The Answers to All Your Online Marketing Challenges: Understanding the Customer

By Aaron Kahlow

CEO, Online Marketing Connect

Who am I?

• Aaron Kahlow (Facebook preferred)

• CEO, Online Marketing Connect

“Education based media company”

– Online Marketing Institute

– Online Marketing Summit

What We Will Cover

Understand the Foundation of a Good Website

Define your web site challenges

Solving the issues

Search + Usability = Highest Yield

Part 2: Understanding Your Web Site

Stop & Think About Marketing Efforts …

Trade Shows

Association Meetings

Magazines

DirectMail

Distributor Shows

Newspapers

Portal & Destination

Sites

EmailMarketing

Search Engines

Catalogs

Banner Advertisements

Blogs & Community

Sites

The Web

Challenges with Website

Serving the Customer: Usability

Introduction to Web Site Usability

• What is Usability?

• How does it affect your web site, your brand, your sales?

• Common Myths of Usability

– I know my customer better than anyone

– Surveys are Usability Studies and Suffice

– Success vs. Satisfaction Example

Minimum standard, best practices and learned conventions…

Minimum Standards:

•Very few justifiable reasons not to comply.

Best Practices:

•Tested practices that have proven to have a positive effect on the user experience

•Not hard fast rules

Learned Conventions:

•May not be more intuitive, BUT users already know how to use; therefore, is easier to use.

•Preconceived expectations

Complying with minimum standards, best practices and learned conventions allow you to focus on the bigger picture challenges rather than wasting time on what is known.

Opposing Objectives

Business Objectives

– We want to get users to visit my site on a regular basis

– We need to offer multiple content types and features to sell to clients (white papers, news, ask the expert, etc)

– We want users to register so we can leverage their information for sales

– We want to display content to show to everyone regardless if it is relevant or not. (News on home page)

– We want to be viewed as the source for standards in our industry

Visitor Objectives

– I don’t want my decisions manipulated (now or later)

– I want control over my experience– I don’t want to be distracted with cluttered

pages or too many like options – I only want to see content that apply to

my industry or my needs– I want to reach information in as few

steps as possible– I want to be able to easily find the same

information another day (mental model) – I want to know what exactly I can and can

not do on this site right away without having to waste time exploring or being distracted by marketing ploys.

Design to meet the visitors objectives first!

How do my Customers Look at my Web Site

How customers view your site

• On a single track mission

• Find what they want, THEN peruse or browse

• No Patience (remember college … long road trip)

• Scan not Read

• Let’s look at some research…

Design: Understand how users read the page

•A common misperception is that people read a web page the same way they read a paper, from left to right

•Extensive eye-tracking research has shown that users read the page: Center-Left-Right

Eye Tracking Example..

Sample Eye Tracker

*Research from The Usability Company

Eye Tracker Results SIMPLIFIED

Where you are losing your Customers

Purpose Driven Design

Keys to Success:

• Action links identifying visitor’s purpose

• Create a mental model of the site so visitors can find what they are looking for and quickly orient themselves within the site’s structure

Benefits: Increases the Scent (trail to destination)

• Eliminates visitor guesswork

• Helps visitor rapidly determine what the site has to offer

• Helps visitor quickly find what he is looking for

Assumptions:

• Visitors go to websites for a reason (they have a purpose)

• The quicker visitors reach their goal, the happier they will be

• The happier visitors are, the more likely it is that they will return

What Can You Do?

Think Usability Sooner Than Later

Design Flexibility

Low

High

Time

Maintenance

• Requirements Definition

• Competitive Analysis

• User Centered Analysis

• Persona Development

Site Launch

Discovery

Elaboration

• System Flow

• Information Architecture

• Card Sorting

Construction• Design

• Coding

• Documentation

• Beta Test

Segment Personas

Primary Persona

Business Objectives

Secondary Persona

Build Online Persona

• Try to understand

– Motivations

– Goals

– Needs

– Decision Making factors

– People / influencers

– Expectations

– Preferences

– Demographics information

– Brand Attitudes

Sample Persona

Diane

Age: 22

Job: College Student working towards degree in Marketing

Technical Expertise: 4/5

Hours Spent on Internet / week: 8- 10

Background with site: Diane has visited the site a few times but only when her friends send her links to their slideshows. When she is on the site, she is more of a general consumer with little to no emotional investment in her need for expressing herself freely. She looks at other people’s slideshows and bounces from one slideshow to the next. She is an observer who browses, searches, comments (gives feedback), and fuels her friends’ desires in providing more creative content such as the slideshows.

Analysis: A typical bouncer would have the personality of a moviegoer in which the consumption of a “good” movie is more important than the movie theatre she frequents to accomplish the task of movie watching, which is probably why she has no real brand loyalty to any particular product or application.

Needs:

• Wants to know what is popular / “cool”• Easy to view slideshows / movies• Gives opinions / comments• Likes being heard

Business Opportunity:

Since Diane is already on the site, we want to keep her on there longer. Maybe creating a rating system consisting of 10 stars so that she can rate the individual slideshows. Then based on how she rates the types of slideshows, we can present newest slideshows that would be relevant to her the next time she logs onto the site.

Tip 2: Build Strong Navigation / Thru Information Architecture

Labels Organization Navigation

Information Architecture

The Bridge between Usability & Website (not design)

• Organization is based on users’ previous experience / expectation of how it should be organized.

• IA strives to bridge this gap

• Best practices and learned conventions come from this

User with Expectations Display that info

How do we display the information so that it satisfies

the user’s expectations?

Display information so that it makes sense

• How do you ensure that the user understands the information?

Universal Set of Behaviors

Audience Specific

Behaviors

Bottom Line

..even small increases in conversion can generate substantial revenue

SAME

• 4% submit RFQ (400 RFQs per year)

• 30% close rate

• Average sale price of $10,000

Improve Usability (1% gain in RFQs)

• Revenue = $1,200,000

• 1.0% gain in RFQ = $300K in additional revenue

• 10,000 users per year

• 3% submit RFQ (300 RFQs per year)

• 30% close rate

• Average sale price of $10,000

Current Business

• Revenue = $900,000

Summary

• Usability is Ease of Use

• Why Usability?

– Competitive advantage

– Site created only with business objectives in mind

– Increase Conversions & ROI

• Foundation: Follow learned conventions & best practices

• Refine Personas

• Don’t need Designer, Need an Information Architecture

• Users first, Monetize second

Cannot forget Social Media

Customers DO NOT WANT experiences managed; want to manage themselves … now call CRM to CMR

Who is the Social Customer

• Active & Passive

• Loyal vs. Advocate

• Consumer or Contributor

Who’s The Social Customer

What do they Say?

• I want to have a say

• I want to know when something is wrong

• I want to help shape things I find useful

• Don’t want to talk to salesperson

• Want to buy things on my schedule

• I want to tell you when you are screwing up

• I want to do business with Transparent Companies

* Chris Carfi Blog

Breakdown of Social CustomersMonthly Actions

Gen Y18 - 26

Gen X27 -40

Boomer41 - 50

Boomer +51 - 61

Creators Blog PublishWeb Page

15%22%

4%12%

2%7%

1%6%

Critics Visit Boards/ChatVisit Rating sites

32%17%

21%16%

14%12%

10%10%

Collectors Use RSSUse Social SitesUse Photo Sharing

4%37%29%

3%12%22%

2%6%13%

1%4%12%

CoachPotatoes

Read BlogsWatch VideoListen to Podcast

27%32%9%

14%25%6%

9%18%5%

7%12%4%

* Source: Forrester Benchmark Survey

Time Spent in Week

Ultimate Manifestation of Usability

• For the User by the user

• Telegraph to Telephone (full duplex)

• Success already (LinkedIn, ItToolbox)

• Try it and see…

Why Now? The Perfect Storm

• Web 2.0 Technologies

• Broadband Proliferation

• Online Adoption

Why does it Matter?

• The conversation is happening; either you are a part of it or not (raising children)

• 30% who read blog/post more likely to purchase

• 80% who contribute more likely to purchase* CoreMetrics, Web 2.0 Study

Take Away …

Further Your Education

1. www.OnlineMarketingSummit.com

2. www.OMICertified.com

Want PPT or Top 10 Site Usability Assessment

Facebook or LinkedIn “Aaron Kahlow”

Old School Aaron@OnlineMarketingConnect.com