DIGITAL CUSTOMERS

INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL CUSTOMERS

They are visually driven, multi-tasking

• Online customers are changing butterflies with shrinking attention spans

• Customers will not tolerate Surveys reveal that we have gotten worse at
bad service marketing over the last ten years

• Customers have been abused They will gladly accept offers from the
by businesses competition if disappointed

• Customers have unlocked ’control’ The impact of social media, UGC

is not totally controllable
Social networks can ultimately destroy
• Think global but not local business models that are company-centric
 INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL
CUSTOMERS

• Time
Consumers value privacy and trust New currencies
• Privacy

Ideal customers are worth more than you think

Engaged customers = Customer engagement

 WHY DO CUSTOMERS VENTURE ONLINE

• Socializing : through emails, social networks ,blogs etc

• Browsing and buying products- engage in webrooming ,search for product
information , comparison shopping – puts the customers in control- empowered
customers
• Entertainment-games, shopping,news
Response to customer motivations
1. Identify why people buy and what are their aspirations, motivations and
expectations
2. Reflect on those findings to give them what they want
3. Deliver a reasonable product or service

-
 6CS OF CUSTOMER MOTIVATION

• Relevant content, valid to the context

Content
• Ensures stickiness
• Mass customization of content- delivers
Customization
personalized content as webpages, email

Community • ensures customer participation

• Ability to easily find, select, purchase and use at

Convenience
any given time

Choice • Wide choice of products

• Low cost value of purchase

Cost reduction
• Gamification – promotes high level of engagement
 MANAGING CUSTOMERS ONLINE EXPECTATIONS

• Online customers have raised expectations- expect high standards of service,

convenience ,delivery, price and choice
• An increasing number of customers prefer to access online information via mobile only.
• 3 stages of managing customers’ expectations
1. Understanding expectations- find the gap
2. Setting and communicating the service promise
3. Delivering the service promise
 FEAR AND PHOBIAS

• Provide clear and effective privacy statements

• Follow privacy and consumer protection guidelines in all local markets

• Make security of data a priority

• Present independent site certification

• Emphasize the excellence of service quality in all communications

• Use content on the site to reassure the customer

• Leading-edge design
 ONLINE INFORMATION PROCESSING

• Customers suffering from- information fatigue syndrome, social network fatigue, special offer fatigue-
challenges
• Listening to customer needs unlocks innovation, leads to more informed business
• Shifting towards visual presentation of information- less time consuming, and aesthetically pleasing
• UX on mobile is different- smaller screens ,multitasking, interruptions etc
 HOFACKERS 5 STAGES OF ONSITE
INFORMATION PROCESSING

• Marketers – should be aware of how the

messages are processed by the customer to
ensure correct message is received
• Each stage – acts as a hurdle- if site/content is
difficult to process- customer cannot
progress to next stage- emarketer fails.
• Use Hofacker’s 5 stages as a checklist when
planning, creating and testing online ads, as
well as reviewing websites.

Controlled eye moments- shows what the user was reading, density
Of movements– establish concentration and comprehension- aggregated
Results converted to heat maps . Warm colors- most looked at areas,
Black areas- no one noticed
 HOFACKERS 5 STAGES OF ONSITE INFORMATION PROCESSING
• Stage 1: exposure Ensuring viewability- the web
visitor is exposed to the website for long enough
to absorb the content or the ad. Too slow
ads/rapidly changing ads- results in message
received improperly
• Stage 2: Attention : Physical factors such as
movement and intensity that attract attention
when visitors are on a website, eyes are drawn
towards content , not the headings, loud colors
look garish
• Stage 1 : exposure Ensure that critical elements on the website
are located ‘high and early’ on the website.
• Consider using CPM (cost per thousand impressions) adverts or
call to action adverts, instead of pay per click.
• These advertising formats provide greater potential brand
awareness and as a result, potentially greater exposure to your
target audience.
• Stage 2: Attention : Research into online interactivity
demonstrates that there is greater engagement if adverts have
more interactivity.
• Personalised banner adverts on social media websites such as
LinkedIn and Facebook gain greater attention due to their
relevance and context.
HOFACKERS 5 STAGES OF ONSITE INFORMATION PROCESSING

• Stage 3: Comprehension and perception

- Web visitors need to easily find their way around a website. Use a site map
- Ensuring the website is intuitive -enables visitors to browse a website and become absorbed into the pages,
getting closer to the next step.
• Stage 4:Yielding and acceptance Websites and adverts need to provide clarity. A complicated advert is unlikely
to get click-throughs as the viewer has to process too much information.
• Stage 5: Retention : aim at customer recalling their experience.Additionally, a key element of recall is being
easily able to find a website which can be achieved with a good retargeting or remarketing strategy. Many
companies bid on their own brand names in pay per click campaigns, partly to capture relevant traffic and also
as part of a wider brand strategy.
 THE ONLINE BUYING PROCESS

• Search marketing has compressed the cycle – the buying process often starts with
a generic search.

• Supplier search is now also compressed by a few visits to comparison sites which
often feature well in search engines.

• Recommendations from other customers through user-generated content has a

significant impact on conversion rates.

• Brand has become more important at later decision stages since it provides trust.
SITE CONTENT & BUYING PROCESS
 ONLINE RETAIL SHOPPING BEHAVIOUR MATCHING
WEBSITE DESIGN
3 types have been identified

Knows exactly which product they wish to buy and uses an online shopping site to track
Tracker it down and check its price, availability, delivery time, delivery charges or after-sales
support.

Doesn’t have a specific product in mind but knows what type of product they are
Hunter looking for and probably has one or more product features they are looking for. Uses
online shopping site to find a range of suitable products, compare them and decide
which one to buy.
The hunter needs more help, support, and guidance to reach a
purchasing decision.

Doesn’t have a particular type of product in mind.They may have a well-defined

Explorer shopping objective, a less-resolved shopping objective or no shopping objective at all.
 CUSTOMER PROFILES

We need to know the • Have access to which channel or channels

proportion of customers who • Are influenced by using which channel or channels
• Purchase using which channel or channels
Profiling B2B customers
• Size of company
• Industry sector and products
Organization
• Organization type characteristics Profiling B2C customers
• Division
• Country and region 1. Access to channel
• Name 2. Influenced online
• Role and responsibility for job 3. Purchased online
title, function and number of
staff managed Customer
• Role in buying decision variables
• Department
• Product interest
• Demographics
 ACTUAL DECISION MAKER AND ACTUAL USER

Decision-Making Unit (DMU)

Purchaser – the person who orders the goods or services

Adviser – someone who is knowledgeable in the field

Gatekeeper – a secretary, receptionist or assistant who wants to protect his or

her boss from being besieged by marketing messages

End user – sometimes called ‘the customer’

Starter – the instigator or initiator

 RESEARCHING THE ONLINE CUSTOMER

• Identify who are the ideal customers by researching. Use the following questions
- Who are they- demographics,psychographics, behavioural?
- What do they want- their needs- why do they buy or not buy?
- How do they buy (online or offline or mixed mode)
- When do they buy?
- How did they find us or our competitors?
Use personas and scenario-based designs to increase the usability and customer centricity of a web site.
Personas – are a thumbnail description of a type of person.
Customer scenarios – are developed for different personas.
Each scenario is split into a series of tasks before the scenario is completed. The steps are thought of as a
series of questions a visitor asks
 PERSONAS

• A persona, (user persona, customer persona, buyer persona) in user-centered design and marketing
is a fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a
similar way.
• Marketers use personas together with market segmentation, where the qualitative personas are
constructed to be representative of specific segments.
• are useful in considering the goals, desires, and limitations of brand buyers and users in order to help
to guide decisions about a service, product or interaction space such as features, interactions, and
visual design of a website.
• used as part of a user-centered design process for designing software and for online marketing
purposes.
• provide common behaviors, outlooks, and potential objections of people inherent to a given
persona.
• is a representation of the goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of users.
• In most cases, personas are synthesized from data collected from interviews with users .
• They are captured in 1–2-page descriptions that include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and
the environment, with a few fictional personal details to make the persona a realistic character.
• widely used in sales, advertising, marketing and system design,
BENEFITS OF PERSONA AND SCENARIO DESIGN

• Foster customer centricity

• Identify detailed information needs and steps required by customers
• Test, prototype and devise web sites
• Compare and test the strength, clarity of communication of proposition of
different web sites
• Link to specific marketing outcomes required by site owners
 TYPES OF PERSONAS

• Marketing Personas are typical characters of the customers of a product or a

company, they have similarities in buying preference, social relations, mode of
consumption and ages. Personas help the company determine how their customers
will be;

• Design Personas (For example the User Personas and the UX Personas) refer to
the representatives of users of a product or service that have similar points in
usage customs, product requirements, preferences and goals. They can describe the
needs of potential users and help developers put their focus back on users during
the function design, and make products conform to user requirements.
 GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING A PERSONA

1. Build personal attributes into personas

• Demographics – age,gender • Webographics- web experience (months), usage platform,
• Psychographics goals, tasks motivation location, frequency and site

2. Personas are models of characteristics and environment

• Design targets • 3 or 4 usually suffice to improve general usability, but
• Stereotypes more are needed for specific behaviours
• Choose one primary persona who, if satisfied, means
others are likely to be satisfied
3. Different scenarios can be developed for each persona
• Information-seeking scenario
• Purchase scenario – new customer
• Purchase scenario – existing customer
 PERSONA DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

• Conduct user research: Answer the following questions: Who are your users and why are they using the
system? What behaviors, assumptions, and expectations color their view of the system?
• Condense the research: Look for themes/characteristics that are specific, relevant, and universal to the
system and its users.
• Brainstorm: Organize elements into persona groups that represent your target users. Name or classify
each group.
• Refine: Combine and prioritize the rough personas. Separate them into primary, secondary, and, if
necessary, complementary categories.You should have roughly 3-5 personas and their identified
characteristics.
• Make them realistic: Develop the appropriate descriptions of each personas background, motivations, and
expectations. Do not include a lot of personal information. Be relevant and serious; humor is not
appropriate.
 ELEMENTS OF PERSONA

• Persona Group (i.e. web manager)

• Fictional name
• Job titles and major responsibilities
• Demographics such as age, education, ethnicity, and family status
• The goals and tasks they are trying to complete using the site
• Their physical, social, and technological environment
• A quote that sums up what matters most to the persona as it relates to your site
• Casual pictures representing that user group
• Organize persona information in an easy to read, logical format.
 EXAMPLE JET BLUE

• JetBlue's buyer persona is the low budget

traveler that wants a comfortable yet affordable
solution to flying. They are typically a younger
audience that likes to be reached through social
media channels and, expects quick responses
from the company. That audience comes
through in their marketing in the medium they
use (Twitter, in this instance), the words they
use (flying like a "boss"), and even the name of
the Twitter handle (@JetBlueCheeps).
DIFFERENT ONLINE RESEARCH TECHNIQUES