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This is the third time I’ve written about The Buying Process in the last few months.  This morning I met with some folks who hadn’t really spent a lot of time thinking about the buying process of their consumer. So after talking about it a bit, I wanted to add a little bit more.

Your First Time Web Visitors First Glance

From a “buying process” perspective, what process must someone go through internally to sign up and become a member?

Here’s my thoughts on that:

• They must find the site
• They must find it interesting enough to read something or browse and not press the back button
• What they’re reading or browsing must be interesting enough to signal their brain that this is a good site
• After they’ve decided it is a good site, they must also have the feeling that this site will be good for them tomorrow or next year
• (We need them to take an action at this point). They must be able to see how to bookmark the site, send a link to a friend, sign up for the newsletter, or join.

  

  Image by missjdub via Flickr

• (Ultimately, we MUST be able to contact them somehow. There is no option here. We must be able to entice them back to the site.) To fork over their e-mail for example, they must be a reason to do so (newsletter, gift or free report), they need to see NO SPAM language and be absolutely clear of what they’re getting.
• Then when they get the “confirm you want this newsletter” e-mail, they must still be confident and happy that they signed up.

So when you look at your website landing pages (where visitors first come in contact with you), I wonder do they know they are the target market? Do they know they are welcome and part of the group? Do they know that your site isn’t directed at someone else? Do they know that this site pertains to them? Do they know this is a place they can feel comfortable and read – not a place to have their guard up and be ready to be “sold” at any minute? Can they smile and feel like they’re home? Do they know we welcome them and they can come back?

After that long diatribe (and if you agree with the above), what do we need to do to satisfy those steps in the buying process? Look at the website Pre-boomermusings. It’s a relatively new site, but the front page respects the buying process.

It says “for people born between 1936 and 1945”. That’s very clear. He could have said “A blog for us pre-boomers”, but chose to help the user understand they’re included. The photo of Don reinforces who it is for. The word “boomer” in there reinforces who it is for. There being no ads helps make you comfortable and not put up your “hide the wallet” guard.

Can you tell that a person born in 1938 might be interested right away? It’s no “mecca of web design”, but it does have a clear message.

Does your site?