Friction

Have you experienced any friction in your life recently? When we think of friction it's usually with a negative connotation. But not all friction is bad.

The same can be true for your website.

I recently attended a webinar presented by MarketingExperiments which talked about the quality and quanity of friction on websites. These guys are human factor psychologists so being the geeky girl I am, I naturally felt that I was in my element. Friction on a page...hmmm, something new to consider in this web world. Friction can be as simple as making someone give personal information to be on your email list) Immediately my first thought was that any friction on a page would be a detractor to a potential conversion. However, the words of my father came to mind, "everything in moderation." This seems to prove true in this case too.

So guys and gals this is what I learned. A little friction on your website can be good. Just make sure you have it in the right place and don't overdue it. Get rid of extra steps between the call for action and the end result. Make sure you use clear and simple instructions. The "kiss" rule applies here (keep it simple stupid.) Just remember that you want to make process as easy and natural as possible for your clients to get to and complete the action. Sales and leads are the goal.

Three more tips to keep in mind for your website. Make sure your client can quickly answer the following questions:

1. Where am I?
2. What can I do here?
3. Why should I do it?

These three questions will help keep your website sequence more client friendly. Friction can always be an inhibitor, but that does not mean that it has to be destructive. Use a little friction to your advantage. The ultimate goal is to optimize the thought process of your client, not the landing page.

The Person or The Company?

Today I was talking to one of my clients and I was telling him about the importance of social networking.  As many have already learned, the idea is to become transparent and real to your potential customers. I was giving him ideas of what to put in his blog and what I was working with on twitter and Facebook.

He asked me this question, "Don't people want to know there is a company behind the person?" What he was saying is that he was concerned that if he was blogging as himself and being transparent would he loose his "corporate" image, people would assume that it was just him and not a company. I pointed out other company owners and ceos that tweet like @Zappos

Here is my response: People want to know there is a person behind the company, not that there is a company behind the person.

My reasoning is that people don't by from websites or companies, they buy from people. Who would you rather buy from? The cold corporate image or the guy that you know from his blogs, tweets etc?

Personally, I'm more apt to buy from the people. For example, I recently purchased a new piece of luggage for my upcoming trip because I became introduced to the product through a person on twitter, decided to check out the company that she worked for and saw that the had some good buys. It was because I had been following her, liked what she had to say and the biz philosophy she personified.

Apparently I'm not alone because 78% of people stated they would make purchases based on the recommendation that they've received from co-worker, friend, tweet, blog etc. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”)

So, remember when you blog, tweet, etc. Be real because people want to know the person behind the company.