Product Marketing Blog

Traditional marketing focuses on product features and benefits. But your customers are more interested in the experiences they can have with your products.  Usually when a customer decides to purchase a product it’s not because of the features it offers, it’s because of what they can do with the product. For example, we purchased a flat screen HDTV not because of the number of pixels or brightness or refresh rate, but because it looks awesome when you’re watching a movie or sporting event.  The experience we’re interested in is how the picture looks when we’re watching TV… the features of the TV just help fulfill that particular experience.

What about online?  It can sometimes be difficult to figure out what types of experiences customers are looking for on your website.  It helps to think in terms of tasks instead of products or features or benefits.  What are your customers trying to accomplish when they come to your website?  There probably are many different types of tasks – browsing, searching, contacting, support, purchasing, etc.  The trick is to try to make all these tasks as easy as possible on your one website.

Now, instead of thinking of these actions as tasks, think of them as a chance to interact with your customer.  What would you do if you were in-person?  What types of interactions would you want with a company?  Think of each of these interactions as an opportunity to build a relationship with your customer – or add to a relationship.  Try to think of website visitors as individual people with their own stories and emotions and opinions.

Now, how would you design your website differently to interact with your customers and build relationships? What do your customers say about your website? They may have some great insight – if you just ask.

(photo by bbjee @ FlickrCC)

Technorati tags: usability, design, customer experience, customer-centric, experience centric, business, strategy, marketing

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