“Word of mouth” is a hot topic in marketing these days. DoubleClick Touchpoints did an annual survey of online consumers, having routinely seen respondents select “word of mouth” as a key factor that influences their purchase decisions across most product categories.
But, aside from sending your product to your hundred favorite bloggers, the key question they asked is how marketers can efficiently spend marketing dollars to influence word of mouth.
Based on feedbacks from more than 1,000 influencers among the 6,000-plus Touchpoints respondents: active networkers, subject matter experts, bloggers, and online community participants, the key audience segment reports that websites in general, and
web advertising in particular, are key sources of influence for them.
In the report, they examine the following key findings:
• Influencers cite web advertising as the second most important source for learning more about products after websites; they are much more likely to cite web ads for this than non-influencers
• How influencers shop varies considerably from one product category to another
• Influencers pay attention to ads, positively and negatively
• Influencers use more of all media, particularly the Internet, and they embrace emerging media
