How to Build Consensus for Online Purchases

By: Todd Follansbee
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[ Posted On: 2007-04-26 ]

Most decisions of consequence require consensus -- travel, purchase of business equipment, education, wedding gifts, expensive clothing. The boss or business associates -- even your spouse -- often need to weigh in and reach agreement that this purchase a good idea. The more expensive the product or service, the more likely it is that the purchase must be preceded by a consensus among several people.

Successful websites understand this and employ simple but effective tools to ensure that they control the process of consensus building to their advantage. The vast majority of websites fail to appreciate the importance of this.

Unsuccessful Consensus Seeking Behavior

Here's how a person behaves who is seeking consensus. An employee, for example, is tasked with finding a product or service. When he has found information on websites that appeal to him, he pastes the URLs into an e-mail with a short and enthusiastic: "Hey, check this out!"

His superior notices the e-mail among the forty other e-mails in her inbox. Distracted, struggling to keep up with her workload, she clicks on a link or two. The webpages that she sees may or may not explain the salient points of the decision or even explain why she should be looking at it. The URLs may point to a technical description, a price page, or even a sign-up page for a newsletter. The boss clicks off wondering what all the fuss was about. She's probably confused and will likely reply with a non-committal response that effectively stalls or kills the buying process.

This is not the kind of response a website owner hopes for! Employees and business associates need help to get buy-in from the key decision-makers.

Equipping Prospects to Sell the Boss on the Need

Here's how we approached consensus-building for a client that provided training for programmers in .NET (pronounced "Dot Net"), a specific kind of web programming that some larger companies adopt. Our strategy was to enable developers (who needed .NET training to advance their careers) to sell company executives on the need for .NET programming to underlie the company website.

First, we presented a prominent hyperlink with the phrase "Your Career," promoting training for developers in .NET that would ultimately make them more valuable to their employers. It linked to a page designed for the purpose of helping techie developers sell their bosses on the need for .NET programming. In order to do that, we included links to:

A short treatise on how to sell an expensive project to a boss. There was also a lengthy version for those in need of more details on effective selling.

A PowerPoint demo on .NET capabilities, which only required changing names in the slides. We backed it up by mentioning that this same PowerPoint presentation had sold a billion dollar company on our client's training services.
White papers on .NET that included a downloadable study complete with testimonials.

Each of these tools (sales collateral) was designed to build consensus towards a company adopting .NET -- and purchasing the training our client provides. We prepared our developers thoroughly and provided them the tools they needed to convince their bosses. All they had to do was hit the print button and they were ready to go.

We urged them to call us, though we rightly predicted that few would. So through the materials we offered on the site, we worked to make these developers effective with executives who cared about little more than results, even though the developers were geeks who had few sales skills and even less regard for the sales process. You can see how we approached this (http://training.franklins.net/career.aspx).

Equipping Site Visitors to Build Consensus

If your website sells products or services that may require buy-in from others, take control of the consensus building process to your advantage.

Pre-write emails with subject lines.

Prepare white papers or comparative studies with competitors' products.

Build special pages which summarize the important information that an associate or boss might need.

Include links with calls to action like, "Send this information to a friend."

Before you launch something like this, of course, test it on prospective clients. Watch their reactions and improve the offering until it shines. To play in the big leagues you either test it or forget it.

In summary form, your approach is to include all the tools and information necessary to sell your product or service. Focus on benefits in your pages and understand the difference between (a) what an IT guy might need for a software purchase versus (b) what might excite an executive.

Why do hot leads sometimes seem to fade away? It may well be that your great product or service concept isn't getting to decision-makers with a clear, powerful message. The timid employee or new hire can only risk so much effort to promote a new idea. It's your job to make them look great, so make it easy for them to promote your product or service. Sales will grow as a result.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Todd Follansbee is our Usability and Conversion Optimization expert. He is the founder of WebMarketingResources.net and brings to the table a focus on psychographic marketing, scientific usability testing, and a Persuasion ArchitectureTM approach to sales conversion. He lives aboard his 44-foot ketch "4 Bells" in New Haven, Connecticut.

| View Profile & All Articles By: Todd Follansbee |

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