” If the answer is no…then you know what to do next, find a good copywriter that knows how to write pages that sell, don’t go to your web designer who knows nothing about writing copy, these are two distinctively different skills and you want to work with the one that will best suit your objectives.