One of basics of all marketing and advertising training is a teaching of “Maslow’s needs pyramid”. This pyramid shows different motivators and needs in a person’s life and how they are built one upon other. Supposedly this is presented to help marketing student understand consumer motivation and thinking. The problem is I’ve never seen it applied, in text books. It’s presented as foundation of human motivation and then it’s dropped.

I’d like to present to you a way to use Maslow’s needs pyramid so that you can get inside consumer’s mind and develop an understanding of what’s truly motivating them as they consider purchasing your product or service.

Maslow’s needs pyramid present human needs such that each need is pursued and met before next level of needs can be considered; they build upon one another. The needs from most basic to most complex are:

– physiological needs: food, shelter, sex – safety needs: clothing, weapons, defense of self – social needs: social acceptance – esteem needs: acceptance of self by self – fulfillment needs: a feeling of having and fulfilling a purpose

So question is, “How do we use this paradigm to get inside consumer’s head?”

Let’s consider a personal fitness training service. Here’s how it works at most basic level. Place yourself in position of consumer and think as if you are considering hiring a personal fitness trainer.

1. How will personal fitness training impact my acquisition and use of food? Of shelter? Of sexual behavior? (Now you see why sex is used in marketing so many products – we react to it instinctually)

2. How will personal fitness training impact my personal safety? – you’ll be in better shape and can run faster from a mugger, perhaps.

3. How will personal fitness training positively impact my standing in society? In my social circle? Access to different social circles?

You see, Eddie recently got himself a new website for his business. Unfortunately, he’s been trying in vain to turn it into a vehicle for getting leads and making sales. He’s confused. He’s dazed. He thrashes about lost in a maze. Although he at least understands importance of e-marketing for driving traffic to his site, he’s like a hamster running on a wheel, wasting energy and getting nowhere. Let’s take a look at a few of more typical e-marketing errors Eddie regularly makes.

Treat Web as a different medium The other day his business partner, Betty, showed Eddie a recent half-page ad they ran in one of their industry’s magazines. Eddie, excited at how pretty pictures were, wanted it up on their website pronto. Did he alter it in any way before they posted it to site? Did he add a specific call to action hyperlink in it? Did he optimize large print graphics so they would download fast in people’s browsers? Nope. He just took ad, as is, and posted it. Eddie has never been able to grasp idea that traditional marketing and e-marketing, while related, are not same thing. What works in print doesn’t always work online. Why? Different mediums require different approaches. Look for Eddie’s static magazine ad in his first TV commercial, just motionless ad on screen for thirty seconds. Riveting.

The Web is interactive. Site visitors can click buttons, fill out forms, or post immediate comments in forums or blogs. When Eddie was having his site built, he really just wanted to have a way to talk about his business. He wanted to tell world how great his company was and exciting history of its formation. This is called brochure-ware. It’s just taking a company brochure, posting it online and adding a few links. To say that Eddie is underutilizing Web is like saying ocean is mildly wet. The Web is extremely powerful and businesses have a choice of taking advantage of its power, or just scratching surface with simple brochure-ware. It’s similar to buying a tank, climbing in and lifting hatch only to shoot spit balls at enemy. If you have that kind of power, use it.

Ask your customers what they want Since Eddie doesn’t really grasp interactive nature of Web he guesses what his potential customers want and need. One day in a meeting Eddie was scratching his head, staring up at ceiling and saying, “Gee, if there was only a way to figure out what our customers want, a way we could get in their heads, and a way to reach enough of them to get a really clear picture, hmm . . . ?” Thankfully, a timid but sharp junior associate raised her hand and suggested that they just ask their customers their opinions and needs directly, and do it online where they could ask a whole bunch of them.

Eddie jumped at idea. Finally he was going make right choice, albeit aided by a junior associate, but right e-marketing choice nonetheless. They created an html form with forty of most important questions he could think of and posted a link on their homepage called “Customer Survey”.