CONVERSIONS: Your 8-Second Secret

Tired of being prescribed a "magic pill" for your business → that never actually produces a conversion cure? Now is the time for truth: actionable truth.

Actionable Truth #1:

Statistics prove that a website has up to 8 seconds to seize attention of a new visitor before they churn, never to return.

Let's think about this for a minute. In other words, even if your business is successfully driving traffic to the home page, you have precious little time to secure attention and engage interest.

Each Brand Message must be:

• clear
• evident
• visual
• compelling

After all, how much can we read and digest in 8 seconds? Images and videos rule in our world of instantaneous decisions and abundant distractions.

Actionable Truth #2:

Brand Identity establishes an essential foundation for conversions. Without it, the business presence sacrifices credibility, engagement, and traction.

Confusion about the need for - and process behind - full development of a solid Brand Identity keeps many emerging ventures in the dark about what actually drives conversion.

Online propaganda, advertising, and blog posts about SEO lead less experienced business owners and executives to believe that Search Engine Optimization and analytical tactics are the primary road to snagging and holding visitor attention. Even worse, the pervasive belief seems to be: with enough traffic, sales will automatically follow.

This flawed logic skips past the essentials. Persuasive message positioning, visual and verbal agreement through talking points and images, consistent integration across all points of presence, clarity, and calls to action must be prominently implemented as a strategic core. Without a clear, clean, credible expression of Brand Identity – on a website, and throughout every other promotional channel – nothing exists to compel a prospective customer to recognize differentiators: reasons to purchase from you…NOW…instead of the competition.

Yet the myth prevails: "if you build it [and invest hundreds or thousands monthly in SEO], they will come."

You may eventually get traffic. Of course, even with good content based SEO, that takes time. So then, where is the formula for converting any traffic you may receive, regardless of its source?

Here, Brand Message serves its purpose. This core foundation mainly shows (+ briefly tells) targets what your solution offers that other businesses cannot.

When new visitors are given no reason to stick and stay, they are lost forever. Bounce new visitors, and sacrifice their entire potential spend: revenue and profit for the complete lifetime of the customer.

Huge risk. Enormous loss.

Attention spans are short. People have no interest in wading through paragraphs and pages of text to find a solution for their problem once they want to buy.

Instead, they must instantly see and realize why they should do business with you, instead of the competition. A visitor arriving on a website with an explicit need, ready to make a purchase, needs to see their solution now: why should they choose YOUR solution? What's your value proposition? If not evident - amidst a text laden or disorganized format, focused on features rather than benefits - that visitor will be instantly headed elsewhere.

Implementation of an effective, enticing Brand Identity prior to launch enables a business to capitalize on every visitor interaction. Grab attention and engage interest. Develop interest and increase traction.

Reinforce traction by converting the visitor into a customer. Then, offer each a reason to tell their friends about the business too: securing quick-converting referrals.

Brand Identity development requires thinking strategically about how you want your business to be seen, experienced, and remembered. After all, emotion drives purchasing motivation. What will ignite interest, triggering immediate action on your offer?

Actionable Truth #3:

Brand Identity only becomes effective by knowing its audience (targets) and speaking their language.

How are you addressing the target's needs and solving their problems? What value or benefit do they recognize in your solution? Does your visual resonate with your target demographics? What will they instantly understand from your message when they see your logo…land on your site?

In the same way that we select a specific suit, phone, computer, briefcase, haircut, set of mannerisms, and posture to convey our personal image…this is the way we must consider expressing our venture's best assets through a cogent Brand Identity. Eventually, this message package establishes and reinforces Brand Recognition as well for further traction. A name, logo, domain, image series, and combination of talking points that requires decoding or long explanations does not serve this crucial, long-term purpose.

After all, Nike, Google, Apple, Adidas, Amazon and the other big brands have spent billions on campaigns over decades of time to become etched in the public's memory and psyche. Without a budget for that (even if you had it, you must still address your targets, and their explicit needs, as a priority), craft a Brand ID that shows, rather than having to tell.

Far more than a logo, slogan, and color scheme, Brand Identity can make or break a business.

Companies that recognize this fact, and its importance, are the rare ones gaining effective traction. They endure. They thrive. They find connection: success, market share, and revenues at every stage of growth. After all, they planned for it…they designed it that way.

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