Continuing from Landing Page Types, I am going to cover customer types. Customers are more complicated than the landing pages, because there are many factors that create the mindset of each visitor.

I think the Eisenbergs have a reasonable approach to thinking about your customers. They use a modified Kiersey-Bates scale, separating people into four groups. There are many ways of splitting up personalities; but for the purpose of designing you will find the best value in models that are based on behavior. Because it is simple and behavioral I will use the same terms as the Eisenbergs:

• Humanistic – people who connect through human story, driven by emotions.
• Methodical – people who connect through logic, driven by information.
• Competitive – people who connect through comparison, driven by a mix of emotion and timing.
• Spontaneous – people who connect through immediate interactions, driven by a mix of emotion and information.

Your first challenge is think, truthfully, about whom your product is serving. If you are selling point and shoot digital cameras your customer is different than if you are selling a high-end digital SLR camera. But remember, temperaments are more of an indicator of style than need.

Humanistic buyers are the ones that care if people like a product. They are the most likely to be swayed by testimonials. Often they are concerned with ease of use and product support. You can improve your conversions with this type by displaying how you stand behind your products, or by telling them who you are.

Methodical buyers are the people who care about specs. They want to make a logical decision about a product’s relative value. They are also most likely to be price conscious, because they research to find a good value. Methodicals are more likely to gravitate toward things that can be researched and found to be the best option; they are the type of people who will spend a month researching before buying. You can better connect to Methodical buyers by offering them information.

Competitive buyers are the ones that are most likely to be early adopter or pre-sale buyers. Why you ask? Because they are competitive, they want to be the first to have something. They are also the buyers that are most likely drawn toward high-end products — if you can’t be first, be best. There are quite clearly two types of Competitive buyers, those that are feature driven and those that are benefit driven. Improving your conversions with Competitive buyers means selling brands that have social cache, or building your brand cache.

Spontaneous buyers are, I think, the most interesting temperament. These buyers are driven by impulse; they are most likely to engage time based messaging. Selling to Spontaneous buyers is often contingent on giving them enough information to support their decision. Converting a Spontaneous visitor into a customer can be as simple as offering a sale. It can be difficult to convert a Spontaneous buyer if you are offering something that they can get in a store, and have today. Shipping policies and incentive programs are good ways to target Spontaneous buyers.

Your next question to ask is: why is this person shopping online? Each of the temperaments uses the Internet in a different way.

Competitive and Methodical buyers are very likely doing research. They are also the buyers that are most concerned with features. These people come looking for the information to satisfy their desires, giving them more information than your competitors is one way to build their loyalty.

Humanistic and Competitive buyers are more likely to know what they want. The benefits driven Competitives buy based on branding so are less likely to need additional information. Humanistic buyers are most likely to be doing offline research, by asking friends and family or hearing a review from a trusted source. So these people come knowing what they want and your job is to reinforce their decision.

Spontaneous buyers are the most likely to be browsing, in part because they are generally curious people. Turning Spontaneous visitors into buyers means inciting an immediate desire, because they are the users who will take immediate action. Focus on features and on time.

I don’t think that the above descriptions are perfect; they leave out many of the supporting characteristics that contribute to decisions, like desire for process vs. completion, extroversion vs. introversion, or access to alternative buying channels. I want to address how short-term motivation affects each temperaments process, but that is too complicated for this post. So, for now, I will leave the description as is.