“You’ve got to remember that every prospect searching online for a flooring store has an unspoken question on her mind: Why should I choose you instead of your competitors?” I told Brad, a dealer from Connecticut for whom I was doing an online marketing assessment.
“Wow, I’d never thought of it that way,” he replied.
“Most dealers haven’t,” I said. “So, if you’re the one in your market, who does the best job providing a powerful answer to that question, you’ll gain an enormous competitive advantage over every other dealer. Now, let’s walk a mile in Cathy Consumer’s shoes and see how well you and your competitors answer that question.”
I then Googled Brad’s city and the word “flooring.” That organic search pulled up the top five flooring sites, including Brad’s.
Do you have a name, rank and serial number site?
“Assume Cathy knows nothing about flooring,” I said. “She doesn’t know which dealer to choose, so she’s looking for an answer to her unspoken question. Put yourself in her shoes as we look at your and your competitors’ websites.”
The first site had the name of the dealer at the top, links to products along with photos, and contact information. I call this a ‘name, rank and serial number’ site. The next several sites followed the exact same formula. Yes, there were cosmetic differences between them — different colors, slightly different layouts. Some looked a little more professional than others, and one had some teaser prices. But they were all essentially saying the same thing: Here’s our business name, here’s what we sell, here’s how to find us.
I pointed all of that out to Brad. I then pulled up his site, which also followed the name, rank and serial number formula.
“Brad, based solely on the strength of these sites, why should Cathy Consumer choose your store versus any of the others we’ve looked at?”
He was silent for a moment, thinking. “No reason at all.”
“That’s right,” I replied. “They all have good color schemes, smooth layouts, and their sites look like they were professionally designed. But none of them do a good job answering the unspoken question.”
Walk a mile in your prospect’s shoes.
That was a real eye-opener for Brad. When you’re designing your website — or creating any other marketing — it’s easy to focus on colors, products, logos, etc., yet never give a compelling reason for Cathy Consumer to choose your business over your competition. I suggest you walk a mile in your prospect’s shoes and follow the same exercise I took Brad through.
Pull up your site and several of your competitors’ sites and ask: based on the strength of my website alone, why should Cathy Consumer choose me instead of my competitors?
If your site doesn’t provide an overwhelming, powerful, compelling answer to that question, then you depend on the luck of the draw that Cathy will visit you. You’re losing a lot of customers to the competition simply because they happened to choose another store to visit due to the website. I call that an online customer leak and most dealers have them.
Get them to choose you.
There are many ways to answer that unspoken question on your website. One simple, proven strategy to accomplish this is by offering information your prospects are desperately seeking. This could be a free report on how to choose a floor dealer, pitfalls to avoid when buying flooring, or questions to ask a dealer to determine if they are ethical and competent. By providing that information, you are positioning yourself as a trusted authority, creating differentiation, and answering their unspoken question.
If you’d like me to evaluate how well your website stacks up against your competitors in answering the unspoken question, email me. Include your business name, city and state.
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.