Consultant Marketing Website Anatomy Part 3

Does your site pass the first panel 3 second test?

Parts one and two dealt with that first panel, the three seconds you had to brand yourself/product and the 4 additional seconds you had to get across what you do in a memorable way.

You hooked ‘em, now what?

You should be looking at developing home page panels that accomplish these tasks:

1. (Why) Engender Trust

2. (How) Explain your process step by step starting with results

3. (Who) Describe the users

4. (What) The next action to be taken

5. (Where) Locating the information you provide

Answering their questions

Remember why visitors are coming to your web site. Usually they will have been referred to you by a friend or colleague. They are looking at your web site to be sure you are real and get a “feel“ for how you handle situations like theirs. In all likelihood they have already looked at your Linked In profile (Ya gotta be consistent!)

Can I trust you?

If they take nothing more away from this visit than to believe they can trust you. Trust is our default when meeting anyone but your behavior can change their perception. In North America, we expect a person to make eye contact with us. We expect them to be a little self-deprecating. But at the same time we want an expert to be confident of their skills.

The solution here is not to talk about yourself. It is to use testimonials. There is a formula for getting believable testimonials instead of those fluffy wonderfulness statements. See video: https://vimeo.com/358196784

All that About stuff? Put it in a section called that on a separate page reached through the navigation in the footer. If they really want to know, they will go looking for it if the data in your Linked In profile didn’t satisfy that curiosity.

How does it work?

Whether you’re a coach, a consultant or an independent professional like a financial advisor you want to know what you have to do and what the advisor is going to do in order to get the outcome you’re looking for.

You can explain it all with just words but if there are visual representations of the steps you and a client take you can use those. Sometimes this can be a series of screen shots from your computer or photos of the work being done.

A video of the process in which you appear can be a powerful tool for this panel. Try to keep it down to just a few steps (no more than 5) and use a straightforward approach. I find that opening with your 30-Second Marketing TM is a great way to start. Here’s a 2.5 minute demo: https://vimeo.com/352122938

Follow that with specific steps which are stated in the results generated and briefly state the process. Here’s an example:

“The first thing we do is help you get your vision and mission down to a few words everyone in the organization can remember. We’ve found that with a mission like that you don’t have to have those huge employee manuals that nobody reads.”

Here’s a five-minute video on my Mission Process https://vimeo.com/354332316

Who is it for?

The smaller the niche the easier it is to state this. Is there only one kind of customer for your services? I focus on Consultants. I’ve worked with coaches and independent professionals like lawyers, financial professionals, flight school operators, naturopaths, therapists, photographers, free lancers, ad agencies and a host of others.

But I focus on Consultants. All those others have come to me because of my focus. I could possibly specialize even more but this is a numbers game. There are plenty, scattered across a plethora of industries. Here are the Linked In numbers I looked at:

• English speaking Consultants 1,535,655

• Consultants in USA 2,556,254

• Consultants on West Coast (OR, WA, CA) 628,419

Rather than sort them by industry I stepped back and looked at the clients I’ve worked with and looked at where they fit in their corporate hierarchy as well as size of firm. That narrows it down to these possibilities:

Owners & Managers, Ensembles, Business Development Managers

Solopreneur to 5, 5 to 15 or 25 to 250
(including start-ups)

Each of your target audiences have different concerns, desires and needs. Make it easy for them to identify themselves with a graphic and one-word description followed by a statement of the single most important problem you solve for them.

Now what?

If they have scrolled down the page this far they are ready to bolt or engage. Make it easy if they want to engage. Give them a simple form to fill in. This is your primary CTA (Call to Action).

The data you request should be based on how much you want to control the conversation. Here is the absolute minimum in today’s world:

· Name

· E-mail

· Smart Phone number

But if you want to sort out how deep their interest is, you may want to ask some additional questions. One financial advisor client of mine has them take a quiz which allows them to determine which of the packages he offers is right for them based on five personal factors. Once they complete the quiz they are given specifics of services in the package they tested best for and the option to go up a notch including pricing. Only then is their contact data collected.

The key is to present the CTA in words that speak to the outcome your prospect is seeking. Here are a couple I’ve been tinkering with:

Make Rainmakers of Your Key Employees Over Lunch

Make You and Your Business Memorable In 30 Seconds

Get Non-stop Referrals and Recommendations Easily

Which would you choose?

Where can I find?

The last panel is the footer. This is where all that legal stuff goes. This is where your navigation to other pages goes. Consider:

• Company section that might include About and jobs and press and primary contact data

• Resources where you store all the white papers, free tools, PDFs, forms and checklists and so on that you offer

• Home page expansions—all the added info that may help someone make a decision. Don’t be afraid to use long copy in these pages to assure you are getting your points across.

Each panel deserves the same care in development. Never forget that you will connect with more customers if use words that work for them. It’s not what you say, it’s what they trust that matters.

And so it goes.

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His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for crafting on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing  advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com