Some interesting stats on local shopping offline and how it is influenced by online are out via a new
study (free to read on request) from the Dieringer Research Group. It found that "online information," which I presume
is searching somehow for local products and information, influenced an offline local purchase more than any other type of medium.
In the fourth quarter of 2004, "web to store" shoppers were influenced an average of 7 times for the purchases they made offline. Newspaper ads and
inserts were a distant second, at 3.5 times. Local TV came in at 2.0. Print yellow pages came in at sixth place, next to last, at 0.6 times.
Moral from the stats? Having a presence online seems pretty likely to help influence those purchases in your bricks-and-mortar stores. So if you’ve
somehow been neglecting online marketing — including search — get moving.
The study also looked at "cross media" purchasing activities. The most common found were those who use:
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Internet + Local Newspaper Ads (77 percent)
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Internet + Local TV Ads (67 percent)
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Internet + Local Radio (44 percent)
As for print yellow page users, they were found to be significantly older than those using other media and more likely to be male. When they do go
online, that’s often to locate the store hours of something they’ve found in the yellow pages, the study found.
For a somewhat related study, see also our past post, Web Ousts Print Yellow Pages At
Top Local Shopping Tool.