The adsonvids Blog: Consumer Behaviour

Showing posts with label Consumer Behaviour. Show all posts

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Connecting Online Where Your Prospective Customers Are Most Engaged

There is much being said online about the Attention Age, Attention Economy and the Noise of the Web. How does a small business possibly keep up with it all and even compete amongst the fray? Perhaps by going back to basics and standing out with an uncomplicated site and a very much in demand, single product offer, or by connecting personally as opposed to shouting loud sales messages in capitalized, red lettering, like so many are doing online.

When you only have a few seconds to catch an internet user as they are passing through, and yes, that is what they most often do, just pass through. Then you need to have something on your site that most people will connect with naturally, organically and will respond to immediately, these being the human face, movement or sound. So why not go with all three and put up a video to connect with your web visitors.

As the internet evolves and matures, your customers and site visitors are beginning to almost expect your site to have a video and are a little taken aback when there is not one in sight. To know where your prospective clients are, you only need to observe your own online behaviour more consciously and with awareness. You are an online consumer too, how do you behave? What attracts you when you land on an effectively optimized web site?

Hardly anyone has dial up connection any longer and so the amount of information that you are exposed to online is increasing daily. More people are creating online content and more people are accessing that information, and they then want to put their own spin on the topic, therefore creating yet more content. How do business owners cut through the clutter?

Adam (Ads) Onvids, from Perth in Western Australia, publishes blogs and articles for http://adsonvids.com.au to help you promote your local business online, using social media and web 2.0. Contact Ads at his eBusiness Card http://adam.adsonvids.com.au
Continue reading at... http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_V.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Reputation, Integrity & Business Ethics

Confucius (illustration from Myths & Legends o...

[Image] Do you want more sales? Then relationship selling is a great way to accomplish that goal. However, you must be prepared to consistently demonstrate your reputation, personal integrity and unquestionable business ethics if you truly embrace this sales strategy.

What makes relationship selling such an advantageous sales strategy? Simply speaking, it is all about people relating positively to other people. When I can relate to someone, I have the opportunity to begin to build trust. People buy from people that they trust before they buy from complete strangers.

The key to effective relationship selling is understanding how business ethics or values, reputation and integrity when united build a competitive advantage. Laurel Cutter was quoted as: Values determine behavior, behavior determines reputation; reputation determines advantages. When you consistently demonstrated those non-negotiable business ethics and personal values, you will create your own competitive advantage.

Read more of this article at Relationship Selling Unites Reputation, Integrity & Business Ethics to Increase Sales By Leanne Hoagland-Smith

What's happening in the local market?

[Image] Online shoppers, particularly in the real estate industry, and perhaps also your field of business, appreciate local knowledge. This is where a localised business directory like adsonvids.com.au really shines.

According to the NAR, 35 percent of online buyers also looked for "information about the area" - the next largest category behind listings. Fifty percent of buyers found "neighborhood and community information" extremely valuable, again the next largest category after listings and listings features such as photos, home addresses, and maps. School reports and crime data didn't even make the NAR's list, but agent contact information did - 40 percent of buyers found agent contact information extremely valuable.

What's missing in the whole online marketing strategy is the thing that can't be automated - what's happening in the local market. That's the one piece of information that can't be automated by any listings site. Only working agents and brokers know what's happening in their local market places.

Agents and brokers make reports on local market conditions - the one piece of information that consumers can't get anywhere - unless they talk to an agent who lives and works in that area.

Source: What Internet Consumers Want Besides Listings by Blanche Evans

Thursday, July 17, 2008

How to “Green” Your Marketing

Greenhouse gas emissions per capita in 2000

[Image] There’s no question that the environment is one of today’s “hot topics,” pun intended. Many consumers are now searching for ways to lower their carbon footprint, and creating a demand for eco-friendly products and services. It’s a new marketplace that is ripe for the picking for savvy marketers.
Do you offer a collection of green products but don’t know how to capture this new growing audience? Or are you an established green brand in fear of how to cope with an influx of competition?

Read some great tips on structuring a marketing campaign that shows your environmentally-friendly side.

Control and creativity within Australia’s media

A woman reading SMS messages on her mobile pho...

[Image] Many television programs can only be produced because of the revenue generated by viewer interactions through telephone or SMS voting. News services extract surplus value from the costly business of journalism through repackaging and representation on the Internet and, more profitably, through mobile phones.
It is within the following three characteristics that we might begin to discern the battleground for control and creativity within Australia’s media:
* interaction is the new content: by which I mean that there is an increased significance within the media of human interaction, as opposed to the previously dominant processes of creation, distribution, reception or discussion of content;
* distracted and fascinated: by which I mean the rise of user or audience behaviours that simultaneously embody much greater levels of engagement with media while at the same time reflecting an attitude in which users are easily distracted; and
* you can get it for “free”: by which I mean that media consumers understand that while some media and some information must be, should be, and often is paid for, that equivalent, similar or better media and information products can be obtained at no apparent or extra cost.

Read the full article at Traditional media and the new media audience By Matthew Allen

Internet information and users behaviour

Eslite Bookstore in Taichung Chung-yo Departme...

[Image] Information will be available anytime, anywhere, anyhow - but the real value lies in people.
People are now information publishers and relays, they’re giving it personal input and then make it worth to their friends and connections. They also become part of the influence information would have onto other people because they’re recommending it using social media tools.
What’s really important looking at the information sharing way of working in the new “social web” is whether information is consumed, used, and re-shared by adressees. Which means people are important, but the way they shape information to send it is way more important.

Read this series of articles on the topic of internet user experience written by Romain Péchard

Lemonade Out of Lemons

Like many gasoline stands in Japan, this Hiros...

[Image] Decreased fuel consumption may make gas station owners frown, but it could bring a smile to the faces of online business owners, whose products all of a sudden may have greater appeal to consumers looking to eliminate unnecessary shopping trips during the current gas crunch. To reach these frustrated drivers, consider creating new campaigns with ads that specifically point out where you have the gas-guzzling alternatives beat.

Find out what other ways the fuel costs impact your online business to your potential benefit.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Start Communicating with Consumers

[Image] The survey, Brand Engagement: What Consumers Really Think, shows not only the desire consumers have to engage with brands, but also the benefits brands may receive from communicating with consumers.
A main takeaway from our survey is that consumers want to talk to brands – and lots of them. But even more interesting is that 55% of survey respondents would prefer to have ongoing communication with brands, as opposed to one time.

See more about the survey results at Why Brands Should Start Communicating with Consumers by David Rubinstein

Are you beginning to the see the problem?

[Image] We want active consumers, because an active consumer is one who is buying. In this sense, active doesn’t mean getting off the couch, or even exercising, it means buying stuff. An active consumer is wonderful to brands.
Indeed, branding is about getting the name, and or product/consumer benefit in front of consumers so that when they are actively looking to buy something, they pick the thing we’re marketing.
So back to interactive. Outside of the notion that you can’t interact with a billboard, billboards certainly want to promote activity. Unlike Billboards, websites and banner ads and things that come out of the “interactive department” are interactive.
Are you beginning to the see the problem?
General advertising wants to promote activity, but it doesn’t demand it. General advertising doesn’t say, “Do it now.”

Source: Isn’t all marketing inter-active?

Number of internet users who view videos

[Image] Online video ad spending is growing in part from the large number of Internet users who now watch videos online—an audience eMarketer predicts will grow to 190 million in 2012.

More than six out of 10 consumers surveyed by The Kelsey Group in March 2008 said they had seen an online video ad.

The eMarketer Online Video Marketing report will be published next month.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Inspiration, Anyone?

Microsoft’s Digital Advertising group builds on their earlier efforts called Bring the Love Back. While it is a fun piece, there is obviously a serious agenda at play here.

The new movie is all about the possibilities of online advertising as an effective medium for reaching out to consumers and it’s started a real conversation which you can check out at bringtheloveback.com

Source: toddand.com

Return on Marketing Investment From Social Media

Paying people to hold signs is one of the olde...

[Image] Aberdeen Group survey of over 360 companies shows ROI from Social Media. As the popularity of social media continues to change the way people interact with each other and with companies, The Aberdeen Group found that top performing organizations that are using Web 2.0 applications are getting better than usual Return on Marketing investment.
What do these companies see as the best technologies for Web 2.0 engagement?

Read on... The Business Implications of Social Media by Sally Falkow

Internet Usage In Australia

[Image] ...broadband penetration in Australia has been rising dramatically over the past several years. A clear majority of households had a broadband connection in 2007, and in 2008 more than 63% of homes, numbering just over 5 million, are expected to be high-speed Internet subscribers. ADSL is by far the most popular broadband technology, projected this year to be installed in almost 4 million households. The use of cable technology for broadband access is a distant second, with 785,000 users projected for 2008.
Across the board, whether via ADSL, cable or other technologies, broadband penetration is expected to continue to climb through 2012, when more than three-quarters of households in Australia are projected to have broadband access of some type. It is safe to say that Australia, despite its small population, is poised to take a top spot among the giants of the industrialized world with regard to broadband penetration.

See all the pretty graphs at Broadband and Internet Use in Australia

Friday, July 11, 2008

Influence of the Internet

[Image] "The perception is that Americans over 50 only dabble on the internet, but we are finding that they are increasingly spending time online becoming involved in robust internet activities, such as online communities," said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. "In specific areas, there is often little difference in use of online technology between older users and some of the youngest users."
The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication created and manages the World Internet Project, including the Digital Future Project, which produces a broad year-to-year exploration of the influence of the internet and online technology on Americans. Since 2000, the project has examined and compared the behavior and views of internet users and non-users.

You can see all the pretty graphs and detailed stats at www.marketingvox.com

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Advertiser vs Consumer

This funny MSN ad shows the relationship between the advertiser and the consumer today. The clip was part of a presentation shown at Idea Forum 2007. It should give you a few ideas with regard what you're achieving with your current marketing strategies.

Video advertising is finally ready to bloom

[Image] December 2007, Americans watched 10 billion online videos, according to comScore... So many people are watching online videos, but so few advertisers are trying to reach them. So what gives? The problem for marketers is that the most popular video site, YouTube, is filled with user-generated content that is too edgy or unprofessional for brand advertising. Many online videos are too short for people to sit through “pre-roll” video ads that play before the content, and people don't like “overlay ads” that run during videos because they are intrusive. Another barrier for marketers is having to format ads differently for different video-sharing and media sites...

Despite all of these obstacles, there are signs that video advertising is finally ready to bloom

Future of Marketing

[Image] According to a recent BusinessWeek article, 11.2 percent of online adults in the U.S. publish content on a blog at least once a month, 24.8 percent read blog content and 13.7 percent comment on it. And the younger the demographic, the higher the number. The days of mainstream media monopolizing information is long gone, with certain blogs attracting millions of visitors each month as people seek out a more personal spin on information. And as the web becomes more social, people are beginning to value relationships and conversations more than the passive consumption of information. BusinessWeek’s concluding advice: “Catch up…or catch you later.”
Social media is a lot more than just blogs, however, and a combination of blogs, social news and networking sites, along with new ways of consuming media online (YouTube, Flickr, Last.fm) have changed the world of marketing and advertising.

Read more of the article by Muhammad Saleem at For the Future of Marketing, Look to Social Media

The Times They Are a-Changin'!

[Image] While not yet as ubiquitous as the television or as pervasive as the telephone, in the last twenty years, the Internet has climbed out of the obscurity of being a mere "researcher's tool" to the realm of a medium for the masses.
In March 2000, an estimated 304 million people around the world (including nearly 137 million users in the United States and Canada) had access to the Internet, up from 3 million estimated users in 1994. U.S. households with access to the Internet increased from 2 percent in 1994 to 26 percent in 1998, according to the National Science Board's (NSB) Science and Engineering Indicators 2000.
Eventually the Internet will make possible a broader and more in-depth experience than is currently available. "We're taking the computer from the two-dimensional 'desktop' metaphor and turning it into a three-dimensional 'shopping mall' model of interaction," says Tom DeFanti of the University of Illinois. "We want people to go into a computer and be able to perform multiple tasks just as they do at a mall, a museum, or even a university."

Did you spot the dates in that first paragraph? It's an interesting view back, (to not that many years ago) and at a view of the future. Explore more great information at the various links throughout The Internet: Changing The Way We Communicate and you'll clearly see why you must get aboard, now. Get in touch with Josh at adsonvids.com.au today.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Is your market “predictably irrational”?

[Image] Dan’s book, Predictably Irrational, is a fascinating look at the behavior of prospects, namely their tendency to behave in an illogical manner when you least expect it.
But in Dan’s research, he’s found “rational” prospects will actually exhibit irrational behavior time and time again–to the point of becoming extremely predictable in their choices.
In other words, no matter what the logical brain says, we make snap decisions based on other things, like emotions and societal norms. And we do it over and over again.
So what does that mean to you?

Find out by listening to Rich Schefren's interview with MIT professor and author, Dan Ariely

Increased Use of Video-sharing Sites

Comparison of high and standard quality YouTube...

[Image] 48% of internet users have been to video-sharing sites such as YouTube and the daily traffic to such sites on a typical day has doubled in the past year. The basic findings in a national phone survey that ended in December show:
# 48% of internet users said they had ever visited a video-sharing site such as YouTube. A year ago, in December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites. That represents growth of more than 45% year-to-year.
# 15% of respondents said they had used a video-sharing site "yesterday" -- the day before they were contacted for our survey. A year ago, 8% had visited such a site "yesterday." Thus, on an average day, the number of users of video sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007.

Sourced from a memo written by Lee Rainie at PewInternet.org Online Activities & Pursuits. You can download the PDF Report of the findings at that web site too.
For your business, make greater use of this internet trend. Josh explains how you can do that, at this adsonvids.com.au introduction video

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