Awakening the marketer within
I have no formal marketing qualifications. It’s a career I fell swiftly and awkwardly into. But I always liked to think of myself as an instinctive communicator. A charmer. So much of what we were advising clients to do or say felt to me like common sense. Be single-minded, be consistent, don’t use jargon, making people laugh is a good way to get them to like you etc. — I was a natural.
One of the tropes of technology marketing life is the hapless product manager who understands — and obsesses over — the features of their precious product, but singularly fails to connect these to actual customer benefits. The product presentation is all very rational and logical, but patently lacks the empathy and emotion required to influence perception and change behaviour.
Turns out that product manager is me.
Just take a look at the current iteration of the Race.Radio website. Yup, guilty as charged.
Eighty percent of the real estate is given over to explaining how clever the product is (and by extension how clever I am). As the inventor, I felt compelled to demonstrate how it works, and what makes it different to — and better than — competing solutions like two-way walkie-talkie handsets or smart cycling helmets. And in the process, I completely fail to appeal to the emotions.
Now in my defence, there are some extenuating circumstances. It’s early days. As I was building the site it was evident that a video with voiceover would have been by far the best way to show the product in action and communicate the benefits. Instead I had to settle on using some hastily chosen free stock photos to illustrate the potential use cases. Due to the limitations of Squarespace (and my even more limited design and coding expertise) I placed these in a carousel — five images, five scenarios — with a short benefit statement.
What the research said
I’ll jump straight to the conclusion rather than going into the detail on the methodology I used for my Master’s Industry Research Project (IRP). The two strongest predictors of someone’s likelihood to purchase (assuming the price was deemed acceptable) were first, the perception that Race.Radio would be useful and second, that it would be enjoyable to use.
Before completing the online survey, respondents — all regular cyclists — were first asked to spend a couple of minutes browsing the product website (which looked pretty similar to the current Race.Radio website). I used an analytics tool called Full Story to record and then watch users interacting with the site: how far they scrolled, where they paused etc.
Barely any of the 81 respondents stopped and interacted with the carousel unit. (I appreciate all the UX experts out there are going to be sat nodding smugly at this point). As it turned out, it didn’t even matter that three of the five pictures I’d chosen didn’t show the emotion on peoples’ faces, or that I’d darkened the images to make the overlaid text legible. Nobody even looked at them.
Let me spell this out:
The most important predictor of propensity to purchase is the perception the product would be useful and enjoyable to use. And the one section of the website attempting to show how users might enjoy using the product was largely ignored.
Injecting some emotion
It’s clear the website can do a much better job of demonstrating use cases and tapping into emotions. But before browsing the stock libraries for grinning groups of cyclists and googling “alternatives to carousels”, I wanted to spend some time thinking about the brand positioning and value proposition.
Forgetting for the moment about the virtual coach function, the product benefit is clear: Race.Radio helps cyclists communicate with other people while riding their bikes.
Starting here, it’s easy enough to imagine the scenarios where this need is most keenly felt: when the group is strung out across a hillside, when someone suffers a puncture and falls behind, or takes a wrong turn and loses touch. However, my hunch is that these scenarios have the potential to be far more motivating if they can be tied to an emotional benefit that goes beyond the practical need to communicate.
Needs Theory, developed by psychological theorist David McClelland, asserts that people are driven by one of three fundamental needs: achievement, affiliation and power. Considering this, it’s not hard to see why sport can play such an important role in people’s lives.
While cycling for the semi-serious amateur is very much about achieving goals, it’s also clear from talking to those that ride with clubs or in groups what a strong sense of affiliation they have.
Take Strava as an example, it’s invaluable as a means to record individual achievements, but its addictive nature is arguably due to the social features like ‘kudos’ that promote a sense of acceptance and belonging within the wider community.
I like riding alone. I relish the solitude, the space to think and time to reflect — and honestly, the opportunity to escape the grasp of technology for a couple of hours. Putting in a tough solo training ride or registering personal bests can be incredibly gratifying, but nothing compares to the feeling when I finish a big ride shoulder-to-shoulder with my brother. In short, cycling alone can be great, but it’s even better done together.
That’s how I’ve gotten to my brand essence: “shared endeavour”. It could just as easily have been “shared achievement” but I think that risks narrowing it to the moment of completion, and underplays the role that sustained effort and hardship can play in forging unbreakable bonds. I’m not sure this will necessarily speak to the recreational cyclist or commuter, but I’m aiming for the brand to resonate with the core target audience.
I’m beginning to feel like a marketer again.
