Rapport, Dissonance, Experience, and Ecommerce

In most companies, the people that do outbound marketing - even marketing that drives website traffic - are not the same people that build websites. In fact, it's often two different vendors... with little or no integration whatsoever. Taking this one step further... think in the general sense, about people who build websites and people who create ads. Generally, they aren't the same types of people.

It makes sense then, that customers that respond to the language and feel in certain ads, will not feel the same rapport once they reach your site. Of course, best practices say we should have "integrated marketing," but in this case, I'm referring more to the overall "experience" than just the simple messaging.

Some shoppers love recommendations. Others can't stand them. Some like to see lots of choices and variety, others just want to find what they are looking for, buy it, and be gone. Even more... people are not the same person on every site, and in every shopping experience. They may want to browse on Amazon, but shop and be done on drugstore.com.

So, if your outbound marketing leads users to think you're going to offer one type of experience, but you offer something entirely different... what happens? Dissonance: that's what. The end result is a high number of bounces and nonconversions, frustrated customers, wasted marketing dollars, and lost opportunity for building instant rapport.

What to do? This is what I've seen work: determine the intent of your customers, and align your site accordingly. What did they come to your site to do? And how can you support those tasks? What do they need to make a decision? Whether it be a certain online experiences, certain information, or certain site components: build it. Then, make sure your outbound marketing indicates the "feeling" of the online experience. Better yet, offer various paths for various intent and decision making types.

If we think of our customers as people with various styles rather than clicks on pages, it's a lot easier to understand them.

oh... i love the way you talk to me

I'm in the market for a new car.

In this process, I've noticed a lot of situations that pertain directly to what I'm doing professionally, that is, behavioral optimization of the online experience.

For example, when I go to buy a car, and the salesperson says, "everyone loves this car... it's a top seller." I find, (borrowing the sage term of Playboy Playmates...) this is a turn off. Note: I drive a large European wagon. I am single and childless. I don't do what other people do.

Ok then. What I do like is, "What kind of car can I show you. Do you have any questions? Let me answer them." The astute saleperson knows I'm not up for any bs... and that I've done my homework. How do they know this?

They know this by the way I act when I get to the dealership.

When a salesperson talks to me like this, it makes me feel all happy inside. It makes me want to spend time with him, and give him large sums of money. It makes me feel rapport.

When people are on your website shopping, you can tell what kind of shopper they are by... wait for it... the way they act when they are on your dealership site.

You want to know more don't you? I know you do. Tune in tomorrow...and I'll tell you what I've seen working lately...

back to blogging

I'm officially back to blogging today. My MBA is done!

There is much jubilation and celebration to come.

What if online shopping was like real space shopping?

That prospect sounds delightful. The alternate... is quite revealing...

Viral videos... for your viewing pleasure

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Foot Lotion

How do we fix it? With a new twist on behavioral optimization... I'd love to hear your feedback...

Another sign the economy is really good

I'm looking for a UI firm to redo the UI on my first product. Right now, it's pleasing and usable enough, but going forward with this and our other products, I'd like our products to have a unique, company-specific "personality" (most people would call this look and feel) . I call it personality because I want it to be a bit more pervasive and a lot less surface level than simple look and feel. But that's not the point of this post.

So far, I've written 4 firms.

One called me immediately. They totally and absolutely "got it." But, I need more bids before I just blindly go with the first group I talked to.
Another one wrote me back after 2 days and said they'd routed my RFI but they weren't sure if they really did that sort of work, but they'd let me know (doesn't sound promising does it).
Two others - not one peep. Seriously. Not one.

I find it somewhat amazing that companies won't follow up on leads. However, I know that at my last large company, they basically tossed all the leads that came from the web. But small companies... especially companies that deliver web-based products... wouldn't they be interested in talking to a new business prospect?

Apparently not.

Please send recommendations my way... The two that haven't responded are no longer contenders. I will not be ignored!

As bad as they say...

Despite the comments on the version linked below, the Zuckerberg/Lacy interview is as bad as they say.

This is a better quality version.

The YouTube version is here but not quite as well recorded:



Lacy is clearly at fault... she forgot they are having a keynote, and clearly thinks they are on a first date.

• Hair twirling
• Posture/body language
• Giggles
• Inserting herself into the story
• Vocabulary/adulation
• And when the audience demands Q&A so they can ask some *real* questions, she puts on a petulant face and looks like she's about to cry. Poor thing.
  

Overall verdict? Painful to watch.

sxsw - so much goodness - so much tiredness!

For the last few days, I've been attending SXSW. Having spent a while in Dallas and CA, I haven't been to the festival in a few years and well... it's different. Here's a photo from 2003 - the last time I/my company was involved with SXSW. We had a booth, we all attended the conference, and we handed out the web awards. Now they have famous people handing out the awards, the conference is packed, and booths are mostly big companies (not a boutique interactive firm to be found). Yay Austin. Yay SXSW. The parties were excellent, and having a houseful of guests and seeing people from all over the country that we all know and love has been so much fun. As one person said, "it's like a big class reunion," and he's right, it absolutely has that feel. I was talking with some Five Runs folks at their packed event and we all agreed - the social part of social networking is really our favorite.

Posts on actual insight from the conference... coming soon.

Indepent Film Site - My Latest Project is a Go

And... we're live.

The Jackson Hole Film Festival Contest, brought to you by MovieHatch

We've all very excited to see this project go live and we wish Jackson Hole a ton of success with the contest and the festival.

The Project Management Series

I stopped writing the PM series... because the project I was writing about came to a standstill. There were internal logistic issues with the client, but those seem to be resolved, the series, like the project will resume. At this point, we (the designer, developer, and myself) are trying to figure out where we left off. From the looks of our basecamp site, it appears we have about 40 hours of dev work to do.

Basecamp is a fantastic thing. If you haven't used it, it's definitely worth a try. It's structured to easily manage Agile projects, and it allows really granular to-do lists, message categories, and generally keeps everything really nice and tidy.

More on that project as we go.