What Do People Want Online?
It’s not what you think it is.
What people want online is a
question guerrillas ask themselves a lot. Whether it’s for fun or work
or something else, understanding a consumer’s motives once he or she
logs on is a necessity. But the experts don’t seem to agree on what
people want.
Some folks see the web as a vast,
new field for advertising messages, assuming that while people may want
to do something else, if we can entice them with flash, we can sort of
trick them into paying attention to our products and services.
Guess what. That’s not gonna
happen.
Other folks seem to subscribe to
the notion that people online are looking for entertainment on the
Internet, and therefore they construct messages aimed at persuading
while playing. And, in other cases, the time-honored direct-response
model wins out:
Grab people when you can, get ‘em
to take an action, and then market, market, market. The answer may be
that the consumer has and wants a lot more control than we give him/her
credit for.
Today, webmeisters are in control.
Sort of. In a perfect cyberworld, people will be in control. Sort of.
Two recent studies shed light upon
this dilemma. One was conducted by Zatso. The other was conducted by the
Pew Research Center. Zatso and Pew. (Those guys didn’t spend much time
reading “how-to-name-your-company” books, I guess.) Still, both of their
studies illuminated the answer as to what people want to do online.
The answer, as most answers, is
very utilitarian: People want to accomplish something online. They’re
not aimless surfers hoping to discover a cybertreasure. Instead, the
average Net user turns out to be a goal-oriented person interested in
finding information and communicating with others—in doing something he
or she set out to do.
Look at the Zatso study. “A View
of the 21st Century News Consumer” looked at people’s news reading
habits on the web. It revealed that reading and getting news was the
most popular online activity after email. The guerrilla thinks, “That
means email is number one. How might I capitalize on that?”
One out of three respondents
reported that they read news online every day, with their interests
expanding geographically—local news was of the most interest, U.S. news
the least.
Personalization was seen as a
benefit, too. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they wanted
news on demand and nearly two out of three wanted personalized news. The
subjects surveyed liked the idea that they, not some media outlet,
controlled the news they saw. They feel they’re better equipped to
select what they want to see than a professional editor. Again, control
seems to be the issue. Again, guerrillas think of ways to market by
putting the prospect in control.
The Pew Research Center study
revealed that regular net users were more connected with their friends
and family than those who didn’t use the Internet on a regular basis.
Almost two-thirds of the 3,500
respondents said they felt that email brought them closer to family and
friends—significant when combined with the fact that 91% of them used
email on a regular basis. That’s 91%. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve
such market penetration.
What did people in this study seem
to be doing online when they weren’t doing email? Half were going online
regularly to purchase products and services, and nearly 75 percent were
going online to search for information about their hobbies or purchases
they were planning to make. Sixty-four percent of respondents visited
travel sites, and 62 percent visited weather-related sites. Over half
did educational research, and 54 percent were hunting for data about
health and medicine.
A surprising 47 percent regularly
visited government web sites, and 38 percent researched job
opportunities. Instant messaging was used by 45 percent of these users,
and a third of them played games online. Even with all the hype in the
media, only 12 percent said they traded stocks online.
What does this mean to
e-marketers? It means that if you’re constructing a site for
goal-oriented consumers, you’d better make sure you can help facilitate
their seeking. Rather than focus on entertainment, flash, and useless
splash screens, the most effective sites are those that help people get
the information they want when they need it. Straightforward data,
information that invites comparison, and straight talk are going to win
the day.
A client buddy of mine showed me
his website which heralds his retail location and attempts to sell
nothing online. He said it has been the biggest moneymaker in the
history of his 35-year-old company. Then he apologized for its lack of
glitter and special effects. He asked how his site could be so
successful even though it lacked anything to add razzmatazz and
dipsydazzle.
Now, you know the answer.
Author Information:
Jay Conrad Levinson is probably the most respected marketer in