Anticipation keeps me….

Yep and an oldie song for sure by Carly Simon that will forever remind me of the Heinz Ketchup commercial – An-tic–ip–aaaaa-tion keeps me waaaaaiiittting….” How about you?

Of course, there’s more to anticipation than just this song…

I want to share with you some potential mind-bending thoughts about anticipation.

Let’s start with this question – How well have you anticipated your dream client/customer’s online experience on your website?

This can be a challenging one to answer because if you’re like most of my clients, you create an online dream client/customer experience like what’s below.

1. You create your lead generator optin to build your list of dream clients/customers.
2. Create your thank you page.
3. Maybe you even add an upsell.
4. Then, you create and add your emails to follow up on content and eventually make them offer.
5. Then you implement it and make it live.

Then you’re done. Right?

Ummmm not altogether right.

A lot of entrepreneurs don’t ever walk through their whole online dream client experience.

This actually makes it a bit difficult because if you haven’t walked through your website and dream client experience as they would, it’s even harder to anticipate their questions or know if they’re confused or why they don’t optin or buy from you.

When I do my complimentary coaching/consulting calls, I always go to their site first, check it out, optin and see the copy.

Inevitably nine times out of ten, either their optin doesn’t work – I never get the email with their lead generator. Or they don’t have a thank you page set up, or I get a 404 error.

And one of the worst is when I go to their website, and within 5 seconds of just looking above the fold, I don’t understand how they can help me or what they do. This is more about the copy not being targeted to their dream client’s major issues.

Here’s a quick real-world example of a chatbot experience I had.

This happened with a food service that I use where they send us a couple of meals a week that we make together. I had a simple ingredient question. I’m highly allergic to tree nuts, and I wanted to know if they were used in their pesto.

The ingredients weren’t listed on the package – yeah, not good. And they weren’t listed on their site – double, not good. This happened off-hours in the evening when we were making dinner, so I couldn’t speak to someone.

I even tried to use their off-hours chatbot, yet it wasn’t equipped to help me, and I decided against eating the pesto because it wasn’t worth losing my life. (Yeah, unfortunately, I’m that allergic to pesto.)

So in this instance, the business hadn’t anticipated the customer’s wants, needs, problems, or issues that they might need help with.

How many sales do they lose because of this, or how many more issues do they create for their customer service folks by not doing more homework around their customer or potential customer?

Let’s now shine a light on your business.

Have you anticipated what your customers are looking for when they come to your site?

Are you addressing their issues and concerns and answering their questions that will help bring in a sale? How’s your copy on the site?

Who knows how many people have come to your site and left because they couldn’t find what they were looking for.

Or maybe you do know because you use Google Analytics. 🙂

Some other useful tools:

DIIB – I use it for SEO. They give you these great metrics each month to help increase my Google ranking on my sites.

Sparktoro – Customer Research Tool – Awesome for searching all social media for terms and info about your dream clients.

CrazyEgg – Website Heat Map – I love this tool because it’s a heat map for your site. You can figure out where people get hung up on your site.

The more you know about your dream client, the easier it will be to anticipate serving them to your highest ability.

I’d also highly recommend having someone else walk through your website’s online dream client experience.

It could be someone that works for you, a friend, a colleague, or a third party. Just make sure it’s someone who can pay attention to detail, copy, and aligns with who your dream client is.

This will be one of the most impactful things you can do to help you build your list and create more sales on your site and in your business.

And if you need additional guidance, this is one of my superpowers – Hit reply, put “dream client experience” in the subject, and let’s talk

Note 1: Want to sound super smart in tech and need a laugh – check out this tech jargon creator – sure to impress with some b.s.

Note 2: The accidental trip Dr. Hoffman took five years later after revisiting his creation – LSD – the interesting story here

Note 3: Like Carly Simon? Have you read her book about her friendship with Jackie Kennedy Onassis? I reviewed her book here. I’d highly recommend it!