Web Design: Understanding Your Clients Customers

How various businesses connect with new customers in a sector is a fascinating subject and something I find myself discussing at almost every opportunity with business owners. While I am often a little surprised by the first results, they are all consistently obvious after some short analysis. Typical Hindsight Clarity!

Since my experience is mostly in Real Estate I can provide an example here. While almost all brokers, leasing agents or developers have websites to provide details on the properties they offer, typically over 70 % of enquiries that they receive are generated from “For Sale “or “To Let” signage on properties.

Why? Because it is very difficult for a website to compete with buyers' natural senses (Sight, Smell & Touch specifically) and of course that unbiased neighbourhood information they obtain by driving through an area.

So why mention this on a website development blog? I see it as an illustration of the importance of understanding buyer behaviour in a particular industry when creating websites that service a sector. In my opinion, a website should be built to support existing buyer behaviour as opposed to trying to revolutionize an industry with a complete rethink on how buyers and sellers could interact. Generally this approach has a far higher success rate, without discounting the importance of business model innovation.

To illustrate the point, websites are typically used by Estate Agents as a medium for communicating details on a property which would not be economically viable to include in a newspaper advertisement, or which is not practical to include on a signboard. This information could typically include the building plans, lease terms, zoning issues etc. This enables agents to direct potential buyers to a website where all the applicable information is presented in a structured format.

Understanding industry buyer behaviour is a natural role for a business owner. Being able to extract that wealth of information and utilize it to construct an effective website solution is the role of a good website developer.

Submitted on behalf of Nicholas Maunder