Know-How Exchange : Strategy

A weighty question. But perhaps technology, metrics, and graphs are not your biggest questions to deal with.

The bigger question is who you'll serve and what you'll offer.

You asked about classification of goods such as software. if you're selling or promoting software, your main aim ought to be in keeping your customer sweet and technically happy. this means troubleshooting FAQs, customer help lines staffed by people that know what they're doing. And it might mean offering free upgrades for the life of the customer, or at the least, significant discounts on other, related software products that your customers are likely to use. If you think you can nickel and dime people, particularly if they're spending a good amount of money, you'll lose credibility.

If that "someone" attempting to forecast user growth for any given site is you, I suggest you take a dozen or so steps back and look at things through far less complex lenses.

Why? Because all this PayPal stuff is cart before the horse thinking.

A PayPal button on a site is simply a payment tool, a link to a download or fulfillment page, and its use will depend on all kinds of variables, the highest on the list might well be the reader's familiarity with and trust in the payment portal.

This is a biggie!

Then you get into the nitty-gritty of price, value, offer, and desire.

But we're not done yet. No. not by a long chalk.

Does the product solve a specific problem? Does the sales copy make the prospect want to take action? Are the benefits compelling and clearly laid out? Do the "dog and pony show" of the offer and sales copy eradicate doubt, fear, and mistrust? Is there a decent amount of social proof on the site? Where are the guarantees, and how does Billy Bob get his money back if your product sucks?

And on and on.

Lordy! Is this making your brain ache yet? Good, because the payment side of things is the tip of a huge iceberg.

Will the presence of a PayPal button put certain people off? Yes, because there are Internet users who still distrust anything but a shopping cart check-out and its "secure" payment method. How many will it put off? I have no idea. But the point is, you're not selling PayPal buttons, you're selling solutions.

Personally, I'm a big fan of PayPal, but I know of other people who hate the service.

But, (you knew there was a but coming, didn't you?) BEFORE all that can happen, searchers have got to find the site in question.

Which means they've got be be searching for something the site is offering because they're looking for a thing that fulfills a specific need or desire.

Here, specificity is vital. Which means, dear heart, lots of SEO and SEM homework for you, and a wheelbarrow full of other questions, of which the following are just a few:

Who is your audience?
What are you offering that they want or that they canon live without?
Why should they buy from you and not the next guy or gal?
What makes you better, faster, more value laden and benefit heavy?

Forget ye not: If I'm your prospect, before you can sell me you have to tell me.

Much like the old VW "Snowplough" ad (I spell snowplough like that because I'm British), an important question to ask is "How does the surfer [who may become a prospect, who may in turn become a qualified lead, thence a buyer, and your loyal customer], how does this person GET to your site?"

Answer: they're looking for the thing you're offering, the thing that is reflected in your second tier keywords, and via links from other sites that, in turn, point a huge neon sign to your site.

Welcome to the world of search engine optimization.

As your shopper, how do I find your site? What leads me to you? And when I get there, how easy is my information gathering and buying experience?

Get this right and you're golden. Screw it up, even a little bit, and your PayPal button isn't worth a light.

Remember, online, you as a service provider or a salesperson, you my dear are only ever one click away from oblivion.

!NEWSFLASH! WE INTERRUPT THIS QUESTION WITH AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ALL ONLINE MARKETERS!

When Joe Schmoe comes to your site, Joe Schmoe wants to find what he's looking for NOW, not when you're good and ready to show him, and not after you've led him through a minefield of unrelated links and other assorted visual shenanagins.

Got that? Splendid!

Please Joe Schmoe and he'll stick around. He might even give you his name and e-mail address (in exchange for a huge amount of value). Good Lord, he might even BUY SOMETHING! If ... If it's something he wants and that he cannot find with the same value attached to it elsewhere.

But, as your shopper, woe betide you if you piss Joe Schmoe off! Give him a world of pain in his search for a solution and he'll bail from your site quicker than you can say "Click here", never to return. And with him goes your opportunity to form a bond. Which to you could have meant a qualified lead, a prospect to be wooed and charmed, and who knows, perhaps turned into a customer for life.

As your shopper, however valuable I am to you, I am more valuable to your competition. Put relationships in place first, then fret about how you get paid.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer,
WILMINGTON, DE, USA

Hi Gary,

I appreciate the time you put into your response and I agree with what you've written.

Rest assured, I've covered the marketing fundamentals in my strategic assessment, evaluation, and planning for this product (value proposition, key benefits relevant to target consumer & affinity groups, obstacles that could stand in the way of usage or trial, ensuring copy effectively communicates benefits, points of parity & points of differentiation, establishing barriers to entry, etc., etc. ,etc.). I am also well-versed in SEO/SEM, so those bases are covered.


Specifically, however, I am questioning if the Bass Diffusion Model (originally established for durable goods) can be effectively applied to web-based technology goods.

I have received some feedback from a marketing PhD (outside of this board) via email this morning, however I still appreciate numerous perspectives on the question asked.

So, if anyone else can share their opinion, I would appreciate it.

akosa23

Apologies. I didn't mean to infer that you'd ignored any of the points I raised, and I'll admit I honestly don't know enough about the theory to answer your question for sure. It's possible that the Bass model could be applied to Web-based goods, but it may well depend on people's awareness of the product and just how the product meets the needs of the niche in question.

Again, apologies if I rambled on too much.

Thanks Wiglaf. Much appreciated.

I'll check out that article in the Journal of Marketing as well.

With regards to the Model, I was thinking about one thing you stated... As the manner by which ideas diffuse has changed, it seems word spreads much more quickly among both innovators and imitators. Does this not stand to accelerate the adoption rate? No need to address this question. Just thinking out loud.

Regards,
-Akosa