Richard van Hooijdonk

You can't be everything for everyone: choose your target audiences!

Commercial success depends on how valuable you are to buyers. This means you have to focus on groups who share the same needs demands.
Focusing means being up-to-date on specific groups' customer insights. Afterall, customer insights are the basis for your commercial strategy. With these insights in mind, you develop the product proposition, crossmedial campaign, web presence and brand. Make sure you get through to what your target audience is thinking,
understand their reasons for purchasing, their reasons not to, their compliments and criticism. This is what fuels a profitable, customer focused approach. Target groups differ from eachother, so you'll have to tweak and tune your approach for specific groups. Customer insights can be gained through many different ways: user generated content, online discussion boards, talking to or interviewing your clients, branch research, account managers, callcenters or other forms of customer interaction.

Older adults less 'skilled' in internet

Although more and more older people are discovering the wonders of the web, there is still a big difference in how they use the web compared to younger online surfers. Less than half of people over 55 use the internet for sending and receiving e-mail, for instance. The Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP studied the digital knowhow among different social groups. According to the study, many older consumers aren't online and simply aren't interested in the medium.

 

Besides digital knowhow the study also describes digital behavior among foreigners, young adults, unemployed, well-educated and less-educated. In terms of computer ownership and internet usage, people from the

Antilles and Suriname score about as well as native Dutch citizens while Turkish or Moroccan Dutch score lower. The cause for a lack of digital knowhow is often found in financial issues.

Average age in social networking rising

At this moment, the largest group of social networkers is between 16 to 24 years of age. But according to research agency Forrester Research, it'll only take a few more years for that to change. People aged 36 to 54 and who have been online for seven years or more will soon take the lead. Forrester studied the adoption of social media and presented their conclusions during the Forrester Marketing Forum in

Barcelona, last November.

The study serves as a heads-up to marketeers who may want to re-evaluate their target audience. Soon it's not just young adults reading weblogs or visiting social networking profiles: experienced, more mature internet users will be doing those exact same things.

Consumer Eyes' nine types of consumers

According to the New York marketing agency Consumer Eyes, the current world of consumerism contains nine different types of consumers. For many organisations, these 21^st century consumers are considered trend setting and certainly decisive in their markets. A brief overview of Consumer Eyes' nine consumer types:

1. Denim Dads: These male parents have taken up the role of raising their kids. They're found online several hours a day. Usually they play a decisive or influential role in family purchasing decisions. They use several different media channels and are to be considered the male replacements for stay-at-home moms.

 

2. E-litists: E-litists are high income, high education consumers who value luxury and a clean environment. They care greatly for environmental issues.

 

3. Mrs. Independent: Female consumers with plenty to spend, but who mostly spend on themselves.

 

4. Middle men: Teenagers and young adults, mostly male, who prefer a lifestyle of gaming and fastfood.

 

5. Karma Queens : Middle-aged women who eat and live healthy and who like to pamper themselves.

6. Culture Crossers: People with a great interest in other cultures, and who are also consumers in these other cultures.

 

7. Innerpreneurs: Consumers with great plans which don't just involve and influence themselves, but others around them as well.

 

8. Geek Gods: Young males who are addicted to having the latest high tech toys.

 

9. Parentocrats: High income consumers for whom their children come first. They take great care for their offspring's future, safety and environment.

 

Ron Rentel is the author of 'Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs'. His book dives deeper into the nine consumer types.

Teenagers to commercials: “Do not disturb!”

Much of the advertising space on music channels such as MTV is taken up by ringtone offerings. However, the target audience isn't too keen on these commercials. Advertisements on mobile phones and in chat programs such as Messenger are also not at all appreciated by children, teenagers and young adults. Market research company Qrius published these findings in its rapport 'Jongeren 2007' (Young People 2007).

Chat programs and mobile phones are considered private spaces by young people. As a result, advertisements on these platforms are not at all appreciated, much less so in fact than on more traditional platforms such as television and radio. Qrius questioned children, teenagers and young adults aged 6 to 29. They least mind advertising in magazines or on television. 41% even enjoys watching television ads while 33% holds a more neutral stance toward television advertising.

Internet not just for the kids anymore

It's not just teenagers and young adults that fill up websites and chat sessions anymore. Over 50% of people over 50 are found online multiple times a day. The Dutch Centraal Plan Bureau (CPB) and Seniorenweb studied online activity among 'seniors'.

Seniorenweb offers seniors a helping hand getting to grips with the latest technologies, including helping them get on the world wide web.

 

The study shows that a quarter of all seniors (in this case, people over 50) spends most of their digital time chatting through Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger. Among teenagers, 75% spends most of their time on Messenger.

Streaming video here to stay

With the rise of YouTube, MSN Video and Metacafe, an internet without streaming video seems like a long, long time ago. Users upload content and watch eachother's uploaded videos on online video websites. A study by Newrulez concludes this is an extremely popular form of entertainment among 15 to 25-year-olds: they now spend more time online than they do watching regular television. Almost half the respondents occasionally download a movie. Newrulez researched the media usage among adolescents and young adults between 15 to 25 years old.

 

Streaming video has several distinct advantages over downloading video. Contrary to the traditional downloading of the full movie and then watching it, streaming video is loaded bit by bit, allowing the user to start watching in a matter of moments. While the stream is playing, more is being downloaded, resulting in a fluent watching experience.

 

Approximately 25% of the questioned surfers upload videos of their own. They also use streaming technology to listen to radio online: almost half the respondents reported using the internet to listen to the radio.

Teens: Digital socializing valuable, but not preferable over offline socializing

Creating a profile on MySpace, Facebook or Hyves is popular, easy and free. Many companies consider it a very lucrative way to connect with consumers and increase brand awareness. But a recent study performed for Microsoft, MTV and Nickelodeon shows that teens prefer hanging out in person over socializing online. The study shows that companies should not rely on online contact alone to stimulate their relationship with customers.

As popular as social networks may be, they're not as fun as watching television, watching a DVD or listening to music. Although over 90% of all teens consider the internet and their online activities to be very valuable, most of them still prefer their offline social lives.

Loyalty hard to find among multichannel buyers

According to research by Forrester, multichannel buyers spend 50% more than singlechannel buyers do. They also purchase more in the areas of electronics and computing. According to Gartner however, multichannel buyers are less loyal. Gartner poses two main reasons:

1. Multichannel buyers are influenced more by pricing, as internet offers them more tools to compare prices. 

2. Buyers have higher expectations from customer service. When service is found poor, multichannel buyers will switch companies more easily.

 

The battle for the multichannel buyer

Various retailers are working hard to gain multichannel buyers. A popular method to achieve this, is by letting shoppers purchase their products online and picking them up at local outlets. To make this possible, the channels within retail companies have to be tightly organised. Some companies which do this are Circuit City, Best Buy and Sears Roebuck and Co.

To let buyers know about this unique way of shopping, Sears launched a television campaign. Sears' success has since then been imitated by other retailers. Radio Shack started a similar shopping method late 2006, by launching a pilot in 1.300 outlets. Plans then emerged to increase the pilot to 3.400 Radio Shack outlets. According to Radio Shack vice president Jimmy Mansker, the multichannel shopping method has two goals:

·         When the product ordered online is picked up, the sales person can try to sell related accessories.

·         Offline stores are limited to 3.000 different products. Sales personnel can notify shoppers that even more products are available online.

 

To familiarize consumers with this way of shopping, several promotional activities were developed. Office Depot developed an e-mail campaign, sending customers coupons to be used in channels they weren't using a lot yet. This way, Office Depot stimulates customers to try out other, unknown channels as well. Another promotional activity would be to refer to an online shop when a product is sold out in the offline store.

 

Resistance to multichanneling

Many multichannel organisations do run into resistance. Store personnel for instance has great difficulties accepting the online channels. Famous Footware also suffered from this resistance and decided to launch a pilot in fifteen stores. A small kiosk was placed in these stores, which could be used to view up to a million shoes instead of just 15.000 like in regular stores. This sped up in-store acceptance of the multichannel strategy, which resulted in personnel more eagerly stimulating clients to use the online channel as well.

 

Summarizing, multichanneling appears a double edged sword. On the one hand, multichannel buyers buy more. However, stimulating multichannel buyers to shop online also means the risk they'll do so at the competitor's website. To control for this dilemma, it's important to gain insight in crosschannel buying behavior. Campaigns and promotional activities can be used to retain clients.

 

Lastly, five tips on keeping multichannel buyers:

·         Aspire to create consistant customer experiences across channels

·         Make sure clients can buy through one channel and return products through another if they're not satisfied

·         Integrate and manage channels as one business unit, so as to prevent crosschannel conflicts

·         Familiarize clients with your different channels

·         Analyse crosschannel customer behavior

Modern surfer focuses on content

The Online Publishers Association recently published a study on the time spent on different categories found online. The categories were defined as content, searching, commerce and communication. The study shows that half the time spent online, is spent on content. One of the reasons brought up is that searching has been improved greatly in recent years, making it easier to find the desired content. Also, the popularity of streaming online video influences the time spent on online content. In four years time, content's share in internet time rose by 37%.

The other categories see various fluctuations. Searching rose by 35%, commerce dropped by 5%, communication by 28%. The current split between categories:
- Content (47%)
- Searching (5%)
- Communication (46%)
- Commerce (2%)

Surfers' continuous search for news, entertainment and information has positive effects on the time spent on content. The appearance of social networks also has an effect on this, as this particular type of website is cast as both content and communication.