When it comes to online marketing, there’s a golden rule I encourage everyone to follow …
Make it about them, not you.
In other words, everything you do within the realm of online marketing — or analog marketing for that matter — needs to be customer focused.
Here’s an excerpt from the web design section of my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing that explains this well …
Making Your Website “Customer Facing”
In other words, make it about your customers and potential customers — not about you.
In working with hundreds of clients, I’ve found that many of them struggle with similar issues. In fact, hearing the same pain points over and over was the inspiration for the Holistic Guide to Online Marketing workshop, which eventually became this book.
I mention this here because I want you to know that many organizations believe they need to share their accolades and experience to clients and potential clients — right on their website’s homepage. Sometimes this sharing occurs because there’s a belief that awards are impressive and might be the tipping point in gaining more business. Sometimes an organization wants to share simply because there’s a rich company history they want everyone to know about — whether it’s being in business for over a century, or being completely employee owned, there’s an authentic excitement about the organization that management and team members want to share.
Frankly speaking, nobody really cares.
At least not when they first arrive on your website. When they first arrive on your site’s homepage, a visitor wants to know — often times, right away — if you can fix their problem, and ease their pain. This isn’t to say that your company’s awards and heritage aren’t important, they just typically shouldn’t be taking up prime real estate on your homepage. Instead, use that space for benefit-driven, customer-centric content.
— Excerpt from A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, Part 2, Chapter 4
Taking this one step further, making it about the customer also means understanding the language and thought processes they use when they think about their business. For instance, with our customers there is a diversity that needs to be understood …
The $100K customer is often thinking first and foremost about getting more clients and making more money. Their annual revenue likely isn’t enough for them to move into a place of financial stability. So, even though building trust is a key element in Cuppa SEO’s web design process, that may not be something a small business cares about (at least not when they are looking to hire a web developer).
On the other hand, a $50M+ may very well have a marketing team and understand that engagement and trust building is important, so when they’re looking for a web design firm trust building — which is part of the user experience (UX) — may be much higher on the list of must haves.
So how do you talk to both types of clients? It’s not easy, and it’s why as business owners we need to be intentional about choosing a business niche to live in so we’re not trying to please everyone. This is a topic that will be discussed in a future article. Until then, stay well, and make it about them not you!
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