Understanding the Internet Customers
Now to be able to use the seven P’s effectively in order to achieve the predefined goals of any organization it is imperative to understand the customers. Customization will only be truly effective if we understand our customers and their true needs.
Before adapting marketing practices to the Internet, the marketer needs to understand the characteristics of the online customers. The Net users can be classified into five categories depending upon their intention of using the Internet. The five categories of users are:
Directed Information Seekers: They require specific, timely and relevant information about the products and services being offered.
Undirected Information Seekers: These users require something interesting and useful. Something that can give them an edge, advantage, insight or even a pleasant surprise.
Bargain Hunters: They are of two kind. One who look for free items on the internet and other who are seeking better deals, higher discounts etc.
Entertainment Seekers: they see the Web as an entertainment medium of vast breath and potential and want to explore the medium before the mass gets there.
Directed Buyers: They want to buy something - now. They are sure what they require and just log on to the Web to purchase the item.
The value propositions of goods and services offered in the physical world differ pointedly from those in the digital world. The ultimate aim of the universal marketer is to provide a complete end-to-end consumer experience---right from the promise to satisfy his need to its delivery.
But the physical world offers only “Point Solutions” which is basically a solution of his needs in terms of functional benefits. A credit card, for instance, allows consumers to satisfy the immediate necessity of setting a transaction. But today’s consumers are also looking for process and relationship benefit---book referrals at no extra cost or e-mail reminders.
The physical world is not able to deliver these benefits because of gaps in time, space and memory. The web, on the other hand provides all of these and more (“reverse marketing, for example, where consumers seek out vendors rather than the other way around”) by giving the company the ownership and control over all interactions with the consumer.
Now to be able to use the seven P’s effectively in order to achieve the predefined goals of any organization it is imperative to understand the customers. Customization will only be truly effective if we understand our customers and their true needs.
Before adapting marketing practices to the Internet, the marketer needs to understand the characteristics of the online customers. The Net users can be classified into five categories depending upon their intention of using the Internet. The five categories of users are:
Directed Information Seekers: They require specific, timely and relevant information about the products and services being offered.
Undirected Information Seekers: These users require something interesting and useful. Something that can give them an edge, advantage, insight or even a pleasant surprise.
Bargain Hunters: They are of two kind. One who look for free items on the internet and other who are seeking better deals, higher discounts etc.
Entertainment Seekers: they see the Web as an entertainment medium of vast breath and potential and want to explore the medium before the mass gets there.
Directed Buyers: They want to buy something - now. They are sure what they require and just log on to the Web to purchase the item.
The value propositions of goods and services offered in the physical world differ pointedly from those in the digital world. The ultimate aim of the universal marketer is to provide a complete end-to-end consumer experience---right from the promise to satisfy his need to its delivery.
But the physical world offers only “Point Solutions” which is basically a solution of his needs in terms of functional benefits. A credit card, for instance, allows consumers to satisfy the immediate necessity of setting a transaction. But today’s consumers are also looking for process and relationship benefit---book referrals at no extra cost or e-mail reminders.
The physical world is not able to deliver these benefits because of gaps in time, space and memory. The web, on the other hand provides all of these and more (“reverse marketing, for example, where consumers seek out vendors rather than the other way around”) by giving the company the ownership and control over all interactions with the consumer.