THINKing

Search Me

Marketers can thank their lucky stars for the best thing that ever happened to them: the Internet. In the past marketers used intuition and research to try to figure out consumer behavior. Today, look at how your customers are searching the web and you’ll be able to see consumer behavior almost in real time.

Some recent research indicates that there are four types of consumer groups with different intentions and motivations for searching online: exploration, entertainment, shopping and information. Your business objectives will affect the type of group you go after and the manner in which you go after them.

Let’s take a look at the prospects for My Creative Team. Search engines send about 20 percent of total traffic to our website, and Google is responsible for nearly 90 percent of that traffic. So, it makes sense to take a look at the Google keywords sending traffic to our site, as well at Google keywords driving traffic to all ad agency sites.

In our business, prospects search for information in a couple of ways. They look for the tactical things that we do and they look from a strategic perspective, as well. People search fairly equally for the tactical term “web design” and the more strategic term “ad agency”.

You can determine what services are of most interest to your customers by evaluating search volume, too. A search shows that consumers seeking out marketing information are interested in these subjects ranked by highest volume to lowest volume search:

• marketing
• web design
• public relations
• email marketing
• print advertising
• press release writing

When I was doing work for North Carolina Tourism, we found that there was a difference in searches based upon whether people were planning a longer vacation or a weekend getaway. Vacationers began searching several months out and wanted detailed information about a locale, things to do, see, places to stay and dine. Weekenders may search only a few days out and they look for events, as well as dining and hotel deals.

I heard Bill Tancer, author of Click, tell an interesting story about online behavior. Tancer says that at one time retailers only emphasized prom dresses in April and May. Makes sense, right?

But guess what a detailed study of online search and purchase data showed? Fashion-forward shoppers were searching out prom dresses in January and budget-minded shoppers were looking in April and May for deals. Retailers were missing out on a bonanza. Those early, fashionable shoppers are willing to spend more to get what they want. That’s high margin business.

I was talking with folks at a company recently about this topic and learned that their marketing department does not routinely get access to web statistics from their IT department. IT can be a marketer’s best friend. You need to make the connection with them so that you can take full advantage of search in your marketing program.

Other Posts Of Interest

• Marchex Aims To Lead Local Search, Launches 100,000 Sites – 06/27/2007
• Personalize or Perish
• Off Topic: Summer Meme
• It’s In The Cards
• Creativity 2011 – Week #5