In this article, we will discuss the differences between online and offline customer behaviors. We will also discuss how audience rating can help you decide what to focus on when entering the online world.
Differences between online and offline customer behaviors
What are the main differences between a customer in a real store and another on the Internet? Let's say you want to improve your fitness and need new athletic shoes. In the real world, the series of actions taken might be as follows:
You will visit the local shopping center and start hopping from one store to another. Ultimately, you will make your decision based on price, quality, return policy, staff treatment, and product availability.
After thinking through all of this information, you'll go back to the store that owns the shoes you chose and buy them.
- browsing
- thinking
- Execution
- interest
They provide a useful way to help businesses decide where to invest in communicating with customers. Let's go back to the example of buying sneakers, this time online and highlighting these four stages:
- In the “browsing” stage, you may notice that some of your friends are running and posting maps of their favorite running paths on their social media accounts. This may inspire you to start running on your own.
- At the "think" stage, you'll start by searching online for the best sneakers for beginners. This step will give you access to a lot of relevant content on the Internet, from blogs to targeted ads, which will give you more elements to base your decision on.
- In the "implementation" stage, you will make the purchase and may post a picture of the new shoes on social media as well.
- In the "Attention" stage, sharing your purchases on social networks is also part of the "Attention" stage.
Now let's bring the activities that happen in real and online together. Let's say you're in a sporting goods store and you've just tried a number of new sneakers.
You then start searching online for these shoes using your mobile phone to check the prices of each in other stores.
There is a good chance that you will buy the shoes online after visiting the real store - this approach is called “preview”.
Understanding the differences and similarities between online shopping and in reality can help you provide a more balanced online experience for customers.
How do you know the points to focus on the Internet?
To ensure that you choose the right channels, you need to know which customers to talk to, when to talk to them, and what topics to talk about.
This process is called "Audience Rating". You can categorize customers in many ways, from basic demographic information like age and gender, to their specific interests.
For example, categorizing customers by geographic location may be beneficial for an online store that only ships products to specific regions. How can this process help with online advertising?
Most channels allow you to target paid ads to specific audiences based on information such as that audience's interests.
You can also show your ads only to users within a certain geographic area of your store or business, which will help you when offering exclusive offers to local shoppers.
Bottom line, when it comes to taking your business online, you need to consider your customers and see which channels they use the most.