Make several, not one.
Thanks to Tim Brunelle, via Gavin Heaton, via Drew McLellan via Todd Andrik for digging up this Malcolm Gladwell talk from the 2004 TED conference. He's talking about Howard Moskowitz's learnings on consumer preferences.
The thing I really find interesting about all of this is the idea that segmenting potential consumers into multiple groups and working to please each group separately. When applied to experience design, product design, engagement planning, or design & strategy of just about any type, this thinking throws quite a twist into how planning currently proceeds within so much of the business. For example, when planning the IA for a corporate website we tend to strive towards a single sitemap, when we should probably be striving either towards 3 - 5 OR providing for dynamic self-segmentation. The problem with the standard solution set of "section 1 is for purchasing", "section two is for browsing" etc...is that purchasers and browsers exist within each segment and segments are likely to have different requirements for each task. Separating sections by product doesn't do much better, as flavors of products (even colors) are likely to have specific types of people that are most attracted to them.
The more I think about it, the more I think that distributed media is perhaps the real solution to the application of this thinking to the communications space. Just as it doesn't make sense to try and make one coffee for all consumers, it doesn't make sense to make one website or ad campaign or one "integrated" campaign for all consumers. You'll likely end up making people "60% happy".
Why not make many different pieces and aim at making people "78% happy"?
The thing I really find interesting about all of this is the idea that segmenting potential consumers into multiple groups and working to please each group separately. When applied to experience design, product design, engagement planning, or design & strategy of just about any type, this thinking throws quite a twist into how planning currently proceeds within so much of the business. For example, when planning the IA for a corporate website we tend to strive towards a single sitemap, when we should probably be striving either towards 3 - 5 OR providing for dynamic self-segmentation. The problem with the standard solution set of "section 1 is for purchasing", "section two is for browsing" etc...is that purchasers and browsers exist within each segment and segments are likely to have different requirements for each task. Separating sections by product doesn't do much better, as flavors of products (even colors) are likely to have specific types of people that are most attracted to them.
The more I think about it, the more I think that distributed media is perhaps the real solution to the application of this thinking to the communications space. Just as it doesn't make sense to try and make one coffee for all consumers, it doesn't make sense to make one website or ad campaign or one "integrated" campaign for all consumers. You'll likely end up making people "60% happy".
Why not make many different pieces and aim at making people "78% happy"?
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Thank you Phil, via Tim, via Gavin, via Drew, for the mention!
Todd
I am a big fan of a segmented landing page strategy -- where you build a number of landing pages based on the arrival path of your visitors. Your website, then becomes a much more dynamic, personalised experience, allowing your landing pages to direct/funnel visitors in the most appropriate manner. And, as you point out, this way you are more likely to reach that 78% happy level.
Phil - I guess Todd, Gavin and I all subscribe to our own names on Google Alerts. Thanks for the mention! And totally agree with Gavin. With every new assignment I wish that we had clients who saw the necessity of multiple versions of their site, and were willing to pay for that investment. We're starting to see small evidence with landing pages and multivariate testing of home pages based on paid search or banner ads. But it's where every major brand site should be in the next few years. Nimble. Dynamic. Customized. Hey, at least we've moved a lot of people away from Flash intros! - Tim
Gavin & Tim - Segmented landing pages are definitely a step in the right direction. I would love to see clients move to not just multiple URLs but full "physical" sites as the next step. Or at least begin to leverage dynamic code to provide on the fly personalization and site "reconfiguration". The other piece that corporations still seem to miss is that their primary site does not need to be the wikipedia of their brand, but it perhaps should be the Google of their brand. In other words, corporations have a tendency to think that every last piece of brand, company & product info needs to be on their main site. Those of us in the industry have at least some part to blame in this, but now that we've succeeded in encouraging openness, it would behoove us to encourage a bit of diversity. I'd love to see companies leverage the range of online media outlets (self published corporate site, self published micro sites, social networks self published content, consumer feedback/participation, etc) and have a custom search and mapping on as many locations as possible that would direct consumers to the appropriate outlet. Something to aspire to I suppose. - Phil