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Word of Mouth, Online Reviews Most Influential in Purchase Decisions

posted on October 23, 2008

UPDATE: The full PDF of the study is available (link via RWW).

A new study by Rubicon Consulting states that word of mouth and online reviews are the most influential factors in consumer purchasing decisions. According to the study, the Internet is also important in providing customer support. The survey also looked at consumer’s use and perceptions of different websites and categories of websites:

  • The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals. It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer.
  • Website categories that get the most daily usage are search, social communities like MySpace and Facebook, general news websites like CNN.com and NYTimes.com, and online banking.
  • The websites that Americans value most are (in order), Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook.

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Email Marketing Better than Social Network Marketing

posted on October 21, 2008

Is email marketing better than marketing through social networks? Yes, according to a new study from ExactTarget and Ball State University’s Center for Media Design. The study reveals that:

“. . . 18- to 34-year-olds claim they are more likely to be influenced to make purchases based on e-mail marketing messages and direct mail than marketing messages on social networks,” said Mike Bloxham, director, insight and research, Ball State University’s Center for Media Design. “It is too easy to assume that the media consumers choose for their own news, information and entertainment are, by default, the best media to use for marketing messages. This is a dangerous assumption to make in a time when consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their level of control over their media experiences.”

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Motorola Readies Its Gphone?

posted on October 20, 2008

Unless someone’s better at keeping a secret than Motorola’s being, the second Gphone to hit the market will be coming to the US in Q2 2009 (Europe, Q3 2009), according to a Business Week report. The phone is slated to cost about $150.

Like the T-Mobile G1, manufactured by HTC, Motorola’s Gphone is slated to feature a touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Of course, last week’s reviews noted a few deficiencies in the first Gphone’s design, including issues with the keyboard/phone layout. Motorola’s latest phone, the Krave NZ4 (Engadget review) is a flip phone with an external and internal touch screen. It just arrived with Verizon last week.

Business Week also reports that Motorola’s Gphone will feature “a host of social-network-friendly features”:

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Yahoo Profiles Evolve into a Social Network

posted on October 17, 2008

The email said…

cody simms (Cody) wants to connect to you on Yahoo! Once connected, you will be able to view cody simms (Cody)’s profile and easily share stuff like updates, interests, and more.

To connect to cody simms (Cody), click here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/accept/…..

Thanks,

The Yahoo! Team

And I clicked……"delete."

My first thought was, "Yahoo doesn’t have a social network, I’m not clicking on that link." You see, while there’d been much talk of Yahoo either building a social network–or buying one–I’d simply forgotten about it. Honestly, most of my recent thoughts about Yahoo have been along the lines of "I wonder who will buy Yahoo now?"

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Twitter’s Ev Williams Says, Hit the Road Jack

posted on October 17, 2008

Proving that just because you came up with the great idea, doesn’t mean you can run the company, Twitter has announced that Jack Dorsey will step down as CEO and Ev Williams will take his place.

We’re entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times. As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for a focused approach from a single leader.

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Breaking: MySpace MyAds Enters Public Beta

posted on October 12, 2008

MySpace has just announced the public beta of its do-it-yourself advertising platform MyAds.

“With MySpace MyAds, we’re blowing the lid off display advertising solutions for small and medium businesses,” said Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing for MySpace. “MySpace MyAds is a direct marketer’s dream – providing entrepreneurs with the most accessible, personalized, and targeted advertising toolkit in the market. We’re giving businesses better ROI ASAP and in today’s economy, that’s a must-have.”

MySpace is touting its HyperTargeting ad technology as a way for advertisers to use MyAds to target users based upon their profiles–assuming that they’ve not lied about who they are.

What do you think? Have you had success with advertising on other social networks? Will you give MyAds a try?

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Exclusive: New Twitter Homepage Revealed?

posted on October 6, 2008

At the Aloha Summit today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone revealed the company’s plans to revamp the Twitter homepage to include saved searches and filtering.

Here’s a mock-up of how it might look:

Biz Stone of Twitter