Planning content and customer flow

Once you know how you want your website to look, next you need to plan how someone navigates through it.  This is something you should also do even if you already have a website.  When I used to work with huge corporations planning their global websites, a large chunk of time was spent on what is called ‘customer flow’.  We had already identified the main types of customer who would be coming to the company’s website (we’d also identified what page they will have probably landed on first).  So, the next thing was to work out not just what the customer wanted from the site, but also what the company wanted that customer to do while they browsing it.

This shouldn’t just be something large companies do, you should do this when planning your own website too.  When people create websites they start with what information they want to say instead of what a customer needs to know.  And it’s easy to turn this around.

For example, imagine you’re running a vegan fitness coaching business.  Through your work researching your customers you’ve created a customer profile for ‘Busy Mummy Mandy’.  When she comes to your website you know that she’s got a short window of time and the three main things she wants to know are:

1. How scary is this going to be?  The last thing she needs is a fitness fanatic yelling at her; she wants to get back into shape but she’s not looking to win an Olympic Gold.
2. How much time will she need to give?  From dropping young Billy off at nursery she has to do the supermarket shop, clean the bathroom, and also set up that Zoom call with the HR team she’s still managing before picking him up again at 3.00pm.  Can your coaching fit in around that?
3. What would a fitness and nutrition plan with you actually look like?  Is she going to be living on kale and beans for three months?

This is already a better place from which to start planning out your website than just writing down everything you want to say.  However, before we start mapping out what pages we need to answer those questions, fist let’s also look at what YOU want to achieve from Busy Mummy Mandy visiting your site:

1. Get a direct enquiry so that you can talk to her about her coaching needs… failing that:
2. Get a first name and an email address so that you knew she visited your site so you have the opportunity to start influencing her towards an enquiry… failing that:
3. Get a soft connection (such as following your social media page) so that you still have a way to be connected with her.

Do this for each customer profile you have created. Now, you are planning your website knowing what information your customers are looking for and what actions you want them to take.  This is how you can make a website that works, guides someone through a process and gets you connections with potential new customers.  For example, Busy Mummy Mandy lands on the homepage of your vegan fitness coaching business and the first thing she sees is a 60 second video of you, showing how nice and friendly you are and talking about how you help people (answers her first question).  Next she clicks on the testimonials page where there are three short videos of your clients telling her how great you are and how you worked with them to achieve their specific goals.  The three people giving testimonials match the three customer profiles you have created – Mummy Micha’s testimonial is titled ‘I didn’t think I’d have time to get fit being a busy mum’ which is the one Mummy Mandy clicks on (answers her second question).

At this point there is a really easy option available to send a message or book a call (your first goal). Some people might want to jump in and talk to you, but most won’t. Busy Mummy Mandy has only just met you, and making contact is a long way down her decision-making process. Instead, under the video testimonials she spots an example 3-month coaching and plant-based nutrition plan she can download as a PDF (answers her first question). All she has to do is put in her name and email address (your second goal). You are not asking for her phone number, and she knows she can just ignore any follow-up emails you send, so she gives you this and downloads the plan. The plan lets her know that if she follows you on Instagram you post lots of other examples and share routines, so she gives you a follow there also (your third goal). Then her time is up, she needs to go pick up Billy and do the shopping and she completely forgets that she had the idea of looking for a coach; if you asked her, that evening, which websites she had looked at then she probably wouldn’t be able to remember.