We read all the time that people are buying differently now. They are interacting with your brand differently and therefore we all need to consider how we can sell differently. I had one heck of an example of this as my husband and I headed out to purchase a TV recently.
It should be noted that my husband and I vary significantly in regard to how we buy. I love the relationship aspect of things. He loves reading online reviews. I am a quick start. He enjoys research. I am in marketing and design. He is literally a strange combination of lawyer and engineer. In addition, it should be noted that our ages vary slightly. I am in my mid to late twenties and he is in his early to mid thirties.
We spent four and a half months sans television. For me that meant four and a half months of discussing what we wanted, how important it was to us and what features we were looking for. For my husband, those four and half months meant RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!
So, we started our day at a giant chain store that sells televisions among a lot of other electronics. We stood between two televisions and talked to a sales person for nearly an hour. I could see my husband's anxiety level rising without his computer in front of him to help direct his decision. He had low trust in this sales person, with a nice blue shirt on, while I liked the guy and had a lovely time with him and his 3D glasses as we checked out the next generation televisions (outside of our budget).
The husband soon broke up our party by indicating that he needed to go home and do more research - he was not ready to buy and nothing this guy would do could change that. So, we headed home, refueled and he spent 2+ hours on his trust-worthy computer.
We headed back out that evening. This time to a local store that promised knowledgeable staff and good value. We spent another hour there, enjoyed the VERY knowledgeable staff person, and walked out empty handed.
We headed home again. My husband stayed up until 2 am continuing to research while I slept upstairs with dreams of flat screens and high definition pictures fluttering through my head. The next morning he announced that he was ready. So, we fueled up and headed back to store number one (he had higher trust in their brand although their staff person didn't seem as informative). We literally walked in, talked to no one, he picked up one end of the TV while I picked up the other and we headed to the check-out.
There are so many lessons in this story but here are a few that I pulled out. My husband, a well educated thirty-something, needs his online research. He trusts referrals and online communities but at the end of the day he buys from the well-known brand, not the sales person. He's a funny combination of new and old school while being proof that marketing is evolving but the basics continue to stay the same.
As for me, I also find comfort in the online communities, the sea of reviews and flooded comments on quality, but at the end of the day, I like the experience. I like the guy with the 3D glasses who talks to me about the new town that I just moved to.
Dear Future Me,
Good luck house shopping!
No comments:
Post a Comment