Retailer vs. publisher approach to customer engagement

An interesting article in MediaPost on what publishers can learn from online retailers about customer engagement. It differentiates between online retailers and publishers, useful for those who don’t really think of such difference… whether I am ‘shopping’ for stuff or information, it’s my objective and state of mind that matters, not their business models. Which is precisely what the article points out:

Online retailers want consumers’ money. They create their sites’ experience around customer needs almost exclusively. [ed. note: not very well, as we point out on this blog] Publishers, on the other hand, want advertisers’ money. This sets up a different dynamic than in online retail. Ask anyone at an online retailer who is king, and they’ll reply loudly, “the customer.” Ask the same question of a publisher, and you’ll get a split of responses between “the advertiser” and “the audience.”

There are two more reasons I am flagging this article up here. One is the following paragraph:

A year and a half ago, pop-ups were panned by the industry and the IAB as short-sighted money-catchers that would inevitably erode publishers’ appeal to their audience. Now, with more content choices than ever, and a growing consumer-narcissistic-centric orientation about media and advertising, it’s only a matter of time before a similar revolt is staged against page takeovers, expanding banners, ads with audio, video pre-roll, and every other interruptive format that advertisers “find effective” now, or hope to use to replace a flagging format in the future.

Does it mean that the message that interruptive advertising or ‘messaging’ is unacceptable to users is getting through? I wish!

The second point worth nothing is the mention of measurement. A long standing gripe of mine against the marketing types who cannot see the forrest for the trees, i.e. people for the user-metrics.

Meaningful engagement is not measured by duration of visit, or pages viewed. Retailers see high metrics here and fear their customers couldn’t find what they wanted, then begin immediately scouring their sites for more e-barriers to raze. Publishers, in contrast, exalt: more page views, more inventory, more advertiser revenue next month. But with this many people visiting via search, and many more who visit directly but still in “search mode,” publishers can safely assume that much of their audience is mission-driven. If their mission is not accomplished, and accomplished quickly, consumers will seek an alternative, and these metrics may turn out to be a red herring.

And finally something that is music to my ears:

However “engagement” will ultimately be defined, it will surely connote a consumer willingness to continue interaction, not a grudging reluctance. Think of all the habits we, as consumers, have altered because an outdated model has been exploded by changes to technology and media: we don’t sit in front of a travel agent’s desk while she types commands into a computer we can’t see; we don’t haggle impotently with car dealers; we don’t trudge from store to store looking for a replacement cooking grate for our barbeque grill; we don’t clip coupons; we don’t tally gains and losses in our portfolio using the morning paper and a calculator; we don’t hurry home to catch our favorite show; we don’t watch the commercials. Media models--particularly those in online media--that fail to regard the customer experience (and by that I mean customer expectations in an absolute sense, not relative to what the experience on a particular site used to be) as paramount will suffer. 

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