TechDirt Greenhouse Conference, June 10th 2006

My name is Olivier Chaine, the founder and CEO of SalesBuilderOnline.

I’m here to discuss one of my favorite topics, Behavioral Marketing. The underlying question is: why do so many companies fail to successfully engage their customers?

After all, behavioral profiling and targeting is not a new phenomenon. It’s what sales people do everyday.

Let’s say you walk into Best Buy.

Right as you walk in the door, they scan your appearance. What are you wearing? Do you have an old cell phone on your belt or is there a Bluetooth receiver in your ear? They are also looking at your implicit behavior. Do you wander all the aisles or go straight for one department? Are you standing in front of a particular TV or looking at Plasmas, LCDs, and Projectors? Are you looking at the specs and price tags or playing with the volume on the remote?

Before even asking you a single question, they’ve profiled you.
· You’re in the market for a new TV
· Its pretty urgent
· It’s not just any TV, it’s a Sony HD plasma you want
· Your price sensitive, or at least analytical, caring more about the specs than how loud the volume goes.

The sale rep has profiled you based on your appearance, behavior, questions, time of day, etc… and already knows what you want, when you want it, and what they need to do to make the sale (maybe get you to spend a little more)

Best Buy is only one example. The point is, companies have been doing this for years. Everyone from the corner grocer to the fortune teller, the con man to the car dealer profiles you in order to tailor their pitch and increase sales.

Why then, are so many companies so bad at this online?
The key is that Marketing is about a dialog.

The problem is, traditional marketing approaches have always tried to reach the maximum audience with broad messages. In other words, we’re talking broadcast or catalog. Maybe even brochure-ware.

In Behavioral Marketing, or “Marketing 2.0”, we create an individual dialog, where marketers engage prospects in a more tailored, personalized approach.

Behavioral Profiling takes a fundamental change in thinking.
A couple tips:

First, assess your customers as individuals. They aren’t just a demographic. Look and ask them what’s important to them, how they think, what they want and deliver compelling, personalized messages that engage them.

Secondly, don’t use contact forms. Profiling should involve engaging customers in meaningful dialogs, or conversations that deliver the information prospects seek and the data marketers and sales wants. Those dialogs should not be confined to the “Contact Us” area, but should be everywhere, whenever a customer might want to engage in that dialog.

Third, real-time response and communication is a MUST.
Is 24 hours fast enough? 1 Hour? How about 10 minutes? How long does it take someone to get distracted, or go back to Google and find a competitor who really wants the sale? This can increase conversion by 30, 50, 70% or more.
Finally, all of this needs to be measured and tracked. Instantly qualify prospects based on their profile. Measure and improve the customer experience(s) all the time. Whether that’s through clickstream analysis, drop-off rates, hitbox analysis, A/B testing, conversion metrics or all of these, marketing needs to analyze and optimize based on real peoples’ behavioral profiles.