The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

Of course, one never wonders far from what one loves, in the heart and mind if not with the feet.

Case in point, we've known for a while that NextStage's Evolution Technology (ET) can determine if visitors to websites are behaving...umm...fairly(??) when they fill out forms, et cetera. We didn't know how it could do it, only that it was in there somewhere.

Well, never give Joseph some spare time, he'll find a way to fill it. Back on 18 Sept 07 some fellow KMMers emailed me Social networking sites: Almost two thirds of users enter false information to protect identity. This article starts with "London, UK - 18 September 2007 - Nearly two thirds (62%) of networking sites users say they are worried about the safety of their personal data held on these sites, reveals a survey conducted by email research specialists, emedia, using its RapidResearch service. The concern is so high that almost one third of users (31%) have already entered false information about themselves to protect their identity."

This isn't news to me or NextStage. One of the first things we told clients way back when was that -- in general!!! -- people will fabricate information on the web more often than they won't because the social and cultural cues prohibiting "lying" aren't available to them.

This same topic reared its head again during the recent XChange conference when we were discussing people in person versus online giving information necessary to receive information. I suggested that people will be more honest when providing health and investment information than, say, vacation information. There's a higher psychological price (again, in general) assigned to health and investments than to vacations.

Anyway, I had a few days to spend analyzing the problem and finally figured out the math necessary to map online behaviors to which parts of the brain were active when information was being provided online regarding Veritas (the name of the report that provides this information, incidentally). The rest of this post covers a seven day cycle, 27 Sept - 4 Oct 07, for several industries that NextStage monitors.

Deceitful behavior is both a boundary and defense mechanism. Think of a cat poofing its tale, a dog bristling it's back, things like that. These mechanisms engage to make the animal appear larger than it is. It is, in a sense, being deceitful, making itself appear larger than it is, to protect itself or its territory. Thus, when there are no forms to fill out, et cetera, and ET is picking up fabricational behavior it is an indication site visitors are uncomfortable with the website they're navigating. Similarly, truthful behavior is an indication visitors are comfortable with the website they're navigating.

Let's start with B2B sites shown here on the right. Practically 2/3s of the people on all B2B sites NextStage monitors are comfortable enough with the site they're navigating to fill out forms honestly and accurately. Probably a good thing because they're making business purchases. It wouldn't be good to order a skiploader one couldn't pay for or maintain properly.

I'll be posting similar information on the different verticals NextStage monitors over the next few days. Stay tuned (I know, not quite "more to follow". I'm branching out, okay?).

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Upcoming Trainings:

• Audience Focused Optimization

• DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
• Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.