What people
want online is a question guerrillas ask themselves a lot. Whether it's
for fun or work or something else, understanding a consumer's motives
once he or she logs on is a necessity. But the experts don't seem to
agree on what people want.
Some folks
see the web as a vast, new field for advertising
messages, assuming that while people may want to do something else,
if we can entice them with flash, we can sort of trick them into paying
attention to our products and services.
Guess what.
That's not gonna happen.
Other folks
seem to subscribe to the notion that people online
are looking for entertainment on the Internet, and therefore they construct
messages aimed at persuading while playing. And, in other cases, the
time-honored direct-response model wins out: Grab people when you can,
get 'em to take an action, and then market, market, market. The answer
may be that the consumer has and wants a lot more control than we give
him/her credit for.
Today,
webmeisters are in control. Sort of. In a perfect
cyberworld, people will be in control. Sort of.
Two recent
studies shed light upon this dilemma. One was
conducted by Zatso. The other was conducted by the Pew Research Center.
Zatso and Pew. (Those guys didn't spend much time reading "how-to-name-your-company"
books, I guess.) Still, both of their studies illuminated the answer
as to what people want to do online.
The answer,
as most answers, is very utilitarian: People want to accomplish something
online. They're not aimless surfers hoping to discover a cybertreasure.
Instead, the average Net user turns out to be a goal-oriented person
interested in finding information and communicating with others -- in
doing something he or she set out to do.
Look at
the Zatso study. "A View of the 21st Century News
Consumer" looked at people's news reading habits on the web. It
revealed that reading and getting news was the most popular online activity
after email. The guerrilla thinks, "That means email is number
one. How might I capitalize on that?"
One out
of three respondents reported that they read news online every day,
with their interests expanding geographically -- local news was of the
most interest, U.S. news the least.
Personalization
was seen as a benefit, too. Seventy-five percent of respondents said
that they wanted news on demand and nearly two out of three wanted personalized
news. The subjects surveyed liked the idea that they, not some media
outlet, controlled the news they saw. They feel they're better equipped
to select what they want to see than a professional editor. Again, control
seems to be the issue. Again, guerrillas think of ways to market by
putting the prospect in control.
The Pew
Research Center study revealed that regular net users were more connected
with their friends and family than those who didn't use the Internet
on a regular basis.
Almost
two-thirds of the 3,500 respondents said they felt that
email brought them closer to family and friends -- significant
when combined with the fact that 91% of them used email on a regular
basis. That's 91%. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve such market penetration.
What did
people in this study seem to be doing online when they weren't doing
email? Half were going online regularly to
purchase products and services, and nearly 75 percent were going online
to search for information about their hobbies or
purchases they were planning to make. Sixty-four percent of
respondents visited travel sites, and 62 percent visited
weather-related sites. Over half did educational research, and
54 percent were hunting for data about health and medicine.
A surprising
47 percent regularly visited government web sites, and 38 percent researched
job opportunities. Instant messaging was used by 45 percent of these
users, and a third of them played games online. Even with all the hype
in the media, only 12 percent said they traded stocks online.
What does
this mean to e-marketers? It means that if you're
constructing a site for goal-oriented consumers, you'd better
make sure you can help facilitate their seeking. Rather than
focus on entertainment, flash, and useless splash screens, the
most effective sites are those that help people get the
information they want when they need it. Straightforward data, information
that invites comparison, and straight talk are going to win the day.
A client
buddy of mine showed me his website which heralds his retail location
and attempts to sell nothing online. He said it has been the biggest
moneymaker in the history of his
35-year-old company. Then he apologized for its lack of glitter
and special effects. He asked how his site could be so
successful even though it lacked anything to add razzmatazz and dipsydazzle.
Now, you
know the answer.
======================
Jay Conrad Levinson is probably the most respected marketer in the world.
He is the inventor of "Guerrilla Marketing" and is
responsible for some of the most outrageous marketing campaigns in history
-- including the "Marlboro Man" -- the most successful ad
campaign in history. In his latest book, "Put Your Internet Marketing
on Steroids" Jay reveals how you can use marketing steroids legally
to make your business insanely profitable. http://www.roibot.com/tk_mos.cgi?mosarticle