Of course, the ideal solution is a win-win, where you achieve your goal at the same time as enabling your visitors to reach theirs. This section of the site introduces some tools to help find win-win situations.
Don't assume that your site visitors are completely opposed to your goals. Consumers understand that web sites sometimes need to make money, and don't expect everything good to come for free.
You have a (limited) amount of goodwill available. What will annoy your visitors is when your priorities get in the way of what they want.
Don't assume that you must design exclusively to get your visitors to their goal as quickly as possible, with no compromises along the way. Good win-win solutions find creative ways to get the publisher's needs met without getting in the visitors' way too much.
Studies have shown that , as long as visitors remain confident that they're on track to their goals, the experience will feel successful and smooth. This is often referred to as giving visitors the 'scent' of the goal, and it allows additional scope for the site to meet its objectives.
We're willing to put up with some pain or confusion, if we perceive the reward to be worth it. We can rely on the trade-off effect to some degree - at least until someone finds a way to deliver the same benefit with less pain!
"It doesn't matter if you're sitting on a bed of nails if you're sitting next to the most beautiful woman in the world" (>>quote?)
Consider a real-world supermarket. They're great examples of balancing consumer's goals (to be home in good time with your shopping, getting good value, and not spending too much) with the owner's goal (to maximise profits by gaining customer loyalty and cross-selling alternative products). They're also a goldmine of insight into how to influence the behaviour patterns in a highly competitive market space.
Supermarkets are laid out in order to give everyone the impression that they are proceeding directly towards their goal (of having completed their shop ready for the evening/day/week ahead), when in fact they're doing lots of other clever things.
Supermarkets could be designed to make your weekly shop even quicker: for example by putting all the most common items (milk, bread, beer, nappies) together near the entrance. But there are loads of ways they attempt to get shoppers to buy more than they came in for (thus hitting the goal of maximising profits).
Download.com puts big adverts on the page where you download software, and also features other downloads on home page & section pages. In this way, visitors see adverts at rest points, while waiting for something else to finish.
Many sites put big adverts inline within articles, which the reader has to read round, like a newspaper ad. This is okay, because you think you can ignore the ad (but you might just sneak a look).
Hotmail promotes its service by simply adding a couple of lines to the bottom of each email message sent.
Everyone has seen funny cartoons or advertisements, which promote a brand while providing amusement. These are often created specifically for the web, or for viral promotion via email.
Another familiar mechanism from offline media. Consumers may decide to part with a small amount of time or information in return for the chance to win something. These are often impulse decisions.
Lots of sites give away a limited amount of free content, or free service within an acceptable boundary. The intention is that, by letting visitors use the service free of charge, more people have the opportunity to realise how this particular offering helps them get where they want to be, and in order to do that more easily or more effectively, they may consider paying for the full service.
Timing the "call to action" is critical to this approach. You want to give your customers enough for free that they get a good idea of the value of your offering, and still feel they want more, at the point you offer a call to purchase or subscribe.
Newsletters provide rich examples of giving to get. They can achieve a number of goals while delivering worthwhile information to people's inboxes:
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