MADONNA MAY be the queen of self-invention, but 280 million Americans are giving the Material Girl a run for her money. Consumers are creating and controlling the ways marketers interact with them. Yankelovich Inc. has isolated four unique groups, and president J. Walker Smith and group president of integration insights/database Craig Wood discussed these new “self-invention styles,” as the company refers to them, with Direct.
DIRECT: What are the four consumer styles you've found, and what do they mean to marketers?
SMITH: Make an Entrance people are social engagement people. If you're a direct marketer and your objective is to build a Web site and do e-mail and direct campaigns to engage customers with the brand, that's the wrong thing to do. You should be executing programs that enable people to engage with one another.
WOOD: Make an Entrance is the least marketing-resistant group. It sees marketing as its friend, and is more likely to interact with you. But it may not be as likely to buy from you. You may misinterpret its responsiveness as purchase behavior. Do the Math people, if you can find them, may be really great customers because once you are part of their routine it's tough to break it. For them, marketing is almost a necessary evil. You've got to get these people in the right channel, at the right time. You can't interrupt their routine with something new — a new method of communicating with them, or perhaps even a new message.
DIRECT: What are the other styles?
SMITH: Stay the Course people are focused on integrity and reputation. This group is very concerned about privacy policies and marketing practices. It's about making sure that you are not requiring that people compromise their core values in order to interact with you. Mind your marketing manners.
WOOD: Then you've got the Take a Number group, which is driven by gut instinct. These folks have so much going on in their lives. They go by gut feeling over anything, which I think from a marketer's perspective can be real tough.
SMITH: They're heavy on visual cues because that helps them make an emotional connection. With Do the Math, it's a rational sort of thing, but with Take a Number it's emotional.
DIRECT: Are any marketers putting this approach into practice?
SMITH: Rupert Murdoch paid a premium for Myspace.com, because he was having trouble figuring out how to get people to go to the Fox Interactive Web sites. He realized that you can get people engaged in commerce by offering community and connectedness. On a gut level, he has identified the people who would be interested in his sites as Make an Entrance people. He's not going to get Do the Math people going to them, although he might get some Take the Numbers folks. I don't think he's going to get many Stay the Courses. But unless he can find a tool that gives him e-mail addresses or names and addresses of Make an Entrance people, his ability to try and capitalize on this investment he made is going to continue to be a hit-or-miss thing.
WOOD: Circuit City is now offering the capability of ordering online. If you click a button it will be ready in 24 minutes for you to pick up in the store. And if it's not ready in 24 minutes, you get a $24 gift card.
SMITH: That has resonance for Do the Math people, for whom that's the [preferred] procedure. And it also has relevance for Stay the Course people, because what Circuit City is doing is making a promise and a commitment. There is no fine print, no hidden conditions.
DIRECT: Within these four styles, where do you fall and why?
SMITH: I'm a Stay the Course. I like all the engaging technology stuff. Issues related to internal compass and integrity and not having to compromise — that's my gig.
WOOD: I'm a Take a Number guy. I go with my gut on stuff. I've got a couple of Do the Math tendencies, but I've got some medication for that and I hope I'll get over it quickly.
