5 Ways Your Brand and Website Attract (or Repel) High-Paying Customers
A potential customer lands on your website. She’s ready to spend and is looking for the exact services you offer. She would be a perfect fit … but in just five seconds, she’s decided you’re not for her.
What happened?
You’ve done the work. You give customers great quality service and you’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into building your business. You know she would have been a perfect fit, but why didn’t she think so?
In my experience, I've seen that businesses lose out on sales because of missed cues. Your brand is the signal that tells people who you are and why that potential customer should care. Strategic brand messaging ought to highlight why you are truly different from your competitors and why that matters.
Your brand is what they call a silent salesman, so let's look into four reasons why it might not be doing the heavy-lifting for you:
Visual quality signals your price point first.
Let's be honest … people do judge a book by its cover.
If your customers land on your website and it looks unprofessional, unclear, or poorly designed, they might believe the same is true about the quality of services you offer. They want visual proof that you are representing yourself well.
For example, if you showed up to a job interview wearing sweat pants and a ripped up t-shirt, the interviewer might not believe that you would be able to do the job well and with professionalism, even though you could say that you are capable of all the job skill requirements. The same is true about customers "interviewing" you through your website or any other touchpoint of your brand. They look for consistency across the board.
Your competitors say they have high quality services, too.
Everyone says they are the best or that they're a premium service, but let's be honest … customers expect quality as the bare minimum.
Instead, what we should do is highlight how you understand them, their pain points, their identity, their dreams of what would make their day, life, or work better, etc.
They need to see their own identity come across through your messaging and to trust that you have the solution to what they need and want. They should be able to easily answer how your service would help them get their desired results.
You want to give people a reason to trust your brand as the solution to their problem.
You're trying to appeal to everyone … and in doing so, appeal to no one.
Just like I would not talk to the president the same way I would talk to a fourth grader, customers can tell if you're talking to them or not. So if you're talking to EVERYONE, you're inherently not talking to anyone, because your customer won't see themselves in your messaging. They can't tell if your service will work for them or if their experience with you will be like others you've worked with.
They want to see that you can understand them specifically. You want your words to be clearly directed for a specific group of people: postpartum moms, Christian couples looking for counseling in their marriage, or athletes looking to compete in an Ironman.
For example, if you're selling an online course and you offer it to all pilots, the messaging won't be specific, clear, or speak to any direct pain points, because pilots at the beginning of their career have very different goals, experiences, knowledge bases, and outlooks than pilots who are already flying for airlines. So instead, narrow it down so you can really appeal to the people your solution will matter most to (for example, student pilots who are struggling to brake past plateaus in their flight training).
Other pilots still might be interested in that course if they feel it aligns with what they need, but you'll attract more of the right customer who will actually experience a tangible result that you can then use to share with others how you can help them have similar results.
You're leading with features, not benefits.
Businesses often start out selling by highlighting what features their product or service has, but … do customers care? Not exactly.
A customer might not care that you offer 2 locations or 3 outfit changes during their corporate headshot photoshoot, but they do care about the result (the benefit to them): they will have photos that make you look confident and professional so they finally stop dreading when someone asks them for their headshot.
A customer might not really care that they get comprehensive lab tests, but they do care that they will finally understand what their body is telling them so they can stop guessing which supplements to take.
A customer might not care that your fruit chews don't stick to their teeth, but they do care about oral health and how your fruit chews prevent tooth decay.
Every part of a brand matters … from your logo to your colors to every word in your messaging. It's all about alignment between your offer and your service's quality and how your brand, website and positioning represent you.
Customers pick up on subtle cues to see if it's clear you are who you say you are, if your promised result would appeal to them, and if you are offering something unique from other competitors offering similar services. The good news is it's all within your control.
That's why I help brands develop the strategy beneath their visuals before deciding on a single color or font … because it doesn't matter if we're not communicating to the right customer for you.
If you want to learn more about how to position your business so people actually respond, let's chat!
Not written by ai.
