Archive for the ‘Online Consumer Behavior’ Category
Friday, June 15th, 2007
Show help and earn new subscriber
Positioning newsletter subscription link beneath the site search button will fulfill visitor’s perceived experience and convince them to subscribe. Also a Customer service link in same place will increase visitor trust on your site, so they can give personal email address to sign for newsletter.
Entertaining the customer at Page footer
Web page footer cannot be ignored. Survey found that most of the internet customers tend to scroll down to seek the company address, more info and contact us information. So Placing a link for newsletter subscriptions at page footer will get more response.
Popup to sign up
Popup is not evil as perceived by many. Although they have sullied reputation, they can be tested on the landing page if potential subscriber or first page of the marketing site. Trying many different pop up format is very important for success.
“Cash only promotion”
Display of Free add-on promotions will provide extra incentive for the subscriber to join the newsletter. Means more audience and revenue.
Email format to remind your Brand
Newsletter subscribers relate the email format with Brand name. So, Customer may not recognize your newsletter email in case of any format changes. Use the same email template for newsletter; also send them in rotating schedule. Including one or two new or specific promotion or benefit of being your subscriber will prevent the existing subscriber
from trashing the newsletter without reading.
Posted in Internet Marketing, Newsletter Marketing, Online Consumer Behavior | No Comments »
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
I was reading an internet marketing article titled Advertising on the Web published on Admap magazine written by Rex Briggs from World Advertising Research center.
Rex was explaining the conceptual mistake in measuring “clickthrough” (CTR) ratios as Brand enhancement. Although everyone agree that Banner ads increases the Brand awareness and Brand value, so far there is no credible factor can be used to track the performance of Banner ads.
The article categorically rejects following assumptions
• Brand enhancement can happen only on the web site
• Brands have more to say than can be conveyed in a banner.
• “Clickthrough” should be sought by all advertisers
• The level of “clickthrough” determines brand enhancement
Rex argues that Banners doesn’t require any click or interaction from consumers if they are intended for Brand enhancement. His analysis indicates that consumer click on banners because the ad is relevant to the content and inducing for engagement. Also the consumer perceives an immediate need that can only be fulfilled by click through to a website where the ‘promise’ made in the banner is delivered.
Unfortunately there is no credible reason why consumer need to click on Banner ad, which require no immediate action from consumer. If that is the case, all the TV ads should have generated tremendous sales by the next day of advertisement?
So ads seeking to increase Brand enhancement or Brand value doesn’t need to be clicked. They must be simply seen by customer in right place and right time. Because 96 percent of the boost in ad awareness was caused by the banner exposure alone. The remaining four per cent was caused by click through. Rex asserts that this patter is consistent across various brand enhancement measure we measured.
Posted in Consumer Search Behavior, Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Online Consumer Behavior, Search Engine Advertisement | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
In my last posting I was discussing the basic features of an adwords ad
1. value proposition
2. Third party endorsement
3. calling to action
4. Special wording that might relate to consumer perceived thinking.
But missed out the important characterstic of search engine ad that is “Appealing”.
As we know appealing is a fundamental concept of any advertisement. Appealing techniques that apply to
traditional advertising mediums (call them legacy 
) like TV, newspaper and radio
will go good with Search Engine advertisement too.
Appealing comes with two choices, either it can be Emotional or Rational.
But that choice is depended on the product type, that advertiser is intending to sell.
Rational Ads
Writing Rational ads that sells cognitive related products in other words products related to thinking , analyzing and
Calculation will give higher click through ratio (CTR) and better conversion rate.
Product which requires higher involvement of customer time, efforts can be sold easily by rational adwords ads.
For example, selling book about Internet marketing Secret or ads for outsourcing or fixed wing aircraft part retail store.
Emotional Ads
Adwords ads, that sells / promoting emotional products (example Jeans, Valentines Gift, Music or selling Britney Spears’s hair )
should have the blend of both emotional and entertaining appeal.
Please aware, entertaining ads might attract visitors who has no intention of buying by expense of google adwords click.
It is very hard to sell visitors who is
• Seeking fun or curious
• Some kind of social interaction like pen pal, online dating
• Looking to pass time like chatting, forum posting, reading news
• Escaping from boring work or job, Information overload
Such users are good for implanting the Brand name but can not be counted for direct response.
As per Hoffman’s Network Navigational theory of internet Advertisement!
Extrinsic Searchers, who has motive behind the search ( looking to buy a product, researching a online service or product)
traverse (browser) more than one organic search result page before clicking on any search engine adwords ads.
Intrinsic Searchers (who is looking for entertainment or lost in world wide web), doesn’t care about adwords ads or organic search results.
They simply click on any hyperlink whichever attracts their attention first.
Posted in Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Online Consumer Behavior | No Comments »
Saturday, February 10th, 2007
What made me to think about this! Ha, It was about 6 years ago me on my way to work to Manhattan. When I happen to ask the fellow commuter for the direction and name of subway station that I need to use to reach British consulate office, which I was planning on doing in couple of days. He gave me a weird look why are you asking me about that and why don’t you search on net!. Today! I will have the same look if somebody asks me similar question. So that brings me to write this….
According to Internet Marketing Association, the usage of Search Engine is rising 9% every year, on 2003 it was 35%. Thought I can give a try to find all the type of search performed on Search Engines.
My immediate reaction was reaching Google and typing keyword “search types on search engine”. My eyes were glued on the first result http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/ToolsTables.html for a while until I found it is not specific. The rest of the first page results are either some search tool or adsense affiliate marketing sites with page full of shouting “Buy Now” and “Click here”. Then tried yahoo, considerably good links but most of them were outdated say 5 to 3 years old.
Then turned my search to scholar.google.com ? voila! Presented with useful link primarily research and thesis papers …Google is Google. ( I hope the researchers and scholars don’t turn themselves to search engine optimization for higher visibility).
My learnings on Search Types given below
Navigational
Looking for a specific web site that I have in mind. Although I can guess the URL , the only reason I am searching through Search engine is that it is more convenient than typing the URL. Or don’t know the URL. Scholars call such searching as Navigational
Example:
Easy Jet airline
University hospital Chicago
Car blue book
Directed
When someone want to learn something in particular about a topic. From our example, rather looking for generic terms “keyword search types” say I want to know type the of search performed only in google or in Yahoo. Such cases can be called as Directed.
Search engine usage analysts further categorize the Directed search type in two.
Closed Search and Open ended Search. In closed search, the browser (I mean consumer or user) determined to get an answer to a question that has single unambiguous answer.
For example,
Type of search performed on Google between 2004 to 2006
The open ended search queries, normally doesn’t have definite answer. Or one with unconstrained depth.
Undirected
When user want to learn anything/everything about a topic. A search query for topic x might be interpreted as “Tell me about Clinton and monica”
Advice
When searcher seeks advice, ideas, suggestions or instructions.
For example How to stop the frequent checking of my google adsense income.
Locate
Looking for information whether / where some real world service or product can be obtained.
For example: Internet Marketing e-books
List
When user want to get a list of plausible suggested web sites. Each of which might be candidate for helping the user to achieve some underlying unspecified goal.
For example:
Travel to Seattle
Universities in Oregon
Portland Newspapers
Resources
Seeking web pages where I can obtain the resources. Can be further divided into three
Download
For example Download free Search Marketing teaching book,
Interaction
Interacting web page which has resource to resolve my problem
Simple example is looking for currency converter from dollar to Pounds.
Obtain
Goal is to obtain a resource that does not require a compute use. I may print it out, but I can also just look at it on the screen. I am not obtaining it to learn some information, but because I want to use resource itself.
Perfect example is “Internet Information Act Page 12”
Posted in Online Consumer Behavior, Search Engine | No Comments »