Top Tips for Understanding Your Customer’s Internet Use

Understanding consumers wants and needs is not only ideal, it,s simply good business. The online consumer market creates unique opportunities for organisations to understand their customers and therefore tailor the perfect product for them. If a physical business knew what a customer has looked at previously, as well as the exact combination of products they desire, achieving sales targets and key performance indicators would be simple. Fortunately this opportunity exists within the internet universe, and experts like My Port can help you understand customers internet use.

Data collection

Capturing the right data from a consumer is essential to understanding their Internet use – within limits – and without being obvious, as much online activity should be captured as is possible. This is especially relevant with smart phone usage. 80% of smartphone users will be multitasking whilst using their phone; this means you can capture their interests and modify products to suit them. For example, you can determine the type of reading subscriptions they have (if they are using apps to access online new media) and use that knowledge to understand that this particular customer likes current affairs, reading and that particular news source.

Through other applications, without breaching privacy, you can determine the demographic and then make the link between target demographics and their internet usage. This same principle can be applied to any online memberships, as well as Search engine history, product views and purchases, video views, downloads, help requests and much more online activity. Be cautious on using the data to benefit customer’s needs and understand their Internet use, ensure that responsible policy is in place for follow-up messaging or advertising.

Photo: nokhoog_buchachon/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Photo: nokhoog_buchachon/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Customer interaction

Collecting data through observation can give you an effective understand of consumers’ online usage, however direct communication with consumers is the next logical progression. Surveys, forums and phone calls can help a business personally identify their target demographic and what these customers want. Transaction reviews, feedback forms, surveys or contact sections should always be easily accessible, and detailed options for information gathering in all three of these interactive forums should be available. The interaction itself should also be measured, as it can help define the consumers further, for example, what kind of customer uses online feedback? In addition to surveys, eye-tracking studies are a good way to measure online interaction as well as heat maps that detail the key activity on your site.

Sub headings

Breaking up the online information available, with headlines, subtitles and photos is a handy way to gather data and determine popular products from unpopular ones. In addition to this, it’s a subtle way to collect data and understand the consumer better. It’s particularly useful for increasing hits with more visual online bases generally attracting more customers. This method also benefits the customer, as they have a concise, more direct path to their desired material. You can implement split testing through creating two versions of a website and see which one does better, or by experiment with image and text combinations and finding out what works best.

Do you understand your customers internet usage? Do you have any questions regarding split testing, data collection or customer interaction? Leave your comments in the section below.

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