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March 14, 2007

For most people today, it's often not what you see online, but what you see in other marketing channels, according to a BIGresearch survey performed by the RAMA (the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association). On average, about forty-seven percent of Internet users said they search online after exposure to advertising or products in magazines.

Approximately 42 percent of consumers said it was after being exposed to newspapers, while 43 percent said it was while reading articles elsewhere.

Mike Gatti of the RAMA says that "overall, when it comes to advertising, retailers always need to be careful not to put all of their eggs in the same Internet basket." "While search engine marketing (SEM) continues to be a very popular strategy, retailers should not lose sight of traditional advertising channels to promote products and services," added Gatti.

Sometimes, the urge to search online comes from coupons and in-store promotions. Women were more likely than men to be motivated this way (42 percent vs. 29 percent for coupons and 29 percent vs. 25 percent for in-store promotions, respectively).

On average, men were more driven than women to start an online search based on a face-to-face conversation (36 percent vs. 30 percent, respectively).

After the online search comes the word-of-mouth referral. Over 67.2 percent of online consumers communicate about their search face to face. Over 54 percent use email or the phone, while about 30 percent use cell phones.

Other popular methods of communicating about the search among adults aged 18 to 24 include instant messaging, texting and social networking.

The fact that so much online product searching starts and sometimes ends with offline media, presents opportunities for online marketers. If a consumer reads the newspaper in the morning, she may search about a product mentioned in an ad once she gets to work, and then tell a friend about what she found when calling at night.

A campaign that included morning-edition news and search marketing could be reaping the benefit of that night's word-of-mouth. Multitaskers, by engaging with more types of media, may encounter even more of these product search start points than those who don't use multiple media.

As Joe Pilotta of BIGresearch asserted in an interview with eMarketer, multitasking "is not a problem but a fact of consumer behavior."

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Source: eMarketer