Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Online businesses need more refined targeting
Online business owners need to target their offerings in a much more refined way. Evidence is mounting daily that Internet users expect web sites to be devoted to their specific needs. For instance, let's say you offer software on task management. You could have a site devoted to managing tasks explaining how your software helps improve things for people.
Many businesses would then "target" their offering using little nation flags so users could choose the "experience" most likely to meet their needs in the USA, or the UK for instance. But this is not enough. People expect much more. Indeed, as one study reported in Brand Week magazine suggests, Internet users are actually put off if advertising is not specifically targeted to individual needs.
The same is doubtless true for web sites. So, back to your task management software company. They think they are targeting on geographical basis. But few users say "hey, I'm a UK based task manager and need UK task management software". Instead, they might say "My home business needs task management software" or "Our sales force needs task management software". The same software meets both these needs, but a general web site is not enough.
The home business users is looking for a web site that says "Task management software for home businesses" and the sales manager is looking for a web site that says "Sales force task management software". Even though both web sites could be about the same software, those users expect highly focused and targeted material specifically on their needs and requirements.
Gone are the days when a general web site will do. You now need highly targeted web sites for specific markets. And before you say "but you can do this with landing pages" - no you can't...!
For one thing, people look at the domain name. If it says "home-business-task-software" they think it is really, really for them. The same is true if it says "task-management-for-sales-teams". Also, people skim read the content on several pages, which means your pages throughout your site need to be focused. You can't have one landing page for a target market and then the rest of the site being general; people notice your "trick" - and so does Google.
So, separate sites for each particular target market and you will find higher conversion rates.
Labels: internet, internet psychology, social networking
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Readers' Comments:
At
May 14, 2008 12:43 PM 
said…
At
May 14, 2008 12:50 PM 
Graham Jones said…
Thanks for your comment Rob. Yes, I agree, there's too much focus on technology and not enough on customers and marketing - and the limitless shelf space you mention.
Another spot on post Graham!
The problem is largely down to laziness isn't it? If you run a bricks and mortar business the cost of opening up an additional physical site could be astronomical.
Online though, what does it cost you? About 6 quid for a domain, a few quid a month extra on hosting and a small amount on design as you can probably re-use the design of your original site to a great extent. So it certainly isn't cost that stops people doing it.
It's not much more work to maintain multiple sites these days either - even if you did have to make site-wide changes on all of them, it's quicker and easier thanks to CSS and CMS technology.
The internet has brought marketers so many potential benefits but the main ones for me are the virtually limitless shelf space and lower fixed and marginal costs and they just aren't being exploited to the full.
A lot of this may be down to marketers just not realising or understanding what's possible online. That's why we need more digital agencies with staff with marketing backgrounds - too many of them in my experience are technology-led and not marketing-led and can't sell the benefits of precise targeting to their clients.