Have you seen the “Easy” buttons that Staples sells? These are meant to be a bit of a joke, but they also make a good point.
People like to take the easy route.
And this makes perfect sense. Most of your clients and prospects have a lot going on in their lives, and they don’t want to spend more time or effort on something than they have to.
So if they have a choice between your product and service or another similar one that’s easier to understand or purchase, odds are they’ll go with the other option.
This is why it’s important to make things as simple and straightforward as possible for your clients. Here are a few ways you can do that.
Readable content
I’ve talked before about the importance of having readable content, but it bears repeating. Your prospects and clients need to be able to find information about what you offer in a way that they can easily understand.
This means avoiding technical jargon and complicated descriptions, but it also includes the appearance of your content:
- Use shorter sentences and paragraphs
- Break up your content with bullets and headers
- Choose an easy-to-read font and size
All this makes it much more likely that your readers will stick with your content.
Simple and obvious call to action
You also want to make your call to action obvious and straightforward. That action might be signing up for a webinar, requesting a free trial, joining your mailing list, buying your product or service, or more.
Whatever it is, don’t leave your clients guessing about how to take action. Use buttons, bold text, different colors, and more.
Don’t worry if it feels like you might be making it too obvious. It’s much better to go that route than have your client give up because they couldn’t figure out what they needed to do next.
How-tos and FAQs
It helps to give your clients as much information about your product or service as you can. Depending on what you sell, this might come in the form of how-to content, or you could also consider an FAQ.
If you want to provide how-to information, consider doing a video, particularly if you’re offering a product. That way, you can show your customers exactly what you mean.
FAQs are better in written form, as long as the questions are clearly separated. It’s even better if you can offer easy navigation between the questions so your client can quickly go to the individual questions they want.
Ask your clients
And if you have any doubt about whether you’re making things easy for your clients, ask them!
When you’re designing something, it’s common to feel like the approach you’re taking is obvious. That’s because it is obvious – to you. But that doesn’t mean it is for everyone else.
If you take the time to ask your clients for their feedback, you’ll gain valuable information. Plus, as long as you follow through on their suggestions, you’ll gain loyalty, and those clients will be more likely to suggest your product or service to their friends and family.
Everyone appreciates easy
Some people are good at making things complicated for themselves. I’ve done that myself.
But when it comes down to it, no one really likes their choices to be complicated. They much prefer to have a simple, easy-to-understand option, and if you offer them that, you’ll have happier clients who will want to stay with you for the long run.