In 2016 Synchrony Financial did a Major Purchase study that focused on the path-to-purchase consumers take when they buy big-ticket items. (Big ticket is defined as $500 or more.)

  • 85% of consumers begin their path-to-purchase online.
  • 70% then visit a brick-and-mortar store.
  • 82% make their purchase in the store.

According to GE Financial, this entire process takes a whopping 79 days on average. Therefore, if you want to win the path-to-purchase game, your website should do four things:

  1. Create differentiation to make your dealership the overwhelmingly obvious.
  2. Have a strong call to action that moves prospects along the path-to-purchase in your direction.
  3. Capture prospects’ contact information so you can…
  4. Do follow-up marketing and stay in front of prospects throughout the 79-day path-to-purchase.

Let’s take a look at why most flooring websites do not accomplish these four things.

Reason #1: Failure to create differentiation

How many floor dealer websites have you seen that follow this formula?

  1. Business name at the top
  2. Photos and/or lists of products (sometimes with teaser prices)
  3. Company and contact information

Those are about all you see. I call these “Name, Rank and Serial Number” websites. (Maybe your website follows this formula.) Superficially these sites vary, but most of them say essentially the same thing, which creates no differentiation from competitors.

You see, every one of your prospective customers, who are searching online, has one burning question on their mind: “Why should I buy from you instead of your competitors?”  Most websites do a poor job of answering that question.

Problem #2: A weak or non-existent call to action

Most flooring websites are basically electronic brochures. Like a brochure, they give product and business information, but often they do not have a strong call to action. Your website should compel visitors to take specific action that propels them down the path-to-purchase in your direction and away from competitors.

Problem #3: Failure to capture your visitor’s contact info

You’ve invested money into having your website built. You’re paying hosting fees, and maintenance fees. You may have paid an SEO company to improve your rankings so people can find you. You may have invested large sums into pay-per-click ads to drive people to your site. Yet after investing all that money to drive prospects to your site, most simply poke around for a minute and leave, and you never hear from them again.

You’re only giving yourself one shot at this prospect’s business, so most of the money you invested driving them to your site is wasted. But if you capture their contact information, you have the opportunity to stay in front of them throughout the 79-day path-to-purchase.

Problem #4: Failure to do follow-up marketing

The goal with follow-up marketing is to transform a single website visit into unlimited opportunities to stay in front of prospects and drive them towards you on their journey down the path-to-purchase. Because most flooring websites do a poor job of capturing visitors’ contact information, there is rarely an opportunity for follow-up marketing.

Some sites have a “request a free estimate” form. However, when a prospect fills out a “free estimate” form, this generally results in a phone call from the dealer, nothing more. This follow-up isn’t bad, it’s just incomplete. A dealer who does this is only getting a partial value of that lead.

What if there was a single solution to all four of these website problems? There is, and I’ll reveal it in the next installment.

 

To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”

Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!

Free book! For a complimentary copy of Jim’s book, “How Floor Dealers Can Beat the Boxes and Escape the Cheap-Price Rat-Race of Doom Forever,” visit BeatTheBoxesToday.com.