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Using Avatars On Your Business Website For Increased Sales

With the phenomenal success of James Cameron's movie Avatar and the popular children's TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender we are already familiar with the concept of a creating our own avatars - digital personas that we can customise to reflect ourselves or what we would like to be.

Your personal avatar can represent what you actually are such as your sex, height, age, hair colour, interests and social status or it can be an idealised version of what you would like to be. The point is the choice is yours - and no one needs to know what you really look like.

Indeed you may already have created a personal avatar that you use in such areas as computer gaming (such as on the Wii or Xbox360), on forums (such as Meez and Identicons), with instant messaging (like Windows Instant Messenger) and on your blogs.

But avatars are no longer limited to leisure pastimes or personal communications and I am suggesting that adding avatars to any of your websites is a good idea. Indeed, the use of an avatar on your business website could have superb benefits leading to increased sales, lead generation and customer service. Indeed recent figures show that conversion rates can increase by 144%!

What is the origin of the term Avatar?

The origins of the term avatar come from Neal Stephenson in 1992's Snow Crash who developed from the Sanskrit word avatara which is a concept similar to that of incarnation. However it was used for the on-screen representation of the player in 1985 by Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer in the Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.

Today the term simply means an animated, speaking, graphical image that represents a person.

Why use an Avatar on your business website?

By adding a speaking avatar to your website you will make it easier to connect and communicate with your visiting customers. As they visit your landing pages, your customers can look and listen as the avatar gets over your message quickly and easily.

This powerful sales and marketing tool is exactly what you need for your business in these difficult economic times.

Having an avatar on your website will:

* Increase sales and registrations

* Reduce your bounce rate

* Motivate your customers to stay longer on your site

* Make it easy to show customers what you offer

* Guide them to a buying decision

* Re-inforce the call to action ("click the red button to buy"

* Support your last minute offers

* Reflect holidays and special occasions like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day

* Make it easier for customers to opt-in to your email distribution list

* Support the written copy on your site

* Add a human element to your site and make visitors feel more welcome - just as they would if they were in a real store.

Other benefits include:

* Communicate with customers directly with impact - they just won't want to click off your page

* You can get a message across quickly - and change the message when you need to making your offers as up to date as possible

* You can influence visitors with a spoken to call to action - you don't have to rely on them reading what you would like them to do

* Stand out - you will definitely stand out from your competitors

* Save you money - have an avatar replace costly staff or business processes

* No programming skills required and it is compatible with all server technologies

How to use an Avatar on a business website.

Once you have found your chosen Avatar site:

* You can choose from a number of stock avatars or use an image of yourself

* Customise your avatar to reflect the image you want for your business including age, skin, eyes, hair, lips, amount of make-up and clothing.

* You can also choose from characters like Father Christmas, Abraham Lincoln or even a dog

* Record your own voice or use built in text-to-speak in multiple languages and accents

* Change the background for your avatar so he/she can be in the office, on the beach or wherever you choose

* Build in lead collection, FAQs or even Artificial Intelligence chat

* Publish it - on your website to HTML page, flash movies, blog, eBay auctions, PowerPoint presentations, emails and much more.

Which company offers the best business Avatars?

Of course there are lots of sites out there where you can create your own avatar but sites like IMVU and Meez are really there for social networking or like weeworld are for games.

For a truly professional avatar you need to find sites like Sitepal.

Sitepal offers over 250 2D and 3D stock characters which can all be customised with changes to age, skin, eyes, hair, lips and clothing. You can use your own photo (of yourself or even of your dog!) or choose a photo from their library. Their latest technology means that you can even add human facial expressions to your character such as happy, sad, angry, embarrassed and surprised.

SitePal, from Oddcast Inc., began in 2003 and is now used by over 10,000 clients in 95 countries. Clients use the avatar services for sales, marketing, customer service and training.

SitePal avatars can speak pre-recorded audio in any language. SitePal avatars can also speak audio based on typed-in or dynamic database driven text, using Text To Speech engines in 15 languages. 20% of Oddcast clients are from non English speaking countries and many other clients can take advantage of multi-lingual solutions.

Unlike other sites, there is a fee for using Sitepal and this starts from $9.95 per month - so I would not recommend it for personal use. However, for business use, I really think a Sitepal avatar will add a new dimension to your site - and you will reap the benefits.

You can make your avatar exactly the way that you want - and which is the best virtual employee for your company.

Tips on using Avatars in your business

Avatars will improve traffic and conversions. Here are some top tips on getting the most from your avatar:

Avoid overuse - set your avatar to only speak once per visit unless it is clicked by the visitor. You can also add an audio control tab to the character

Use good audio - where possible use a professional voice recording service. If this is not possible use the simple record-by-phone feature in a room without background noise.

Keep it fresh - refresh the look and message of the character to maintain impact. It is recommended that you update the character every quarter and let your character reflect seasonal greetings, special promotions and company announcements

Pick the correct avatar - choose a character that reflects your target market. Your character is a virtual spokesperson for your company so create one that your customers will respond to.

Be creative - use your avatar for all types of marketing from answering visitors' questions in real time to a Flash tutorial movie. Use your character in an HTML email to increase click through rates. All these will lead to increased traffic, well informed prospects and better sales conversions.

Summary

I have used Avatars on a number of my own websites and found them incredibly helpful in retaining customers when they reached my site. I would highly recommend them. For further information please see www.squidoo.com/avatarsforbusiness.

About the Author

Technology is so important for today's business - the wrong choice can really have a negative effect on the bottom line for your company. The right choice opens up a new world of opportunities. I have been involved in marketing for 16 years - and I am no techie. However, I like using tools that use all the latest technological advances but are easy to use in my business. For further information on Sitepal 

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