Article

Get Your Site Optimized and Woman-wized

by Barbara Ashton for SOHO Review

Where loyalty counts (and where doesn’t it?)
a woman will always lead the way. 

Ask Starbucks, Amazon, and Google how they did so well so quickly, and how they keep doing so well, and you can be sure they won’t tell you it’s because they have brilliantly designed websites.  What these superheroes understood early on is that women dictate what the world will buy. 

Starbucks gives us coffee shops with living room furniture nicer than most of us have in our homes.  They serve coffee any way we want, with a smile.  I for one merrily pay exorbitant prices for this, day in, day out.   It’s not because I think they have the best coffee, but because they make it their job to know what I want, and how I want it.

This industry super hero makes it their business to know what a woman wants, and how she wants to view and buy it. 

What Women Want: intuitive navigation minimal happy talk zero hype solid features and benefits small blocks of text relevant clicks meaningful content secure shopping carts plenty of open white space tasteful graphics options, but not too many ...

Who is she?

Today’s woman may well be a Fortune 100 CEO after dropping the kids off at daycare, who drives a Harley on weekends.  Think in terms of who your female customers are—not just their demographics, but who they really are, how they think, what goes on in their daily lives – this is what determines how they will interact with you and your website. 

Are they busy stay-at-home moms with only minutes to shop online for kids’ clothes or specialty items between soccer games, active seniors looking for fun places to spend the winter, or working professionals needing concise, reliable data about a new product or service? 

Because of the explosive growth of online commerce, women online are far more experienced with online shopping than they were a year ago.  Expect online women to be savvy, demanding relevance, integrity and a high level of service in all phases of her online experience with you.   

                       
Find Out

Taking the time to find out what a woman wants, combined with a solid marketing plan, will improve your conversion rates, often dramatically. 

Opt-in Forms

Small things provide big information.  When she signs up for your newsletter, ask for her postal code.  This small piece of information enables you to segment your audience geographically.  Then go to a good library (or pay a marketing research firm) to fill in the demographics  -- what percentage are young (under 35), renting, home-owners, working, retired, earning over $50K per year, or subscribe to daily newspapers? 

(Note: asking for this information on your subscriber forms will usually result in high abandon rates.)

Set up Focus Groups

Use these demographic sets to organize online focus groups, each group no more than ten or twelve women. Using the information you’ve gathered, set up groups that represent demographic segments (IE, over 35, home-owner, earning over $50K, no children). 

Hire an experienced moderator to conduct the sessions, and keep sessions to a maximum of thirty minutes. Have your questions logically organized, using multiple choice wherever possible.  Also think about ways you can use these sessions to gather feedback about competitors. 

By now you should have enough information to know who your primary and secondary market segments are, what they want, how they want it, and why they buy (or don’t) from you and/or your competitors.  With this information in hand, go to your website and take a hard look. 

Are you worthy of her attention, and are you working hard enough to earn her repeat business?  Will your site’s architecture support the changes you need to make or would it be better to start over?  You may want to set up one or two more focus groups to try out different scenarios. 

Give Her What She Wants

The secret to transforming a woman from one who visits your site only once, into one who buys online from you regularly, lies in making it your business to know what she wants, learning how she wants it, and then delivering it to her, one click at a time. 

When a woman lands on your site it’s because she has actively made a choice to do so; she has come to your site with a specific goal in mind, which means she is ready to be sold —  a product, service, or information.  Now it’s up to you to show her a) that you understand her needs, and b) that you can deliver what she’s looking for, the way she wants it. 

To do this you need to plan your online strategy from her perspective.  A woman wants it (what she came to your site looking for) delivered in ways that show you understand she is uniquely valuable to your business.  Early in her visit she needs to see fem-friendly navigation and graphics, and immediately available content that responds to her specific interests. 

When you present the information she wants (clicks for) give her options that lead her, one click at a time, to what you want her to do -- sign up, subscribe, ask for more info, bookmark or make a purchase.  One common strategy is to present two options, A and B: both are similarly priced, but A clearly presents the best buy.  She clicks A, she’s engaged.  Now where do you want her to go?

Strategize this process carefully so that with each click she gains added confidence in you.  Consistently give her what you have led her to believe will be there, the way she wants it to be there.  By the time she reaches your shopping cart, you will then have assured a sale by assuring her, click by click, that you understand and respect her needs. 

Ever appreciative of your efforts to make her life easier and more enjoyable, she’ll be sure to tell her friends about you. 

Next issue we’ll talk about developing online customer personas, leading to higher conversion rates than you might ever have thought possible.

Barbara Ashton is the principal of About Women, a consultancy on building online women’s markets, and Ashton Online, a full service online marketing agency. Engage, Shift, Optimize … Ask how at www.ashtononline.ca or call Barbara Ashton at 604-805-5869.

 

 

What My Customers
are Saying

Wow! Web site looks GREAT, Barb! Lovely use of highlights, colours, shading, etc.

And did you turn that around FAST...Looks like it's going to be great event!
-- Eric Hellman

Congratulations on the new and improved website! ... the new look and feel is great; in line with the established look but certainly cleaner and more functional.
-- Cathy Beaumont

What a tremendous contribution you have made to bring the Workplace Centre to "front and centre" of the spiritual community.
-- Conrad Guelke

Thanks for the great job you have done in shifting our marketing paradigm and quietly coaxing us into a new world of email blasting. … All has been said so well by others...I love it and all it represents…

The format for these two events is buzzing with energy -- makes a person want to pole-vault off the couch and respond NOW!! …

What helpful knowledge and creativity you are bringing to us! Thanx for your contribution.
-- Gloria McCarter

Great job Barb. Kudos on noticeably improving the quality and effectiveness of the Emails that we send out. The increase in attendance that we have seen at recent events is a testament to the positive effect that you have had on our organization.
– David Waterfall

You're awesome! Where do you find this stuff? I imagine you with a computer strapped onto your back at all times... thanks for being so good at what you do, and so very professional about it. Newletter looks awesome, BTW
-- Jen Wasmund

Thank you Barb. you are wonderful… you are a star. …you have brought us into the 21st Century.
-- David Hughes

You have a great way with words ... Thank you so much, Barb!
-- Shelley Page

It is amazing how you come up with this stuff for us Barb.
-- Jim Evans

Congratulations Barb. You've given us a really proud and positive self-image to live up to!
-- Donna Martin

you are such an inspiration to me. Your sharing last night was awesome. Thanks for a moment of serenity in my day.
-- Wendy Pitt-Brooke