Win Customer’s Loyalty Using Web 2.0 Technology
July 27th, 2008 by Robert Hanson
I received the following message when I logged in to my EzineArticles account:
“Current Article Review Status
We are experiencing an unusual high increase in article submissions and are currently 3-5 days behind. We apologize for the delay. Please know that your article submissions are important to us.”
Well, I guess there’s little I can do besides waiting for the approval. But, please hold on… There’s something that I would like to share with you. It relates to how customers behave in the present web 2.0 era… Sounds quite interesting, doesn’t it?
I had never put my head into considering what the term web 2.0 really meant - and still means. I assumed it was perhaps just a tag cloud widget, blogging, social bookmarking, social networking, and so on…
A friend of mine, Andrew, came to my house several weeks ago complaining of the difficulties he experienced in an attempt to sell his ebook so as to generate some money online. This sent me thinking about the reasons of the existence of web 2.0.
Basically, there’s nothing wrong with his sales-letter-site. In fact, I was quite impressed when I viewed it. He is a web designer and his writing communicates effectively. The way he ’speaks’ to his prospective clients, who are mostly mothers, is deeply touching. This is particularly so on his closing section. So why does he still complain about lack of sales?
You may think that he has not concentrated on driving traffic to his site, or that he has failed on other personal aspects. You may be right. However, I’m not going to focus on someone’s personality here. My concern is the model he uses in selling his ebook.
I personally don’t believe that driving prospects directly to the sales-letter-site is relevant in this web 2.0 era. I am not implying that the sales-letter-site model is defunct. However, in the present web 2.0 era, it is necessary to change your strategy in order to touch the hearts of potential customers and win their loyalty.
What Andrew did was spend his money on Adwords and other PPC campaigns, thereby ‘pushing’ his prospects into reading his sales letter. Some people opt in and ‘eat’ his ‘bait’. A few people buy his ebook. However, many people leave his site within a few seconds.
If you were a customer, would you buy something from a complete stranger? I believe that the harder the guy tries to convince you of his expertise, the faster you will leave his site. On the other hand, if you heard from friends, forums, or other communities that he is an expert, I am sure that you will be ready to read his sales letter without being prompted.
This is why the Internet has changed from web 1.0 to web 2.0. In the present era, you need to sell yourself instead of your product or brand. You should aim at being known by other people. When people know more about you, about how good you are, they will definitely know your product. Even more importantly, they will be confident that the product is worth what they will spend on it.
Just remember one thing - your customers are getting smarter with every passing day. If you let your competitors be smarter than you in exploiting the power of web 2.0, the customers will direct their money towards them instead.
Don’t use the same old model in an attempt to get different results. Stay focused, remain motivated, and keep updating your strategy.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
This is the definition from Wikipedia:
Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became notable after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.[2] [3] Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web. According to Tim O’Reilly:
“ Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.[4] ”
I agree with your statement, “Don’t use the same old model in an attempt to get different results.” Insanity is doing exactly the same thing expecting different results.
Cheers,
Tessie