The blog has been even quieter than usual, because I’ve been in the process of moving to South Africa. It has been one of the most relentlessly busy times of my life, but now that I’m here it looks like it was all worthwhile. Capetown is a great place.
I’ve seen some truly strange ad copy in South Africa – stuff which just makes you wonder “who approvated that?” But the sign below, inspired some thoughts about user experience and digital marketing tactics, so I thought I’d blog it.
I stared at this one in disbelief. It showed a total disregard for what the customer wanted. You came for burgers? Well we don’t care. Eat wraps!
(If you look carefully, it’s actually because they are refurbishing their kitchen and can’t do cooked food. But that’s a fact the poster spectacularly fails to convey).
When you see it in a real-world cafe, this behaviour strikes you immediately as ludicrous. But a lot of folk I’ve worked with have been happy to put this kind of stuff up on their website. Users usually come to e-commerce sites with goals in mind: investigate options in a product category, see the prices and features, or buy. But so often the majority of the pages they see during their journey are devoted to promoting “offers” that the marketing department want to push. Offers that usually have nothing to do with the particular goal that the user had in mind. “You wanted burgers? Well we’re devoting this page to our amazing wraps. So buy them instead.” Most people I’ve worked with in usability tests will say “this site isn’t relevant to me,” and go elsewhere.
Why do marketers keep doing this? A few reasons, I think…
- Marketers believe they can make people think things. The old school says that consumers can be made to think whatever you want them to think just by shouting loud enough. Much research has shown that this really isn’t the case. Take a look Gerald Zaltman’s at How Customers Think for more on this.
- Marketers have to shift product. And if there’s a job lot of product to shift, they need to shout loud about it to try to drum up some interest. This is all well and good in the short term, but it’s probably not going to have a beneficial effect on your customers lifetime value.
- Stats show that people click on promos. A big fat promo might be the most clicked single item on the page. So it looks successful. But if you’ve got the analytics for it, you can follow through and see how many of those initial clicks actually turn into conversions. Usually, it’s not many. And if you look at the aggregate of clicks to all you navigation from that same start page, you’ll see that a much bigger total are ignoring the promo and finding another way to go off and look at what they came for.
Sales people have a much more rational approach: find out what the customer wants, and what factors will deliver or impede a sale. Then suggest a relevant product and work on those factors. Good e-commerce websites tend to use those tactics too.
But enough of all this customer experience guff. I’ve just had a consignment of fabulous electric toenail clippers delivered and I can let you have one for only $14 plus tax and shipping. Buy one NOW!
Hey, where are going….?!