Does your website cater to 'howsers'?

Another type of website visitor has been identified, one who has a high propensity to buy from a particular category but, in turn, has little clue as to what it is they need.

by Helen Leggatt

There’s a new word in the lexicon of marketing – ‘howsers’ – and it was recently coined by Linda Bustos of Elastic Path Software.

It has been derived from the description of two customer types already identified by Marketing Experiments – hunters and browsers.

- Hunters - they know what they want and they want it fast, they respond particularly well to navigation menus, site search and filters.

- Browsers – they are considering a purchase but need further persuasion, they respond well to lists of top rated products and best sellers, plus sale items and new arrivals.

Howsers are a mixture of the two – they need to purchase something specific but they’re not sure what it is they need. They are closer to a sales conversion than browsers, but need more guidance than hunters.

For instance, flowers for a female relative’s birthday. The ‘howser’ has to make a purchase, and knows they want flowers, but they don’t know what sort of flowers. They may want to know which arrangements are popular or which flowers are appropriate, or perhaps which flower types are matched to horoscopes.

Bustos’ comprehensive article is worth a read and goes on to detail how websites can “speak” to these different visitors, or personas, to keep them within a website and maximise sales conversions.