You must have noticed the talking characters on so many websites you visit everyday. One of the most popular and effective way of communicating with clients or perspective consumers these days is talking avatars. Not only they look natural but also provide more human touch just like one get in talking to human representative.
Research indicates that people tend to dislike talking charactersnot because of their designs, but due to callousness in their application.
The talking avatars are digital representation of our business and how we want to show ourselves to the world. So, they should be designed and applied very carefully. Talking avatars are your representative to the target audience, so they could just make or mar you website.
If you want you can get your personalized sales avatar, which will include your height, sex and sometimes your face as well.
According to an A/B test conducted by CEO of webmarketingtoday.com, byadding a talking character on the websitethere was a 33% increase in the average time spent on the page. The results also suggested that there was an increase of 17% in per visitor page views.
But there are always two sides of a coin, few in the ecommerce business say that these talking avatars represent hardcore selling, which often irks the visitors on website. When a visitor sees these talking avatars, they appear to be a marketing tool rather than a helping one. Many also believe that the sudden voice of these talking representatives does nothing more than turning the potential customers off.
But there are a number of examples available in the world of ecommerce which support the fact that adding talking avatars increase conversion rates. Goldfish Software,LLC isan online retail website, which deals in business software. The company opted for a talking avatar in the year 2004 and has all the good things to talk about it. The talking avatar brought 33% rise in the conversion rate for the company and a good 53% increase in average sales.
For an effective and impactful talking avatar on your website, which will help you in standing out from your competitors, it is imperative that you must pay attention to few points:
- Using 2D or 3D avatars to make the website more attractive and lively is a great idea. Not only will it offer a better presentation for your website, but will also show that you are moving with the times.
- There is nothing wrong with recording the audio content in your own voice for a small target audience. In case, the target audience does not belong to same demographic group, built in test to speak option is the best, as it can deal with a number of languages and accents
- Redundant appearance of avatars is never appreciated. You mustmake sure that the avatar must be activated only when clicked by the visitor, lest it gets irritating. If its automatic, then it should be speaking only once during a visitor’s time on the page. If they want to hear it out again they can do that by clicking.
- The purpose of a talking sales avatar will go in vain if the audio or the accent is not clear. The main objective of adding an avatar on the website is to give a boost to your sales. The avatars are a marketing tool for your website, so they should be expressed in the best possible way. Special emphasis must be given on the noiseless and well spoken audio for better impact.
- Nobody likes stale food, so is the case with talking characters on websites.The presentation of your avatar must be changed after few months, say after three to four months or may be after six months. These changes could be in the background or in the outfit of the avatar, the purpose is to offer something new to the visitors.
- A talking avatar is the digital representation of your business, hence it must reflect your business.
- The avatars you choose for your website must have lead generation function. In this function there is an attached contact form and the avatar would encourage the visitors to fill this form and leave their information. It is more convenient for the visitors, as they don’t have to open a separate page for filling out a form, which is rarely done by anyone.With the lead generation function you can have a list of contacts, to whom you can send newsletters or other information if needed.
So what are you waiting for? Have a dynamic talking avatar on your website to attract visitors and gear up to boost your sales! Employ a team of web designing and development experts to know more on this and how this feature can boost your website.
