I’ve often counseled that you need to solve your customers’ problems to be a successful Internet marketer. For B2B businesses, you might be able to figure out how to do that. If you’re a consultant or a technology maker or a service business, you know why your customers need you and you can design your marketing to explain what problem you solve, as well as why you do it better than others. But some businesses seem to have a much bigger challenge. I mean, what problem can K-mart solve? It would have been easy for them to give up and just push merchandise, but they didn’t. Sometimes you need to put on your thinking cap, but the benefits are enormous if you do.
Check out how K-mart helps you shop for Christmas gifts:
Think about what this means. You are looking for a gift. You know who you are buying for. 
But you have no idea what to buy. This gives you the answer. Christmas gifts are the the problem to solve for the purchaser, and it is a very different problem than buying something to solve your own problem. K-mart understand that by giving you this neat way of choosing the recipient and going from there. It’s a lot easier than trying to think up whether Johnny wants electronics and going to the electronics section and then realizing you don’t have the slightest idea of what a teenage boy wants as you slowly slink to the gift card display.
Target has the same idea, as shown at right, but I don’t think it is executed as elegantly. It repeats the word “gifts for” over and over and doesn’t have any pictures. The words are much harder to read on that red background, also. Give Target credit for the right thinking, but K-mart wins on design.
It’s interesting to see how the ideas differ, also. I like how Kmart has a category for pets. Target doesn’t have that, but give them points for isolating a “couples” category that is a vexing problem for some shoppers. Regardless of the designs, both Kmart and Target are thinking clearly about what problem they can solve for their customers this Christmas.
If you look closer at Kmart’s approach, you see even more solid thinking. They don’t just offer gift ideas based on recipient, but also based on budget (Gifts Under), popularity (Top Gifts), by age or even personality (such as entertainer or trend setter). My favorite is the last minute gift ideas:
It’s a thing of beauty. Who among us hasn’t had to quickly get something for the office party or a grab bag? Or need one more stocking stuffer to fill it up?
Do you work this hard for your customers? Figure out what their real problems are and solve them—they will repay you with their cash.
