Biff'em with Wifm

So you have started to get traffic to your site. Great! Let's also assume that it represents prospective clients/ buyers.
Now what are you going to do with them? Count the hits received so you can brag about it or are you going to get orders? Reality is often cold and even brutal. So let's face things in a harsher light to ensure we realise our goals. If you think your visitors are going to fall over themselves to book their next holiday or whatever just because your site looks great, - think again.

Your prospective client's first thought is not about how fantastic your site looks but WIFM. No they are not speaking in Sanskrit - they have just said -What's in it for me?
So you're the biggest, the best, the brightest, the most? Well done! But how do you know if that answers the question your customer is asking, "What's in it for me?"

Tourism was one of the first industry groups to embrace the web and continues to grow its' presence. From a designers point of view it generates considerable creative difficulties. Lets take resorts as our example. They are all great - with pools, spas, superb gardens, microwaves etc. It is therefore a struggle to find a different way of packaging the same underlying product. Yet the client rightly expects a great site each time. And without trying to put too fine a point on it, what is the difference between his great resort and the other guys great resort?

A comic once said about dragons: "Once you've seen one you've seen them all". So when we look at all these web sites what do we see? Pictures and more pictures of pools, spas, gardens, magnificent vistas, stunning sunsets and lovely colour schemes. And are the words any different? No! Not really. Ho-hum! Dragons!
Obviously we now have to distinguish between these creatures. But how? The answer almost never occurs to the web designer, and rarely, to the business owner.
In fairness, the web designer should be skilled in coding and preferably graphics. If he has marketing skills you have just gained a bonus. But are you paying him for marketing skills?

So how is it done? "Features versus benefits". As I look around the Web, I wonder if anyone has heard that, yet it was drummed into all during every marketing course I ever attended. Very few people even talk about benefits, much less make the effort to really translate features into benefits. Yet power-packed words graphically describing benefits are what trigger the emotions that motivate us to spend our money, time, or energy. People, including you and me, buy because of the positive emotions associated with the benefits.

So "emote". But speak to consumers in their language so they can understand and react to your benefits. Let me illustrate: "This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped white diamond with an SI1 clarity grade and an H colour rating." Yeah, right! Unless you're a gemologist or jeweller and you understand the four C's (cut, colour, clarity, and carat weight), that's just gibberish. And that came straight out of an ad - as cold and hard as the product, but factual. Does it sell?....hmmm!

If we fill the scene with emotion, something like this, we might sell that diamond ring a lot easier: "Imagine that special evening when you gently slip this on her finger and stare intensely into her eyes. She peers mistily at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever."
Make sure your site focuses on emotions, not intellect. Emotions are the gateway to making a buying decision.

Ziggy Ziglar, a world- renowned sales trainer, once the worlds most successful salesman and author of several books explains, "People usually buy on emotion and then they justify it with logic." Therefore, appeal to their emotions first and foremost. Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. Even people who insist they buy logically or based on features do so because that's what makes them feel better.

One of the common problems enterprises have translating their product or service features into benefits is that they are, in the words of an ad guru , "looking at the label from the inside of the bottle". Meaning, because you know your business inside-out you assume that others do too. If that were so why would you have to advertise, promote and sell?

So what do you do to change your ways? Here is a simple process to use to identify benefits based on the four underlying attributes of any product. I'll illustrate with the resorts example.

· Features -- what products have. For example, "This resort can cater for large groups".
· Advantages -- what features do. For example, "No need to scatter your convention participants all over town. One reservation does it all".
· Benefits -- what features mean. For example, "Conveniently allows you to have those after meeting BBQ's and social gatherings without transport becoming a hassle."
· Motives -- what features satisfy. For example, "This feature provides cost-savings, control and efficiency for the convention coordinator as well as participants. No more taxis across town late at night ensuring everybody has the revised agenda for tomorrow."

List all of the features of your product or service, including standard, technical (if applicable), supportive, and abstract features. For each feature, develop a list of relative advantages, then list benefits, and finally motives.

With this process you are now well on the way to selling by benefits and establishing the decision making difference between your product and Joe's down the road.
And when you choose your words remember a further well documented consumer response pattern.

Some people have their emotional response triggered by "visualising", others by "hearing". To illustrate; the first group responds to sentences such as:" Can't you just see the look on their faces when .....", the second group responds just as positively to sentences such as: " Can't you just hear them saying........." Clever text will cover both response groups.

Ask yourself this simple question: "Would you prefer to read an article that will provide you with data on sales, marketing, usability, consumer psychology, and Web site design, or one that can actually show you how to increase online sales?"

I would be surprised if you haven't responded to the bolded question which has appealed to your emotions. Yet obviously you cannot increase online sales without all the other listed elements. An effective example of features and benefits in one breath.
This is but one of the many steps to answering WIFM.

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