February 08 W4 Alert
Marketing Media Matters
Do You Know Where You Should Be Advertising? Are You Sure!?!?!
In a recent report by eMarketer, new studies suggest that while trends are always changing when it comes to advertising media - companies need to be very careful when selecting where they advertise. Not only that but the data shows that messages must be matched with the media to be effective!
For example, in research published by Vertis published as "Retail 2008: Media" conducted by Marshall Marketing & Communications - data is shown (see table at right) for "Media that US Adults Turn to First for Purchasing Decisions, 2004 & 2007. The data would suggest that if you want to reach this market...and don't we all...you should focus your ad dollars on the Internet with 26% of all adults turning here first. Impressive also is that this is up dramatically from 2004's survey showing 15% of respondents turned to the Internet first.
But wait...look a little further...26% ALSO turn to good old centuries-old advertising inserts and circulars as well! And while this is down slightly from 2004's 30%...still old-fashioned print seems to be holding its own with electronic media.
Surprisingly, the data on this chart shows email...a media used by many - including Stratecon...is mentioned by only 1% of respondents. Cancel your email campaigns? NOT SO FAST. As is ususally the case, we need to dig a little deeper.
The eMarketer research also includes a table titled "Media that influence Electronics Purchases according to US Adults, July & December 2007. " (See table at left.) Now we see what our primary customers say are the media that are most influential in their purchasing decisions. There are tremendous differences between the two tables...most likely because the first table refers to purchasers of ALL types of products...not just electronics. When we drill down to electronics customers, we see a completely different result.
Perhaps not too surprisingly, word of mouth is listed by electronics purchasers as the most influential "media" influencing their purchasing decisions with 42.6% mentioning it. This is closely followed by reading articles on product and newspaper inserts with 34.3% and 30.5% respectively. All very tradional ink-on-paper media.
So clearly, although electronic media can be very cost effective...do not abandon your traditional print media campaigns too quickly or you may actually hurt the effectiveness of your marketing.
Notice also, Internet advertising and email advertising at 22.4% and 21.5% respectively, rate much higher with electronics purchasers than with the general public. Clearly, these tools need to be in your marketing toolbox...but used in conjunction with print media and word of mouth buzz campaigns.