Day 2: Functionality Plan - What does your website do?
Written by Jaren Green | 03 March 2010
In the 10-Day Makeover, the first three days are for planning - not much happening on the sites. The new designs and new content will launch on Days 4 and 5, so be sure to check back next week.
Below are the Functionality Plans for our five participants. Three of them wanted to use their websites to generate sales leads. The other two wanted to support the sales process. These goals may sound routine, but identifying your specific primary purpose is really important.
Generate Sales Leads
Here are the basic steps for Lead Generation on the Web:
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We added some skinny notes under each step above where a fat book could have been written. To simplify the discussion even more, we will refer to these four steps: Visit, Request, Qualify, Relate. Here are some notes on the Makeover sites trying to generate leads.
- Affordable Printing - For the Visit step, we plan to focus on simple ordering instructions. Changes in navigation will improve access to products which will increase Requests. The company offers top-to-bottom pricing, so the qualification step will be omitted. Finally, we will Relate to the customers with more content about the company's front man Todd Drummond.
- Private Title Loans - Peer-to-peer lending is a hot new trend. Visitors will be impressed with this concept during their Visit to the new website. We are adding "See If You Qualify" Request forms to every page. These will be followed up by Qualifying forms that capture the good customers and redirect the high-risk borrowers. In the last step, we will build the credibility of Private Title Loans as a legitimate lender.
- Action Profiles - Most visitors to the site are athletes or enthusiasts, but the money comes from advertisers. We want their Visit to include professional-quality advertiser materials. A single Request form will Qualify them as prospects and the confirmation page will Relate to them the future plans for the company.
Support the Sales Process
Existing customers and known prospects will also visit your website. Their needs include:
- Evidence that they can trust you
- Reasons to continue or deepen the relationship
- Confidence in you and your business
- Ammunition to sell others on your business
- Valuable resources in a familiar surrounding
The online process that Supports the Sales Cycle can be summed up with: Visit, Interest, and Action. Here are the notes on our participants seeking to maximize this process.
- TripleScoop - Corporate-level research is bland to some - even a little spice can make it better. Our Functionality Plan for TripleScoop is to make Visits more enjoyable and Interesting. The employees are providing photos, blogs, and survey results to showcase their credentials. The site is being rebuilt on a blog platform to support customer Actions like updates and comments.
- Rocky Mountain Reserve - RMR is almost a bank, so credibility is critical. Visitors to the website are looking for trust and credibility factors. Their Actions will be to learn more, find answers, and increase their confidence in the company. This site will also be getting blog software to promote the company's leadership in the industry.
Before we start building a website, we identify the primary purpose for the website, map the process, and plan content and changes to maximize that process.
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