Trends in Online Marketing – A Report from the Online Marketing Summit

Just returned back from San Diego, where I spoke at the 2008 Online Marketing Summit.  Great event. Congrats to Aaron Kahlow and team for doing a tremendous job with a record crowd. I didn’t have time to attend all the events, but I managed to scratch some notes about what struck me as interesting and important.

• The online shift is happening, and it’s significant. We see this in companies like Microsoft and Intel that are putting 50% or more into their online budgets.
• Behavior is driving marketing decisions – not the big agencies.
• Consumers are spending, on average, more time with social media sites than traditional media and vendor sites (3.47 hours per week for social media, 3.16 hours for vendor sites, 3.03 hours for traditional media sites).
• 1% of a social media site’s total audience actively contributes content (rest are passive).
• 30% who read content from a website more likely to purchase. 80% who contribute more likely to purchase (CoreMetrics Web 2.0 study).
• Insight from the conference made by many experts: “If you are not good at networking off-line, you won’t be good online.”
• Everyone is concerned about search engine optimization, and its relation to the creation of great website information. But most do not realize the benefits of others linking to your great content (referrals), which could ultimately account for more website traffic, and more of the right kind of people engaging in your information.
• If you want clear editorial control as a company, don’t even think about launching a social network.
• 50% of brands will spend 50% of budgets on alternative media by 2011 (Advertising Age).
• 60% of online consumers make purchase decisions based on peer advice (Visa/Yahoo!).
• Businesses should begin to think of competition in terms of what takes up your customers’ time.
• 80% of Internet traffic begins at search engines (Harris Poll).
• Six of the top 10 most-trafficked sites are social media sites (Alexa.com).

“Time is the most precious asset right now. If we can be worth their engagement, that’s the highest benchmark for advertising.” - Jim Stengel, CMO, Procter & Gamble

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