Turning Users into Consumers

The word ‘commercialism’ has somehow morphed in the public consciousness into a dirty word - to be associated with exploitation, cynicism and sharp practice. When commentators now speak of commercialism it is always insidious, creeping surreptitiously into some market to darken its doorstep; It’s ‘The Man’ stepping on the little people.

Commercialism in its original meaning simply meant:-

1. The practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business
2. An attitude that emphasizes tangible profit or success.

In general web professionals don’t talk too often about commercialism; whether this is consciously because many in the community advocate open and free transfer of information, or a subconscious choice because there is a taint to the word we can’t be certain. What is clear is that the commercial discipline that should be central to all we do on the web, whether for profit or not, has largely been ignored in the intellectual construction of our industry’s language. Yes we focus on ROI and CPA, but these are commercial elements, not commercialism in the larger sense. A KPI such as ROI is our desired outcome - optimisation of our marketing - not the intellectual framework for our thinking. Commercialism is the wider picture and affects everything we do.

Why is Commercialism so Important?

We all understand the value of concepts such as visibility, usability and accessibility. But we’ve forgotten that intellectually and practically these must sit under the logical umbrella of commercialism.

• Why is visibility so important - it exposes your message and brand to your target audience and generates traffic and sales.
• Why is usability so important - it helps user complete tasks, encourages repeat visits and recommendations within social networks.
• Why is accessibility so important - it ensures you can reach all your audience.

What do these statements have in common? - They are all driven by commercial imperatives.

This is fairly obvious, and you may be thinking so what? - commercialism is a background activity that drives everything, but we don’t need to discuss it because it is so obvious! But that is not the case.

By not associating common activities and solutions directly within a framework of commercialism, things can fall through the cracks.  So we discuss qualitative analytics and multi-variate  or A/B split testing using heuristics and trial-and-error to optimise our landing pages and sales funnels; but we fail to use the wealth of knowledge that exists already about consumer behaviour. You might hit on the magic formula for a landing page configuration, but it could take a while; why not use existing empiricism? Known factors found within the purchase decision cycle for example will inform your approach and allow you to create landing assets more usable from the beginning. Commercialism is able to bring insight and structure to your user-centric-design and add solutions you may not have considered in your heuristic approach.

Commercialism should not be a background activity that just happens, it should be at the forefront of your mind in all your projects and solutions. Intellectually your online campaigns and projects should be subservient to commercial imperatives, and you should also make clients and other agencies involved in any project aware when they are losing this focus in their decision making.

Commercialism & Purchase Decisions

An understanding of sales and commercial imperatives is going to allow you to implement and execute solutions and approaches to your offering that improve conversion rates. These commercial imperatives are about understanding consumer behaviour and allowing users to transition through the purchase decision cycle as efficiently and easily as possible.

Tim Ash has touched on the subject in his article Landing Pages and the Decision-Making Process where he discusses AIDA and user behaviour.

AIDA

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Whilst E. St. Elmo Lewis’s framework is a useful overarching model for explaining the activation of consumers by advertising is does not fully explain the purchase decision cycle. The purchase decision cycle model AIUPAPR handles things a little better:-

AIUAPR

• Awareness
• Interest
• Understanding
• Attitudes
• Purchase
• Repeat Purchase

The understanding and attitudes sections are really important - this is where commercialism really comes into play as it accounts for psychological influences on consumer behaviour and how your approach to the sales pitch and sales dialogue (note a two-way conversation not a monologue) will affect the purchase decision.

The other model for purchase decisions you should keep in mind is PIEPP:-

PIEPP

• Problem Recognition (Need)
• Information Search
• Evaluation of Criteria
• Purchase Decision
• Post Purchase Evaluation

PIEPP kicks-off on the basis that the consumer knows they need something (problem recognition), which is the first major difference from AIUAPR. It also is orientated with the consumer actively pursuing the purchase - they seek information (whether trivial or deeply informative) rather than being presented it as part of the sales conversation. These two differences (problem recognition and information search) mean that overall the AIUAPR and PIEPP models model different elements of consumer behaviour - and therefore see things in different ways.

Do these differences invalidate these models? No - I think they help us construct ways of thinking and problem solving to ensure we focus on user-centric behaviour and how we want to shape commercial outcomes. Remember they are both just models - not reality - they are designed to help us think about important factors in consumer behaviour - but they’re not by any means comprehensive. What you need to know in commercialism about the purchase decision is much wider than could be held in these simple models. Other models such as Huthwaite, Lysis, Priceless, Short Cycle Selling, TXM all exist and we need to be cognisant of parallel issues such as the stages of customer experience (Expectation setting, Pre-purchase interactions, Purchase interactions, Product or service consumption, Post-experience review) which will influence and impact our take on commercial matters.

Long-story-short this is just a starting point to get you focused on commercial imperatives and the purchase decision. Let us take a look at these two purchase decision models.

AIUAPR Purchase Decision Cycle Model

The AIUAPR model is incredibly useful when considering consumer behaviour as it takes us logically from a pre-awareness (of the offering) state all the way through to a repeat purchase.

1. Awareness

The main initial role of above the line advertising is to make consumers aware of brands and products. In an online environment awareness can be activated by any traditional form of advertising or marketing and also all the online channels - such as display advertising or search marketing. Within your online marketing strategy one of the key facets to awareness is visibility - your offering needs to be in the right channels - organic and paid search, display advertising, email, RSS, blogosphere, social networks and social bookmarking. So our advice would be if you have not already thought about your online marketing strategy in an integrated and structured manner now is the time - because in the approaching downturn optimisation and improved targeting will be the difference between successful brands and those that wither. Having an integrated campaign that is mutually supportive between all your channels will be really important to ensure not just product awareness, but brand awareness and loyalty.

2. Interest

What’s your hook? What makes you special? Why should I visit your website? Why should I buy what you’ve got? Pretty simple questions - but it is amazing how often these basic principals get lost in the wash.

Marketing is about making your message stand out from the crowd. Differentiation is at the heart of all good marketing communications so you need to follow the old maxim of sales and get your benefit statements across in a clear and digestible format so your users are able to “get it” early in their user journey. Your unique selling points (USP) need to be clearly presented - use bullet points and other forms of semantic mark-up to lead users to the right information where you make your pitch.

Also remember first impressions count - aesthetics and presentation of your offering are really important. You have milliseconds to make people trust you, understand what you are offering and decide whether it is what they want.

3. Understanding

Users need to understand the benefits of a product or service before they will buy it. The common assumption is that they only need so much and that too much information will confuse them. This is indeed true in many cases (testing examples abound), but like anything, it is in the execution and detail that success or failure lies.

If you present your users with a massive chunk of data for them to sort through then yes, your results are going to be pretty shocking. However, if you use the inverted pyramid model and scale your information architecture accordingly, then those users that wish to drill down into the information following links to other pages for further details can easily do so, whilst those who just want the bare facts can be satisfied with their initial landing page. So be aware that different users will require different levels of detail and that how you present your information so it is easily retrievable is central to the commercial requirements of online sales.

Also note that in a normal sales environment a dialogue occurs in which the salesperson will outline the benefit statements and then provide greater detail should the customer ask or seem unsure. Online you have no pro-active sales staff, but you do have encyclopaedic knowledge at-hand only a click away that only the most knowledgeable and experienced salesperson would know. Use links to take users to more detailed information, use tabs for specification and technical tables and use div layers for contextual help and information. So turn a weakness into a strength and make your product and service information authoritative and expert for those users who want to know more. This expert information will also benefit your organic search strategy - providing in-bound linking and long-tail visibility as people find the website looking for answers.

4. Attitudes

Psychological factors have a strong effect on user behaviour. These are termed attitudes, and related to user motivation, personality, perception, learning, values and lifestyle. In terms of commercialism and optimising for the purchase decision it is really important to focus on user experience - how the user encounters the website.

There are basic things you’ll need to address such as good usability in the information architecture and functionality to ensure the user can complete tasks and find what they were looking for. This will form one level of their brand experience.

But there are also other more fuzzy issues relating to aesthetics and visual communication that must be applied - hopefully with your target audience in mind. The website’s look and feel will influence factors such as trust and brand affinity on both logical and emotional levels. So it is important that your website achieves resonance - be in tune with your target audience - through good design, layout, art working and copy. These elements will give your website it’s voice and tone - the things that influence user attitudes.

What makes your website be perceived as “friendly”, “cool”, “open”, “professional”, “edgy” or “helpful” will ultimately decided whether someone feels comfortable buying from you - so think carefully about who you are and what your brand represents. If you portray the wrong persona and users think you represent a reference group they are not aligned to they might feel your website is not for them - so careful consideration of your branding and brand voice should be weighed up extensively.

Brand and style guidelines should be agreed and used for all content provision and communications to ensure copywriters and art workers maintain the intended brand voice.

Humans get anxious about a lot of things, but when money is involved the anxiety meter goes up . This manifests itself in trust issues.  So before you can make a sale you need to address these needs - think of it as a sales objection that needs to be quashed:-

Trust Signals

• Brand awareness
• Design and aesthetic qualities
• Content quality (copy and images)
• Usability
• Functionality
• Contact details & company registration / VAT numbers
• About us / company history
• Prominent customer service
• User reviews and ratings
• Security issues (SSL certificates, security and card verification)
• In-bound links (who links to you)
• Domain name

Trust is one of the major hurdles that can prevent users proceeding to a purchase, so it is really important to ensure some basic trust signals are present.

5. Purchase

If you have managed to achieve awareness, interest, understanding and passed the users’ attitude requirements then your user should be on the cusp of becoming a consumer. But hang on - we can still get it wrong! Failure is an option!

It is amazing how many times I’ve decided to purchase something online and having put an item in a basket and moved on to the checkout page given up because something in the sales funnel is being bloody-minded, obtuse or intrusive.

Common Sales Funnel Issues

• Registration does not take you back to the sales funnel
• Too many steps / unnecessary data capture
• No progress indication / poor step advancement calls to action
• Forms too long / too many fields
• Poor form validation / form logic /malformed fields
• Ambiguous labelling / no contextual help
• Inconsistent security - SSL is required throughout the sales funnel not just card detail pages
• Unnecessary navigation, distractions & pre-sales cross sell
• No pricing transparency - that updates (options, up sell and delivery options)
• No order confirmation page or uneditable orders
• Limited payment, shipping and delivery options and methods
• Obscured returns & cancellations policy

The list above highlights some basic things businesses can get wrong or fail to consider which we encounter all too often, and this is sometimes because they are tied into some kind of constrictive business model that cannot be directly translated into best practice for the web; but sometimes, disappointingly it is down to a lack of grip and little understanding of user-centric-design.

• Why do you need my date of birth? I’m buying a TV stand?
• My Switch card does not have an issue number !!!!
• Where the hell did that shipping fee slide in from?
• What’s a CSC?

So our advice is to have a look at your sales funnel in detail (preferably using A/B split testing or multivariate testing techniques to optimise conversion rates) to ensure there are no hurdles to a sale conversions.

6. Repeat Purchase

The AIUAPR model is commercially astute in that it assumes the first purchase is in essence a trial purchase. If the consumer experience is good and their expectations are met or exceeded then there is a good chance they will be receptive to purchasing again. However, if the consumer’s experience is poor or below their level of expectation they will be much less likely to make a repeat purchase or another purchase from the vendor. So the bread-and-butter business that drives online sales is about establishing a customer base and then communicating, engaging and selling to these customers.

Timely communications (email, rss blog posts, sms etc) are an integral part of this strategy of selling into your customer base. But you need more. If you want to grab someones attention and remind them of what you do or what you’ve got, then you have to put a value on their time. How are you going to make it worth your customers time for them to visit the website? What are you going to offer them? Discounts, special offers, information, prizes, exclusives? What’s your hook?

The deeper phase of customer brand loyalty development involves dialogue, engagement and community. How do you plan on influencing your relationship with your customers so they move from just being loyal to acting as your advocates? Having a raft of “fans” in the social media means you have a small marketing army acting on your behalf as long as you show them a little love every now and then.

PIEPP Purchase Decision Cycle Model

As well as the AIUAPR model we also have the PIEPP purchase decision cycle as a model for consumer behaviour. There is a subtle difference between the AIUAPR and PIEPP; in that the latter model assumes the user is actively seeking a product or service as a result of the problem recognition, whereas AIUAPR allows the user to be passive and become “activated” through awareness, interest and understanding. Let us look at the structure of the PIEPP purchase decision cycle:

1. Problem recognition (Need)

This is the user recognising the need for the product or service:-

• “Oooh, two-for-one baked beans”
• “Wow - hypoinflatorybuffoniese will make my hair glossy and give it volume”
• “Must get toothpaste - almost out”
• “What exactly is an ISA and how do they work?”

2. Information search

This is about answering a range of questions in an easily digestible format. It is also about making the user aware of the features, advantages, and benefits (product differentiation & USPs) and why your product or offering will meet their need. In sales these are often know as benefit statements.

Commercialism is about making these benefit statements clear and having the underlying information to support these claims. Commercialism and user-centric design elements must come into play to ensure the user finds the process intuitive and easy.

Having some information, and having the right information and making it easily retrievable are two very different things. Information architecture, both on your landing pages specifically and across your website, is a crucial consideration relating to commercial outcomes because it determines how you convey your pitch and sales dialogue with the consumer.

3. Evaluation of criteria

In simple terms this is where the user decides whether what you have on offer matches the range of items  they are looking for. This is not as some commentators have said consumers comparing your offering with your rivals - although it could be - it is about the consumer evaluating your offering against their needs. As Tim Ash says:

• Do you have what I want?
• Why should I get it from you?

Understanding how to structure your pitch and make it compelling is what commercialism is all about. Most people with a background in sales will know what benefit statements and sales objections are; when was the last time you heard anyone discuss these relating to e-commerce or their online business model?

We seem to have forgotten that sales is a dialogue, not a monologue, and that our pitch needs to interact with the users. This is how we persuade the user in their evaluation of the criteria that a) what we have meets their needs, and b) buying from us is the right choice for them.

Benefit Statements

Without stating the benefits of a product or a service how do you expect the user to know what these are? Benefit statements also need to be supported with deeper details that users can drill down into to allow them to evaluate the information. Left to their own devices users may not realise what your USPs and differentiation are, so you need to think about how you are going to a) make the benefits apparent b) shape the arguments for each benefit, and c) support those statements.

Sales Objections

Sales objections need to be addressed and dealt with. We can anticipate some of the likely sales objections and structure our pitch accordingly, but how do we discover what other objections there are? What feedback and interaction do we have in place to help us understand consumer needs better? Also how are you going to introduce your sales objection killers within the information flow to support your benefit statements? So your pitch needs to anticipate the conversational nature of closing a sale and allow users questions to be answered and doubts nullified.

4. Purchase decision

The evaluation of criteria will decide whether the first element within the purchase decision is met - namely they want the product. Other elements important to the purchase decision are the method of payment, the location of purchase and any additional incentives/packages that come with the purchase. Other factors at play are the nature of the purchase - this can be:

• Impulse buy (e.g. special offer items)
• Routine purchase (e.g. bread, milk toothpaste etc.)
• Limited decision making purchase (e.g. replacement batteries)
• Extensive decision making purchase (e.g. big ticket items, complex products)

Obviously, it is extensive decision making purchases that rely the most on the information search and evaluation of the criteria phases to bring the user to the purchase decision point. That is not to say these phases are not also important to other purchase types.

Consider an impulse buy; the information you provide still needs to be clear “Buy 1 Get 1 Free - Save £0.39p Now” and the user is going to need to evaluate whether this represents good value, what the benefits of purchasing this item in special offer are over not purchasing it - and so on. So although an impulse buy may not need the depth of information and detail within its benefit statements, do not confuse this with not actually requiring benefit statements - an all too common problem. Not matter how simple or obvious the product is, you still need to explain its benefit to them.

A key element that should not be overlooked is the role played by other people (family members, spouses, partners, managers etc) in the extensive decision making process. Dell did some market research about customer purchase decisions (large businesses, SMEs and home users) and a common theme in all their markets was the role of multiple people being involved in the purchase decision (IT departments need sign-off from senior management; spouses need agreement with their partner over high-ticket purchases). They realised that they needed to introduce a way for the customer to easily share the product/order details with other people - to sign-off the purchase - and introduced the functionality to support this. So be aware, you may need to cater your information distribution for multiple users by print, email or permalink to ensure the right decision makers can have their say.

5. Post purchase evaluation

For repeat business and growing market share it is important for the user to have a post purchase evaluation opportunity as this will obviously make them more inclined to buy again. So as well as aiming to fulfil customer satisfaction it is important to make customer support and after sales feedback part of the process of sales - to hone the process and make improvements based on customer feedback. This can help nullify any snags in the system and highlight where users feel the process is not intuitive or straightforward.

Having a post-purchase communication programme is common sense, but it is amazing how many companies fail in this basic precept. You’ve gone to all the effort of securing a sale, so you had better damn well make sure you try and keep the relationship alive. Remember in the AIUAPR model it is only on the second purchase that it has fully cycled once - so commercialism is all about the second sale and beyond.

Conclusion

Well we hope that has whetted your whistle to take a fresh look at your online business and see where you can tweak or optimise what you are currently doing. Remember not to be daunted as web strategies should be constantly evolving and developing - change is a good thing so bring it on.

Our one piece of advice when introducing any changes is always to keep the user (your potential customer) in mind. What they want and need is what you should be all about in your online business. Make their lives easier and simpler and they will reward you.