What do your customers look for on your website or app when making a purchasing decision about your product?

Do they look for something that looks professional? Feels relatable? Speaks to their problems?

You guessed it — all of the above! So let’s dive in on how to accomplish these important pieces.

Clear Messaging

Everything starts with a foundation. You can have the most beautiful graphics and most professional looking site, but if the messaging doesn’t speak to your customers, then what are they doing there? The best websites tell your customer these three things in first 15 seconds on your website:

- What you offer

- Who you offer it to

- What problem you're solving

So, the first thing to do is set up a very clear foundation of your messaging and the tone of voice you want your company to have.

This portion is very collaborative between copywriters, designers and sales reps in a company. This is because this very important text also has to fit in line with the design.

For example, it’s hard to design something sleek and clean when every section has a novel-length level of information!

So, in our instance, we’ll typically give a word count for our clients and ask them to fill out the messaging so that the content works with a beautiful, sleek design without compromising clarity in the process.

And typically simple, concise text is better anyhow! No need for novels of information here. People won’t read it if it’s too long.

Pro Tip: When talking about your services on your site, don’t get too fancy, cute or punny. This could cause a gap in understanding or look like an error if your customer doesn’t immediately understand.

Relatable

How can you make something relatable? It’s easier than it sounds! Make your customer feel like they belong in your tribe. This can be done with visuals, text and overall design.

The first step in this is to take an audit of your current digital platform and ask yourself these questions:

- Do the photos or illustrations on my site represent my ideal customer?

- Does the text on the site sound like how me and my ideal customer would talk if we were sitting across from each other at a coffee shop? (or a Zoom meeting, for all of us remote business owners)

- Does the company branding feel in line with the overall vibe I want to portray?

- If you don’t own a physical storefront or an office, imagine for this question that you do. Now consider if someone opens your website or app on their laptop or phone, does it feel the same as if they were to walk into your office space or storefront?

If every answer to these questions was YES then you’re in great shape. If it was NO, then you’ll want to consider changing up your visuals or branding to align with your ideal customer.

Pro Tip: People LOVE faces. Real faces. Anywhere you can add a real person in the mix, it has a huge impact. This can be done through testimonial sliders, videos, etc. Replace stock photography as much as possible to help people understand your platform helps people.

The internet can easily feel like a lot of robots with all sorts of algothrims, and we can feel very socially disconnected as a result. At the end of the day, we’re all here to help people, so the more you can connect with people on a personal basis, the more relatable your platform will feel.

Targeted

I’ll start this one with an easy example. Pretend you’re marketing an app for people in the 60+ age group. If your website or platform has a bunch of pictures of 20-something women, your customer will leave! This is because they aren’t sure if it’s for them.

This is why establishing a target audience is really important when starting out. You can’t target to everyone, and if you try, then you’re targetting no one.

The same principle goes for text. For example, if your text on your site has a million emojis, but you’re trying to attract formal financial institutions, your customers aren’t going to think this product is for them and they’ll find a brand that’s more aligned with their tone of voice.

Same thing happens the opposite way, if your text is too formal and you’re trying to attract an informal crowd, they won’t feel like it’s speaking to them.

So, this point ties in with the previous two (clear messaging and relatable), but making sure your content, images and illustration are all geared toward your target audience is essential to your overall design.

So remember, while you may feel your site or platform lacking some professionality and pizaz, don’t go directly to trying to make everything “pop”. The best place to start is at the core of the design, which is asking yourself, “Am I actually speaking to my customer through text and visuals?” And depending on the answer, you’ll know your next steps.

Interested in chatting more with us about how to make your website or app speak to your customers? Contact us at info@irisdesigncollaborative.com.

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