Understanding your Customers Purchase Criteria

A lot of times product managers are so focused the details of the features that are being built and how customers will interact with them that they forget about how customers become aware of and purchase your product. What goes through the mind of a shopper when they are making that decision to purchase.

This reminds of me of what many of the top consumer goods companies do to understand their consumers. They set up a grocery store (fully stocked and functional) on site and watch consumers make their purchase decisions. This is probably why all the kids cereals are on the bottom shelf and all the ones with fiber and oats are at the top :) After they make a purchase decision they interview them and really dig into the psyche of the customer.

How many of us have had a competitor launch a whiz bang feature that you have never even consider? For example, in the early days of LCD TVs no one ever heard of 60Hz or 120Hz, etc. Now it's like an arms race with this stuff (just read the latest Crutchfield). A company made it a purchase criteria through its heavy marketing and then everyone had to follow suit. I'm willing to bet 99% of consumers could not tell the difference between 120Hz and 240Hz. The problem with this feature is that it is easy to duplicate, so any competitive advantage is fleeting.

So as many folks approach you about a feature, always keep in mind your customer and how they decide to make their purchase and don't think that it doesn't change. These criteria change!

Slide Share for Market Research

So a couple of weeks ago I blogged about how I use twitter to make my job as a product manager easier (Check it out here). However, there are some deficiencies with Twitter which I will briefly describe and then I'll dive into another tool I have used (and continue to use) SlideShare.

Twitter Challenges

• Perhaps It's just me, but I don't really find twitter for researching topics outside of the folks I follow. For example, If I'm doing research for "online marketing" on twitter...the results are just not that helpful. If your network on twitter is not strong in an area of research you have to go find folks to follow and it just isn't quick or easy enough to identify experts and move forward. I want my research on the quick!
• The strength of twitter being only 140 characters, can also be a weakness. It can be harder to determine if the link is meaningful enough for me to click on. I find myself clicking on shortened URLs trying to find something and it's just not a good use of time. This is where search is easier in my opinion.

SlideShare, on the other hand, has rich content and is easily searched. It's a great source of secondary market research. You don't always have access to analyst reports, etc., but you can find some content online at SlideShare. The slides are great and very visual which, as a product manager who sometimes needs to convey complex topics in an easily understood fashion, is very valuable. There is so much great content there, I can easily spend hours. Check it out here.