Back in 2001, Bryan Eisenberg wrote this interesting article about WIIFM.
“What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) is a question that still seems to be forgotten in many web marketing projects. I say that because I’m staggered by the number of websites that I find that start out with a sentence like this on their home page:
“We are the premier provider of X in Australia. We started in 1985 and we… we… we…”
There is one website that I use in my sales presentations as an example of what not to do. This particular company spends over $10,000 a year to have its website found in Google and yet the home page consists of the company’s mission statement. What do you think its conversion rate would be like?
If you’re using a website to generate leads and sales for your business, then WIIFM is a critical question. It is the question that means the difference between money well spent on websites and money wasted.
Talk to your customers on their terms, about their interests, about their needs and wants. To answer their question, “What’s in it for me?” you will need to find out:
- What are their problems, pains, needs
- In what way you can solve their problems
- What the real logical and emotional benefits of solving those problems are.
Once you have some common answers to those questions, you can write website copy that will break through the monotony of marketing messages and stand out. Answering WIIFM is the first step to higher website conversion rates.
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