Instrumental and Causal Searches

There are basically two kinds of information searches: instrumental and causal. Instrumental Searches occur when a visitor knows exactly what he or she wants to find; for example, a parent might be searching for the latest edition of a specific video game for their child.

A Causal Search is more general; the same parent may be searching for video games but not know which one they want to buy. Recognizing how people search and what they need to find to satisfy that search will help in deciding where your lures and pitches should be placed.

The Pitch and The Palaver

Most business websites deliver too much extraneous material and not enough decision-making information: the information people need to answer your call to action. To avoid frustrating Web-visitors and losing them to alternative website options, your Web-based information should fall under one of the following categories:

1. how to use the site,
2. defining the need,
3. describing the solutions,
4. refining the choice,
5. building confidence, and
6. call to action

The question remains, no matter how many headlines and bulleted lists we use to present this material, how much of it will attention-deficit, time-constrained visitors actually scan, and more importantly how much of that will they retain? And what if your offering is complex? The abbreviated short-form information presentation approach may lead to confusion rather than clarification.

The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice

With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.

Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.

One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales people can fail at delivering effective voice-over messages because voice-overs alone lack the visual clues used in face-to-face sales presentations.

Effective website voice-over presentations require:

1. properly written scripts designed for oral presentation,
2. professional voice-over talent with a signature character,
3. an understanding of how and where voice should be used, and
4. accompanying key-phrase visuals to increase memory retention.

A lot of the sites we see, or should I say hear, merely parachute audio into their sites without a great deal of thought as to why and how it's being used. Adding voice to your website is not about implementing the hottest trend or using the newest do-it-yourself presentation application; it's about giving website visitors the information they need to do business with your company.

As mentioned earlier website visitor satisfaction is measured by whether visitors find what they're looking for. In order for prospects to find what they're looking for, they need to know

1. how to use your site,
2. what problems your offerings resolve,
3. what choices they have to make,
4. how to refine those choices to the best option,
5. how to respond to your call to action, and
6. what you do if things go wrong.

All these customer satisfaction elements can be delivered with a properly planned professionally executed audio voice-over implementation.