The Art of Being Human

This isn't the first time I have written about the benefits of inserting a human voice or presence into your online communications. And I make no excuse for writing about this again.

Site visitors crave the sense that someone is there, within and behind your Web pages, your emails and newsletters.

Dealing with the bare technology of online interactions is a cold experience for many, or even most of us. It makes us feel anxious. Technology isn't warm. It has no heart. It neither understands us, nor cares for us.

For many Web sites, whether for businesses or organizations, we simply plug in and play the bare technology - the super-duper means of information delivery. All the site visitor sees and feels is the design, the interface, the links and the clicks. The experience is about as warm and human as banking with an ATM machine.

And then we sit in our expensive offices and wonder why it is that we get such terrible conversion rates on our sites, why so few people continue to open our emails or read our newsletters.

Well, perhaps it's because we're bringing an 'ATM' style to the most interactive, vibrant, networked, warm and essentially human communications space imaginable.

But what if you enabled your visitors to catch just a faint scent of humanity in your site? What if you did a few small things to show that your business is more than just a cold room, filled with servers? What if you showed that the heart of your business is about people, and not technology?

Would that be such a bad thing?

In fact, it would be a very good thing. Your readers, prospects and customers will feel relief, they will smile, feel reassured. And they are more likely to sign up, to register, to buy and come back.

Can I prove this? No, not with certified, verified figures, charts and signed affidavits. But I have corresponded with and listened to so many business people who know very well how 'being there' and 'being human' has helped them online. They have seen how conversion rates, sales and levels of customer loyalty can rise and fall in response to the level of 'humanity' expressed through their sites.

Here are a few, very simple examples of how different businesses have sneaked a little humanity into their sites and emails.

- A second level page at 1800Flowers.com features a photo of the CEO Jim McCann, and a personal message to his customers. (You might consider this to be an unoriginal and mundane idea. Well, do you have an equivalent page on your site? Would it harm you to give it a try?)

- At iQVC.com you can see how they have included images of and short messages from a variety of hosts and experts. (Are you too cynical to believe that visitors can really relate to paid 'hosts'?)

- At Foolmart.com they use simple words and phrases that tell you right away that a 'real' person wrote that content. Have a look at the text for their Customer Service Pledge. See how the word 'leap' and the phrase 'burning questions' transforms this from corporate-speak to something very human and a lot more credible.

It's not hard to take a few steps that will add a sense of humanity to your sites, emails and newsletters. You can do this with images, a few carefully chosen words or a combination of the two.

And if that works for you, take an audit of all your online communications. Take a look at all the places where you could add a more human voice.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You'll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.

---

Turn Your Rusty Junk Into eBay Gold

Often times people to stop to realize the income potential... Read More

5 Powerful Ways to Make Money Online with a Website

There are many ways to make money online and the... Read More

eCommerce Software Solutions

All of the long, grueling nights and an unknown number... Read More

Online Lead Generation: Can it Work for My Business?

Business-to-business service providers have a wide range of tactics they... Read More

Does Your Shopping Cart Have a Squeaky Wheel?

Have you ever gone grocery shopping just before a holiday?... Read More

How To Accept Credit Cards Without a Merchant Account

To increase sales on your website, you must accept credit... Read More

Cost Effective Ecommerce Solutions

Ecommerce use to be about spending thousands of dollars on... Read More

The ClickBank E-Commerce Solution

ClickBank.com can offer you multiple solutions for your e-commerce business.... Read More

How Measuring Key Performance Indicators Can Improve E-Commerce Strategy - Part One

The problem with most e-commerce marketing strategy today is that... Read More

Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Being able to accept credit cards and other online payments... Read More

How to Gain Your Visitors Trust

If you are serious about selling on the world wide... Read More

3 Powerful Concepts That Climb Marketing Mountains

You have probably heard many times how you should offer... Read More

Why Ecommerce is Not Ready for My Daughter or Me

As the mother of a teenage clothing fanatic I'm often... Read More

Drop-Shipping ? A Great Way of Making Money Online

Using the Internet to sell products and services to ever... Read More

Two Pillars of a Successful Web Site

For a web site to get close to fulfilling its... Read More

A Beginners Guide To Setting Up A Successful Online Store

A beginner's guide to setting up a successful online store... Read More

Expand Your Local Business Through the Internet

To obtain more local customers for your business, consider expanding... Read More

What Are The Barriers of Implementing E-Commerce Solutions

What is electronic commerce?"Electronic commerce is about doing business electronically.... Read More

What Does It Take to Make Money Online?

What a loaded question! Let's narrow that down a bit... Read More

Intranet Portals ? Personalisation and Customisation

The key difference between an (old-fashioned) Intranet and a PortalWhat... Read More

How To Eliminate Credit Card Refunds From Digital Thieves

Can you encounter the number of times where a Credit... Read More

Intranet Portals ? Search and Taxonomies

Knowledge Management for beginnersKnowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply... Read More

Grow Your Business Using B2B Emarketplace ? Part II

Selecting the right emarketplaceAlthough, IT spending has been staying flat... Read More

Website Marketing: 10 Resourceful Things You Can Do With A Product That Doesnt Sell

Do you have any product that has not been moving... Read More

Creating Legal Framework for E-commerce Taxation; non-tax statutes

We have to make amendments in existing substantive and procedural... Read More

Delivering Information Products Through Paypal Automatically

Paypal is one of the wonders of the web. Never... Read More

The House Of Print.Com

Publishing has always been a difficult business to promote successfully,... Read More

10 Reasons To Survey Your Visitors, Subscribers And Customers

1. To find out what type of content visitors want... Read More

The Five Most Commonly Encountered, Off-putting E-commerce Errors

While getting less public handwringing than during holiday season, the... Read More

Accept Credit Cards Online Without a Merchant Account

There are two major ways to accept credit cards on... Read More

Shopping Carts and the E-Aisles

Have you ever gone to the store and thought you... Read More

How e-business and e-Marketing are Changing

Internet now days became a real marketplace and many many... Read More

Getting Started in ECommerce - Part One

In 2004, Enquiro.com conducted a study of the search behaviors... Read More