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Posts Tagged ‘web first shoppers’

Social Media and business.

October 6th, 2009
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This week’s social media blog posts:
Monday: The Social Media Manifesto.
Tuesday: Social Media and business.
Wednesday: Your Social Media strategy: What are you hoping to achieve?
Thursday: Social Marketing turns the Media Funnel upside down.
Friday: Action steps for getting your business started in Social Media—today.


(This is the fourth in our series of Social Media posts for the month of October. We look forward to your feedback on this series.)

In our last few posts, we talked about the fact that Social Media is simply anything you do in the online space that allows others to converse, contribute, add to, distribute or give feedback to.

That’s all fine, you say, but how does that relate to my business? To answer this, one must first accept the notion that people are coming to the Internet to find solutions.

The key to developing a successful Social Media campaign is in setting yourself up as a solution for your customers. Not to sell so much as to solve.

People come to the Internet to find solutions to an almost limitless number of problems: I’m looking for the lowest price on the latest James Patterson novel; I’m looking for a gluton-free recipe; I’m looking to find out which gas grill I should buy; I’m looking to return a broken music player; I’m looking to see how the Giants did last night; I’m looking to be entertained; I’m looking for trusted insight on which growth stocks to buy. You get the idea.

For some of the problems people come to the Internet looking to solve, your company or products may offer an obvious solution. Many times your company has the expertise and resources to help customers in quite a few ways. And the most helpful usually don’t have to do with selling them stuff.

The obvious question most businesses would have at this point is: “Why can’t the people with problems we can solve just come to our website?”

The thing is, most Internet users aren’t looking for a sales pitch, and that’s exactly what most corporate web sites are, or at least what visitors expect when they go there. There’s nothing wrong with this…there’s a time and a place to get your product and sales information in front of a prospective client. But when they are in the early phases of looking for a solution very often isn’t the right time.

Increasingly, Internet users see the value of the ‘Net as being able to connect with peers, other customers, thought leaders and neutral resources when researching a purchase. Upwards of 70% of consumers are “web first,” meaning they either purchase on the web or do research on the web before ever setting foot in a retail environment.

So how do you go about finding which problems to solve? What’s the one thing your customers would say you do better than anyone else (your Brand Vision)? What problem(s) does that solve for customers in the real world? Now ask, are there web users that are having that same problem?

Once you are clear on what problems you can solve, then you can move on to consider which Social Media platforms will work most efficiently at helping you do it. We’ll talk more in depth about these platforms in future posts.

As always, we look forward to your feedback on this series. If you’re not currently receiving the Quisenblog, you can subscribe here.

Posted by Mickey

Mickey Social Media , , , ,

Leveling the Marketing Balance of Power.

September 11th, 2009
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“Information Asymmetry” is a phrase first coined by economist George Akerlof back in the 1970s. Basically, it refers to the inherent imbalance of power (information) between seller and buyer.

Akerlof’s thesis is that in the earliest phases of a transaction, the seller has more information than the buyer does. Akerlof’s assumption was that a sale is not going to occur until the buyer has enough reliable information to make what he feels is an informed decision and be confident in it.

In interchanges that involve more risk (for example, buying a house or a car), the buyer may need quite a bit of information before he feels confident pulling the trigger. Other times it may not require much information at all (which brand of chewing gum to purchase at the check-out stand).

It goes to reason, therefore, that the easier the marketer makes it for the buyer to get the information he needs, and the more relevant that information is, the more likely a sale is to take place.

At its heart, Akerlof’s premise defines the basic role advertising (and indeed all marketing communication)—to get information the seller wants conveyed to the prospective buyer, thus speeding up the sales process.

Today, marketers have a wonderful tool to aid them in shortening this inherent sales cycle–the Internet. The Internet plays a huge role in balancing the Information Asymmetry dynamic. Buyers can find a plethora of information on any given product, service or category, and get it from the sources of their choice, whether the company itself, industry experts, other customers or what have you. And the depth of information available to consumers is indeed incredible by historic standards. Within a few minutes, a web user can not only find out what the factory invoice is on that new BMW he’s been eyeing, he can also get road test results, historical resale information, compare it to other makes and models and get competitive offers from dealers.

In fact, by some estimates, as many as 70% of all shoppers are “web first,” meaning they research (or in many cases purchase) before ever setting foot in a store.

In other words, the consumer is taking the initiative to balance the Information Asymmetry that used to be the exclusive domain of the marketer.

Does all this mean that advertising as we know it is in its last legs? Hardly. What it means is that as marketers, we need to put the information our customers are looking for in more places and empowering them to find it on their own. This doesn’t mean sending corporate press releases to every web site you can think of or uploading all of your commercials to YouTube thinking customers are just going to flock there. It means finding out what customers are already saying about you in cyberspace. It means finding the relevant thought leaders in your industry and making sure you and your products are on their radar. It means finding which sites, blogs or communities your customers are going to for information and advice and making sure you have a presence there or that at least your products/services are represented.

That’s where your customers are looking for you.

Posted by Mickey

Mickey On Customers , , , , ,