Aligning your Website Goals with your Customers' Needs

Whether you are considering a new website or a website redesign project, it is pertinent to start with the end user / customer in mind. There have been many studies done and the results are the same, many companies do not fully understand what their customers want. Therefore, don’t assume you know exactly what they want, you’ll need to ask for feedback and insight.

Let’s take a few moments to further understand your customer’s social behaviors, here are a few of our ideas on how you can spend a few hours understanding your buyers before launching into a new or improved website:

Understand Social Behaviors

Online customer behaviors is something that each and every customer needs to focus on when improving their message on the web. We would suggest that if you aren’t already doing these monitoring items that you start immediately to learn all you can:

1. 1. Make time to check out your customers on social media - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, forums and more will tell you all about what your customers want and need (and many times what they don’t think they are getting). Watch for key words or red flags that can help you improve the customer buying experience, don’t get frustrated, just look, listen and learn!
2. 2. Set up Google Alerts for your largest customers – To generate more interaction between you and your customers, let the web bring news to you. By setting up Google Alerts on your clients, the information posted about them online will come directly to your email box. This concept of push versus pull will keep you abreast of what’s happening with your customers, so you can reach out to them more often as a true advisor.
3. 3. Improve upon your existing online marketing programs – All companies get into the groove of performing ‘same as last year’ marketing programs and many don’t take the time to sit back and evaluate them to see if they are still working. If you have been hosting client seminars year after year and don’t know if they are working, it’s time to step back and take a 10,000 foot view and review of your activity. Then ask yourself these questions:
   
   
   • Are new technologies being utilized to keep these programs running?
   • Are you investing in programs that are not harboring a good return on your investment?
   • Are you challenging your marketing professionals to innovate?

As you clarify your customer’s behavior, you will seek to find ways to improve your existing website (or do a complete overhaul).  Once you have gleaned information about what customers think or do online, it’s time to take a look into your competition to see how they build loyalty and create a strong following. This information will not only help you build customer trust, but it will help you determine strategic ways you can gain a competitive edge.