You know what your clients buy….. So what !!!

I visited the Data IQ conference yesterday, not really sure what to expect, was it going to be dry speakers just talking about data, or would it relate well to my role as a marketer.

Well I was very impressed with the whole day. The venue of near St Pauls, was very impressive, great spavces to network, meet people, good wi-fi , great coffee machines and friendly staff.

The speakers ranged from Google, to Nectar card, Pfizer and one of favourite a physiologist  Mathew Bayfield from TREE in London.  My favourite , well because it focussed on the people side of data, the reason we are motivated and how that affects us in all areas of our lives, including on-line. 

I thought I would share a taster of the talks that I attended – sharing a few nuggets with you:

Mathew said that we now have access to lots of information about people on line, but all this data we can gather concentrates on what we do or buy and not why.

And to really understand what makes people buy our product we need to know what motivates people. Examples of motivation include the need to be loved, need for security , the need to be famous… and each and every time we do something we are trying to achieve one of these aims.

He said – start by really understanding what motivates you, and that’s a little scary – but I am going to give it a go, and think about why I do what I do.

He gave a great example of how understanding motivation can help a company succeed – Nokia ruled the mobile space for years, they concentrated on great battery life and a good dependable phone, but Apple came along, they understood that our motivation for having a phone was connectivity, Viola the phone that lets us connect in so many ways, and even with a not so great battery, we love smart phone technology. And Nokia, well they were left behind.

They created a research project and looked at a number of factors to see what we are like on line.

They looked at it from a generational points of view:

Do younger and older people have different attitudes and fears about being on –line.

It was decided, no they just had different ways of dealing with the issues, for example – privacy, if you are a person concerned about privacy, that will be the case from a young age, younger people just create loads of profiles and log-ins, where older people tend to use security software and secure sites.

They asked questions like:

• How involved are you on line (do you create content, add to discussions etc)
• Could you live without the internet
• Is the Internet a waste of time?
• Is protecting yourself important?  (would you tweet about yourself)

He closed with saying that in 3-5 years we will all have a value attached to us, we are walking data.

Some great points…. Have you analysed what makes you or your customers buy… I mean really looked at it? I know I need to do a lot more of this.