Why Should I Buy From You (and Why Can’t I Tell From Your Website)?

Why do we have so much trouble articulating in copy – especially website copy – why our company is different?   

This graphic on the home page of a site we're redesigning clearly answers the question, "why should I do business with . . ." this particular research and advertising company.

 A large seminar company called us recently.  They were just about to launch a web page promoting a particular seminar.  “Can you just look over the copy, and let us know what you think?”

 I scanned the page – as most site visitors will.  I read the headline.  I looked for subheads (there weren’t any).  I bypassed the three chunky paragraphs of copy at the top, looking for the “why should I attend YOUR seminar” bullets.  I called the company back after about 15 seconds, and asked one question:

 “Why should I attend your seminar?” 

 “Gee, you’re really putting me on the spot, aren’t you?” was the marketer’s answer.

(yikes.)  It’s a wonder that we expect web visitors to figure out why they should buy from us, when even WE don’t know!  (Note to all marketers:  the “why should they buy yours” question should be the FIRST one answered as part of your planning process for ANY marketing effort.)

 After the marketer thought about my question, she came up with four great reasons why I should attend her seminar over the competition.  I told her to revise her web page copy to focus on those four great reasons to buy.  The seminar promotion launched, and the conversion from the page was higher than their normal average.

 Why should I buy yours – on every page

 When we looked at the four reasons for attending the company’s seminar, we found that three of those reasons were reasons to choose that particular seminar provider.

 Those three reasons belong on every page of their site.  Why?   The search engines’ organic results could list any page of the site, depending on the search terms entered.  Since we can’t control which page might be the “entry page” for any given search engine visitor, the “why should I buy yours” message must be on each and every page. 

 It’s just too easy for a visitor to hit the “back” button if they’re not convinced to buy when they visit our site.  We all need to get better at taking advantage of every visitor.

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