Interactive online marketing key to purchasing decisions, DoubleClick says
Although word-of-mouth and TV advertising are still the most powerful in driving initial consumer awareness in most product categories, interactive marketing is emerging as crucial in meeting consumers` needs in gathering additional product information to support purchasing decisions for several categories of products, including those not typically sold online, a study by DoubleClick Inc. says. Interactive marketing--including online advertising, e-mail and search engine marketing--is particularly effective in influencing the purchase of food products, DoubleClick says.
"With more than 70% of U.S. consumers now online, it`s no longer possible to look at the purchase process without considering the various forms of interactive marketing alongside television, print, radio and outdoor advertising," DoubleClick says in its "Touchpoints" survey, released today. The survey was based on information gathered from 1,800 respondents evenly split among males and females.
The study says that interactive marketing is among the top three influencers of "further learning" and purchasing decision stages of consumer shopping behavior. It notes that, after word-of-mouth, web sites are the second most common way that consumers further learn about prescription drugs and automobiles. And it says that web sites were second only to salespeople in extending knowledge of products.
The study also notes that nearly half of consumers would like to receive e-mail marketing messages for most product categories, but that less than half of those interested in getting e-mail marketing actually receive it. It said 22% of consumers get e-mail for health and beauty products, but an additional 25% would like to receive it; for prescription drugs, the comparable percentages were 13% and 25%, and for consumer electronics, 17% and 26%.
The study notes that searching for recipes is the most popular food-related online activity (cited by 68% of primary shoppers). Visiting food company web sites is also popular (60% visit them), while half of respondents download grocery coupons from the web (52%) and receive e-mail newsletters from food companies (50%).
70% of respondents said that downloading coupons online would compel them to try a new food product. Other activities likely to compel new product usage included searching for recipes online (52%), visiting food company web sites (46%) and receiving food-related e-mail newsletters (43%).
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