How Great Web Content Drives More Sales
Marcus Sheridan on Turning Your Website into Your Best Salesman
Clients in the past have told me the content on their website doesn’t matter. They say it’s all about web design, the content just needs to fill space. No one actually reads the introduction paragraph on the Services page.
It might be true that your visitors don’t read the content on your site. But it’s not because it doesn’t matter.
Actually, the problem is that you aren’t giving visitors the information they want. And according to Marcus Sheridan, that’s killing your sales.
I listened to Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion on Episode 93 of the Marketing Speak podcast with Stephan Spencer and I highly recommend it. Here are a few things I learned about using web content to drive more sales.
Serious Buyers Do More Research
Sheridan is best known for turning his small pool installation company into one of the biggest pool makers in the world. A major factor in their growth is the massive Pool Learning Center on their website.
Sheridan saw an interesting correlation that drove him to double down on informative web content. When visitors browsed more than 30 pages of the company’s website, they purchased a pool 80% of the time. Those who browsed less than 30 pages only purchased 25% of the time.
Not only that, visitors conducted all of this research before they spoke to a sales rep or filled out a contact form.
Sheridan saw that the most serious buyers did research on their own before contacting the company. If they couldn’t find the information they were looking for, they left the site to search elsewhere. Those sales were lost for good.
This principle can be applied to your web content too, whether you’re a product or service business. To attract and close serious buyers, you need to satisfy their desire for information.
Answer the Questions Your Customers are Asking
My biggest pet peeve is a terrible FAQ page. Most are filled with useless, self-serving questions that I doubt anyone is asking. When I can’t find the answers I’m looking for, I get frustrated and leave the site.
Sheridan saw this same behavior in his customers, so he developed a new mantra: “They ask, you answer”. His company tries to answer every common customer question on their website, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them (See question 1 below).
After years of sales consulting for other companies, Sheridan saw a pattern. There are 5 questions almost every buyer is asking:
- How does pricing work?
- What are drawbacks or pitfalls of this solution?
- How does this solution compare to other solutions?
- What are other people are saying about you? (aka Reviews)
- Who is the best in the world at this?
Answering these questions might be tough, but it doesn’t negate the fact that your customers are asking. If you aren’t willing to give them a good answer, they will leave your site to find someone who will.
Provide a Cost Breakdown, Not Just Prices
The hardest of the 5 questions to answer is the price question. Trust me, I feel queasy just thinking about adding prices to my site. You don’t want to scare away potential sales or turn your offering into a commodity.
So instead of offering prices, Sheridan suggests educating your customers on how pricing works in your industry.
For most services and large products, the real answer to the question of price is, “It depends”. I know in content marketing, pricing varies widely depending on dozens of factors. I can’t put a single price on my website because it would be wrong about 90% of the time.
To solve this problem, Sheridan broke down the cost factors of in-ground pools. He discusses each variable that drives the cost up or down, from the type of pool to lifetime cost projections.
The cost breakdown page gives customers educates customers and also helps you earn their trust. You didn’t hide behind a “Contact Us” button like most other companies. You were honest, helpful, and made the customer’s buying experience a lot more pleasant.
I suggest reading Cost of In-Ground Pools and create a similar piece of web content for your own site. It took Sheridan just 45 minutes to write, and now it attracts over 4000 visitors per month.
Address the Buyer’s Top Objections
When I worked in insurance sales, we “trained” by role-playing prospect meetings with other agents. One of us played the agent and the other was a potential client. The agent playing the potential client would throw every possible objection at you. The goal was to work through each objection and get to the sale.
I felt right at home when Sheridan suggested we do the same thing with web content.
Sheridan has an exercise: First, make a list of the top 7 objections you might hear from a potential customer, assuming they know you exist. (This part of the exercise is helpful in its own right; if you can’t come up with 7 objections, you might be out of touch with your customer’s needs.)
Next, go through the list and place a check mark next to each objection you clearly address on your website. How many check marks did you make?
Having done this exercise with over 20,000 people, Marcus has a shocking answer for the average number objections addressed: Just 1.5.
That means most businesses answer just 20% of their customer’s biggest concerns. What would your sales look like if you addressed 100%?
Now that you have your list of top objections, turn that into an FAQ page. Link each objection to a page in your Learning Center. (Remember: They ask, you answer!)
Web Content is More Than Just Filler
Great web content can be a key differentiator between you and your competitor. You can increase sales by simply answering the questions your customers are asking.
The best part is, you know all the answers already. You live this stuff. You rattle off the information in sales meetings, so it should be simple to write it up for your FAQ page or learning center.
So don’t hide behind a “contact us” button. Share your knowledge and give buyers the information they are looking for.
Call to Action
Can anyone corroborate Sheridan’s findings, or tear them down with their own experiences? If so, I’d love to hear your ideas!
