To convert more visitors to your website into enquiries, your content should not be about your business: it should be about what your customer wants or needs from your business. In sales and marketing, this is known as the WIIFM factor – What’s In It For Me (the customer)?
What Is The WIIFM Factor?
The WIIFM Factor means always making sure that you are communicating value to the customer in what they can expect from your product or service. “Is this going to serve my needs and tell me what I need to know?”
To get across WIIFM, you need to tell people what you can do for them, not what you do.
Why is it all about the customer?
When people perform an online search, they are focussing on their own needs, not yours. You may find it hard to believe, but unless it’s your mum, none of your customers are buying from you to help you – they are buying for their own reasons. Sounds selfish, but it’s true.
Business websites are focussed on either sales or lead generation. Either way, if you have your SEO fundamentals in place on your business website then your targeted key phrases for your Search Engine Optimisation will be capturing the interest of visitors from your core market.
These visitors are your self-qualified prospects. They have already matched themselves to what your business is offering by clicking on your website in their search results. Well done for bringing them this far. What they do now is entirely up to how well your content is set up around meeting their needs.
Customer-centric messaging
This means making sure your customers have the experience with you that you want them to have. Is the information organised around your prospect’s interests, or around your company’s interests?
If you ran a hardware store, rather than talk about the biggest and best range of tools and hardware that money can buy, say you will match the right products for job, from trade to DIY. Don’t show a wall of big, shiny tools; instead reinforce your message with a picture of a large building framework and another of a small doghouse.
Keeping your house in order – is your website in a fit state for receiving visitors?
Part of maintaining the customer-centric focus is keeping your content up to date and user-friendly. It’s a simple thing, but if the experience on your website is bad because it is hard to find things, the content is not current or the promotions or events you are showing have long since outlived their usefulness, then you are not looking after your guests.
If you aren’t showing customers that you are focused on them then the message you are sending is that you are too caught up in other things to really care about how you make them feel.
Example of how the WIIFM factor works
To see how the WIIFM factor can work, here is a simple scenario, where the online visitor is thinking about themselves. It’s Jim’s birthday and his sister Sue wants to help him celebrate with a family dinner. Sue has a wheat allergy but the family all love seafood. One website link mentions a seafood special that happens to be Jim’s favourite. The homepage talks up the restaurant and its award-winning chef. It sounds like a really great restaurant .However, a different special is featured and the dish is not even showing in the menu. Sue also has to try to figure out which dishes might contain gluten based on the descriptions. She doesn’t fancy leaving it to chance and only having one or two options on the night. She could phone the restaurant, but the number isn’t on the home page. Actually, it is there, in the footer. But Sue has already gone to another restaurant’s website.
This one promises a great evening out to celebrate any occasion, and clearly states they have gluten free options. It also has Jim’s favourite seafood dish clearly on offer under ‘New season specials’, with a call to action: Book now and pre-order this dish so you don’t miss out!
Because Sue is using her smartphone a click to call option instantly connects her with the Maitre d’ on duty. He asks if there are any dietary restrictions and what is the occasion and the family ends up with the best table and an offer for the chef to prepare his specialty gluten free chocolate gateau for dessert.
So which option is better? Both restaurants have good reputations and offer great food and service. Either would have been a good choice for Jim’s birthday. However, one restaurant’s website was all about the customer.
Telling people we do this and we do that is not the same as telling them what you can do for them. Think about the message your content sends to your visitors and what they might be thinking about when they search for your products or services online. Is there a strong customer focus in the content and layout of your website? If not, you are sending your potential customers to your competitors’ websites in search of a better customer experience: one that is all about WIIFM.
Web Tonic can help you generate more leads from your business website with customer-focused content and Conversion Rate Optimisation tailored to your customer’s needs. Click here to find out how to get more WIIFM in your website content