Should Generating Revenue From A Website Be The Prime Motivator?
A pure sales site has only one purpose... to generate as much revenue as possible at any cost. In other words, your experience--good or bad--is inconsequential to the ultimate goal of the site and may well sacrifice customer satisfaction to make a sale.
How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a lousy experience with? My guess is not very often. I know I don't. How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a great experience with? What was the difference between the two experiences? Do you think the website you had the great experience with was a customer oriented site? And, might it be the other website you had the bad experience with was a sales oriented website?
A business can't survive very long if it's prime motivator is purely focused on sales and revenue. Sure, it may last for a while, but not long-term.
As webmasters and marketers, we must strive to create a long-term business relationship between ourselves and our customers so that they will continue to buy from us for as long as they have a need or desire for our products or services.
No One Does It Better Than Amazon.com
Arguably, http://amazon.com is one of the largest customer oriented and successful website businesses on the planet. They're proof that "build a customer oriented website and they will come." They go out of their way to personalize the shopping experience for every single person.
When I visit Amazon.com, I see a very different selection of products than Linda, my wife, sees when she goes shopping. They know what I've purchased in the past and understand my buying habits. They also understand that my buying habits are different than Linda's and are different than yours. So, they tailor the individual experience for each of us. It makes us feel like the site has been designed around our specific desires.
Amazon.com has gone to a tremendous amount of effort to individualize our experiences. Why? Customers are their prime motivator. Would it have been easier and cheaper to build a strictly sales oriented, sales motivated website? Sure. Would they be the most successful website on the planet if they had done that? Do I really need to answer that?
Customer Oriented, Customer Motivated Website
Okay, so you get the drift of where I'm going with this. You may not be out to kick Amazon.com from the top of the ladder, but the principles are applicable to any website whether you're selling one product or millions of products.
With that in mind, you've decided that your website is going to be customer oriented whereby customers are the prime motivator and your business will revolve around their satisfaction.
You already know from your past experiences that customers will go back to websites where their experiences have been positive. You also understand that the web's a finicky place and it's a "one strike and you're out" business environment. Therefore, you're going to develop your website using your own experiences as a customer as your guide.
What did or didn't you like about the websites you've done business with in the past? What brings you back to the ones you've had good experiences with time after time?
Give Your Customers What They Want
Customer oriented websites will win out over sales oriented sites every time and for the long haul. Develop your customer oriented website to ensure them a satisfying experience and they will tell their friends about you and so the word gets around. Pretty soon your site will be flooded with friends of friends of friends who will all become life-time customers. Lots of happy, satisfied and paying customers means a long-term, profitable and prosperous business. Enough said?
Author Bio:
John Wright is the co-founder and vice president of Your Site Solutions (http://amazon.com) and has many years in the Internet industry. John's experience covers website development, copy writing, deployment and marketing.
Your Site Solutions is a single source provider of e-commerce software, hosting, products and services to meet the needs of tomorrow's Internet businesses.
If you think it's simply a case of who will... Read More
The landing page or entry page of your visitors is... Read More
The internet is filled with sites and they are good... Read More
What Will My Site Do?This is the first of eight... Read More
You have an idea for a website and you are... Read More
You have identified that to have an internet prescence would... Read More
As the Internet blooms at an alarming rate, so as... Read More
A "404 Error" happens when the web server you are... Read More
Well it is not Elvis, that's for sure.I am a... Read More
Don't mess with those links! When you're designing your site,... Read More
It is common sense.The more time people spend at your... Read More
Designing your website means you have to be creative, plan... Read More
Your web site should be-visitor friendly to navigatesearch engine friendly... Read More
Due to the large number of people offering web design... Read More
Creating your own website is actually easy in today's world... Read More
The Questions You Should Be Asking ? The Answers You... Read More
Studies done by Jakob Nielson the man touted as the,... Read More
Do you have a website? If so, you need an... Read More
I taught myself HTML back in the mid-nineties and was... Read More
Why your site should be developed with CSS and semantic... Read More
A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the... Read More
The HTML editor is usually a webpage design software that... Read More
Since you'll spend lots of time and money to create... Read More
When your company built its website, did you think about... Read More
Automating your online business is one of the most important... Read More
cleaning lady near Arlington Heights ..If you have a business, big or small you may... Read More
See, works every time. Seriously now, for some reason people... Read More
If you need a web designer, but have no clue... Read More
Before you take a road trip it is usually a... Read More
Building a website that is exactly what you want and... Read More
ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security ... it... Read More
When creating an e-cover the what's the first thought that... Read More
Chris, a new consulting client, asked me to help him... Read More
Your home page is the most important page of your... Read More
One of the single most important aspects of effective navigation... Read More
On the internet we don't deal with face to face... Read More
In this article you will find the parallel between two... Read More
Public domain gives you a head start creating ebooks, ecourses,... Read More
Just because you are a small business with an even... Read More
Sooner or later every small or medium business owner realizes... Read More
Conventional Wisdom states you should use Sub-Directories to organize your... Read More
Ever browse across a website that took ten million years... Read More
The landing page or entry page of your visitors is... Read More
Are you using the best colors for your web site?... Read More
I am constantly bombarded with all sorts of advertisements, single-page... Read More
ASP.NET is a new programming framework from Microsoft for developing... Read More
There are six important characteristics that can play a major... Read More
Let's face it; the line from A Field of Dreams... Read More
The first step to starting any Internet business is conducting... Read More
Everyday we hear that another company goes out of business.When... Read More
Web Design |