Making Important Decisions the Marketer’s Way
So I’ve been researching some pretty important data to make what I feel is a life-changing decision. The words of respected marketing scholar Bill Swinyard ran through my head and I remembered a lecture he gave about consumer behavior. Using what he called the “behavior matrix,” he went through a graphical approach to practical problem solving situations. Applying it to my current circumstances proved wonderfully effective.
I also sat down with my brother-in-law who is considering what to study in college and we discussed which major to choose. Like I had done, he was simply weighing the possibilities in his mind and trying to form a decision based on his gut feelings. We tried out using the behavior matrix, and it provided so much direction that he now feels like he has identified the major that will satisfy him the most.
Here’s a walkthrough of that encounter, and hopefully your application of it in your own business decisions may prove useful.
First of all, we listed all the factors that were important to my brother-in-law of the decision itself, namely:
- Ease of comprehending content
- Interest in subject material
- Future job possibilities
- Hands-on experience
Second, he figured a relative value for each factor on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being essential to the decision and 1 being absolutely unimportant. Then, it was a matter of researching each option and assigning a value representing how well the option fulfilled the factor. The result was a matrix like so:
| Factor | Importance | Communications | Biology | Business Marketing |
| Ease of Content | 7 | 7 | 3 | 5 |
| Interest | 9 | 8 | 4 | 7 |
| Future Jobs | 10 | 7 | 5 | 9 |
| Hands-On | 6 | 7 | 10 | 7 |
Finally, we multipled the importance factor by each major and added them up:
- Communications: 233 total points
- Biology: 167
- Business Marketing: 216
Based on these figures, and the research we did, it appears that Communications would be the major that most closely matches up with my brother-in-law’s interests. Again, it doesn’t necessarily take into account everything, but it sure helped him identify what was important and which decision gets closest. In a marketing sense, one could apply this behavior matrix to factors of a website to try to align the site to what is important to the user. But that, in detail, is for another day. :)
Search Engines, the Answer?
In response to many online marketing constraints, many webmasters favor search engines for these reasons:
- Getting listed usually is free.
- Search engines are almost always the starting point for most users.
- Organic results (results obtained from non-paid sources) are more trusted than paid ads.
- Search engines are major thoroughfares for the bulk of internet activity, and as such, can refer high amounts of traffic.
- Users spend more time on sites referred by search engines.
Yes, search engines are highly effective at producing targeted traffic. And, they are all of those things. No web site can expect moderate or better success without passing through search engines at some point. But the door swings both ways:
- Search engines are not perfectly relevant and are updated frequently without notice to improve relevance, necessitating sometimes drastic changes to web sites to maintain ranking position.
- Search engines often take weeks to months to even list your site. For exceptional results, on average, they require years of consistent modifications.
- Algorithms that determine relevance are highly safeguarded by search engine companies. Thus, no one outside the company knows positively every factor that will improve rank.
- Sites compete over search engines more easily than offline. For most keywords, small businesses are unable to segment themselves away from bigger companies without incurring substantial expenses that they are unable to afford.
Search engines are definitely one answer to improving marketing strategy online, but clearly not the answer.
The Internet Marketing Mix
Hello again. For the last three weeks, I’ve been out of country visiting Guatemala and Ecuador. So it feels good to be back, although I do miss being with my friends of South America.
In response to the increasing surge of SEO wanna-bes, I’ve decided to write a book. This is my first attempt at book writing but certainly not the last, I hope. The working title right now is “The Internet Marketing Mix: Strategies for Capturing E-Commerce.”
Right now, I’m completing chapter two and should be finishing the book within the next month I hope. The link here will take you to a PDF file that includes the introduction. As always, I’m actively seeking feedback, so send it on in!
Internet Marketing Mix Preview [PDF] 512KB
