December 2010 issue of the Target Marketing magazine had an interesting article I’ve meant to blog about for some time.
On page 11 the magazine’s senior editor, Heather Fletcher, brings us back to Hippocrates who while being “more synonymous with medicine that marketing” had also written a lot about human psychology. Heather is referring to a recent DMA2010 conference where Bryan Eisenberg reminded everyone that we actually have much to learn from Hippocrates, and especially when it comes to online persuasion.
Explaining what motivates people online, for example, Bryan brought up 4 consumer temperaments (based on Hippocrates’ personas or “personality types”):
1. Spontaneous consumers — those who pay attention to the top sellers and new releases
2. Humanistics — consumers that care about reviews
3. Methodicals — those who are inclined to search by genre
4. Competitives — consumers who focus on the top of the page
Then using an “example of Overstock.com selling DVDs” Bryan also illustrated how by testing “a change in the top graphic from something about children’s movies to language that emphasized general DVD sales” the company was able to achieve “a $25 million sales increase for the page with the general DVD wording.”
Insights into what really works we are told that “marketers can build predictive models to target the consumers”.
Learn more from Bryan Eisenberg himself in his 41 minute 21 Tips for Top Converting Websites presentation here. Tons of great information there — information for e-tailers, affiliates, paid search folks, and everyone who is doing business online.