One of the amazing fascinations of consultants is the age old
Question, "What is it that makes customers buy?" If you were to ask
ten consultants that question you probably would never receive a
duplicate answer.
There is one truth that I have learned that has helped me help others.
I'll share it with you:
People buy what they want, not what they need.
Billions of dollars have been lost in the marketplace by businesses who thought their purpose was to fill a need. It can surely be a very expensive education.
If you have ever sold insurance I am sure you can relate.
People buy what they want not what they need. In spite of the fact that we all know we will die someday, people do not usually want to buy life insurance. They feel they don't need it.
One of the most famous examples of the need versus want confusion is the hamburger giant McDonald's. Several years ago McDonald's introduced the Veggie hamburger. It was positioned as a Healthy Big Mac and with huge fanfare heralded the move of the fast food giant towards a healthier menu. The marketplace needed the product. I could list hundreds of reasons why the product should have worked. The cold hard reality is that nobody wanted it. It failed miserably.
If you want to make money you need to sell what people want.
Find a hungry market and give them exactly what they are asking for.
As simple as this sounds many very educated people think that success in the marketplace is more complex than this. Don't look at the marketplace through your ego, but rather through the customers ego. It is a wise businessperson who knows what is wanted and steers clear from what is needed.
What does this have to do with online marketing?
1) Everything.
2) Traffic is the easy part of the equation.
3) Amateurs think that if you throw enough traffic at a web page the dollars will just pour in.
4) It doesn't work that way.
5) Customers buy when they know you, like you and trust you.
Make sure that your web page doesn't get in the way of that statement.
The marketplace only pays for the "VALUE" which you bring to it.
- Most people think of value as money.
- From the customer's point of view, your company exists only to provide them with quality results. This is what value is.
Adding “value” is all about making your product or service more attractive to the consumer. It is about making sure your product or service is produced based on the needs and wants of the customer.
The majority of the time people are unaware of what has represented value in the past. The World Bank claims that some two billion of the world's citizens live on $1 per day or less! That fact absolutely shocked me. With this statistic in mind it becomes important to focus on all of the things that have served as value over the history of civilization. Aztecs used Cocoa beans, Norwegians used Butter and dried Cod, many Indian tribes used Animal Skins and some of the early Colonists used Grains. It's worth thinking about this the next time you pick up your paycheck. The word "salary" is derived from the word SALT, which is what was the key currency of the North Africans for hundreds of years. SALT was a key commodity substance used for preserving food.
Think of the value that cocoa beans are to you today?
How about Butter and dried Cod? Animal Skins?
Balancing your checkbook must have been very messy. Just like a company would not offer any of these antiquated values, they need to think creatively and truly understand the options and alternatives available in a crowded marketplace.
There is a very long history in economic and philosophical thought regarding the idea of value. Al Ries and Jack Trout in their landmark book, Positioning, stated that "To succeed in our over communicated society, a company must create a 'position' in the prospect's mind." Creating a position is probably the most important thing marketers do to help companies succeed. Quality received by the consumer plus healthy expectations is where all value comes from. The most powerful position we can create in a customers mind is one that builds upon the ideas of trust, quality and genuine solutions. This is what builds legitimate value in a customers mind.
One of the great myths online is the belief that traffic solves every problem. With every visitor that comes to your business you still need to build value for them to want to do business with you.
I hope this gives you a better idea of what you need to do with that traffic when they arrive at your website.
Digg 
