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.
Showing posts with label behavioral marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label behavioral marketing. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Monday, January 07, 2008
Let's Make a Deal: Your Privacy for Better Ads
Ok, who's up for this deal: you give me your private information, and I'll use it to make sure that I show you better ads. You want better ads don't you?
Well no. No one wants better ads. People don't like ads. People don't like being sold "stuff."
I've been thinking about this lately, and it's led me to do some research into trends in behavioral marketing. Generally, what I've found is that generally, the term is very general. It's one of those new, hot terms that has yet to have accepted, defined boundaries (sort of like umm, Web 2.0). At any rate, in the broadest sense, most people are using it to mean, "tracking what users do/have done on your site" and using that to market to them, as opposed to demographic or lifestyle data.
Ok, got it. So sometimes this behavioral data is multi-session, sometimes it's one session, sometimes it's anonymous, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's really just data mining and eCRM and sometimes it's really just web analytics. We can swizzle it many different ways, but in the end... it's what people have done or are doing on your site (or maybe your network of sites).
Ah, but here's the rub. When I'm on the internet, I don't always have the same purpose on the same site. Therefore, targeting content and ads to suit what I've done in the past, well that's not really the best way to go. I might just find it limiting and frustrating. Also there's the issue with the household computer. Your teenage son does not want to see ads on Amazon about self improvement books. And this just barely touches on the whole thing of privacy... Now, your teenage son might guess that Mom and Dad are having relationship issues. Bad news.
Here's an idea... what if marketers quit thinking about the best way to sell us more junk, and started thinking about how to optimize the user's experience online. Now that would be something. No one wants to trade their privacy for better ads, but we might trade it for a better experience.
Well no. No one wants better ads. People don't like ads. People don't like being sold "stuff."
I've been thinking about this lately, and it's led me to do some research into trends in behavioral marketing. Generally, what I've found is that generally, the term is very general. It's one of those new, hot terms that has yet to have accepted, defined boundaries (sort of like umm, Web 2.0). At any rate, in the broadest sense, most people are using it to mean, "tracking what users do/have done on your site" and using that to market to them, as opposed to demographic or lifestyle data.
Ok, got it. So sometimes this behavioral data is multi-session, sometimes it's one session, sometimes it's anonymous, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's really just data mining and eCRM and sometimes it's really just web analytics. We can swizzle it many different ways, but in the end... it's what people have done or are doing on your site (or maybe your network of sites).
Ah, but here's the rub. When I'm on the internet, I don't always have the same purpose on the same site. Therefore, targeting content and ads to suit what I've done in the past, well that's not really the best way to go. I might just find it limiting and frustrating. Also there's the issue with the household computer. Your teenage son does not want to see ads on Amazon about self improvement books. And this just barely touches on the whole thing of privacy... Now, your teenage son might guess that Mom and Dad are having relationship issues. Bad news.
Here's an idea... what if marketers quit thinking about the best way to sell us more junk, and started thinking about how to optimize the user's experience online. Now that would be something. No one wants to trade their privacy for better ads, but we might trade it for a better experience.
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