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Electronics: I never take a blog article like Gizmodo on face value, I’m always sifting through the comments for the real info. Electronics are more difficult and usually require spending extra time just reading -often between the lines- passing articles as they build up after product launch and waiting for the geek tech forums to really dig into the product or brand. I once spent a year waiting for the pricepoint to drop on a 45″ LCD monitor before grabbing the 42″ on an online doorbuster. In this case, the product itself had a personal recommendation from a trusted friend but the merchants offering online sales were getting terrible reviews.

And you can spin it the way you want, but it’s still spin. I can say nearly four in ten turn to the Internet first thing, nearly two thirds read consumer opinions online and, without even the spin that ORC put on it (they called this percentage “whopping”): 83% were influenced by those online opinions.

In Internet marketing, we don’t have to convince people to use offline marketing methods—the vast majority of businesses already are using offline methods. Most businesses have yet to make the leap to effective online marketing.

Besides that, even if we can get to people in offline marketing, if they go online and find bad reviews, 83% aren’t going to buy from them. Can we give the Internet its due?

Also, be wary of their figures. Even though the Internet is clearly an important research tool for consumers, their figures show that only 38% of people use it first. In other words, almost two thirds of people do not consult the Internet as their primary research tool. This means that even though we need to use the web effectively to ensure we benefit from product reviews, we must not let this distract us from offline promotion. Even for people who research product choices online, offline analysis is clearly still important.