Why not just give your most loyal readers, or your best money paying customers the exact web content information that they’re looking for. This would be the most logical, easiest, and the obvious step to take. Once they find your site, or subscribe to you, you can then lead them directly down the path to the information that they’re wanting.
You also want to captivate and hold them by they reading your emails, your Facebook and LinkedIn postings, or your Tweets. If you’ve developed a loyal following, and they’re already doing so, then you’ve accomplished what should be your initial goal.
There are, however, far too many businesses and content developers who go too far, intentional or not, by overstepping the boundaries of what their customers or readers are expecting.
They’re then forced to either unsubscribe from their lists, just delete and ignore the emails or postings altogether, or quickly abandon their blog, all without they ever knowing why. So don’t get caught in this trap.
Keeping Things As Simple As Possible
It’s an excellent notion on your part to keep up with all the new evolving technology, but keep in mind that the majority of your readers or customers most likely don’t. So what you need to do is appeal to the general broader population.
It can be something as simple as when you send out your emails, there’s a majority who still prefer receiving quick loading text based emails, rather than html emails with images. So it’s recommended that you send out text as well as html as an option, this to satisfy everyone.
All Readers Are Different
There’s a few generalities that you need to keep in mind when it comes to your readers, and how they choose to consume content.
• All of their computer platforms are different, and will often vary greatly. You can’t control how your readers will get the content that you send them, as it’s their choice.
• Readers, especially your customers, expect a complete 100% Ironclad privacy policy. Also, just because they’ve given you their complete trust by providing you with their contact information, it doesn’t mean that you have the right to abuse the privilege by continuously spamming them, or selling your list to a 3rd party.
• All readers have a variety of different habits. So before you initially reach out to a reader, know how they like to receive their information. Comply to all their needs by using as much detail as possible. Understand that the readers who are receiving your email on their desktop PC, the same email can display completely different on their iPhone, or tablet PC. That’s why you need to stick with the basics, such as text based emails.
• Go where your readers are. If your audience isn’t located exactly where you’re attempting to reach them, then you just simply won’t reach them. So go out and find out where they’re hanging out.
Keep All Of Your Content Compliant
Avoid the following content “no-no’s”
• For website design, avoid using Flash graphics if at all possible, this especially on the first page, or the homepage of your site. The reason being you’re limiting yourself to just desktop PC’s and laptops that can display the “Flash” page, as the majority of Mobile device platforms usually can’t.
• Avoid using too many high resolution graphics or images, especially in your emails. There are a growing number of people who now read their email on their smartphones, or tablet devices, which have minimal or limited connectivity. So keep the communication prompt and simple.
• Make sure that your links are visible, and easy to find or read. Also avoid forcing the readers to scroll all the way down to the bottom of your email message, or a webpage, to find the link. Give them an option to do so above the fold as well.
There’s absolutely nothing that will irritate your readers, forcing them to instantly unsubscribe to your newsletter, or emails, or exit your site quicker, than the information you send them not being mobile platform compliant.
Realize that the data always doesn’t transfer over the same on the smaller mobile screens or operating systems such as for Android or iOS. So it’s recommended that you develop your content to detect mobile devices and comply to them. If you happen to be guilty of this, reconsider how you choose to relay your information.
Make Sure That Your Pages And Information Work
If you’re attempting to influence your readers to purchase or make a decision, the entire process needs to be completely seamless, and easy to follow, this right from the initial contact to the close.
You’re readers will not click the “Buy” button twice, for instance, if it fails to go through the first time, or if they can even find the buy button in the first place.
So before you decide to send off that email, or that tweet, or you post new content on your blog, before you introduce any new information to the online world, make sure that everything on the communication works. This includes all of the links, the graphics, the email address etc., and make sure the “Buy” button works by trying it yourself.
There are countless stories of marketers or businesses when launching their highly anticipated product or service, spending weeks setting it up, with joint venture partners and affiliates in place who are promoting their product, via press releases and advertising, and the final sales product is faulty.
What some fail to do is thoroughly test out the entire payment transaction process themselves, by they going through and actually purchasing of the product to see if it works. This would take approximately 2 minutes from start to finish. Doing so would flush out and eliminate any problems which could potentially arise.
Double Check Everything
Never post or send anything out which would potentially decrease your credibility, or your personal or your professional brand. So before you publish, step back and take a deep breath.
You can instantly lose all of the goodwill and credibility that you’ve built up, by it occurring just once. So it’s critical that you inspect your content several times.
When you do so, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find a few mistakes, or you needing to make minor tweaks which could save yourself embarrassment, credibility, and customers.