Using eMarketing Usability To Motivate Visitors To Buyers

The web is a contradiction against everything ever taught to sales people. We are humans and human nature says ‘face value’ sells’ and we ‘as human’ normally need a direct relationship with the seller to trust, and buy.

The web is a contradiction against everything ever taught to sales people. We are humans and human nature says ‘face value’ sells’ and we ‘as human’ normally need a direct relationship with the seller to trust, and buy.

Notwithstanding, it is a matter of historic fact that 10% of online public buy 90% of all online products. More importantly, this is not that much different from the real ‘off-line’ world of storefronts, shops, malls, and real people selling products and services. Here, 20% of the total consumer market buys 80% of all consumable products and services. In both instances, 80 ‘ 90%, (although there are many different factors) one prominent consideration to buyers is trust. How to bring visitors to actually buying – Is there any successful technique’ First of all each industry is control by their specific markets and therefore totally market dependent, what works well with one does not go over well in another – so you really need to understand who “wants to purchase what you have” rather than “who you want to sell to”. Often these two “needs” conflict with each other. Nevertheless, figuring this out… allows sales to roll in.

Determining your marketing position is necessary but this discussion is more towards usability. How can I improve my chances of converting a visitor to a buyer’ From Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) Department of Psychology at Wichita State University and supported by several other studies a series of recommendations were made.

The single most prominent indicator that assists to entice a visitor to become a buyer is imagery. According to research by Steinbruck, Schaumburg, Duda, and Kruger (2002), the inclusion of a photograph for an e-bank website significantly increased the perceived trustworthiness of that website (The factual place of business). In this study, the condition that had the highest trustworthiness ratings (producing the most sales) were websites that identified staff members including their image, name and position in the company. e.g. – the picture of a person supported by their name; John Smith, and company position; Sales Manager. {mospagebreak title=Homerun&toc=1} The second highest rating was for the picture only (a human face), and the lowest rating were sites without any human elements (pictures) and/or no imagery referencing storefront property at all. Additionally, a study by Riegelsberger and Sasse (2002) found that photographs increased the relationship between product brand and brand trust when focusing on specific company members. Particularly those that would have a normal direct relationship with customers had the visitor just walked into the store (sales and promotion personal, checkout tellers, support and customer service staff, as well B2C focus operators and/or help center personnel.

Remembering that people buy products and services from companies (or people) the website itself cannot add face value if no face is apparent.