This will help you better understand the ugly side of having unclear messaging on your website.
John Entrepreneur grew up in the lovely city of Hickory, North Carolina in the 1990’s. He graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne University at the top of his class and obtained a MBA degree in Business Administration. Rearing to put his fancy education to use, he started his first business in his hometown, a hipster hangout coffee and tea shop, a year later.
John did a search online and came across a web development company that sold him on their services. They put together a visually stunning website that John paid a hefty premium for. The goal for the website was to boost online sales of the shops high-quality Rosters Blend. After eight months of zero sales from the website, John started to feel as if it may have been a waste of his money. He called a marketing friend of his to see if he could help diagnose the issue.
What You’re Offering Here Isn’t At All Clear
John’s friend, Maximus, looked at the website and immediately diagnosed the first issue. The website wasn’t clear about it’s offer. The visuals were clear; people smiling, and enjoying coffee together. But, the message was a vague description about ‘feelings’ and could have been applied to any number of other products or services. “‘You’ve never enjoyed anything quite like this’ sounds nice, but doesn’t communicate what you’re selling”, Maximus explained to John. “It’s not clear that you’re trying to sell people bags of your delicious coffee.”
What You’re Telling Isn’t Compelling
Maximus continued looking at the website and pointed out to John that there wasn’t even a call-to-action that urged someone to buy his coffee. The call-to-action (CTA) was the weak and oft used call to “learn more.” Maximus wasn’t sure why John would pay all that money to get a shopping cart added to his website only to ask people to “learn more” about his products. “You need to tell people to ‘buy now’ or ‘add to cart'” said Maximus. “People aren’t even going to be sure what they’re supposed to be ‘learning more’ about.”
What You’ve Obscured is Very Absurd
When Maximus was finished looking at John’s website his primary diagnosis was that John’s site was too ambiguous. “Ambiguity might work in the lyrics of a song, but clarity sells coffee” Maximus quipped. “We’ll need to rework all of the messaging on your website so that visitors understand what you offer, and how they can get it delivered to their door.”
John hired his friend Maximus to rework the copywriting on his website. A few months later, to his shear delight, online orders started to pick up dramatically.