…Is To Worship The User
March 10, 2009
There’s an old web adage that says “Content is King”. Well if content is King, then the User must be something a little higher…
The User is omnipresent. The User giveth life, and the User taketh life away. Cross the User, and you may pay dearly. Give the User what it wants, and you WILL be rewarded. See what I’m getting at?
I consider myself a pretty avid and loyal Facebook user. For those who don’t know, www.Facebook.com is a social networking site that helps people connect with friends, colleagues and strangers to share a whole bunch of information. And I mean a whole bunch.
Most of this bunch can/will/has been used by advertisers and marketers (including me). If you’re thinking about advertising online, or even if you’ve already started, you should be looking at sites that can target like Facebook. Gender, age, favorite TV shows, interests and activities can all be used to zero in on exactly the consumers you want. It might sound scary at first, but its one of the best ways to make sure you’re giving the User exactly what it wants.
The bottom line is that the User will not reward ads it’s not interested in. The User is so powerful that it can completely ignore your ad even if you get it right on its screen. Remember that when you make an ad-offering, you’ll have only a few seconds before your offering is trampled under the User’s foot. The message must be potent, personal and RELEVANT — you have to tell the User that you have exactly what it wants (AND IT HAS TO BE TRUE…misleading offerings will make the User VERY angry).
Now, don’t get confused. Don’t tell the User WHAT it wants and that you have it; remember, the User is all-knowing about what it wants. Of course, there are a lot of Users, so how do you make sure you’re making offerings to the right Users?
There are many places to make online offerings to the User. The more information you can get from your ad publisher, the better. Social networking and other membership based sites often have a nice collection of information about their members. I suggest checking these kinds of sites to see if they can paint a nice bull’s eye on your target audience (but remember, the more specific you are, the smaller your audience will get).
Before making any offering, ask yourself how relevant your offering is to the User. If your ad publisher can’t give you a relevant audience, you may want to look elsewhere. There’s a lot at stake (mostly your money), and relevance is key. Make sure you’re giving the User EXACTLY what it wants.
As a side note to marketers and advertisers out there — you may want to get in the habit of capitalizing words like User or Customer from now on. Remember, they’re pulling the strings now, not you.
