Hello! Is It Me You’re Looking for? – The Three Mindsets of #Search

It’s customary at the start of every New Year for many people to take stock of their life and the year that is slowly fading in your memory. We come up with a list of New Year’s resolutions, sometimes agonising over them and then spending hours writing them out, putting them into order of preference and for the more organised amongst us, writing a detailed action list to help us stick to our newly-laid plans…. And then we forget about them.

Source - Pithless Thoughts 

We can resolve to change our habits but more often than not, the habitual nature of everyday activities – making breakfast, our daily commute, searching the internet - are shaped by the reason we are undertaking the activity in the first place.

And this is important specifically when it comes to shaping our paid search campaigns.

If you want to make a difference to your search advertising this year, you need to stop focusing on searcher habits and try and get a better understanding of their mindset. If we truly understand a searcher’s intent, we will dramatically increase a search marketing campaign’s success and be better positioned to help users down the purchase funnel towards a conversion.

Mind over matter:

So journey, if you will, into the mind of the searcher. Anyone engaged in Search marketing has at one time or another struggled to motivate searchers. The process of conversion actually starts long before reaching search results.

Humans react to need, want, and a multitude of triggers that lead them in one direction or another. Inspiration comes from all over the place whether it is from a radio program, a passing car, or even a man chasing his dog in Richmond Park. From there, our mindset begins to develop.

A recently released study by About.com identifies three distinct mindsets in search. The paper illustrated that search engine users find content and information in one of three broad mindsets - Answer me, Educate me and Inspire me.

“What does it mean to me?” I hear you ask. This research offers insight into understanding a user’s motivation behind their search, but more importantly how agencies and advertisers can create ads and content that meets the needs of the individual and appeals to each specific mindset.

Source: The Three Mindsets of Search – About.com

Answer Me

Users that fall into the Answer Me camp are by far the largest and account for 46 percent of all searches. They want to find exactly what they’re looking for, without any other superfluous information, and they want it quickly.

The search may not be of an urgent nature; for example, they may be trying to remember the name of a film they saw recently which continues to escape them or the location of county a friend has visited.

The most interesting aspect of the research into Answer Me searchers is that expertise in the website answering the question is less important for these searchers.

The survey showed this type of search is most common in the entertainment or health and beauty verticals. In order to better align your ads and content for Answer Me searchers:

• Keep product or service benefits at the forefront of your ads. The expertise and knowledge you may provide is seen as a secondary – or in some cases superfluous – benefit so no need to include it.
• Make sure that your ads align with your content and that it addresses the query quickly and precisely. By getting to the point quickly the user should, hopefully, know that they have arrived at the answer they wanted and convert.

Inspire Me

The second largest group is the Inspire Me camp. They account for 28 percent of searches and are more susceptible to guidance and open to inspiration. They want to be taken on a journey and in most cases can be researching more than one topic at a time. As a man, apparently I would be flying in the face of human biology if I had the ability to multitask although I definitely fall into this group with my aimless Internet wanderings.

Searchers will continue down this path as long as time allows but only if content is interesting and speaks directly to their tastes.

The research also showed a significant shift away from reliance on expertise from within the industry. These searchers are more likely to rely on their friends and other social media for their information.

This type of search is most common when researching holidays or looking for inspiration on how to redecorate the living room. To cater your content and ads for the Inspire Me searcher by:

• Present your information in a number of formats – features, images, interactive – whenever possible. This searcher is looking to explore so make sure they are engaged
• This user wants to be lead towards a final decision but the journey is an integral and welcome part of their search. Aim to inspire their imagination and creative sides with your messaging, and create ads that allude to endless (amazing) choices.

Educate Me

The smallest set of searchers, that still make up over a quarter of internet users, is the Educate Me crowd. Research shows that Educate Me people are not in fact all dark-rimmed glasses wearers, with their underwear pulled up over their head by the “cool kids” at school as popular culture would suggest. The Educate me users account for 26 percent of searchers and are open to a greater volume of content and links to other resources.

They are looking to be educated on a subject and will continue reading and following a line of thought until they feel they’ve garnered sufficient information about the topic. They tend to look for a variety of viewpoints and sources, with the search spanning a number of sites. Looking at a university prospectus these days will show you that education reaches as far afield as astrophysics, to surfing and back to carpentry, and therefore the field of interest to this searcher is also broad. However, the research suggests the most common areas for this type of research is in finance. This is due to personal finances being an area where we need to establish trust with whoever is giving us advice has made an informed decision after so much recent economic turmoil.

Unlike the other two mindsets, expertise is of utmost importance to the Educate Me crowd. They are looking for a recognised expert in the field or an accredited professional to answer their question.

In order to appeal to Educate Me searchers you must:

• Gives detailed information from an official or trustworthy expert. The ads need to offers an opportunity for them to learn more from a variety of differing viewpoints.
• Your ads need to click through to content that is in-depth and sounds like the definitive voice in the field. If they know they have arrived at the definitive statement, they won’t need to look further afield, at competing websites.

“I’m in two minds”

It is important to note that it is incredibly rare for a user fall into just one of these mindsets. Everyone participates in each type of search and their mindset is not related to anything like age or gender. It has to do with the product or service they are searching for and how far along they are in a decision-making process they are.

The research shows that consumers do look to brand messaging for expertise, provided the advertising is the right kind for their search mindset. Seventy-seven percent of those questioned agreed that ads can be very useful when relevant to their search.

This study offers a better understanding and valuable insight into the way consumers search online. So the next time you are creating or amending ads or content, don’t think about our habits. Make it your new year’s resolution to understand where your products and services fit, and to which mindset they would best appeal.

Oh, and eat less cake.