Pittsburgh SEO – SEM – SEA | Internet Marketing and Website Design | Blackball Online

Head Smacking Consumer Purchasing Strategy – Do Your Research First

As Chief Online Marketing Technologist for our little internet marketing firm I’m aghast at how people want to complain about pricing, quality, and poor customer service after the fact, Do Your Research First.

Laziness. It all boils down to laziness. If I search for a product or service and only read reviews from one source and then base my purchasing decisions solely on that metric, shame on me. Here’s a little secret: Online reviews are still broken beyond belief. We see bogus negative reviews and comment review spamming run wild, Do Your Research First.

Buyer’s remorse is normal. But ask yourself, “Why am I sorry I bought?” Have 10 people told me I could have gotten it cheaper after the fact, elsewhere? Where were their opinions when I truly needed them? Do Your Research First.

Time sensitivity and emotional purchasing control all our buying decisions. We, as people are very predictable. The only thing that will ever change advertiser’s methods is the very market these advertising agencies rely on to survive. The short answer is that we tell the marketers what works by the results of their marketing and advertising. So we must change our behaviors to change the market.

I’ll say it again. Do Your Research First.

Frustrated Computer User - image courtesy of upfrontcfd.com

The Absurdity of Computer Applications
(or, how come we work for the computers, when they should be working for us)

Imagine you’re driving your car and you go to make a left-hand turn after a light change, but your car informs you that you need to download a piece of software to make this kind of left hand turn. Now, it doesn’t end there, because, as you attempt to download the software needed, your car then proceeds to tell you that you have to upgrade your car to support the software required for you to make this particular left hand turn.

Or, how about this, you’re driving along, it starts to rain, you hit your wipers, next your headlights, then your car blue-screens on you, it stops dead, (freezes-up), because of an out-of-who-knows-where software conflict between the wipers and lights.

Let’s try another. You head out the door to work, jump in, and start your car up, but it has to “sync-up” with everything first, like with your radio, lights, wipers, etc.  Then, just like magic, your car won’t start because of a sync error, or some kind of start-up error, or you need a certain “driver” (no pun intended) and blah, blah, blah.

As far as cars go, does this sound familiar? Of course it doesn’t. Does it sound completely absurd? Sure it does. But with computers, this frustrating goofiness happens all the time. Cars sport dozens of different features to perform particular functions which complement a car’s main purpose of getting us from one place to another. With computers, it’s a similar deal: basically, a computer sports bunches of different features to do particular things that “allegedly” compliment or enhance the computer’s original intent; which is that of being pretty much a highfalutin typewriter and calculator rolled into one.

The thing is, cars, and vehicles in general work for us. They are relatively consistently-working machines. Not a lot of fussing to get a car to do what you’d like, unless you got a very old clunker. With computers though, we’ve been buffaloed all these years into thinking they work for us, but after going through what I call “digital waterboarding” to get a computer to do some basic stuff, I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that we really work for the computers - In more ways than one.

We bump into so many business people who justifiably complain about basic-everyday info that they can’t get a lot of times through something as fundamental as email because their computer or network person tells them they need this kind of software to open this attachment, or you can’t view this because you have to download that, or this can’t do that because you got the wrong kind of deodorant. If you’re a regular end-user, you know the drill.

Here’s the way I see it, (not that it means anything), and that is, until the day you and I can work with INFORMATION on our computers, like we want, and not APPLICATIONS, we’re all going to keep getting digitally water-boarded by these things while the computer and software advertisers keep telling us how happy we are with their stuff. Now, to caveat this topic, I’m not talking here about high-end industry-specific applications, like CAD and graphic applications, etc., that’s a different ball-game altogether.

Anyway, there was a retired CEO, (can’t remember his name) who once said, “The computer revolution can be felt everywhere, except in the area of productivity.” This cat may be on to something.

Side note: Google and Apple are the only companies that we know of, to date, which actually “get” that people need and want to work with information - not applications.

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What I Learned From the Kids at the Lemonade Stand

Lemonade Stand Marketing

The funniest thing happened to me today which embodies the theory of why people are very different in their marketing methods. I was driving down the road on the way to a clients business and passed some children selling lemonade. All fine and a typical summer activity which is why I love Pittsburgh.

Memories came back to me remembering doing that same thing. Of course we drank all the lemonade and strong-armed some sympathetic parents to buy. That’s what kid marketers do I guess. I then began thinking about why as humans we are really just oversized children. Those same techniques are used every day by some of the largest companies in the world. Google ring a bell?

In the course of driving up to these kids, some stood up when they noticed my lone car turn on to their secluded suburban street. With their little marketing minds at work having planned their location, their price points, their signage, and their secret blend of lemonade that only a parent could love; you get the point.

Some were there because that was the place to be and couldn’t be bothered about the lemonade. Some budding capitalists were already counting their piggy bank retirement 401K and mutual fund contributions – those were the kids seated in the chairs behind their stand. Others were beginning to shout as if I’d miss 20 kids with a lemonade stand on a quiet street in the suburbs at 2:00pm.

So as a consumer, and a thirsty one at that, I had that fleeting second of contemplation. And I actually considered stopping. As I drove closer the kids were in full wail and one of the kids shouts, “Just Buy It!” in a voice that sounded as if it came from pure frustration that he wouldn’t be meeting with Donald Trump tonight if I drove by. I knew right then and there that he was the marketer of the bunch.

I drove passed. Why? Why hadn’t I stopped? It was drive thru service. The conditions were right for them to all go to Harvard on my lemonade sale split 20 ways. It wasn’t like there was a lemonade stand on every corner. What where the circumstances that precluded me from stopping. Was the memory of the taste of our lemonade we made as kids that bad? Maybe. Or was it the situation? The timing?

Given different circumstances I would most certainly have stopped. The screaming and yelling kids’ trying to coerce a sale was what did it. That and I’m a cappuccino guy. Screaming wasn’t enough for those kids. Yet many marketing and advertising agencies still do this. Search Engine spamming ring a bell? Article marketing with nonsensical posts? Is bombardment enough for me to be persuaded to buy something? Am I willing to buy from a brand that screams at me? How long until Google invents a shower radio called Google Wet to sell me ads?

If I post, “Just Buy It” will the masses come in droves begging for our Pittsburgh Web Design? For our Pittsburgh Search Engine Optimization Services? For our Pittsburgh Internet Consulting? If I corner prospective clients with all that jazz about top Google results and a pushy tone will it help? Probably Not.

Thanks kids for providing me hours of thought. A special Thanks to the,”Just Buy It” kid for the fodder for this post. I should probably drop by and give him a royalty on my next sale.