Making It Easy for Our Online Consumers

Yesterday, digital marketing firm Beyond and communications company MBooth released the results of their joint study on the online product research patterns of consumers. (Click the image to see the full-size infographic on Mashable.)

The "Science of Sharing" study surveyed more than 3000 consumers in the US and the UK, and analyzed their behavior in researching 12 brand categories - spanning "High Involvement," or higher-priced, more complex, less frequently purchased goods, and "Low Involvement," or lower-priced, less complicated, more frequently purchased goods - over three types of online channels: "earned" (review sites, news articles, blogs, etc.), "owned" (brand's website and social media profiles), and "search" (both paid and organic).

The results grouped consumers into "high sharers" and "low sharers".

"High sharers" actively contribute content to online communities, and are more likely to be younger, to be brand-loyal, to own multiple Internet-connected devices, and to research low-involvement products. These consumers account for 20% of the population.

"Low sharers" are more passive consumers of content; they are more likely to be older, to place more value on quality than brand image, to be more willing to change brands, to research high-involvement products, and to purchased products they have researched. These consumers account for 80% of the population.

The study found that "high sharers" are three times more likely to recommend a product than "low sharers".

And are consumers influenced by the recommendations of these high sharers? That depends (as you might expect) on the product category.

For "High Involvement" products, online consumers are more likely to be influenced by the brand's web site, review sites, and search. For "Low Involvement" brands, social networking sites are more influential. (See fuller results from the study at bynd.com)

So what does this mean for marketers?

1. We need to make it easy for consumers to find out about us online. This starts with identifying which channels are most relevant to our customers - based on their preferences and our product category - and ensuring that their experience with our brand on those channels is superb. When they visit our website, consumers should be able to find the information they're looking for, easily, in a visually pleasing, understandable, and transparent manner. When they want to interact with us on social media, we need to be responsive, friendly, and open. When they search for our brand, our SEM/SEO should be such that they find the relevant content they want from us. How do we know what customers want on each of these channels? We ask them.
   
2. We need to make it easy for sharers and reviewers to speak well of us. This starts at the most basic level - our products and services. Do our products provide quality to our consumers? Are they meeting consumers' needs in the best possible manner? Do we serve our customers well? Do customers feel happy after they've shopped in our store, or interacted with us, or used our product? Are our products and services designed with the customer in mind, instead of with us in mind? Do we exceed their expectations? We have to get these things right before we have a right to be recommended.

When we make it easy for consumers to find us and to have a good experience with us, we make it easy for them to purchase our products, and to recommend that others do the same. We have to create good experiences for our customers - both online and off.