Category Archives: Behavioral Marketing

What causes consumers to search online?

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The one thing that makes social media marketing so attractive lies in four words: word-of-mouth marketing. This is one of the most effective and credible forms of marketing a product or service and is the reason why so many companies feel the need to have a presence on many social networking sites. However, these social media users prefer a different type of interaction to help them inspire or prompt an online search…

According to a recent survey, conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), they found that in-person, face-to-face communication was a social media users’ top reason to start an online search for a specific product or service.

The study revealed that social media users were even more influenced by face-to-face word-of-mouth than an average adult’ opinion found online.

This preference of face-to-face communication held across all age groups within the survey, and the only difference among any age group was that 18- to 34-year-olds were more likely to search online because of something they had seen on cable television, which was a smaller force among older users.

The study also demonstrated that online communities, such as MySpace and Facebook, influenced less than one-quarter of social media users to search for a product or service which is still a notable percentage. When it came to gender differences, men were marginally more likely than women to report such an influence from a social networking site and age had an even larger effect. Among the 18-to-34 group, nearly three in 10 searched because of social networks, compared with less than 20% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 15.3% of those 55 and older.

More than 71% of the respondents communicated about a service, product or brand in person after an online search, compared with only 21.6% who spread the word via sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Not all digital communication was shunned, however; about one-half used e-mail to tell others what they had found.

Social media users are particularly attractive to marketers because they are more likely to both look for and give purchase advice than the general population. Word-of-moth marketing continues to be one of the most valuable marketing tools available to companies so they should be focusing a lot, but not all of, of time in the online arena, especially in social media.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

Hispanics turn to the Web!

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A study from AOL found that Hispanic Web users are more likely to be more trustworthy in the information they find online. The Hispanic population is a relatively younger market on the internet but their numbers are growing.

The study concluded that nearly three-quarters of Hispanic Web users had confidence in product rating sites, for example, compared with 28% who put more stock in the opinions of their friends. Many of the other results of the study are provided in the graph below:

This study also showed that Hispanics were:
• More likely to turn to the Web in almost every phase of the purchase decision (from learning process to brand awareness to final purchase decision)
• More likely to be online via mobile technologies
• Less likely to use email or talk over the phone or in person
• More likely to share deals or information with friends from online sources

Here is a graph that demonstrates the Hispanics use of communication:

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

Top SEO Trends for 2010

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Out with the old and in with the new! A new year has begun and keeping up with SEO trends should be at the top of your to-do list. So for 2010 here is a list of trends to keep an eye out for:

  • Site Speed – Site speed may be used as a new ranking factor in 2010. Make sure your pages load quickly by decreasing load time. “The order of things on your page will affect its load time, so make sure you’re using proper HTML, and cleaning up your CSS and JavaScript so that users aren’t left waiting when they try to access your site.”
  • Mobile – Research done by Neilson shows that there are now 56.9 million people looking for information on mobile web sites, which is up 34% from last year. First you should find out how your site performs on small devices. There are paid services which provide feedback for this. Then, once it is functional, take advantage of Google’s new mobile services and free online coupons.
  • Online Video – YouTube was made the second largest search engine last year. With larger companies dropping out, more space is available for small to medium sized companies which could use the attention. So make a video and post it soon!
  • Reputation Management Meets Real-Time Search – “When Google put real-time search updates into the SERPs they unleashed a potential online reputation problem of epic proportions. They essentially opened the floodgates to give angry customers immediate power in the search results. You no longer have a window to reach out to an angry tweeter to ask them to amend their update or tone down that Blog post. Google is pulling from tweets, from Blogs, from news, from articles and other Web content and throwing it immediately into your search results, often right above your own site. All of this means that you need to be even more vigilant about monitoring the conversation in an attempt to protect your brand. For a small business owner, your best line of defense is to build a listening station that will help keep you abreast of conversations as they happen.”
  • Increased Awareness of Local – “If you haven’t tied up all your local listings and profiles, it is beyond time to do that. The search engines, especially Google, are looking at the consistency and completeness of your local listings in order to rank you for relevant queries. That’s a huge ranking factor that is 100 percent in your control. Take advantage of it!”

Information Provided by: Smallbiztrends.com

Written by: Samantha J Stephan

Are You Skipping Through Ads on TV and Radio?

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Studies show that people are skipping through more ads in 2009 than in 2008.

The Synovate company took a worldwide survey for “IN:FACT global study on media and advertising” showing that consumers were not too ad-friendly. When it comes to TV, about two thirds of the population surveyed thought that there were too many ads, and 39% said the same for the Internet.

Some people seek out ads to share or discuss with their friends and family, but when it comes to North Americans, they are trying harder to avoid advertisements. Over four in ten US consumers said they were skipping over the ads on TV and radio. People in this region are also avoiding Websites with intrusive ads more in 2009 than in previous years.

According to the company’s results, “When asked about positive ad-related activities, such as searching for advertisements online, sharing and discussing ads with friends, or following brands on Facebook and Twitter, responses were in the single digits. Most consumers reported never doing any such activities.”

Behavioral marketing seems like an appropriate answer. In fact, when Synovate asked about targeted television and Internet ads, 42% responded positively.

“But the majority of those who were up for receiving behaviorially targeted ads insisted that the information collected not be personally identifying. Respondents in the US and Canada were among those most concerned about privacy issues, and most likely to reject behavioral targeting on that basis.”

Information provided by: eMarketer.com
Written by: Samantha J. Stephan