Key traits of the online consumer.

We are all familiar with the old road-rage analogy of the congenial, neighbourly man or woman who suddenly becomes a raving speed demon when they get behind the wheel of a car. Well, there is something about the immediacy and anonymity of the digital experience that has a similar effect on people.

It’s always risky to generalize and make assumptions about people – especially in a field as dynamic and fast-moving as this one. The only real way to know your market intimately is to conduct original research within your particular target group. That said, a lot of research work has been done (and continues to be done) on the behavioural traits of online consumers, and a broad consensus has emerged around the key characteristics that epitomize the digital consumer:

1) Digital consumers are increasingly comfortable with the medium: many online consumers have been using the internet for many years at this stage – and while the user demographic is still skewed in favour of younger people, older users are becoming increasingly internet savvy. ‘It’s almost like a piano player who plays faster once they know the instrument. In the beginning people “pling, pling, pling” very carefully, and then they move on to playing symphonies,’ said web usability guru Jacob Nielsen in an interview with the BBC. As people become more comfortable with the medium they use it more efficiently and effectively, which means they don’t hang around for long: your content needs to deliver what they want, and it needs to deliver quickly. Proper use of Keywords will help them find what they are looking for as well as rank up your website in search engines.

2) They want it all, and they want it now: in the digital world, where everything happens at a million miles per hour, consumers have grown accustomed to getting their information on demand from multiple sources simultaneously. Their time is a precious commodity, so they want information in a format that they can scan for relevance before investing time in examining the detail. Designers and marketers need to accommodate this desire for ‘scanability’ and instant gratification when constructing their online offering. Think about ‘value for time’ as well as ‘value for money’.

3) They’re in control: the web is no passive medium. Users are in control more than ever before. Fail to grasp that simple fact and your target audience won’t just fail to engage with you, they will actively disengage. We need to tailor our marketing to be user centric, elective or permission based, and offer a real value proposition to the consumer in order to garner positive results.

4) They’re fickle: the transparency and immediacy of the internet doesn’t eradicate the concept of brand or vendor loyalty, but it does erode it. Building trust in a brand is still a crucial element of digital marketing, but today’s consumer has literally at their fingertips the power to compare and contrast competing brands. How does your value proposition stack up against the competition around the country and across the globe? Your brand identity may be valuable, but if your overall value proposition doesn’t stack up then you have a retention problem, you will lose them out.

5) They’re vocal: online consumers talk to each other... a lot. Through peer reviews, blogs, social networks, online forums and communities they’re telling each other about their positive online experiences... and the negative ones. From a marketing perspective this is something of a double-edged sword – harness the positive aspects and you have incredible viral potential to propagate your message; get it wrong and you could just as easily be on the receiving end of an uncomfortable online backlash.

What makes great business great?

That may be a composition of lots of things, but one thing is for sure, that is not advertising. Because if you advertise a business that is not great, people will come to your doors, and may never comeback because the experience is not good.

But in the other hand, Online marketing or digital advertising have great tools to help you improve your business, not only get more costumers, but actually help you improve your business. Part of what makes your business great is the costumer experience, and listening to your costumers is a big part of it.

Tools like the one who allowed your costumer to leave a review or suggestion to you is important to have, more important than that is to answer your costumer, given them a feedback, it shows you care about them and your business. It validates them, makes them feel heard,....

So actually listen is what makes their experience memorable, I remember when I did work in sales at a phone company, there were people who waited more time to be attended by me, we always had a good talk and as a consequence to that we also had the sale by the end of our interactions....
This are the things we learned to be a good listening practice:

1) Not talking when others are speaking
2) Letting others know you’re listening through facial expressions and verbal sounds (“Mmm-hmm”)
3) Being able to repeat what others have said, practically word-for-word

But there is more to it, in a study they analyzed data describing the behavior of 3,492 participants in a development program designed to help managers become better coaches. This is what they discovered about listening:

1) Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks.
2) Good listening included interactions that build a person’s self-esteem
3) Good listening was seen as a cooperative conversation.
4) Good listeners tended to make suggestions

If you want help in setting up some tools like the ones we talk in this article, feel free to book an appointment with me.

Reports

Business reports are valuable and essential tools for any enterprise regardless of size or industry. They  provide a means to track and analyze the performance and overall health of the business while identifying areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.

Business reporting promotes transparency and for many public companies, an annual report is a legal requirement to provide shareholders, the government and others with financial data and ownership information about the business. Additionally, regular reporting throughout the business year enables businesses within the same sector to measure and compare their performances against others and against itself, which is very important to set up a growth objective.

If you were hiring any kind of service, you should expect a report of how things are going specially if you hire a online advertising services, they can give you a precise report if they wish to, that is for the nature of this business, they are measure based on what we call Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and they can tell you how is the performance of the marketing that is done.

Market segmentation, Client profile or Avatar = product positioning

Now a days there are many ways you can refer to your ideal client: persona, Avatar. To arrive at this point you need to start the process of called market segmentation, them you will have niche communities, influential media personalities and fragmented attention spans tie in to the ability to segment online audiences and customise messages.

 

Picture 1 - that is the light I bring to the top of the hill

Segmentation is the process of taking a single, general audience and dividing it up according to specific groupings or characteristics. Once this is done, each group can be targeted differently depending on their needs from the brand. For example, a bank may serve a wide range of customers, but the messages it sends to segments such as young high-income earners, small-business owners and retirees will be very different – necessarily so. Digital offers a wealth of user information, the ability to target users based on these factors, and the availability of technology for creating and managing large databases. In digital marketing segmentation, customers can be reached across a wide range of communication channels depending on their preferences and needs. The focus should not be on separate channels, but on how digital channels can enable and work with the strengths of what may be considered ‘traditional’ media such as TV or billboards. Today, digital often plays the role of a bridge for customers between different marketing media, allowing them to respond to a broadcast message on TV through a social media property for instance, where they can obtain a deeper, richer and more interactive brand experience.

Once an audience segment has been created, the message sent to it can also be customised (often automatically) thanks to the availability of the necessary information and digital tools.

Now lets see the project I was working this week (or better yet an analogy that you can better understand the power of marketing done properly), It was the second phase of the project (because the first phase was a complete failure, or was it?) I did invest more than the last time and put a stronger light on the top of the hill hopping to see it when I get back home. And guess what ?? I was able to see it…

That light inside my home will be good only for me to see it, outside home, perhaps some neighbors, but on top of the mountain every one who look at that direction if they pay attention they could see it. I know only the people who like the night sky and spend time looking the stars or similar things would be able to notice it, perhaps they are exactly what I call my ideal customer. So why to advertise to everybody ?? That for sure would be much more expensive, even if I Include the cost of finding out (testing) who is my ideal client. Besides advertising to everybody would be waist of resources and will be not as effective. 

 Lets see some pictures of my project

 

Picture 2 - that is the view of the look out on top of the hill from where I live (inside Jiujiang University)

Picture 3 - Pictures taken from the same place before and after installing the light (still inside the park)

 

 Picture 4 - From back home (inside the university campus) you could see the light with a naked eye.

 

Just let me say to finish here, I spend less than two US dollars (US$2,00) on that light, and I was even able to go back there and retrieve the light on the next day, that is a pretty amazing results considering the situation. 

This is exactly what a properly online marketing campaigns can do for you and your business. Notice I did not said “advertising” , that is part of the process but not the whole thing, and when advertising is done properly under the marketing campaign, it yields much better results with lot less money.