Subtle Marketing
May 20th, 2008
Over on Marketing Pilgrim, Jordan McCollum offers an interesting overview of the latest Pew Internet and American Life report, concluding by saying this of Internet marketers:
"… our influence is so subtle that after making a purchase, consumers don’t even realize we were involved. Now that’s powerful persuasion—marketing so subtle and so convincing that you purchase the product and forget the marketing."
One problem for us Internet marketers: If I’m the CMO approving the big checks for Internet marketing spending, I’m pausing before signing if I start to believe that those dollars are going to "subtle" efforts.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:48 am
The CMO may pause because people don’t THINK they’re being influenced by the Internet, but as I said in the article, people who actually used the Internet for research also said:
* 42% said it helped them find the cheapest price on music.
* 37% said the Internet led them to buy more music than they otherwise might have
* 41% said they spent less on cell phones.
* 43% said online information led them to get a phone with more features than they otherwise would have
* 29% said they found a better place to live.
* 29% said the Internet helped them save money on their new housing.
* 58% said the information they got online helped introduce them to their new community
* 57% said it reduced the number of places they looked at.
I’m not sure why that doesn’t count as “influencing purchase decisions,” but those are the stats that a CMO needs to hear, not the headline that Pew ran with.