Whether we are talking Internet or traditional marketing, understanding our “most probable” customers is the basis for our positioning and messaging decisions. If we don’t spend time gaining this insight we will dramatically reduce the success of our Internet marketing efforts. I am amazed at the lack of time spent researching target and flanker markets as well as competitor issues prior to launching an online marketing initiative. I am often told that clients aren’t willing to pay for it. Often they are in a hurry and see such research as slowing down the processes of getting their website up and running. It reminds me of that old adage: “Not enough time (money) to do it right, but enough time to do it over and over because it is not achieving its goals.” Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) processes have taught us that taking the time and expense to do it right is really less expensive and time saving than moving quickly and not doing our home work.
It is important that we understand our existing and probable customers on two levels: demographically and psychographically. Demographics are the objective, directly observable characteristics that describe people and organizations. They are the tangible facts that describe your prospective customers and help you identify them. In a consumer oriented business we are interested in things like age, employment, location, gender, education, race, occupation, marital status, income, etc. For a business, we are interested in demographics dealing with industry, product line(s), size, type, location(s), geographic coverage, financial status, sales volume, etc.
The other thing we are interested in is how prospective and existing customers think and make decisions. Remember, it is the Mind” where marketing happens. Website design and Internet marketing strategies must be geared to positioning our product and service in the mind of those who view our efforts. Remember that “minds” are not a blank slate. Prospects will view our message in the context of their experiences, emotional associations, what stimulates emotional pleasure and the way they arrive at a decision. This process occurs at both the conscious and unconscious levels within the mind. This is the key to communicating with your customers and prospective customers. Think of it this way. Our conscious mind is concerned with “reason” and our unconscious mind is concerned with “impulse’ during the buying process. If you are to be effective in your online marketing efforts you must communicate with both. Often a website and other Internet marketing campaigns “reason” with the prospective customer though product or service attributes and benefits at the tangible level. They forget that the reasoning mind is not the decision maker. Research has shown us that individuals buy based on “emotional gratification” issues and then justify the decision based on “reason.”
Often the emotional connection is made on first impressions that take place early in the purchase decision chain, even before there is any purchase motivation on the part of the prospective customer. Customers have what is termed “selective perception” in that subsequent impressions are viewed through the prism of the first impression. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” holds for Internet marketing efforts as well as other interactions. Perception is reality. What is in the mind of the customer regarding the attributes of your product or service, rather than the innate properties, specifications, etc. is what drives the product acceptance. Remember every tangible need has a more powerful emotional need that underlies it.
Effective online marketing requires that we bring the insights we have gained about our customers and prospective customers in positioning our product or service. Understanding what drives a person to take action, what emotional associations might exist and what would trigger them, what gratification mode is dominant and the more dominant reason he or she may use to justify the purchase should be the way we approach our Internet marketing efforts.
While there is much to discuss regarding the purchase decision chain and how your customer mindset influences it, I will leave that to another time. I next want to discuss the website design factors and the process for designing an effective website in the context of what I have been discussing in this and the previous blog. We must have defined our customers and probable customers in both demographic and psychographic ways in order to effectively design a website or other Internet marketing strategy.
As always, any comments or suggestions to improve Internet marketing efforts are appreciated. There are no absolutes. That is why we “test” our efforts.
Tags: Brand + Technology, Internet Marketing, Non Linear Internet Marketing, Online Marketing
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