At the conference under my title of “Turning Browsers into Buyers” - one of the things I spoke about was the different motivational profiles of ‘Browsers’ … considering who are they are, what do they think … and wondering ? do they even want converting into Buyers? I used a taxonomy of browsers that I made up and split them down into a number of distinct groups, calling them:

Dreamer
is just enjoying having a surf around ? is doing it for fun ? doesn?t intend to purchase anything. He/she enjoys the nature of the web and the way you can go this way and that and just see whats there. And all these places would be hard to get to if he/she were travelling in the real world ? or take too much time. Harrods, Amazon, River Island, Net-a-Porter ? look at shoes, and fashion. Its fun and its immersive.

Data Gatherer
is focussed on finding out about things. Like, I?ve seen one of those key things that go in the laptop ? I don?t know how they work or what they do exactly? is it hard? I?m not a techie ? how much can I get on them? Dabs, microwarehouse, google, dealtime, swissinfo ? do you know you can get a swiss army knife 128MB in it!! This data gathering MIGHT be product focussed, or focussed around other aspects ? like an author ? or researching where things might be bought

Deliberator
is more directed that data gatherer ? they know the kind of thing they want ? Home Insurance perhaps, and have an overall intention to purchase, but now is on a mission to choose. Whose is best? LloydsTSB, Morethan, Screentrade, esure, Direct Line ? all these visits are building up…

Doer
who knows what they want and wants to sign on the bottom line. They go to one place, one place only, that?s where they buy UNLESS they get stumped by usability issues, their expectations are not met, the brand is not credible, or the security not trustable.

So because of the low cost of visit, each purchase is likely to be the result of many multiple visits, which means to effectively make a browser/buyer conversion, you have to satisfy the dreamer, data gatherer, and deliberator ? then, ONLY THEN might you get a doer who will spend money with you.

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