customer centric websites for inbound marketing agencies
DESCRIPTION
Growing inbound marketing agencies can take advantage of customer surveys and pre-formatted HubSpot COS templates to adopt a customer centric website practice in-house.TRANSCRIPT
Everybody can do a
Customer-Centric
Website 1/24/2014
How we want everybody to be able to
create great, customer-centric websites
thru:
Tools: Simplex Core
Process & Training: Inbound Websites University
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What will we talk about
"Our website looks need to be
updated, can you help?"
- like, EVERY customer
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What’s the most common web design request:
What should a website do for your buyers:
Make it easy for the user to do
whatever they need to do.
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And for you:
A website should be your best
salesperson
The customer-centric website:
A site that allows your buyer to do what
they need to do while meeting your lead
gen objectives.
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Ask the customer Not your client, but his customers
(You know, the people who are actually going to be using the website)
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Where to Start:
All the stuff that should happen before starting the design.
- Skip this at your own peril -
1. Ask the end customer (~30 recent customers would be great)
2. Ask the client
3. Create buyer personas
4. Map their buying process
5. Create the content & conversion plan (what do they need to know at each stage so they convert
and don’t stall)
6. Identify the user objective of the site: the ONE most important thing the site needs to do?
7. Audit current site and content - figure out what’s working and what’s not: Clarity, Distraction,
User Confidence, FUDs
8. Spell out the new User Flows: what do we want the buyer to do when they come to the site
9. Spell out the new website guidelines (stuff the new site should have and should do): Structure,
voice, long vs. short copy, design guidelines, etc.
10. Create and test wireframes for at least all key pages in the user flows
Ok NOW, we can speak design
The customer-centric website design methodology:
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A00
Setup
A10
Site
Architecture
& Analysis
B10
Keywords & Request Content
B30
1st Conversion Kit & Video
B20
Fast Prototyping 1 Home &
Standard Pages
C10
Fast Prototyping 2 -
Other Key pages
C20
Load rest of the website
content pages
C10
Social
D10
Testing
D20
Blogging
D30
Other Conversion Kits
F10
Continued
support &
transition
E10
Go Live
Customer Centric Website Creation Process
Customer Centric Content Creation Process
In fact...
If you do the front end analysis well:
You could skip about 80% of the design process and up to
100% of the site development process...
and still have a killer site that works.
How?
By using a good template and personalizing it to the needs
of the end customer
(keyword here is end customer not client)
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Simplex Core
A template with all the workings of inbound marketing
Simplex Core:http://simplex.market8.net/simplexcore
Awesome templates that just work. Awesome Design - Awesome Usability - Awesome Service
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Basic Templates: • Home long
• Home short
• 3 Generic Inner pages (2 col right, 2
col left, and 3 col)
• Advanced blog & Author page
• Landing page & thank you page
• Contact page
Advanced Templates: • 404 page
• Flex - multi-width structure templates
• Advanced landing pages
• Pricing tables 3 and 4 columns
• About us
• Services overview
• Services
• Clients
• Team
• Resources Other Features: • Short Codes
• Advanced formatting tutorials
• Carefully designed typography
• Responsive typography
• Sticky menu
• Fully customizable through the COS
• Usability principles, reloaded
Service: • A Service forum will be setup to
resolve any issues with the template
• Access to new and improved
templates
Coming soon:
The Inbound Websites University Down to earth, applicable methodology to
help you create a customer centric site.
- New chapters available monthly til mid 2014-
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● Draws from the best available knowledge and research available
today:
o Usability research
o Conversion research
o Persuasion science
o Inbound marketing experience
● You’ll learn how to build an actual customer centric site: All
delivered in a practical, easily digestible, applicable material
and how to guides that will help you create the website that
your customer wants.
● All lessons are applicable using Simplex Core
The Inbound Websites University
What will be covered
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1. Why do you need a website to begin with
2. Where to start
3. Marketing – getting relevant traffic to your website
4. Content Strategy
5. Site Architecture
6. Writing copy
7. Design
8. Conversion 101
9. Usability
10. Identifying qualified leads
11. Crafting your website - How to create key pages in your website
12. [Partners Only] How to manage a web design project
Coming soon:
Questions?
Appendix
Appendix 1
The Continuum of Web Design
Chaotic Website
The Brochure
Site
The Functional Website
The Persuasive
Website
• 76% of uses prefer a website that makes it easy to find what they are
looking for
• Only 20% of companies that had did a redesign without a specific
goal were at least somewhat happy with their project
VS.
• 70% of those that had the objective of generating leads are happy
Your customer is more likely to be happy if he
has an objective.
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Source: The Science of Website Redesign, HubSpot
Appendix 2 - Some Stats
The customer-centric website design methodology:
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A00
Setup
A10
Site
Architecture
& Analysis
B10
Keywords & Request Content
B30
1st Conversion Kit & Video
B20
Fast Prototyping 1 Home &
Standard Pages
C10
Fast Prototyping 2 -
Other Key pages
C20
Load rest of the website
content pages
C10
Social
D10
Testing
D20
Blogging
D30
Other Conversion Kits
F10
Continued
support &
transition
E10
Go Live
Customer Centric Website Creation Process
Customer Centric Content Creation Process
Example of a Survey
- Questions that can help you learn all about the end customer - - i.e. the only thing that matters -
Example of the soundbites
- What do we learn from questionnaires and surveys
that we would have never learned otherwise -
Who is “Company”
Whats the problem that the company solves? (customer voice)
How is the problem solved (both company and customer voice)
Who is the target customer (company voice)
What’s to like about the company (customer voice)
Doubts & Hesitations before buying (customer voice)
Unique advantages (company voice)
Social proof (testimonial material - customer voice)
Customer’s buying process (full description of the journey)
Hot keywords
Warning signals (discrepancies between customers and company perceptions)
Example of a master objective of a website
- The one thing that this site should do right, all else is secondary -
The following objective is for a company that holds an annual conference
The Goal of Your Site
• The #1 thing people want to do in the site is learn about how the event can
help their business, get information about it and register to attend.
• Everything else is secondary.
• You need to sell the vision, the why and the solution. The best format for this
is long-form sales copy.
Example of a User Flow
- What is the desired path of a buyer visiting the site-
Remember the main goal of the site: Sell the vision, why they should attend, and the solution.
• The flow of a user visiting the site should clearly be:
Homepage → Sales Page → Registration
• Homepage → sell the vision and the why of the event
• Sales page → sell the solution - specifics about the event
• Registration → if possible start the checkout process in the sales page, however there will be shortcut links
to registration clearly visible in ALL pages of the site for returning visitors (except those landing pages
devised with other specific goals in mind)
The desired flow should be one that exposes the user to the answers of the most common questions,
eliminates fears & uncertainties, and matches the flow needed to make a decision.
The following user flow is for a company that holds an annual conference
Example of a Wireframe
- Layout, messaging and structure of the pages in the user flow -
The 3 Rules of Customer Centric Site Making
Rule #1: Never assume
Your customer knows better than you and your client.
Rule #2: You are never done with your website
Just like you are never done coaching a salesperson.
Rule #3: Don’t base it on opinions
Having a website that works well as a lead gen machine
can't be done based on opinions of the HIPO
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What makes a website sell
- Stuff that should be in the mind of the one creating every page of the site -
1. Motivation and relevancy
2. Clarity
3. Value proposition
4. Engagement
5. Friction
6. Urgency
7. Distraction
The role of the website in the buying process:
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Source: Detailing the Buying Process for B2B: Awareness, Evaluation and Decision
EVALUATION DECISION AWARENESS
BUYING PROCESS
SALES PROCESS
SALES QUALIFIED LEAD CLOSE MARKETING
QUALIFIED LEAD
Initial Research Recognize
Opportunity
Priority
Shift
Discovery +
Education
Evaluate
Options Validation Choice
Target Prospects Qualify
Prospects
Explain
Solution
Evaluate
Options Demo
Final
Specs
Negotia-
tion Close
MISMATCH
Your blog and content should kick butt here Your website should kick butt here
The Inbound Websites University
Introducing Smith Consultants
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Smith Consultants are 10-person team of talented consultants offering
their services to small-mid size businesses that want to grow and
become more profitable.
Smith Consultants want to create a website that will generate qualified
traffic and convert leads, but they’re on a limited budget and they don’t
know where to start.
So, they did their research and came across Simplex Core.
They got their HubSpot license and now they have to get their hands
dirty making their Customer-Centric site.
Coming soon:
The Inbound Websites University
A Practical Case Study
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● Follow the case of Smith Consultants as they develop their own
website.
● Watch a step-by-step approach to building a customer-centric site
using Simplex Core.
● Grasp how all the decisions were made to create Smith
Consultants’ website
● Understand exactly what you should consider while making yours
So you’ll:
1. Understand best practices straight from the case study.
2. Get to see how to use Simplex Core to create your site.
Coming soon:
The Inbound Websites University
Advanced Studies
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During the lessons, there will come opportunities for pretty in depth lessons. For example,
when Smith Consultants are building a landing page, we discuss first the basics of a landing
page:
● Setting up the objectives, assumptions and goals of the page
● Anatomy of a landing page
● How to use smart form fields
● How to set up a thank you page
Then the more advanced lessons would be:
● How to reduce noise
● How to use microcopy to reduce friction
● Augmenting user confidence - how to place trust building elements and social proof
● How to craft copy that sells: length, tone
● What to test and how to test it
● How to tie all this up with your buyer personas
All the basics of Simplex Core will be covered in the regular lessons. The viewers can
choose to take the advanced classes at their own leisure during or after the website is
complete.
This will be repeated for every page of the site.
Coming soon: