Below is the second part of a very candid 5 part overview from our journey of developing Comet.
2. Visible and accessible
MAXIMISING VISIBILITY
One of our challenges early on was ensuring that we had clear visibility to potential customers and we maximized our impression to them. For our traffic, the number one priority was to focus on our image and accessibility of our information. If we didn't pay proper attention to this then we were only doing a disservice to our brand, product and ability to sell. It could have been tempting to just give this 50% effort and put the remainder into our product but we challenged ourselves to ensure we didn't let this happen.
When it came to our website and it's considerations we spent a lot of time debating and ensuring that we covered three main areas: Website, Social, Pricing. The importance of these areas and doing them well, I would argue, relates to the idea of being accessible and making important information clearly visible to those seeking information about your business.
You are accessible through your website and social, so this has to look good and be relevant.
Your offering (features, benefits, pricing) has to be clearly visible, why make this difficult to find/see?
The below is our underlying rationale for how we approached these decisions. These are applicable to any business so feel free to use them to challenge your business accessibility and information visibility.
The importance of a property optimized website and social media that's up to date
How many times have you been looking for something and found it, but been turned off because of how generally bad the website looks and feels? These days your website will get more traffic than if you had a physical shop front. But if you had one would you let the paint crack and fall off? Would you have a door difficult for your customers to open. What does that imply to potential customers?
"First impressions matter to customers and your website is no exception."
When the customer comes to your website they are coming there for a purpose, they are evaluating your company and service. A sharp website that is to the point, up to date, loads and functions correctly and is relevant will help with reinforcing your company to your brand. Even if you don’t have a lot of content to display it doesn’t matter, just keep it relevant and to the point, don’t be tempted to use copious amounts of filler.
Social Media
When it comes to your preferred social media channels are they active or is a tumbleweed hangout? Everyone loves the idea of social media but it is something that you have to do consistently. If you can't manage to keep it fresh and lively - get rid of it or cut down the amount of channels and focus on what you can manage. Nothing looks worse than a twitter account with last years' Merry Christmas tweet as the most recent.
Clearly explaining pricing
How many times have you looked up a product or item, found it on a website but there was no price or you’ve had to create an account to login to view it? Frustrating isn’t it. You’ve probably bought it instead from the next website that just displayed the price. There is a mindset of some companies to treat their pricing like it is a state secret.
This is stemmed from concerns such as “what if people copy my pricing or undercut” or “this isn’t done in our industry/country”.
Let’s address those:
“What if people copy my pricing”
If people can’t see your pricing when they are on your website searching for it then you aren’t part of the price evaluation process. To be part of the decision process for the customer you have to make it easy by giving them an idea on pricing. Even if the customer fires back that the pricing is too high, you are now having a discussion that you wouldn’t have had before.
“My pricing is being copied!”
The solution in this situation is not to start a pricing war, instead focus your promotion of the value and advantages of your offering. Your other option is to innovate or improve your offering to keep moving ahead further of your competition. Remember that the key to good innovation is that it is aligned with what the market wants, so utilize your key customers feedback for this.
“This isn’t done in our sector or country”
Perfect, then you’re going to stand out. Being different with something that no one else is doing becomes a unique point for your business. Unless there is a very compelling reason not to, I wouldn’t let this be an excuse to not set yourself apart.
Missed part one of this series? read about how we approached prioritisation here