Straight talk is what net users want online
It's not what you think it is. Instead, it's wanting to accomplish something. What people want online is a question guerrillas ask themselves a lot. Whether it's for fun or work or something else, understanding a consumer's motives once he or she logs on is a necessity. But the experts don't seem to agree on what people want. Some folks see the web as a vast, new field for advertising messages, assuming that while people may want to do something else, if we can entice them with flash, we can sort of trick them into paying attention to our products and services.
Other folks seem to subscribe to the notion that people online are looking for entertainment on the internet and therefore they construct messages aimed at persuading while playing. And, in other cases, the time-honoured direct-response model wins out: Grab people when you can, get 'em to take an action, and then market, market, market. The answer may be that the consumer has and wants a lot more control than we give him/her credit for.
Today, webmeisters are in control. Sort of. In a perfect cyberworld, people will be in control. Sort of.
Two recent studies shed light upon this dilemma. One was conducted by Zatso. The other was conducted by the Pew Research Center. Zatso and Pew. Those guys didn't spend much time reading "how-to-name-your-company" books, I guess. Still, both of their studies illuminated the answer as to what people want to do online.
The answer, as most answers, is very utilitarian: People want to accomplish something online. They're not aimless surfers hoping to discover a cybertreasure. Instead, the average Net user turns out to be a goal-oriented person interested in finding information and communicating with others – in doing something he or she set out to do.
Look at the Zatso study. "A View of the 21st Century News Consumer" looked at people's news reading habits on the web. It revealed that reading and getting news was the most popular online activity after email. The guerrilla thinks, "That means e-mail is number one. How might I capitalise on that?"
One out of three respondents reported that they read news online every day, with their interests expanding geographically – local news was of the most interest, US news the least.
Personalisation was seen as a benefit, too. Seventy-five per cent of respondents said they wanted news on demand and nearly two out of three wanted personalised news. The subjects surveyed liked the idea that they, not some media outlet, controlled the news they saw. They feel they're better equipped to select what they want to see than a professional editor. Again, control seems to be the issue. Again, guerrillas think of ways to market by putting the prospect in control.
The Pew Research Center study revealed that regular net users were more connected with their friends and family than those who didn't use the internet on a regular basis.
Almost two-thirds of the 3,500 respondents said they felt that e-mail brought them closer to family and friends – significant when combined with the fact that 91 per cent of them used e-mail on a regular basis. That's 91 per cent. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve such market penetration.
What did people in this study seem to be doing online when they weren't doing email? Half were going online regularly to purchase products and services and nearly 75 per cent were going online to search for information about their hobbies or purchases they were planning to make. Sixty-four per cent of respondents visited travel sites, and 62 per cent visited weather-related sites. Over half did educational research, and 54 per cent were hunting for data about health and medicine.
A surprising 47 per cent regularly visited government websites, and 38 per cent researched job opportunities. Instant messaging was used by 45 per cent of these users and a third of them played games online. Even with all the hype in the media, only 12 per cent said they traded stocks online.
What does this mean to e-marketers? It means that if you're constructing a site for goal-oriented consumers, you'd better make sure you can help facilitate their seeking. Rather than focus on entertainment, flash and useless splash screens, the most effective sites are those that help people get the information they want when they need it. Straightforward data, information that invites comparison and straight talk are going to win the day.
- The writer is the author of the Guerrilla Marketing series of books. The views expressed are his own