It’s the same principle about staying in the shop. If a customer expresses a passing interest in something, you don’t walk them out of the shop and have a discussion out in the street – they may never come back inside to make a purchase. It’s no different online. If I offer an example of my work for a viewer to see, the experience cannot take the viewer away from my website. Otherwise, after viewing my sample, they may close that window, and in doing so, close my site. That would be a tragedy.
Instead, all media need to open in their own separate windows, which, when closed, lead the viewer straight back to my website. My developers not only didn’t understand this as a construct, but didn’t know how to implement that functionality. I had to show them how – and those instructions too had to be in pictures. I spent my school days earning pocket money by working in a local grocery store. I understand the value of keeping a customer close until the sale is made. I guess we’re back to world-views.
Lesson: When you shake a customer's hand, keep hold of it. When a customer shows interest in your website, you have attained your first goal - you've punctured their prior ignorance about you, and have created the first level of awareness. This is where your work begins. Your next task is to give them some deeper knowledge of you - and from there, to get them to like you by having them recognise you as relevant to them and to their needs. Your work is still not done; next you have to help them to recognise how superior you are to any alternatives available - including the alternative of doing nothing. They must come to prefer purchasing from you over not doing so. You'll know they've reached that point when they press the "Buy Now" button. This is the only time that they should lose sight of your proposition - when they are taken straight to a place where they can purchase. Until this point, any relocation of the customer from your site, to an alternative site, especially one where there is not an instant and obvious way back, is tantamount to pushing your customer out of your door. You simply shouldn't behave that way.
