A new shopping behavioral trend has emerged in recent months: the info shopper. Fiscal responsibility is top of mind and whether we need or want something, we’re going to pour over the details before we spend our hard-earned cash.

Even offline purchases are scrutinized these days. People are increasingly suspect of TV ads, particularly frustrated with the lack of critical decision-making information available via the traditional format. Consumers are pursuing their curiosities online, learning a lot and gaining confidence throughout the process. 92% of respondents to a recent survey by Penn, Scoen and Berland have more confidence in the information they glean rather than in store clerks or other sources. Cars, homes, computers and medical care are top info-seeking areas, with 4 out of 5 shoppers gathering data online before buying.

As is usually the case, consumer behavior is changing more rapidly than marketers of products. People want full disclosure upfront. Dyson’s model of sharing the secret of their unique products with customers builds trust and increases loyalty.But many companies fail to divulge details that have become necessary for consumers to even consider buying their products.

The trend manifests in everything from big ticket items to daily personal care products. For instance, instead of just buying the same shampoo they’ve always purchased, people want to know whether it will work well with their hair type, color, whether the plastic is recyclable, what the ingredients are and what other shoppers think of the shampoo. Trivial information perhaps to some, but important to others who care more about value then ever before. After all, why waste money on a purchase that isn’t in the good to excellent category when better buying decisions are a few clicks away?

Well-informed decisions are now a right, not a luxury. That’s why aggregator and search sites will become more valuable, as they mash-up content from reviews,  manufacturers and press, giving buyers more of an unbiased story from which they can draw their own conclusions.

Post by Jennifer Gosse.

Movers in the rental realm are getting slammed with higher moving costs in 2008 and being advised to shop around and negotiate for extras. As much as apartment dwellers are encouraged to take advantage of move-in specials and amenities in rental communities, they are also pushing for incentives with professional movers, truck rentals and storage facilities, to name a few. It can be worthwhile to look past the big brands and consider some local alternatives. On the East Coast for example, Safeguard Self Storage boasts impressive package deals, modern facilities and high-end security to protect your belongings. Smaller brands like this accommodate local movers and those from afar, but sometimes you have to do an extra layer of digging to discover them. Niche local search engines like WeAreNetwork are a great way to find these gems of local establishments, because their content is more specific to a metro and its neighborhoods, rather than being more franchise and national based as the major engines typically are.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

With today in increasingly sketchy economic times, how could companies not be more likely to seek out better values in their marketing efforts? I might sound overly optimistic (to the point of possibly being laughed off the internet), but I am excited that marketers are going to have to get more resourceful and creative. Since marketing budgets in companies everywhere are plunging, it’s likely that business owners and executives will begin employing less expensive and more free methods for keeping their name on the map.

Small business owners can start by increasing their visibility with the free search listing tools available at Google’s Local Business Center and Yahoo’s Add a Business page. By ensuring their information is visible and fresh, they become more accessible, therefore increasing their rank and visibility in search results with every curious click. And how could any local business go wrong by making sure they appear in various local engines such as WeAreNetwork where you can add a free listing at any of their U.S. and Canadian city sites? TrueLocal offers a similar service.

While niche search companies are typically confident in their specialty and highly value their own services over others, they still know they are fresh on the scene and might have the flexibility to cut you better deals to join your campaign.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

Is it far-fetched to say that businesses offering products or services that are remotely connected to the Olympic games are missing out if they aren’t advertising online right now? I don’t think it’s a stretch because of people who behave like me. I was watching the table tennis competition and became so inspired, I searched for “ping pong tables” online. As I browsed some product sites, I wondered how many actual impulse transactions like this might actually have real follow-through during some of these events? I quickly came to my senses before reaching the “Add to cart” stage, but there could conceivably be others following a similar behavior patterns who actually do have the space and disposable income to buy what they want, when they want it. There is just something so motivating about the Olympics and the desire to relive that energy. The same could happen during a volleyball tournament or women’s fencing. Why not buy keywords or rich media that lets customers buy a gift card in one click and get a free volleyball with the purchase? How about capturing the thrill of fencing and advertising for fencing classes? Or a link to the private sports instructor’s website? Not everyone has an Adidas size budget to directly sponsor the Olympics but why not ride the coattails of $200 million campaigns with the same powerful concept on a smaller scale?

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

A major distinction between online search advertising and traditional advertising is that an online searcher is looking for choices and recommendations while a television user may not be. Both users are bombarded with offers, though the online user is more likely to accept irrelevant offers as a self-inflicted experience they simply expect to endure. This is an age where digital recording services are coming standard with cable services after all. Ignoring a television commercial is as easy as flipping to the next page in a magazine. 

Some may argue this contrast alone elevates a viewer’s intolerance and increases their likelihood of flipping off the tube. They can easily switch to the laptop instead or often simultaneously. But whether they turn it off or keep it on, consumers are likely to follow up what interests them on TV with research or shopping online. Events like the Super Bowl pull in a tremendous amount of pre-kickoff and post kickoff searching. Recently Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com delivered a keynote address at AIM 2008 (Apartment Internet Marketing Conference) in April about how he catapulted his business from small to world leader in domain names and web hosting by reinforcing Go Daddy commercials with online branding and direct marketing. The point is that people are advertising online more than ever, whether it’s to reinforce more traditional campaigns (or not).  Either is good for search sites that offer relevant content and either is good for the actual advertiser.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

Do you ever log into an online community, see an ad and think, “Nice try but no cigar” and go about your business? I don’t think I’m alone in feeling superior these days to some of the irrelevant online advertising attempts that I’m hit with daily. For example, Myspace thinks they’re going to “reel me in” with giant electric blue hyperlinks to buy “Frank Lloyd Wright Gifts” just because this world famous architect is listed in my interests? I might read about his work and appreciate his style, but I doubt I will ever be shopping online to get all my friends an FLW keychain. I suppose if I cared to be more liberal in exposing my personal likes and dislikes, the ads generated for me might make more sense?
 
In a recent Online Media Daily Commentary entry called Shopping 3.0 In A Web 2.0 World by Gordon Gould, a refreshing concept is posed, “The question should be: how can consumers discover products (or brands/companies) that fit their unique tastes? And not how can data be used to tell consumers what products they want/need?” Facebook, though not super discreet in some ways, practices this concept well with a small rotating ad space within a permanent left panel of their site navigation.

Once logged in from the ad-free homepage you are greeted by a newsfeed of your friend’s recent activity, complete with icons and descriptions. Occasionally I’ll become consumed by the sometimes enticing feeds and perhaps click one. After all friends share interests, right? But in the more traditional sense of plain ‘ol ads, the permanent ads in the left panel are almost always more relevant to me than the marketing from other online communities.

Today I experienced an ad offering a photo booth rental. Perfect for someone with quirky tastes and who cites their status as being engaged in their profile, right? Well, let’s just say my fingers did the clicking and I was on their site and having a phone conversation about their services within minutes. Even though I’d been suckered, I didn’t care. I was too busy imagining how cool it would be to have a photo booth at my reception. 

How do they know my quirky tastes you ask? Well for one, they know which feeds interest me and then they proceed to track my activity. But even if an individual barely utilizes them or ever at all, enough of your online friends are likely to use them and likely have similar tastes which are also linked to your profile. Secondly, the groups you join and other movement within the site tell even more about you.

So it’s all about the clues the user leaves behind and how intelligently a site uses those clues to market to a specific user. The trick is not to bombard the user but rather provide a sense of ease in finding unique new products and services.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

More and more these days the web has become my all-in-one tool for managing just about everything. I live a virtually paperless lifestyle with the exception of stubborn vendors who have yet to adopt online billing. Personally I can attest to about 80% of my waking hours being spent online. Like a growing number of professionals, I communicate with co-workers primarily via email and instant messenger, complete most projects with online software and manage professional and personal schedules through various web-based systems. Regretfully, I am also guilty of maintaining friendships via every popular social network out there. Being the self-professed “online junkie” that I am, it is no secret to me that I am exposed to a lot of target marketing online. As it becomes easier and easier to track one’s online activity, user-specific, strategically placed ads become easier to spot.

Blushes aside, unlike the small percentage of users that actually notice this, I could care less that a profile for marketing directly to me is being updated every time I visit a site. Heck it’s more thoughtful than some of the interactions I engage in, given the decline in customer service I experience in the average dining or shopping establishment. It’s no wonder online buying is on a steady rise as claimed in this eMarketer article on retail eCommerce.

Most of the time ads are discreet enough not to bother me and probably just burn themselves into my memory for intentional future exploitation. Surely this could be a sort of trigger system which is all worked out in advance during campaign conception, but we need not concern ourselves with all of that. Since my priority is usually to meet a deadline or carry out a more meaningful task, the occasional fumble en route to my “tool of convenience” is worth the unsolicited pop up or blinking banner. I’ll take that any day over obnoxious paper trails and extra notes in my head that take away from life’s big picture focuses. More often than not, these online tools are free or cheap.  In exchange, we tolerate a peripheral collage of seemingly meaningless images with vague potential for future recall or for capturing my attention at the exact moment in time when the meaningless becomes relevant.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.