How many of us get annoyed when looking for something to get online? You could be after a new bike or a handyman for your business, a spanking new car or a pair of new shoes…whatever right? I don’t know about you but I can’t bear it when I’m sold ‘this and that’, fighting my way through pop-up ads and being told that if I get ‘this’ aswell, my life will be soooo much better.
Snore.
Unusual for a female (possibly) I know what I want and I buy what I want and nothing else oh...and I want it yesterday. I’m not a great shopper and try to buy everything online (funnily enough) to avoid the unnatural lighting and fumbling around etc. My point?
Very rarely do I get sucked in and end up being ‘sold to’. You couldn’t sell me a coat in the winter, even if it ends up being to my detriment.
In the UK, USA, India and China and other countries uncertainty is accepted. There are many other factors involved of course, cultures depict many attributes and when you are selling to a global market you have to take into consideration much more; for example, is the country more masculine or feminine? Are they individualists or do they work more as a collective group? And how do they deal with cultural inequality.
This it put sublimely but the fabulous Nathalie Nahai (@TheWebPsych). Nathalie’s background in psychology, web design and digital strategy, has lead her to a career in helping businesses apply ‘scientific rigour ‘to their design and decision-making processes to achieve better engagement online. She has worked with brands such as; Ebay, Nokia, Google, the BBC, Goldman Sachs, to mention only a few.
In her latest book, ‘Webs of Influence’- The Pyschology of Online Persuasion’ she talks about a particular interest of mine, ‘Uncertainty Avoidance’
“The uncertainty avoidance Index (UAI) measures how uncomfortable we are with ambiguity. The trust is that none of us can predict the future and when it comes to accepting this reality some cultures find it easier than others’.
She goes on to describe how structures of the brain affect this, offering up stats on who in the world would be more sensitive to fear and disgust and resulted in a list of countires that are both ‘uncertainty accepting’, ‘uncertainty avoidant’ and lastly ‘cultures who have a ‘high uncertainty avoidant’. This information is obviously helpful if you are marketing to specific countries or cultures and also in understanding your own! Ultimately, it will most definitely help you understand what works and what doesn’t.
So how does this relate to your small business? How can you avoid the hard sell and still raise your income stream?
The answer is understanding your audience and the factors listed above, then connecting with these factors in mind.
Firstly, making sure your website and online channels reflect your audience well then listening, understanding and talking to them is the only way you can introduce your brand or service and become reliable, loyal and a friend to your customers.
Nobody wants to see, “Our New Hand tool is just £19.99!” anymore. Yes, people want information about the product, yes, they want to see what it looks like, but more importantly they want to know whether the seller can be trusted, whether the buying experience will be an easy one and how it will make them FEEL when they part with their money.
By Andrea Britton, Freelance Brand and Digital Communicator.
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