online marketing facts

We've compiled some great information to help you understand the impact of your online strategy in sales, customer service, organizational effeciency and many other areas of your business. Once you have digested some of the information below, give us a call and we can discuss with you how to improve every aspect of your web strategies.

why having a web presence is important

Everyone says you need a website, but you may not really understand why. Check out some of the facts about how many potential sales you could be missing out on.

		New research shows that 70% of US adults use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services - up from 60% in October 2003. These figures put the Internet on par with newspapers as a local shopping information resource, and suggest that the Internet is on track to surpass newspapers as a consumer influencer in the very near future.

		A conservative estimate from the study says 17 percent of overall media is consumed via the Internet, and Horan notes that other researchers like Forrester have placed that number even higher. The OPA-commissioned study also used census data to determine the spending habits of its 350 monitored subjects. Web dominant consumers' retail spending averaged $26,450, while the TV-dominant group's spending averaged $21,401. Researchers conducting the OPA study also found a consistently direct correlation between offline referrals to Web sites and Web traffic. When PBS tells people they can find more info about the topic being discussed on PBS.org, people do go to that Web site. The same was found for print media referrals to online counterparts like the New York Times and NYTimes.com.

		43 percent of Internet users bought products from a retailer's offline store after viewing them on the seller's Web site. The study said that for every $1 spent online, consumers are influenced to spend another $6 offline. Though online sales account for 2 percent to 3 percent of the total retail picture, the Web's importance as a builder of brand awareness and a driving factor in offline buying decisions shouldn't be underestimated.

the right design and usability increase revenue

When you reach hundreds or thousands of people a day, the difference in how many can be converted to sales can make a huge impact of your business.

		You can increase sales on your site as much as 225% by providing sufficient product information to your customers at the right time. In our recent research, we found that the design of product lists directly affected sales. On sites that did not require shoppers to bounce back-and-forth between the list and individual product pages, visitors added more products to their shopping cart and had a more positive opinion of the site. By understanding your customer expectations and needs, and designing your product lists accordingly, you can significantly increase your sales. (UI Engineering)

		70 percent of U.S.shoppers polled plan to spend less money at that retailer's off-line store if they were dissatisfied with their shopping experience online.

		After move.com completed the redesign of the home "search" and "contact an agent" features based on a UI consulting firm's recommendations, users ability to find a home increased from 62% to 98%, sales lead generation to real estate agents increased over 150%, and [move.com's] ability to sell advertising space on move.com improved significantly. (Vividence)

		More than 83 percent of Internet users are likely to leave a Web site if they feel they have to make too many clicks to find what they're looking for. (Arthur Andersen)

		In a study of Web users, respondents were asked to list the five most important reasons to shop on the Web. Even though low prices definitely do attract customers, pricing was only the third-most important issue for respondents. Most of the answers were related to making it easy, pleasant, and efficient to buy. The top reason was "Easy to place an order" by 83% of the respondents. (Nielson)

		The repeat customers are most valuable: new users at one e-commerce site studied spent an average of $127 per purchase, while repeat users spent almost twice as much, with an average of $251. (Nielsen).