What do your web visitors really want?

Harvard Business School Professor emeritus Theodore Levitt once said, "People don't want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole."

The visitors to your website don't want a product, they want a solution. How do you find their needs? Normally you have a dialog and ask questions to uncover their needs. On the web you may not be speaking face to face but you can still provide the answers to their questions through a "frequent questions" page or by just directly integrating those answers within your text.

It's not about what you're selling--it's about how what you're selling can help the customer. Focus on benefits. Give your visitors a reason to do business with your company by showing them the value behind your product or service.

Citizen Marketer

Recently MarketingProfs.com has started an online book club. Just like a traditional book club, this club selects a book, reads, reviews and discusses the book all in online discussion books.

Anyway, the book we are reading now is Citizen Marketer (Ben McConnell / Jackie Huba). What is a citizen marketer? It's you! You have the ability to spark a flame that will be carried around the virtual world - creating a "buzz." A simple post, like this, on any discussion board or blog has the potential to attract worldwide attention.

Examples: HackingNetflix.com and iLounge.com. Started by just one individual, not affiliated with either Netflix or Apple, each of these sites now has a very large following and has garnered the respect of Netflix and Apple - these companies are listening to the citizen marketers.

Think of it in terms of customer evangelism - pure, unpaid, unsolicited customer evangelism. What is that kind of publicity worth to your business?

The best way to generate citizen marketing is to be one... give people a reason to get to know you, your business etc. Give people a reason to talk but beware - citizen marketing can also be generated in a negetive way! (Think "If I Did It" by O J Simpson - the people pulled the plug on that one quick!)