WHO ARE YOUR VISITORS, REALLY?Written by Bob McElwain
Marketers and others are fond of categorizing people into subsets of general population. If you know type of person your potential customer is, you have a better notion of how to make your sales presentation. In theory, if your target is an engineer type, you provide all possible information about how your gizmo works. He or she will decide whether or not it will work well. And if your target is impulsive type, load your copy with words that grab emotionally, that trigger impulse to buy. People Don't Fit Nicely Into Categories The difficulty with categorizations is that no matter how carefully drawn, people don't obligingly fit into a single category without some serious squeezing. The most devoted engineer type may buy after only a glance, thus behaving impulsively. Yet one who tends to grab first thing that "looks good," may surprisingly want to study every detail about your gizmo before even considering purchase. I've studied dozens of categorizations constructed by really bright people. I've never seen one that worked worth a hoot in practice. In designing a website I continue to recommend providing whatever any visitor may need to make buy decision. That is, ignore types and seek to meet needs of all. Having said this, here is ... A Categorization Scheme That Works Roy H. Williams in a recent "Monday Morning Memo" (a brief free must-read newsletter) pointed out that potential customers can be divided into two types: Transactional and Relational. He quoted Bill Bergh as follows. "Shoppers tend to be either transactional or relational. Transactional shoppers are focused only on today's transaction. They're willing to deal with a supplier they don't trust because they've spent a lot of time investigating product and consider themselves expert.... Transactional shoppers enjoy negotiating and are looking for lowest-cost provider. "Relational shoppers ... consider today's transaction to be one in a series of many. Relational shoppers don't enjoy comparison shopping or negotiating. They are looking for a supplier who is an expert they can trust.... Consequently, relational shoppers are far more likely to be repeat customers." A Practical View This view of web shoppers jolted me. It's so obviously true, I remain surprised I have overlooked it for so long. Further, this categorization does work.
| | Small Business Marketing, According to SeinfeldWritten by Will Dylan
What could Seinfeld possibly have to do with marketing a small business? As it turns out, all small business owners could take a few lessons from show that brought us such popular phrases as “Man Hands” and “master of your domain”. The Coffee Shop – Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine spent countless hours in coffee shop, talking about “nothing.” You should spend some time there as well, but instead of talking about your parents or your date last night, get together with other small business owners and talk about your respective business and marketing activities. Many of you already participate in local business clubs and organizations, but feedback and shared ideas that are generated in an informal business chat over a coffee are often most valuable. My “coffee shop group” consists of 3 small businesses owners from different industries. Between us, we generate great marketing ideas for each other or in my case, new topics for small business articles. You can easily gather a few small business owners together for this type of meeting. Just be sure they are not competitors! The Short-Term Relationship – It seemed that every Thursday, Jerry was dating a different woman. In fact, outside of Elaine he rarely dated a woman for any length of time. Jerry understood that sometimes, you don’t want to be tied down to a long-term relationship. The same rule applies to your small business marketing activities. Too many small businesses get drawn in to long-term advertising relationships by committing to a certain amount of advertising in exchange for a discount. Those who sell advertising try to convince business owners that you can’t evaluate a particular form of advertising based on just a small sampling period, and thus a longer contract is required. This is simply not true. In small business world, ads must at least pay for themselves before you agree to investigate any long-term advertising commitment. You’re not building next mega conglomerate (not yet, anyway), so ad money that doesn’t produce a positive ROI is wasted money. Jerry understood that if early part of relationship wasn’t perfect, rest was bound to go downhill. Apply that rule to your marketing and advertising purchases and you’ll maximize effectiveness of your advertising. If it works on a sample basis, consider a long term plan. If it doesn’t work in short term, give them “it’s not you, it’s me” routine and move on.
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