THE INVESTMENT ISN’T FOR YOU

One of the biggest reasons business owners avoid spending money on their website is because they look at the price and immediately think:

Do I really need to spend $4,000 on this?

Do I really need a new website?

Can’t I just keep what I have?

And I understand why.

Four thousand dollars is a lot of money.

Five thousand dollars is a lot of money.

Even if you decide to DIY it, twenty hours of your time is still a huge investment.

But I think the entire conversation changes once you realize who that investment is actually for.

Your customer.

You are not spending hours fixing your navigation because you personally need a prettier menu.

Your customer needs to be able to find the product she came for without clicking through six different pages.

You are not rewriting your product descriptions because you enjoy writing product descriptions.

Your customer needs enough information to understand what she is buying, why she might want it, what makes it different and whether it is right for her.

You are not paying someone to improve your mobile website because you enjoy looking at your own website on your phone.

Your customer is the one trying to buy something while she is sitting in bed at 10:30 at night.

She is the one getting annoyed when the button is too small.

She is the one leaving when the page takes forever to load.

She is the one abandoning her cart because she cannot figure out shipping.

She is the one deciding within seconds whether your business feels trustworthy enough to hand over her credit card information.

That is who you are investing in.

And the same applies to almost every other part of marketing.

Your welcome email flow is for the person who just discovered your business and needs a reason to care.

Your abandoned cart emails are for the person who got distracted before checking out.

Your Pinterest strategy is for the person searching for the exact type of product you sell.

Your social media content is for the person who has never heard of you and needs enough context to understand why she should stop scrolling.

Your follow-up emails are for the customer who liked what she saw but was not ready to buy the first time.

Your packaging is for the person opening the box.

Your FAQ page is for the customer who has a question at 11 p.m. when nobody from your team is available to answer it.

All of these things make the customer's experience with your business easier.

You benefit when they work.

More sales.

More repeat customers.

More visibility.

More people finishing checkout.

More people understanding what you sell.

More money.

But those are the benefits you get from making things better for the person on the other side of the screen.

I think this is where a lot of business owners get stuck.

They look at a professional website and compare it to something they would personally buy.

“Would I spend $5,000 on a website or 20+ hours DIYing my website?”

But you are thinking about it like a personal purchase.

You would never sit down and browse websites for yourself and think, “You know what I really want this year? A $3,000 Shopify website.”

Of course that sounds like a lot of money when you frame it that way.

The customer is the one who is going to use it.

A better question is what your current website might already be costing you every month.

Let’s say you have thousands of people visiting your site and a percentage of them leave because the website is confusing.

Maybe they cannot find what they need.

Maybe the product page does not answer their questions.

Maybe your site looks questionable on mobile.

Maybe your homepage spends so much time talking about the brand that nobody understands what they can actually buy.

You may never know how many sales you lost.

Those customers usually do not email you and say:

“Hi, I was going to spend $180 today, but your website confused me, so I left.”

They just leave.

That is what makes a bad customer experience so expensive.

You see the orders you received.

You rarely see the orders you almost received.

And this applies even when you do not have thousands of dollars to spend.

Maybe right now your investment is time.

Fine.

Spend Saturday fixing your navigation.

Follow the Shopify tutorial.

Rewrite your five most important product pages.

Set up your abandoned cart flow.

Add the information customers keep asking you for.

Test your website from your phone.

Ask someone who has never used the site before to find a specific product and watch where they get confused.

The investment can be money.

The investment can be twenty hours.

Either way, you are spending it to remove little obstacles between your customer and the purchase.

Every time you make something easier to understand, easier to find, easier to trust or easier to buy, you improve her experience with your company.

Your marketing does the same thing before she ever reaches the website.

It helps the right person find you.

It gives her a reason to click.

It explains why the product matters.

It answers questions before she has to ask them.

It keeps your company in her mind long enough for her to make a decision.

So the next time you are looking at a website redesign, an email platform, professional photography, Pinterest management, better product copy or even twenty hours of your own time and thinking, “Do I really need to spend this much?”

Think about who is actually going to use it.

Your customer gets the better website.

Your customer gets the easier checkout.

Your customer gets the helpful emails, better product information, easier navigation and smoother shopping experience.

You get what happens when she enjoys buying from you.

More sales.