In the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?", persuasion scenario to navigate online web users/visitors to finally “buy” is explained, followed by positioning of landing page in the persuasion scenario, i.e. how landing page is related to persuasion scenario. This article will define what landing page is and its optimization.
1. What is landing page?
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, defines landing page in web marketing, sometimes known as a lead capture page, as the page that appears when a potential buyer/customer clicks on an advertisement or a search engine result click. The page will usually display web content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific words or phrases for indexing by search engines.
The web content displayed in the landing pages varies according the marketing programme. Some examples include description of special offers mentioned in the website and promotion of new product offering, calls to action referenced in another content page (e.g. blog, e-book), an organization’s story to a particular target market, or simply more detailed information from the original link.
2. Are there different types of landing pages?
Yes, mainly there are two types of landing page, reference and transactional.
1) Reference landing page
A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. The information can be presented by text, images, dynamic compilation of relevant links or other elements. Effectiveness of reference landing page can be measured by the revenue value of the advertising that is displayed on them.
A special type of reference landing page is “webvert”, the marketing goal focus on lead generation and interaction with the web visitor. A webvert is not transactional in nature, but is a reference based, ethical landing page, consisting of an advert, designed on the AID(M)A(S) principle mentioned in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?". The webvert has a clear call to action, usually a reply form.
2) Transactional landing page
A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sales of product or service. If information is to be captured, the page will usually withhold information until some minimal amount of web visitor is provided, typical example being an e-mail address and in some cases a name and telephone number as well, which are sufficient to “capture the lead” and add the prospect to a mailing list/data base of CRM (Customer Relationships Management).
A visitor taking the expected/desired action = buy on a transactional landing page is referred to as a conversion. Although there are other metrics such as CTR (Click Through Rate), the efficiency or quality of the landing page can and is usually measured by its conversion rate, the percentage of visitors who complete the desired action = buying. The economics of many web marketing programmes are determined by the conversion rate, and from monitoring the conversion rate, web/Internet marketers constantly test alternatives and improvements to their landing pages.
In reality, there is another type of landing page, which is common used in direct marketing, called Squeeze Page. These web pages are extremely targeted and focus on capturing information about a web visitor. These pages usually have a very high conversion rate and collect data for an upcoming targeted e-mail or direct contact campaigns.
3. What is landing page optimization?
Landing page optimization is to design the landing page as a logical extension of the advertisement or link for prospects to deliver the promise made and meet expectations, so that the prospects would take series of micro actions to go through persuasion scenario.
Landing page optimization needs to be integrated with SEM (search engine marketing) and online advertising and all other web marketing initiatives to constitute a comprehensive (web) marketing programme.. When talking about SEM and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), optimizing key words and tags from understanding of algorithm for high search result ranking solely is focused in many cases. However, the ultimate value in SEM is its ability to help you understand the customer’s intent and ensure you present relevant information. Moreover, the value of relevant high rankings is completely undone if the promise of the result is followed in the landing page, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p80) states. This concept applies also to driving prospects to the landing page by online advertising and other methods. For this reason, SEM, online advertising, landing page optimization and all other topics should not be fragmented but integrated.
4. What happens if landing page optimization is not successful?
It is sad to say that in many cases, web content of the landing page is NOT a logical extension of the advertisement or link for prospects; therefore, it does not meet the expectation of the prospect, and fails to maintain interest and/or conviction of the prospect. It might be that the prospect finds branding of the advertising/link and the landing page inconsistent. Or the prospect cannot find the information he/she expected because it is simply not there or difficult to find even if it is available on the page. Or even if the information is available and the prospect finds it, it is not presented appropriate, such as not in his/her buyer persona style (language, style, etc.).
Whatever the reason may be, if the prospect is dissatisfied with the first landing page, (usually a reference landing page), the prospect would click away to say good bye, after all the effort and investment made to driving him/her to the entrance of the website (= landing page),. Prospects may click away saying good bye in later micro actions as well, but it is often said that majority of the click-away occurs at the first reference landing page and most remaining click-away at the transaction page when calling to action.
5. What is the significance and essence of landing page optimization?
It is quite clear from the above that landing page optimization is a crucial in web marketing. The essence of landing optimization is what Eisenberg & Eisenberg say about presenting relevant information and following through on the promise of the result. If this is successfully performed, web content of the landing page would meet (or even exceed) the expectation of the prospect and the prospect will take the next action of the persuasion scenario with satisfaction.
Landing page (to be specific, reference landing page) is the entries of prospects to the conversion funnel as in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Pange Optimizationo Related to Persuasion Scenario?", so it needs to be designed and optimized to assure that prospects to take the next steps. This means to maintain the prospect’s attention and interest, and to take the first micro action. In many cases it is clicking to the next page in line with the persuasion scenario. This requires interest and conviction of the prospects to be generated and developed, so that the prospects take series of micro actions, going through persuasion scenario to complete by answering to “call to action” at the end.
As Scott (2009, p253) says, marketing with web landing pages is one of the most easiest and cost-effective ways to make a message read by a target market (prospect). It is also an excellent tool to move buyers through the sales cycle. This is why landing page optimization, carefully designed together with SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and other web marketing initiatives, is an extremely important topic in total web marketing, which, if successfully performed, can contribute to maximization of web marketing ROI.
In the next article, possible methodologies of landing page optimization will be introduced.
References:-
Omniture, An Adobe Company (2009), White Paper: 11 Tips for Master Search Marketers
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?
In the previous article “Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally “Buy”? , outline of how to make sure that online buyers/customers stay in the website/web content and take action(s) as expected was discussed. This article will explain effectively architecting persuasion scenario and the positioning of landing page optimization in the scenario.
1. What is architecting a persuasion scenario?
Architecting a persuasion scenario is to design total web/Internet marketing to drive online buyer/customer to the website and navigate them to take series of micro actions so that they would finally take macro action of “buy” as expected and desired (i.e. participate in a conversion action), based on the five steps of basic buying mentioned in the previous article “Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally “Buy”?. A well known funnel theory concept comes in architecting the scenario.
As Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p190) say, a scenario consists of persuasive components that lead a buyer/customer to participate in a conversion action. These components will be linear or non-linear, all of which needs to be buyer/customer-focused, based on how each customer approaches the decision to buy, rather than business/web owner-focused. In addition, a scenario provides a structure for the meaningful measurement of buyer activity so that web/Internet marketer will be able to optimize performance.
2. What are components of the persuasion scenario?
The following 6 are the components of the persuasion scenario, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p190-p192) presents.
1) Driving point:
Driving point is the prospecting point, outside the funnel, where a scenario begins. It might be any of persuasion entities including search engine, explained as methodologies in driving web users to the website in "Vol.11: How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?" This is where the buyer shows a level of interest in entering the scenario, even if the web owner cannot necessarily measure it, thus this is the A and I of AI(M)DA(S) concept. By establishing a driving point, buyer’s angle of approach can be understood.
2) Funnel points:
Funnel points are entries to the conversion funnel. At this point, web owner is in a position to control and develop the dynamic of the persuasive process. A funnel point might be a landing page or main product category page, which essentially functions as a home page to build persuasive momentum within the scenario itself. Funnel point needs to be identified to make a scenario measureable.
3) Points of resolution:
Points of resolution are opportunities to provide the information that buyers may need to answer questions associated with their individual buying processes. Each point of resolution always needs to be connected to a waypoint or conversion beacon (explained below) to ensure that the buyer never misses an opportunity to convert and continue taking micro actions.
4) Waypoints:
These are “persuasive touch points”, points of interactivity integral to the seller’s conversion goals but critical to the needs of a particular buyer. Waypoints support the sales process and the conversion goal.
Points of resolution and waypoints are persuasive components that support the non-linear qualities of the online experience. It is important that the buyer is allowed to interact with the web/Internet marketer in a way that he/she feels comfortable. At the same time, it is important to always try to move the buyer forward to his/her goal.
5) Conversion beacon:
A conversion beacon signals the first (or next) step in a linear process through which a buyer must pass to reach the conversion point. Points of resolution and waypoints lead a buyer to the conversion beacon, the place where the buyer demonstrates the intention to convert. Each step in completing the buying process constitutes another conversion beacon, and the buyer needs to complete each step in order.
6) Conversion point:
This is the point where web/Internet marketer knows with absolute certainty that a buyer has successfully completed a persuasion scenario. The conversion point is the entity that gets delivered so that both the buyer and the web/Internet marketer know conversion has taken place. The entity is usually some form of confirmation.
3. How persuasion scenarios go in action, and how is the action linked to landing page optimization?
Each components of a persuasion scenario is designed with a buyer-focus that acknowledges the different needs of each customer segment, depending on where each is in the buying decision process, and provides persuasive momentum (Eisenberg & Eisenberg, 2006, p192). For effective planning and measuring the goal of persuasion scenario structure, linear aspects and non-linear aspects are taken into account, as explained by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p192-p194).
1) Linear aspects:
This typically occurs at the beginning or at the end of a conversion process.
Examples of at the beginning:
Search engine result (driving point) to landing page (funnel point)
Banner ad (driving point) to landing page (funnel point)
Examples of at the end:
Shopping cart (conversion beacon) to complete checkout (conversion point)
Form completion (conversion beacon) to confirmation (conversion point)
Linear aspects of a scenario come in play when buyers need to start conversion process or complete a registration process or checkout process. Measurement for these aspects is relatively straightforward.
2) Non-linear aspects:
Buyers do not always interact in such a linear fashion, but often they have questions that need to be resolved before they finally buy. Answering these questions to make buyers take series of micro actions requires building non-linear qualities into the scenario, which is difficult but not impossible to measure.
Buyers define the non-linear aspects of a scenario as they navigate persuasion entities, which can be explicitly or implicitly planned, usually between the beginning and the end of linear aspects mentioned above. The point at which the buyer starts the scenario (driving point) to the point at which they complete the intended scenario (conversion point) can be measured although difficult. This can be done by identifying or not the buyer hits the key value waypoints, using web analytics, identifying the click-through path within the non-linear points of resolution. In this way, web/Internet marketers can determine whether they are providing the appropriate content to maintain persuasive momentum. .
Landing page optimization comes in the beginning of linear aspects, and non-linear aspects usually come in with linear aspects. Thus it goes without saying that landing page optimization plays a vital role in architecting an effective persuasion scenario, and this will be the topic for the next article.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
1. What is architecting a persuasion scenario?
Architecting a persuasion scenario is to design total web/Internet marketing to drive online buyer/customer to the website and navigate them to take series of micro actions so that they would finally take macro action of “buy” as expected and desired (i.e. participate in a conversion action), based on the five steps of basic buying mentioned in the previous article “Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally “Buy”?. A well known funnel theory concept comes in architecting the scenario.
As Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p190) say, a scenario consists of persuasive components that lead a buyer/customer to participate in a conversion action. These components will be linear or non-linear, all of which needs to be buyer/customer-focused, based on how each customer approaches the decision to buy, rather than business/web owner-focused. In addition, a scenario provides a structure for the meaningful measurement of buyer activity so that web/Internet marketer will be able to optimize performance.
2. What are components of the persuasion scenario?
The following 6 are the components of the persuasion scenario, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p190-p192) presents.
1) Driving point:
Driving point is the prospecting point, outside the funnel, where a scenario begins. It might be any of persuasion entities including search engine, explained as methodologies in driving web users to the website in "Vol.11: How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?" This is where the buyer shows a level of interest in entering the scenario, even if the web owner cannot necessarily measure it, thus this is the A and I of AI(M)DA(S) concept. By establishing a driving point, buyer’s angle of approach can be understood.
2) Funnel points:
Funnel points are entries to the conversion funnel. At this point, web owner is in a position to control and develop the dynamic of the persuasive process. A funnel point might be a landing page or main product category page, which essentially functions as a home page to build persuasive momentum within the scenario itself. Funnel point needs to be identified to make a scenario measureable.
3) Points of resolution:
Points of resolution are opportunities to provide the information that buyers may need to answer questions associated with their individual buying processes. Each point of resolution always needs to be connected to a waypoint or conversion beacon (explained below) to ensure that the buyer never misses an opportunity to convert and continue taking micro actions.
4) Waypoints:
These are “persuasive touch points”, points of interactivity integral to the seller’s conversion goals but critical to the needs of a particular buyer. Waypoints support the sales process and the conversion goal.
Points of resolution and waypoints are persuasive components that support the non-linear qualities of the online experience. It is important that the buyer is allowed to interact with the web/Internet marketer in a way that he/she feels comfortable. At the same time, it is important to always try to move the buyer forward to his/her goal.
5) Conversion beacon:
A conversion beacon signals the first (or next) step in a linear process through which a buyer must pass to reach the conversion point. Points of resolution and waypoints lead a buyer to the conversion beacon, the place where the buyer demonstrates the intention to convert. Each step in completing the buying process constitutes another conversion beacon, and the buyer needs to complete each step in order.
6) Conversion point:
This is the point where web/Internet marketer knows with absolute certainty that a buyer has successfully completed a persuasion scenario. The conversion point is the entity that gets delivered so that both the buyer and the web/Internet marketer know conversion has taken place. The entity is usually some form of confirmation.
3. How persuasion scenarios go in action, and how is the action linked to landing page optimization?
Each components of a persuasion scenario is designed with a buyer-focus that acknowledges the different needs of each customer segment, depending on where each is in the buying decision process, and provides persuasive momentum (Eisenberg & Eisenberg, 2006, p192). For effective planning and measuring the goal of persuasion scenario structure, linear aspects and non-linear aspects are taken into account, as explained by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p192-p194).
1) Linear aspects:
This typically occurs at the beginning or at the end of a conversion process.
Examples of at the beginning:
Search engine result (driving point) to landing page (funnel point)
Banner ad (driving point) to landing page (funnel point)
Examples of at the end:
Shopping cart (conversion beacon) to complete checkout (conversion point)
Form completion (conversion beacon) to confirmation (conversion point)
Linear aspects of a scenario come in play when buyers need to start conversion process or complete a registration process or checkout process. Measurement for these aspects is relatively straightforward.
2) Non-linear aspects:
Buyers do not always interact in such a linear fashion, but often they have questions that need to be resolved before they finally buy. Answering these questions to make buyers take series of micro actions requires building non-linear qualities into the scenario, which is difficult but not impossible to measure.
Buyers define the non-linear aspects of a scenario as they navigate persuasion entities, which can be explicitly or implicitly planned, usually between the beginning and the end of linear aspects mentioned above. The point at which the buyer starts the scenario (driving point) to the point at which they complete the intended scenario (conversion point) can be measured although difficult. This can be done by identifying or not the buyer hits the key value waypoints, using web analytics, identifying the click-through path within the non-linear points of resolution. In this way, web/Internet marketers can determine whether they are providing the appropriate content to maintain persuasive momentum. .
Landing page optimization comes in the beginning of linear aspects, and non-linear aspects usually come in with linear aspects. Thus it goes without saying that landing page optimization plays a vital role in architecting an effective persuasion scenario, and this will be the topic for the next article.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally “Buy”?
In the previous article Vol.11 – How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?, generating web traffic to drive as many online buyers/customers to web content/page was discussed. Keeping web users/online buyers/customers in the website/web content and successfully persuading them to “buy”, i.e. take action(s) as expected is the next challenge, which is the focus of this article.
1. Why making sure that online buyers/customer stay and walk around website/web pages inevitable in web/Internet marketing?
It is because in the online world, if dissatisfied, buyers/customer can walk away from website (which can be thought as a store in the online world) with just a single click, unlike in the offline world. In the brick and mortar offline world, buyers/customer would need to physically walk to the door and go out of the building to say goodbye. Also, if a staff had been serving the buyer, serving appropriately, the staff could persuade the buyer not to walk away and even contribute to changing the buyer’s mind. However, in online world, whether it is by intention or accidental, web user can walk away with a single click. For this reason, it is inevitable to design website/web content so that web users would not click goodbye but stay and enjoy the web content.
Moreover, it is inevitable to persuade and navigate them to buy = take actions as expected by web owner to achieve the objective of the web content. Buying is exchange of tangible or intangible value, from which, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p61) says, sales is “all about persuading people to take action you want them to take, and persuasion is a transactional process resulting in a change in belief, attitudes and behaviours”. This is why the word “buyers” is mainly used throughout this blog.
Sales in the online world (i.e. buying for web users) can be many things as below, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p60-61) list.
- The exchange of currency for products or services.
- The exchange of personal information for entry into a sweepstakes.
- Subscribing to a newsletter.
- Opting in to an e-mail list.
- Registering oneself to something.
- Agreeing to provide a referral.
- Converting someone to one’s opinion about something.
- Inspiring someone to get as enthusiastic about something as one is.
And in order to create and sustain persuasive momentum, 3 questions advocated by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p58) must be answered and executed.
(1) Who are the website owners trying to persuade to take the action?
The answer should be targeted buyers/customers (represented by the persona defined).
(2) What is the action the website owner wants the targeted buyers/customers to take?
The answer should be what is already discussed in the previous article Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing?
(3) What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?
This may well be different from person to person and might be difficult to answer.
Factors that make person confident to take action are investigated by carefully identifying possible obstacles and motivations for the person to take that particular action. This can be something tangible such as money, something intangible such as time and authority, and/or something that is mental such as safety, empathy, rapport, trust, confidence, esteem and so forth. Although research and survey result is helpful, possible obstacles and motivations is best identified by conversation with the person and making the person confident is also often effectively done by interactive conversation to provide information around the brand for experience. How companies are having interactive conversation and providing information around the brand for experience have been evolving as web technologies have evolved from web 1.0 to web 2.0 by leveraging social media, and are expected to evolve further in web 3.0 online world.
2. How companies can design and develop website/web content so that web users finally “buy” (take actions as expected)?
Below are the main KFS (Key Factors for Success) for companies to design and develop website/web content so that web users would stay in the website and finally buy.
1) Define appropriate buyer/customer persona, correctly define their needs and motivation to buy and develop web contents answering their needs and motivation.
This KFS has already been discussed in the previous articles Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing? and Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers. What the author would like to add is about people’s needs and motivation based on a well known Abraham Maslow’s ascending levels of human needs in the form of pyramid. Deficit needs represented at the bottom and being needs at the top, and the hierarchy is physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.
In general, “being” needs provokes stronger motivation than “deficit” needs, and as society advances and people have less deficiencies, website owner really needs to meet “being” needs and the essence of people’s motivation. This will be interpreted to WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
2) Define and deliver appropriately value proposition and offering to buyers as their WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
WIIFM is mentioned by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006) and Safko, Lon and Brake (2009), and this is all about value proposition and offering mentioned by many marketers. Website and its content all about buyers so WIIFM, the benefit for buyers needs to be present and presented well so that buyers would recognize and value it.
WIIFM should be something that solves buyer’s problem and/or meets needs (whether deficit or being”, and when seen from the company side, this is to be “5) Why” explained in the previous article Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing?, which is what the company what buyers/customers to believe such as “this product/service solves the problem” and “it is worth signing up this” so that they would take the action the company wants. This would lead to win-win for both the website/web content owner and the buyers, thus an ideal relationship.
Delivering WIIFM is most effectively performed by focusing on packaging appropriate information and shaping the experience around the brand. As Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p20) state, experience is entirely about “value in content”.
The author feels that this topic also deserves further discussion and she would like to discuss in one of the upcoming articles.
3) Design the total website/web content based on five steps of basic buying
The five steps presented by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p61) are:-
(1) Initiate the relationship by building rapport and confidence.
(2) Investigating needs, wants and problems.
(3) Suggesting a course of action.
(4) Obtaining agreement for decision.
(5) Closing, or taking action.
These steps are based on the two concepts. One is the classic concept of AID(M)A(S) model: attention, interest, desire, (memory), action and (satisfaction). The other is the 5 buying decision process of search, evaluate, decide, purchase and reevaluate mentioned by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p46).
4) Optimize the landing page.
Even if all the above KFI are successful, if this fails, web users would click to walk away. This deserves much discussion and will be the topic for the next article.
5) Design total website/web content so that online web users take series of micro actions to finally take macro actions.
When web users go through buying steps, they take many micro actions before finally taking macro action, the conversion goal of the website/web content. Micro actions are, as explained by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p53), series of clicks each of which represents a questions the web user is asking, representing his/her willingness to stay engaged with the website and a unique point of conversion and continued persuasive momentum.
The total flow of micro actions are of aligned with buying steps, and each web page needs to be designed appropriately, similarly to landing page.
6) Locate “call to action”.
Although the degree may vary according to the action expected by the online buyers/customers, but in many cases this is not clear even if it should be. This is one reason for low conversion rate. This also deserves further discussion preferably linking with #5 about series of micro actions, and the author hopes to discuss in one of upcoming articles.
Understanding buyers’ psychology and behaviour is vital in persuading online buyers/customers to “buy”. This is because unlike in the old economy in which simply providing hardware and functional benefits to meet deficiency needs was sufficient, in the new economy of web 2.0 online world, providing solution and answering to mental needs through experience is the key to persuading them to buy.
Such trend is the background for emergence and increasing popularity of experiential/emotional marketing and customer behaviour/psychology. The author believes that this trend is expected to become stronger in web 3.0 online world and marketers need to keep up with the trend. This kind of topic can be regarded as “soft” factors vs. “hard” factors of quantitative and qualitative information/data and framework, and marketers need to be well balanced between the two to successfully develop and execute web/Internet marketing strategy and plan.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. Why making sure that online buyers/customer stay and walk around website/web pages inevitable in web/Internet marketing?
It is because in the online world, if dissatisfied, buyers/customer can walk away from website (which can be thought as a store in the online world) with just a single click, unlike in the offline world. In the brick and mortar offline world, buyers/customer would need to physically walk to the door and go out of the building to say goodbye. Also, if a staff had been serving the buyer, serving appropriately, the staff could persuade the buyer not to walk away and even contribute to changing the buyer’s mind. However, in online world, whether it is by intention or accidental, web user can walk away with a single click. For this reason, it is inevitable to design website/web content so that web users would not click goodbye but stay and enjoy the web content.
Moreover, it is inevitable to persuade and navigate them to buy = take actions as expected by web owner to achieve the objective of the web content. Buying is exchange of tangible or intangible value, from which, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p61) says, sales is “all about persuading people to take action you want them to take, and persuasion is a transactional process resulting in a change in belief, attitudes and behaviours”. This is why the word “buyers” is mainly used throughout this blog.
Sales in the online world (i.e. buying for web users) can be many things as below, as Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p60-61) list.
- The exchange of currency for products or services.
- The exchange of personal information for entry into a sweepstakes.
- Subscribing to a newsletter.
- Opting in to an e-mail list.
- Registering oneself to something.
- Agreeing to provide a referral.
- Converting someone to one’s opinion about something.
- Inspiring someone to get as enthusiastic about something as one is.
And in order to create and sustain persuasive momentum, 3 questions advocated by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p58) must be answered and executed.
(1) Who are the website owners trying to persuade to take the action?
The answer should be targeted buyers/customers (represented by the persona defined).
(2) What is the action the website owner wants the targeted buyers/customers to take?
The answer should be what is already discussed in the previous article Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing?
(3) What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?
This may well be different from person to person and might be difficult to answer.
Factors that make person confident to take action are investigated by carefully identifying possible obstacles and motivations for the person to take that particular action. This can be something tangible such as money, something intangible such as time and authority, and/or something that is mental such as safety, empathy, rapport, trust, confidence, esteem and so forth. Although research and survey result is helpful, possible obstacles and motivations is best identified by conversation with the person and making the person confident is also often effectively done by interactive conversation to provide information around the brand for experience. How companies are having interactive conversation and providing information around the brand for experience have been evolving as web technologies have evolved from web 1.0 to web 2.0 by leveraging social media, and are expected to evolve further in web 3.0 online world.
2. How companies can design and develop website/web content so that web users finally “buy” (take actions as expected)?
Below are the main KFS (Key Factors for Success) for companies to design and develop website/web content so that web users would stay in the website and finally buy.
1) Define appropriate buyer/customer persona, correctly define their needs and motivation to buy and develop web contents answering their needs and motivation.
This KFS has already been discussed in the previous articles Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing? and Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers. What the author would like to add is about people’s needs and motivation based on a well known Abraham Maslow’s ascending levels of human needs in the form of pyramid. Deficit needs represented at the bottom and being needs at the top, and the hierarchy is physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.
In general, “being” needs provokes stronger motivation than “deficit” needs, and as society advances and people have less deficiencies, website owner really needs to meet “being” needs and the essence of people’s motivation. This will be interpreted to WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
2) Define and deliver appropriately value proposition and offering to buyers as their WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
WIIFM is mentioned by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006) and Safko, Lon and Brake (2009), and this is all about value proposition and offering mentioned by many marketers. Website and its content all about buyers so WIIFM, the benefit for buyers needs to be present and presented well so that buyers would recognize and value it.
WIIFM should be something that solves buyer’s problem and/or meets needs (whether deficit or being”, and when seen from the company side, this is to be “5) Why” explained in the previous article Vol.9 – How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing?, which is what the company what buyers/customers to believe such as “this product/service solves the problem” and “it is worth signing up this” so that they would take the action the company wants. This would lead to win-win for both the website/web content owner and the buyers, thus an ideal relationship.
Delivering WIIFM is most effectively performed by focusing on packaging appropriate information and shaping the experience around the brand. As Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p20) state, experience is entirely about “value in content”.
The author feels that this topic also deserves further discussion and she would like to discuss in one of the upcoming articles.
3) Design the total website/web content based on five steps of basic buying
The five steps presented by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p61) are:-
(1) Initiate the relationship by building rapport and confidence.
(2) Investigating needs, wants and problems.
(3) Suggesting a course of action.
(4) Obtaining agreement for decision.
(5) Closing, or taking action.
These steps are based on the two concepts. One is the classic concept of AID(M)A(S) model: attention, interest, desire, (memory), action and (satisfaction). The other is the 5 buying decision process of search, evaluate, decide, purchase and reevaluate mentioned by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p46).
4) Optimize the landing page.
Even if all the above KFI are successful, if this fails, web users would click to walk away. This deserves much discussion and will be the topic for the next article.
5) Design total website/web content so that online web users take series of micro actions to finally take macro actions.
When web users go through buying steps, they take many micro actions before finally taking macro action, the conversion goal of the website/web content. Micro actions are, as explained by Eisenberg & Eisenberg (2006, p53), series of clicks each of which represents a questions the web user is asking, representing his/her willingness to stay engaged with the website and a unique point of conversion and continued persuasive momentum.
The total flow of micro actions are of aligned with buying steps, and each web page needs to be designed appropriately, similarly to landing page.
6) Locate “call to action”.
Although the degree may vary according to the action expected by the online buyers/customers, but in many cases this is not clear even if it should be. This is one reason for low conversion rate. This also deserves further discussion preferably linking with #5 about series of micro actions, and the author hopes to discuss in one of upcoming articles.
Understanding buyers’ psychology and behaviour is vital in persuading online buyers/customers to “buy”. This is because unlike in the old economy in which simply providing hardware and functional benefits to meet deficiency needs was sufficient, in the new economy of web 2.0 online world, providing solution and answering to mental needs through experience is the key to persuading them to buy.
Such trend is the background for emergence and increasing popularity of experiential/emotional marketing and customer behaviour/psychology. The author believes that this trend is expected to become stronger in web 3.0 online world and marketers need to keep up with the trend. This kind of topic can be regarded as “soft” factors vs. “hard” factors of quantitative and qualitative information/data and framework, and marketers need to be well balanced between the two to successfully develop and execute web/Internet marketing strategy and plan.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Vol.11 – How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?
In the previous article "Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers", methodology of effectively developing web contents based on the buyer/customer persona was discussed. The focus of this article is generating web traffic to drive web users to web contents developed.
1. What is the meaning and importance of successfully generating web traffic to drive targeted web users to web contents/pages?
Simply developing an excellent content meeting buyer/customer needs is not sufficient to succeed in Web 2.0/Internet marketing. Web is a pull media as stated in one of the previous article "Vol.8: How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?" This means that companies (web content owners) need to drive web users (target buyers/customers) to their web contents/pages. As is always mentioned, there are millions of web pages on the Internet and many more are uploaded everyday. In such a situation, it is quite unlikely that the “right” people discover the “right” web content/page and therefore web/Internet marketers need to be extremely strategic in generating web traffic and driving their target buyers/customers to their web content/page.
As mentioned in previous articles, it is often said that “Content is King” but Weinberg (2009, p15) says that “Cotent is king (not by itself, at least)”, based on a slogan “content is king, but marketing is queen (and the queen rules the household” by Gary Vaynerchuk, host of the popular online TV show Sine Library. The author believes that content is king but fully understands what Weinberg says and agrees. It is the quality and value of the content that really counts and with good content, everyone can be a publisher in Web 2.0 online world, but marketing/promoting of web content is also crucial.
2. How companies can successfully drive target buyers/customer to their web contents/pages?
There are a number of methods to generate web traffic, and web/Internet marketers are required to select optimum ones and effectively mix them to attract as many target buyers/customer as possible to their web contents/pages. When companies first started web building and management, many of them (and web experts) seemed to believe that it is effective to drive target buyers/customer to their website from other traditional offline media, such as encouraging people to input URL written in the printed advertising and other collaterals. However, it turned out that it is much more effective to drive online buyers/customer to their web contents/pages. Also, Internet population is continuously increasing. Thus examples of methodologies mentioned below are primarily of driving online buyers/customer to web pages.
1) Online Adverting
Online advertising is one of the primary methods to generating web traffic, in general the cost is high compared to many other methodologies, in general, it is effective and the result can be achieved immediately as long as advertising is planned and executed appropriately. In fact, recent survey results conclude that online advertising spending is increasing and it is expected to surpass advertising in other media (such as TV and printed ads such as newspaper and magazines) in a few years in major Internet advanced countries. The challenge is increasing conversion rate (and ultimately ROI), and CTR (click through rate) is one of the well-used metric for measurement.
Link banner used to be one of a major online advertising but today there are many others, linking with social media ecosystems mentioned in the previous article of "Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Relize?". Such examples include search engine advertising first started by Google and now developed and provided also by Yahoo! and Microsoft, advertising embedded in Social Network and microblogging sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and advertising embedded in/linking with gaming and virtual world. With further evolution of social media leveraging Web 2.0 technologies, it is expected that more sophisticated and advanced online advertising is developed and online advertising market further grows.
2) SEM = Search Engine Marketing (including SEO = Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Advertising)
SEM is extremely effective in generating web traffic and its importance cannot be over emphasized. Scott (2009, p248) defines SEM by saying it means using search engines to reach buyers/customers directly. SEO plays an important role in SEM including search engine advertising mentioned in 1). Scott (2009, p248) defines SEO that it is the art and science of ensuring that the words and phrases on the web pages are found by search engines and that, once found, the web content/page is given the highest ranking possible in the natural search results (i.e., what the search engine algorithm deems important for the phrase entered). A book can be written about SEO and there are many experts in this issue, and therefore the author gives a general outline of SEM in this article.
Getting the web content ranked high up in the search results immediately leads to increase in web traffic, and the #5 point “Use appropriate title, tags, and key words and phrases” mentioned in the previous article "Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers" is also one of the SEO measures. Other SEO measures include promoting links to the web page, keeping the web content fresh by frequent posting of web contents (which is why from SEO perspective, blog is often said to be better than statistic websites). Although many links to the web pages is good for SEO, cloaking and other inappropriate tactics to increase links such as “secret agreement” of exchanging links should be refrained as emphasized by Safko, Lon and Brake (2009) because search engine robots are clever to detect such inappropriateness to include such web pages in their blacklist.
Search engines have been going through evolutions as Solis (2009) explains in his blog article The Rapid Evolution of Search, and SEM is expected to evolve and its market further grows
3) Affiliate Programme
Affiliate programme is also very effective in generating web traffic and money. This is also another topic that needs much strategic approach from business model perspective and author would like to leave experts in this topic for detailed discussion.
4) RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feed
RSS feed is another way to generate web traffic, especially driving repeaters to the web content. Web users who find the web content interesting and wants to get updated information register for RSS feeds. Thus this is usually used with other methodology and this is effective for repeaters, and this is expected to contribute to royalty and engagement.
5) E-mail (e-newsletter etc.)
With social media becoming popular, it is often said that e-mail marketing is no more effective but nevertheless it is still a good way to generating web traffic. Similarly to RSS, people driven to the web page by e-mail are those who happened to access web content and have registered for subscription, i.e. they have done opt-in to be repeaters. The challenge is how many subscribers actually open the e-mail and click the URLs in the e-mail as well as acquiring as many subscribers as possible.
6) Online Broadcast (microblogging such as Twitter, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn)
Online broadcast is effective in generating web traffic, and emergence of this methodology is the reason that social media marketing is said to be overtaking e-mail marketing. It is often said that (Twitter in particular,) it has potential to be an effective tool for achieving business goal, with increasing popularity and the fact that it can broadcast both to vast audience and targeted individuals.
7) Social Bookmarking Sites (e.g. delicious.com, StumbleUpon)
Although it still might be minor methodology, social bookmarking can also be effective in generating web traffic, as mentioned by Weinberg (2009). Stand-alone bookmarking by individuals now evolved to social sharing with social bookmarking sites, and in the future it is expected to be integrated into search results.
8) Social News Websites (e.g. Digg)
Social new websites are also effective in generating web traffic. Social news websites are, as Weinberg (2009, p230-231) states, communities that let web users submit web content in the form of articles, videos or pictures. If web contents are promoted in the front page 7typically dependant upon numerous factors), it is considered “popular” in social news jargon, leading to effective web traffic generation.
9) Links (including trackbacks and commenting on other blog articles)
Links from pages of related topic is a traditional and basic methodology of generating web traffic, and this cannot be ignored even this might be time consuming and when other new methodologies mentioned above proliferate. Links usually mean simple link buttons but there are other kinds especially in driving web users from other blog articles, such as trackbacks, and commenting on the blog article and including URL of the web page.
After all, “content” and “marketing/promoting of web content to drive web users to the page” are the two inevitable pillars for successful web/Internet marketing. Having developed driven target buyers/customer to excellent web content, the next challenge is increasing make buyers/customers take action as the web content owner expects, and this is be discussed in the next article.
1. What is the meaning and importance of successfully generating web traffic to drive targeted web users to web contents/pages?
Simply developing an excellent content meeting buyer/customer needs is not sufficient to succeed in Web 2.0/Internet marketing. Web is a pull media as stated in one of the previous article "Vol.8: How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?" This means that companies (web content owners) need to drive web users (target buyers/customers) to their web contents/pages. As is always mentioned, there are millions of web pages on the Internet and many more are uploaded everyday. In such a situation, it is quite unlikely that the “right” people discover the “right” web content/page and therefore web/Internet marketers need to be extremely strategic in generating web traffic and driving their target buyers/customers to their web content/page.
As mentioned in previous articles, it is often said that “Content is King” but Weinberg (2009, p15) says that “Cotent is king (not by itself, at least)”, based on a slogan “content is king, but marketing is queen (and the queen rules the household” by Gary Vaynerchuk, host of the popular online TV show Sine Library. The author believes that content is king but fully understands what Weinberg says and agrees. It is the quality and value of the content that really counts and with good content, everyone can be a publisher in Web 2.0 online world, but marketing/promoting of web content is also crucial.
2. How companies can successfully drive target buyers/customer to their web contents/pages?
There are a number of methods to generate web traffic, and web/Internet marketers are required to select optimum ones and effectively mix them to attract as many target buyers/customer as possible to their web contents/pages. When companies first started web building and management, many of them (and web experts) seemed to believe that it is effective to drive target buyers/customer to their website from other traditional offline media, such as encouraging people to input URL written in the printed advertising and other collaterals. However, it turned out that it is much more effective to drive online buyers/customer to their web contents/pages. Also, Internet population is continuously increasing. Thus examples of methodologies mentioned below are primarily of driving online buyers/customer to web pages.
1) Online Adverting
Online advertising is one of the primary methods to generating web traffic, in general the cost is high compared to many other methodologies, in general, it is effective and the result can be achieved immediately as long as advertising is planned and executed appropriately. In fact, recent survey results conclude that online advertising spending is increasing and it is expected to surpass advertising in other media (such as TV and printed ads such as newspaper and magazines) in a few years in major Internet advanced countries. The challenge is increasing conversion rate (and ultimately ROI), and CTR (click through rate) is one of the well-used metric for measurement.
Link banner used to be one of a major online advertising but today there are many others, linking with social media ecosystems mentioned in the previous article of "Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Relize?". Such examples include search engine advertising first started by Google and now developed and provided also by Yahoo! and Microsoft, advertising embedded in Social Network and microblogging sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and advertising embedded in/linking with gaming and virtual world. With further evolution of social media leveraging Web 2.0 technologies, it is expected that more sophisticated and advanced online advertising is developed and online advertising market further grows.
2) SEM = Search Engine Marketing (including SEO = Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Advertising)
SEM is extremely effective in generating web traffic and its importance cannot be over emphasized. Scott (2009, p248) defines SEM by saying it means using search engines to reach buyers/customers directly. SEO plays an important role in SEM including search engine advertising mentioned in 1). Scott (2009, p248) defines SEO that it is the art and science of ensuring that the words and phrases on the web pages are found by search engines and that, once found, the web content/page is given the highest ranking possible in the natural search results (i.e., what the search engine algorithm deems important for the phrase entered). A book can be written about SEO and there are many experts in this issue, and therefore the author gives a general outline of SEM in this article.
Getting the web content ranked high up in the search results immediately leads to increase in web traffic, and the #5 point “Use appropriate title, tags, and key words and phrases” mentioned in the previous article "Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers" is also one of the SEO measures. Other SEO measures include promoting links to the web page, keeping the web content fresh by frequent posting of web contents (which is why from SEO perspective, blog is often said to be better than statistic websites). Although many links to the web pages is good for SEO, cloaking and other inappropriate tactics to increase links such as “secret agreement” of exchanging links should be refrained as emphasized by Safko, Lon and Brake (2009) because search engine robots are clever to detect such inappropriateness to include such web pages in their blacklist.
Search engines have been going through evolutions as Solis (2009) explains in his blog article The Rapid Evolution of Search, and SEM is expected to evolve and its market further grows
3) Affiliate Programme
Affiliate programme is also very effective in generating web traffic and money. This is also another topic that needs much strategic approach from business model perspective and author would like to leave experts in this topic for detailed discussion.
4) RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feed
RSS feed is another way to generate web traffic, especially driving repeaters to the web content. Web users who find the web content interesting and wants to get updated information register for RSS feeds. Thus this is usually used with other methodology and this is effective for repeaters, and this is expected to contribute to royalty and engagement.
5) E-mail (e-newsletter etc.)
With social media becoming popular, it is often said that e-mail marketing is no more effective but nevertheless it is still a good way to generating web traffic. Similarly to RSS, people driven to the web page by e-mail are those who happened to access web content and have registered for subscription, i.e. they have done opt-in to be repeaters. The challenge is how many subscribers actually open the e-mail and click the URLs in the e-mail as well as acquiring as many subscribers as possible.
6) Online Broadcast (microblogging such as Twitter, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn)
Online broadcast is effective in generating web traffic, and emergence of this methodology is the reason that social media marketing is said to be overtaking e-mail marketing. It is often said that (Twitter in particular,) it has potential to be an effective tool for achieving business goal, with increasing popularity and the fact that it can broadcast both to vast audience and targeted individuals.
7) Social Bookmarking Sites (e.g. delicious.com, StumbleUpon)
Although it still might be minor methodology, social bookmarking can also be effective in generating web traffic, as mentioned by Weinberg (2009). Stand-alone bookmarking by individuals now evolved to social sharing with social bookmarking sites, and in the future it is expected to be integrated into search results.
8) Social News Websites (e.g. Digg)
Social new websites are also effective in generating web traffic. Social news websites are, as Weinberg (2009, p230-231) states, communities that let web users submit web content in the form of articles, videos or pictures. If web contents are promoted in the front page 7typically dependant upon numerous factors), it is considered “popular” in social news jargon, leading to effective web traffic generation.
9) Links (including trackbacks and commenting on other blog articles)
Links from pages of related topic is a traditional and basic methodology of generating web traffic, and this cannot be ignored even this might be time consuming and when other new methodologies mentioned above proliferate. Links usually mean simple link buttons but there are other kinds especially in driving web users from other blog articles, such as trackbacks, and commenting on the blog article and including URL of the web page.
After all, “content” and “marketing/promoting of web content to drive web users to the page” are the two inevitable pillars for successful web/Internet marketing. Having developed driven target buyers/customer to excellent web content, the next challenge is increasing make buyers/customers take action as the web content owner expects, and this is be discussed in the next article.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Contents to Directly Reach Buyers?
In the previous article “Vol.9: How to Effectively Reach Buyers/Customers Directly in Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?”, effectively targeting to directly reach buyers/customers was discussed. In doing so, 5W2H.framework was used, and the latter “H” of “How” was about web content development, which is the focus of this article.
1. What it is to successfully developing web content?
In short, it is to develop web content, respectively for buyer/customer persona already defined, solving problems of each persona and growing your business, in the persona’s words. To successfully develop such web contents, the website and all web pages needs to have a personality of the persona, i.e. consistent branding of the persona. Web contents should be developed based on the core message of what the company wants the buyer/customer persona to believe and take action from that belief.
2. How companies can develop web contents meeting needs of each buyer/customer persona?
In conclusion, it is to think and plan like a publisher with brand management concept, and develop web contents with key message of what the company wants the buyers/customers to believe which also solves their problem and/or fulfill their desire, with personality of the buyer/customer persona.
It is extremely important to align the message with the audience/web users (buyer/customer persona) is trying to reach and then deliver on that promise, as Gillin (2009, p204) emphasize. This is because then the message is not delivered on that promise, the audience would feel betrayed, and in web/Internet marketing, web users can immediately go away by a single click and would likely never come back again. They could even write about it variety of social media vehicles, which can easily go viral and damage the reputation and brand of the company.
Main points for successful web content development are as below.
1) Think and plan like a publisher.
As mentioned in previous articles, everyone is a publisher in web 2.0/Internet marketing and everyone need to think and plan like a publisher to create a meaningful content. This requires market-in mindset instead of product-in mindset. This means not selling to but embracing the persona with content that is not focused on company/product but solution to solve problems of buyers or answers to their questions, and requires needs analysis of the buyer/customer persona. Defining the essence of the desire and value of the persona is crucial. Having clarified the needs, think how the needs can be translated to what the company want buyer/customer persona to believe. Should the translated points be too many, simplification is needed but availability of multiple points is not a big problem.
2) Define personality of the web content with brand management concept.
Similarly to brand management (branding) of product and company, branding needs to be done for web content from by branding of the persona approach. From buyer/customer persona defined, design, layout, tone, taste, style etc. of the total web content, each page and all constituents (picture, audio/video, icon, chart, colouring, headline, text style and so forth) are defined, which should be consistent throughout the web content.
3) Construct authentic company story to tell directly to buyer/customer persona, targeting one at a time.
Similarly to presentations and sales talks, story telling is extremely effective in developing appealing web contents. With effective story telling, audience could easily understand and remember the message and content. They are more likely be able to vividly visualize, hear, feel the scenes/shots of the story even if the web content is of text. Of course, the effective use of audio, video, picture and chart would further assist this effect.
Story (scenario) is to be developed from the translated points already mentioned in the last part of “think and plan like a publisher”. From a translated points i.e. ingredients, different stories can be developed that gives completely different impression to audience meaning different reactions and outcomes; therefore, this process requires strategic thinking and sophisticate. It should be noted that authenticity and integrity need to be maintained. Audience would “sense” if it is not authentic, and if they should sense it, they would feel betrayed, finally leading to the company (web content owner) losing their trust.
4) Think and select the buyer/customer persona’s preferred media and learning styles.
This is the detailed action plan of “Where” of the previous article of “How to Effectively Reach Buyers/Customers Directly in Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?”. As Scott (2009, p155) states, all people have different learning styles and media preferences and the companies should develop appropriate web content designed for each buyer/customer persona. Scott goes on to say that marketers should have messages (and stories) in as many formats as practical, and that even though the messages are the same, they will appeal to different group of people (buyer/customer persona). For examples, a persona may prefer an e-book but another persona may prefer a tele-seminar and therefore the company can take the same content and turn it into tele-seminar.
5) Use appropriate title, tags, and key words and phrases.
Title, tags and key words and phrases determine how web users are driven to the web content/page and whether they read the content. It goes without saying that not jargon, acronyms and industry-speak words and phrases should be refrained. Words and phrases need to be familiar with buyer/customer persona.
In addition, it should be noted that catchy title for printed matters such as newspapers and magazines may not be effective in Web/Internet marketing. What this means is that web/Internet marketing, worlds used in the title needs to be selected strategically from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) perspective, and this often means title that is quite different from great headlines of printed media, as Gillin states with concrete examples (2009, p205). In web/Internet marketing, simple, declarative title that matches the search terms is necessary.
6) Make buyer/customer persona engaged and stay connected.
Web/Internet marketing is all about engagement and being connected with buyers/customers with interactive conversation. Some tactics for this include including interactive content tools, making feedback loops available, providing ways for customers to interact one another, and creating content with pass-along value that could go viral, as mentioned by Scott (2009).
7) Think and implement methods to make persona easy to understand.
Methodology to help persona better understand varies according to persona. For example, as stated by Scott (2009), journalists may well request information both to better understand the big picture and background as well as detailed information (detailed product specs and other valuable data), and customers may find information on how other customers use products helpful.
There may well be more points for effective web content development, and after all, web content development is “more an art than a science” as Scott (2007, p108) says.
Content is the king and web content development meeting needs of buyer/customer persona is vital for successful web/Internet marketing. Next article is to be about driving web users to the contents/pages, which is another vital point for successful web/Internet marketing.
References:-
Gillin, Paul (2009), Secrets of Social Media Marketing, Quill Driver Books
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. What it is to successfully developing web content?
In short, it is to develop web content, respectively for buyer/customer persona already defined, solving problems of each persona and growing your business, in the persona’s words. To successfully develop such web contents, the website and all web pages needs to have a personality of the persona, i.e. consistent branding of the persona. Web contents should be developed based on the core message of what the company wants the buyer/customer persona to believe and take action from that belief.
2. How companies can develop web contents meeting needs of each buyer/customer persona?
In conclusion, it is to think and plan like a publisher with brand management concept, and develop web contents with key message of what the company wants the buyers/customers to believe which also solves their problem and/or fulfill their desire, with personality of the buyer/customer persona.
It is extremely important to align the message with the audience/web users (buyer/customer persona) is trying to reach and then deliver on that promise, as Gillin (2009, p204) emphasize. This is because then the message is not delivered on that promise, the audience would feel betrayed, and in web/Internet marketing, web users can immediately go away by a single click and would likely never come back again. They could even write about it variety of social media vehicles, which can easily go viral and damage the reputation and brand of the company.
Main points for successful web content development are as below.
1) Think and plan like a publisher.
As mentioned in previous articles, everyone is a publisher in web 2.0/Internet marketing and everyone need to think and plan like a publisher to create a meaningful content. This requires market-in mindset instead of product-in mindset. This means not selling to but embracing the persona with content that is not focused on company/product but solution to solve problems of buyers or answers to their questions, and requires needs analysis of the buyer/customer persona. Defining the essence of the desire and value of the persona is crucial. Having clarified the needs, think how the needs can be translated to what the company want buyer/customer persona to believe. Should the translated points be too many, simplification is needed but availability of multiple points is not a big problem.
2) Define personality of the web content with brand management concept.
Similarly to brand management (branding) of product and company, branding needs to be done for web content from by branding of the persona approach. From buyer/customer persona defined, design, layout, tone, taste, style etc. of the total web content, each page and all constituents (picture, audio/video, icon, chart, colouring, headline, text style and so forth) are defined, which should be consistent throughout the web content.
3) Construct authentic company story to tell directly to buyer/customer persona, targeting one at a time.
Similarly to presentations and sales talks, story telling is extremely effective in developing appealing web contents. With effective story telling, audience could easily understand and remember the message and content. They are more likely be able to vividly visualize, hear, feel the scenes/shots of the story even if the web content is of text. Of course, the effective use of audio, video, picture and chart would further assist this effect.
Story (scenario) is to be developed from the translated points already mentioned in the last part of “think and plan like a publisher”. From a translated points i.e. ingredients, different stories can be developed that gives completely different impression to audience meaning different reactions and outcomes; therefore, this process requires strategic thinking and sophisticate. It should be noted that authenticity and integrity need to be maintained. Audience would “sense” if it is not authentic, and if they should sense it, they would feel betrayed, finally leading to the company (web content owner) losing their trust.
4) Think and select the buyer/customer persona’s preferred media and learning styles.
This is the detailed action plan of “Where” of the previous article of “How to Effectively Reach Buyers/Customers Directly in Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?”. As Scott (2009, p155) states, all people have different learning styles and media preferences and the companies should develop appropriate web content designed for each buyer/customer persona. Scott goes on to say that marketers should have messages (and stories) in as many formats as practical, and that even though the messages are the same, they will appeal to different group of people (buyer/customer persona). For examples, a persona may prefer an e-book but another persona may prefer a tele-seminar and therefore the company can take the same content and turn it into tele-seminar.
5) Use appropriate title, tags, and key words and phrases.
Title, tags and key words and phrases determine how web users are driven to the web content/page and whether they read the content. It goes without saying that not jargon, acronyms and industry-speak words and phrases should be refrained. Words and phrases need to be familiar with buyer/customer persona.
In addition, it should be noted that catchy title for printed matters such as newspapers and magazines may not be effective in Web/Internet marketing. What this means is that web/Internet marketing, worlds used in the title needs to be selected strategically from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) perspective, and this often means title that is quite different from great headlines of printed media, as Gillin states with concrete examples (2009, p205). In web/Internet marketing, simple, declarative title that matches the search terms is necessary.
6) Make buyer/customer persona engaged and stay connected.
Web/Internet marketing is all about engagement and being connected with buyers/customers with interactive conversation. Some tactics for this include including interactive content tools, making feedback loops available, providing ways for customers to interact one another, and creating content with pass-along value that could go viral, as mentioned by Scott (2009).
7) Think and implement methods to make persona easy to understand.
Methodology to help persona better understand varies according to persona. For example, as stated by Scott (2009), journalists may well request information both to better understand the big picture and background as well as detailed information (detailed product specs and other valuable data), and customers may find information on how other customers use products helpful.
There may well be more points for effective web content development, and after all, web content development is “more an art than a science” as Scott (2007, p108) says.
Content is the king and web content development meeting needs of buyer/customer persona is vital for successful web/Internet marketing. Next article is to be about driving web users to the contents/pages, which is another vital point for successful web/Internet marketing.
References:-
Gillin, Paul (2009), Secrets of Social Media Marketing, Quill Driver Books
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Vol.9: How to Reach Buyers Directly in Web/Internet Marketing?
In the previous article “How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing”, segmentation and positioning were explained. In this article, effectively reaching buyers/customers is discussed, which is the next step after segmentation and positioning.
1. What are KFS (Key Factors for Success) for companies to reach prospects directly, turning them into buyers/customers?
Targeting is the next step to take after market/customer segmentation, and this is about identifying one or more buyer/customer personas to target based on market/customer segmentation and positioning already done. As Scott (2007) says, buyer/customer persona profile for each customer segment, a kind of simple biography, needs to be built. This is best done by interviewing people of the customer segment.
The importance of buyer/customer persona in web marketing cannot be exaggerated, especially when customization/personalization is one of the characteristic of the Internet and it is logical to leverage Anderson’s (2006) concept of “The Long Tail”. Based on this theory, one-size-fits-for-all mass marketing approach is inappropriate in the Internet era, without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, but instead, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare. To succeed in long-tail marketing (and PR/IR), different criteria accompanied by different customer segment each with different buyer/customer persona.
It is with good and accurate persona that effective web marketing plan is made, leading to successful online branding. With good and accurate person, web content appealing to target customers is developed and delivered appropriately (i.e. effective communication), turning prospects into buyers.
2. What needs to be defined in web marketing plan?
5W2H are required to be defined in web marketing plan.
1)What:
This is the key message the company aims to deliver to each buyer/customer persona to achieve the goal, such as “please purchase this” and “please sign up this”. This would be the core of the web content planning and development, which determine other “Ws” and “Hs”.
2) Who:
There are two for “Who”. The first and the more important is “who to target”. The company would have clear idea of this by this stage and actually should have defined this by developing the buyer/customer persona for each customer segment, through the process explained in the previous article.
The second is “who is responsible”. Specifying this may seem strange; however, in a large company/organization, defining and sharing with all related parties of who (which department) is responsible for what (which web content, which social media vehicle, which customer segment etc.) is a requirement for smooth operation. This does not mean bureaucracy; role-sharing clarification should never hinder cross-functional collaborative teamwork. Members of the role-sharing usually includes external members such as agency and partners. Company also need to strategically plan to “involve” other stakeholders, mass media, bloggers and other Internet marketers, leveraging viral marketing approach; viral marketing is extremely effective in Internet marketing.
3) When:
This is the timing of delivering the key message by respective web content to each buyer/customer persona. This is determined by the external business environment such as industry and competitors’ trend and events/incidents, and internal business environment such as company events (e.g. new product launch, campaign) as in offline marketing. This is also determined by how the company can find something new or something that the persona will be interested in even if there is no big news or event, to continue conversation with them and win their engagement.
4) Where:
This is which online media/channel to use to deliver respective web content, i.e. selecting which web initiatives and social media tools to use for each web content. There are variety of online media/channels, as already introduced in one of the previous article “Vol.7 - What is the Overview of Web 2.0 Online World?”, all of which has strengths and uniqueness.
It should be noted that selecting tools is secondary, coming after the company/business objectives/goal and “what” mentioned above, and that the tool with most advanced technology is not necessarily the best option. Media/channels/tools should be carefully selected based on the factors such as market share, vertical industry focus, adoption rate and market momentum as Gillin states (2009, p23) as well as web content characteristics and buyer/customer persona needs, and effectively mixed to generate synergy. Gillin proposes matrix chart of social media tools (2009, p24, p39) which are helpful in understanding strengths of each tools and selecting appropriate ones. Gillin’s charts and Clough’s framework of Web 2.0 Online Marketing ROI (2009) are worth referring to in tool selection.
5) Why:
This is the reason for web content development, which can be paraphrased by what the company what buyers/customers to believe such as “this product/service solves the problem” and “it is worth signing up this” so that they would take the action the company wants,. The action is equivalent to “What” already mentioned.
6) How much:
This is about determining the total resource (budget, manpower, infrastructure etc.) to invest and its allocation. In many cases, resources currently available in the company becomes a restraint in creating out-of-the-box ideas and developing an innovative strategy and action plan, and balancing risk taking and feasibility would count. After all, decision making on resource need to be done from perspective of short-term and long-term ROI, both quantitative and qualitative. Web/Internet metrics, especially those of social media, are still immature as Gillin (2009) says, but important to perform PDCA cycle with trial and error concept. This deserves discussion and will be discussed in later article(s).
7) How:
This can be paraphrased by with what web content the company reach directly respective persona. This deserves much discussion and will be the topic in the next article.In the previous article “How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing”, segmentation and positioning were explained. In this article, effectively reaching buyers/customers is discussed, which is the next step after segmentation and positioning.
References:-
Gillin, Paul (2009), Secrets of Social Media Marketing, Quill Driver Books
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Anderson, Chris (2006), The Long Tail, in a nutshell
http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html
Clough, Mike (2009), Web 2.0 Online Marketing Series – Overview
http://bestbizpractices.org/2009/08/16/web-2-0-online-marketing-series-overview/
1. What are KFS (Key Factors for Success) for companies to reach prospects directly, turning them into buyers/customers?
Targeting is the next step to take after market/customer segmentation, and this is about identifying one or more buyer/customer personas to target based on market/customer segmentation and positioning already done. As Scott (2007) says, buyer/customer persona profile for each customer segment, a kind of simple biography, needs to be built. This is best done by interviewing people of the customer segment.
The importance of buyer/customer persona in web marketing cannot be exaggerated, especially when customization/personalization is one of the characteristic of the Internet and it is logical to leverage Anderson’s (2006) concept of “The Long Tail”. Based on this theory, one-size-fits-for-all mass marketing approach is inappropriate in the Internet era, without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, but instead, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare. To succeed in long-tail marketing (and PR/IR), different criteria accompanied by different customer segment each with different buyer/customer persona.
It is with good and accurate persona that effective web marketing plan is made, leading to successful online branding. With good and accurate person, web content appealing to target customers is developed and delivered appropriately (i.e. effective communication), turning prospects into buyers.
2. What needs to be defined in web marketing plan?
5W2H are required to be defined in web marketing plan.
1)What:
This is the key message the company aims to deliver to each buyer/customer persona to achieve the goal, such as “please purchase this” and “please sign up this”. This would be the core of the web content planning and development, which determine other “Ws” and “Hs”.
2) Who:
There are two for “Who”. The first and the more important is “who to target”. The company would have clear idea of this by this stage and actually should have defined this by developing the buyer/customer persona for each customer segment, through the process explained in the previous article.
The second is “who is responsible”. Specifying this may seem strange; however, in a large company/organization, defining and sharing with all related parties of who (which department) is responsible for what (which web content, which social media vehicle, which customer segment etc.) is a requirement for smooth operation. This does not mean bureaucracy; role-sharing clarification should never hinder cross-functional collaborative teamwork. Members of the role-sharing usually includes external members such as agency and partners. Company also need to strategically plan to “involve” other stakeholders, mass media, bloggers and other Internet marketers, leveraging viral marketing approach; viral marketing is extremely effective in Internet marketing.
3) When:
This is the timing of delivering the key message by respective web content to each buyer/customer persona. This is determined by the external business environment such as industry and competitors’ trend and events/incidents, and internal business environment such as company events (e.g. new product launch, campaign) as in offline marketing. This is also determined by how the company can find something new or something that the persona will be interested in even if there is no big news or event, to continue conversation with them and win their engagement.
4) Where:
This is which online media/channel to use to deliver respective web content, i.e. selecting which web initiatives and social media tools to use for each web content. There are variety of online media/channels, as already introduced in one of the previous article “Vol.7 - What is the Overview of Web 2.0 Online World?”, all of which has strengths and uniqueness.
It should be noted that selecting tools is secondary, coming after the company/business objectives/goal and “what” mentioned above, and that the tool with most advanced technology is not necessarily the best option. Media/channels/tools should be carefully selected based on the factors such as market share, vertical industry focus, adoption rate and market momentum as Gillin states (2009, p23) as well as web content characteristics and buyer/customer persona needs, and effectively mixed to generate synergy. Gillin proposes matrix chart of social media tools (2009, p24, p39) which are helpful in understanding strengths of each tools and selecting appropriate ones. Gillin’s charts and Clough’s framework of Web 2.0 Online Marketing ROI (2009) are worth referring to in tool selection.
5) Why:
This is the reason for web content development, which can be paraphrased by what the company what buyers/customers to believe such as “this product/service solves the problem” and “it is worth signing up this” so that they would take the action the company wants,. The action is equivalent to “What” already mentioned.
6) How much:
This is about determining the total resource (budget, manpower, infrastructure etc.) to invest and its allocation. In many cases, resources currently available in the company becomes a restraint in creating out-of-the-box ideas and developing an innovative strategy and action plan, and balancing risk taking and feasibility would count. After all, decision making on resource need to be done from perspective of short-term and long-term ROI, both quantitative and qualitative. Web/Internet metrics, especially those of social media, are still immature as Gillin (2009) says, but important to perform PDCA cycle with trial and error concept. This deserves discussion and will be discussed in later article(s).
7) How:
This can be paraphrased by with what web content the company reach directly respective persona. This deserves much discussion and will be the topic in the next article.In the previous article “How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing”, segmentation and positioning were explained. In this article, effectively reaching buyers/customers is discussed, which is the next step after segmentation and positioning.
References:-
Gillin, Paul (2009), Secrets of Social Media Marketing, Quill Driver Books
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Anderson, Chris (2006), The Long Tail, in a nutshell
http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html
Clough, Mike (2009), Web 2.0 Online Marketing Series – Overview
http://bestbizpractices.org/2009/08/16/web-2-0-online-marketing-series-overview/
Saturday, 14 November 2009
How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing?
One of the rules mentioned in the previous article “The New Rules of Marketing, PR & IR in Web 2.0 Online World” was reaching buyer/customer directly. This is the key for successful Web 2.0/Internet marketing, and this and upcoming articles will be discussed from this viewpoint.
1. Is reaching buyers/customers directly to be done the same way as direct marketing in offline world?
The author would answer “yes and no”. What she means is that as in many other marketing topics, basic concept, framework and theory of traditional marketing and offline marketing needs to be based on; however, in many cases they need to be tailored to meet online world requirements, based on the characteristics of the Internet world. Such characteristics include the following, to name a few.
Characteristics of the Internet
1) Ubiquitous: Boundary-free, connected worldwide.
2) Interactivity: Two-way of one-to-one, or even one-to-many, many-to-many, meaning interactive conversation is possible.
3) Continuous operation: 365 days a year / 7 days a week / 24 hours a day.
4) Pull media: Web users need to access the web page to get information, or register for RSS and e-newsletter etc. to receive “pushed” information, meaning permission marketing is required.
5) Richness and reachness: Basically there is no limitation of information volume unlike printed materials, audio and video is available besides still or moving pictures using flash and text in Web 2.0 online world. Also, everyone is equally able to reach information as long as they are connected to Internet and search the web page they desire.
6) Flexible information update: This is especially in Web 2.0 online world, in which people can upload web content without HTML and other web technology knowledge nor expertise.
7) Personalization/customization: Navigating separately to ultimately different landing pages developed according to different customer segment is possible, “my page” is possible etc.
8) Data-oriented: Web statistics and e-newsletter metric statistics such as CTR (Click Through Rate) is obtainable with ease in a timely manner in comparison to traditional media.
It is because of the characteristics #1, #5 and #7 that companies are to reach their buyers/customer directly, and in doing so, companies need to plan and execute taking into account the above 8 points.
2. How to plan Web 2.0 / Internet marketing?
1) First, segmentation, positioning and targeting must to done, aligning with the company’s mission statement, vision/goal and strategy.
Similarly to traditional marketing, market and customer segmentation, positioning and targeting need to be done, starting with segmentation, and the author feels that these are even more critical in Internet/web online marketing than traditional offline marketing. What she means is that because of one of the characteristics of IT marketing “switching from one brand to another is difficult”, it is almost impossible to reverse the market share and become leader in Internet marketing once a competitor becomes a leader in the market segment the company targets. This is easily understood when compared with BtoC marketing of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods in offline world in which customers can switch from one brand to another with ease.
In general, IT marketing consists of many factors that make customers difficult or unwilling to switch from one brand to another once they started using products of a particular brand. Such factors include compatibility of application/OS etc. often accompanied by software issues and war for industry standardization, customers required to learn and get used to utilizing application/OS etc., and importance of customer information DB. This is why in cases, despite short-tem loss, companies implement enormous campaign to acquire and retain customers in the seeding phase before competitors enter their marketing segment, and leverage CRM (Customer Relations Management) to maximize CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), for ultimate long-term win.
2) Rules of Web 2.0 / Internet marketing needs to be applied.
The difficulty of switching in IT marketing is the reason the two Ries (2001) state that one of the 11 immutable laws of Internet Branding is be first in the market segment to be targeted. This means that first mover advantage in the targeted market segment is vital to succeed in online business. This explains why an offline book giant Barns & Noble struggles to take the initiative in online book business from Amazon.
The prerequisite of benefiting from first mover advantage means that speed is inevitable in Internet business, hence the term “dog year” has long been used.
3) There are some possible solutions in entering a market already established by a competitor.
If a company should plan to target a market/customer segment that a competitor already leads, re-segmentation and re-positioning (even a little) followed by careful targeting based on its business domain and core competence are required in order to successfully start and grow business without directly competing with the market leader. This can be easily understood by online advertising business. Yahoo! was the leader in this business, primary business including banner advertising, then Google made a market segmentation of “search-engine advertising” leveraging its core competence and leading position in search engine and positioned itself as the leader in that market segment. And then with successful customer segmentation and targeting, Google successfully become the market leader in the segment, creating a new online advertising market, as is well known. This often means new business model.
Other possible solutions are based on starting destructive innovation, i.e. apply Christensen’s theory of The Innovator’s Dilemma and Solution. Such solutions are proactive strategies, leading to change in the external business environment of the company, such as industry trend and rule(s) and competitors’ positioning and strategy.
Emergence of something new such as government policy and technology is the optimum timing to adopt this kind of solution/strategy, also meaning new business model. Amazon, eBay, Dell and Fedex to name a few are such examples, which might be of Web 1.0 online world. Web 2.0 online world is still very new and it is impossible to define a good example agreed by everyone; however, the author feels that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn could become such examples, and there are others that have potential to become such candidates as Second Life. This is because the three companies are generating revenue and their profitability seems to be sound when many dot.com companies remain in the red for many years, in addition to the growth in number of their web users. They seem to be entering online advertising business and/or recruiting/job matching business market, and this could trigger paradigm shift(s) in the future online business.
The upcoming article is to be about targeting and directly reaching buyers/customers.
References:-
Ries, Al, and Laura, Ries (2001), The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, Harper Collins
1. Is reaching buyers/customers directly to be done the same way as direct marketing in offline world?
The author would answer “yes and no”. What she means is that as in many other marketing topics, basic concept, framework and theory of traditional marketing and offline marketing needs to be based on; however, in many cases they need to be tailored to meet online world requirements, based on the characteristics of the Internet world. Such characteristics include the following, to name a few.
Characteristics of the Internet
1) Ubiquitous: Boundary-free, connected worldwide.
2) Interactivity: Two-way of one-to-one, or even one-to-many, many-to-many, meaning interactive conversation is possible.
3) Continuous operation: 365 days a year / 7 days a week / 24 hours a day.
4) Pull media: Web users need to access the web page to get information, or register for RSS and e-newsletter etc. to receive “pushed” information, meaning permission marketing is required.
5) Richness and reachness: Basically there is no limitation of information volume unlike printed materials, audio and video is available besides still or moving pictures using flash and text in Web 2.0 online world. Also, everyone is equally able to reach information as long as they are connected to Internet and search the web page they desire.
6) Flexible information update: This is especially in Web 2.0 online world, in which people can upload web content without HTML and other web technology knowledge nor expertise.
7) Personalization/customization: Navigating separately to ultimately different landing pages developed according to different customer segment is possible, “my page” is possible etc.
8) Data-oriented: Web statistics and e-newsletter metric statistics such as CTR (Click Through Rate) is obtainable with ease in a timely manner in comparison to traditional media.
It is because of the characteristics #1, #5 and #7 that companies are to reach their buyers/customer directly, and in doing so, companies need to plan and execute taking into account the above 8 points.
2. How to plan Web 2.0 / Internet marketing?
1) First, segmentation, positioning and targeting must to done, aligning with the company’s mission statement, vision/goal and strategy.
Similarly to traditional marketing, market and customer segmentation, positioning and targeting need to be done, starting with segmentation, and the author feels that these are even more critical in Internet/web online marketing than traditional offline marketing. What she means is that because of one of the characteristics of IT marketing “switching from one brand to another is difficult”, it is almost impossible to reverse the market share and become leader in Internet marketing once a competitor becomes a leader in the market segment the company targets. This is easily understood when compared with BtoC marketing of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods in offline world in which customers can switch from one brand to another with ease.
In general, IT marketing consists of many factors that make customers difficult or unwilling to switch from one brand to another once they started using products of a particular brand. Such factors include compatibility of application/OS etc. often accompanied by software issues and war for industry standardization, customers required to learn and get used to utilizing application/OS etc., and importance of customer information DB. This is why in cases, despite short-tem loss, companies implement enormous campaign to acquire and retain customers in the seeding phase before competitors enter their marketing segment, and leverage CRM (Customer Relations Management) to maximize CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), for ultimate long-term win.
2) Rules of Web 2.0 / Internet marketing needs to be applied.
The difficulty of switching in IT marketing is the reason the two Ries (2001) state that one of the 11 immutable laws of Internet Branding is be first in the market segment to be targeted. This means that first mover advantage in the targeted market segment is vital to succeed in online business. This explains why an offline book giant Barns & Noble struggles to take the initiative in online book business from Amazon.
The prerequisite of benefiting from first mover advantage means that speed is inevitable in Internet business, hence the term “dog year” has long been used.
3) There are some possible solutions in entering a market already established by a competitor.
If a company should plan to target a market/customer segment that a competitor already leads, re-segmentation and re-positioning (even a little) followed by careful targeting based on its business domain and core competence are required in order to successfully start and grow business without directly competing with the market leader. This can be easily understood by online advertising business. Yahoo! was the leader in this business, primary business including banner advertising, then Google made a market segmentation of “search-engine advertising” leveraging its core competence and leading position in search engine and positioned itself as the leader in that market segment. And then with successful customer segmentation and targeting, Google successfully become the market leader in the segment, creating a new online advertising market, as is well known. This often means new business model.
Other possible solutions are based on starting destructive innovation, i.e. apply Christensen’s theory of The Innovator’s Dilemma and Solution. Such solutions are proactive strategies, leading to change in the external business environment of the company, such as industry trend and rule(s) and competitors’ positioning and strategy.
Emergence of something new such as government policy and technology is the optimum timing to adopt this kind of solution/strategy, also meaning new business model. Amazon, eBay, Dell and Fedex to name a few are such examples, which might be of Web 1.0 online world. Web 2.0 online world is still very new and it is impossible to define a good example agreed by everyone; however, the author feels that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn could become such examples, and there are others that have potential to become such candidates as Second Life. This is because the three companies are generating revenue and their profitability seems to be sound when many dot.com companies remain in the red for many years, in addition to the growth in number of their web users. They seem to be entering online advertising business and/or recruiting/job matching business market, and this could trigger paradigm shift(s) in the future online business.
The upcoming article is to be about targeting and directly reaching buyers/customers.
References:-
Ries, Al, and Laura, Ries (2001), The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, Harper Collins
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