Jul12

Online Marketing 2: Why Our Websites Are Losing Customers

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In the world of what Chris Anderson named, The Long Tail, the noise and clutter of our lives has become so loud that we’ve learned to filter out most of what we hear and see. Every market has become more competitve than it was a few years ago, and even more competitive than it was a few years before that. The old forms of interruption advertising — and now a word from our sponsor — find us tossing them out, ignoring them, or don’t show up on our TIVO. Mr. Anderson explains the solution as a need for the market to learn to sell less of more things, to understand that today’s blockbuster movie will make less money and be forgotten sooner.

In this new Web 2.0 economy, folks who are prepared to buy are no longer “qualified leads,” but instead are buyers looking for specific goods and services offered by vendors who understand their needs. The difference is a shift of control. We are the “qualified leads” now.

Sending out mailings to their trash cans, standing in front of our stores and dragging them in, bringing them to our websites with special offers they aren’t seeking won’t significantly increase their numbers on our customer rolls. They don’t have the time, the attention span or the money, to invest in tasting something they’re not hungry for. That’s not a priority in their lives. Customers filter out nonpriorities.

The gap between our websites and our customers is growing wider. As they find more things to do and discover, they have less time to visit us to see what new things we have to offer.

We’re just not as cute as the newest thing that they’ve never seen before. Maybe that newest thing can offer answer we’ve never had — but always wanted. They’ve searched our site for it and not found it.

Maybe we’ve never found out what they’re looking for.
Maybe we’ve got it and they couldn’t find it.
Maybe we’re making it, but haven’t told them.
Maybe we’ve not told them that what they’re looking for would have a Rolls Royce price point. (Maybe they’d still want it at that price.)

Now they’re at another website exploring everything because of one thing they couldn’t find at our website.

It’s harder get or gain back a customer than it is to keep one happy.
But it’s hard to talk to a customer from behind a static shopping cart.
Even Amazon doesn’t know much about what I need — of course when you offer everything . . . . We could go the that route . . . Offer customers everything. Yet, we’d still know that at any second they can go to Barnes and Noble to get the same thing we offer.

Seems an expensive endeavor, much more expensive than just listening.

Liz Strauss

 

  • http://www.hittail.com/demo Mike Levin of HitTail

    > The gap between our websites and our customers is growing wider.

    Doesn’t have to be! The same effects that broaden the gap for the long tail newbies closes the gap for those who know how to play to it. I’ve helped collect and consolidate qualified sales leads from around the world for single companies, aggregating enough of them to constitute a new market. The methods I’ve used have now been turned into a free service, and the first example of pure long tail marketing.

  • http://www.hittail.com/demo Mike Levin of HitTail

    > The gap between our websites and our customers is growing wider.

    Doesn’t have to be! The same effects that broaden the gap for the long tail newbies closes the gap for those who know how to play to it. I’ve helped collect and consolidate qualified sales leads from around the world for single companies, aggregating enough of them to constitute a new market. The methods I’ve used have now been turned into a free service, and the first example of pure long tail marketing.

  • http://www.lettingmebe.blogspot.com Liz Strauss

    Hi Mike,
    I agree. It doesn’t have to be growing wider. The first step is to understand that it’s happening. Then you can do what you are doing. Identify the problem. Define the strategy. :)

  • http://www.lettingmebe.blogspot.com Liz Strauss

    Hi Mike,
    I agree. It doesn’t have to be growing wider. The first step is to understand that it’s happening. Then you can do what you are doing. Identify the problem. Define the strategy. :)

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