It is easy to miss something you are not looking for
I received an article in my inbox today (forwarded from emarketer) which opened with:
“Only 2.6% of US shoppers use blogs when researching purchases, according to a recent JupiterResearch survey cited in a March 2008 Internet Retailer article.
The statistic naturally seems to support the notion that advertising on blogs (or perhaps even blogging about a product) has little impact or marketing value. Immediately, my next thought was:
What percentage (%) of US shoppers uses their television or radio when researching purchases? I don’t need to run the survey, the answer is: 0% of US shoppers use television when researching purchases.
Think about it. Marketers continue to invest billions in television advertising, a medium that is used for entertainment, not for researching purchases. If marketers believe there is sufficient ROI to make these investments, would not a medium or channel that is actually sometimes used for research purchases (by 2.6% of buyers) be considered high quality by comparison?
This single metric also misses the idea of the “topical” proximity of blogs. For example, when I am watching “Prison Break” on television, I am not thinking about cars and do not intend or expect to engage with a car advertisement, but when I am reading Autoblog I am already concentrating on the topic, even though I may not be researching a purchase.
Here is a video which I first saw on Seth’s blog that perfectly illustrates: “It is easy to miss something you are not looking for.”. Of course, blogs are most effective as conversational tools, but they certainly do have marketing value.
March 20th, 2008 - Posted in Social Media | |
