Who, What, How: Marketing Research in Search Engines - Putting the "Who" into Action
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My next step is to determine the “how” of my marketing plan. In this step, I want to find out what media my demographic (PC game playing males between the ages of 20 to 33 years old) consumes on a regular basis.
To determine what media my demographic is consuming on a regular basis, I head back to Google and type in male media consumption 18-34. One of the first couple results that pops up is from MediaDailyNews (http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=245176). In this article, it breaks down the average media consumption of an 18-34 year old male in a handy table:
TV - 42%
Radio - 28%
Internet - 19%
Video Games - 6%
Newspapers - 3%
Magazines - 2%
This indicates that my top medium will be TV. However, in the paragraph before that, there’s another useful little nugget:
“During evening hours (6PM to midnight), 5% of men 18 to 34 play videogames while watching little or no television, according to the study.”
This is a good item to keep in mind while I do a little more digging.
Next, I’m going to try typing in Internet usage male 18-34. One of the results a little way down, a press release from BIGresearch (http://www.bigresearch.com/news/big121703.htm), offers an interesting overview of the male media habit:
Of the 18-34 year old men surveyed, 57.5 percent play video games while 72 percent surf the Internet. 67 percent watch movies and 71 percent listen to the radio. Simultaneous use of online and radio media among 25 to 34 year old males has increased while simultaneous TV and online usage has decreased. Simultaneous usage of TV and magazines is also on the decline in this group.
With all these statistics floating around, it looks like my “big three” are TV, radio and Internet. Since I’m running a small business, my marketing budget is going to be small, and I’m going to want to maximize my advertising dollars. So for the time being, my prime focus is going to be the Internet.
Now that I’ve determined my “how,” I want to determine my “where.” I’ve determined that my primary media focus will be the Internet. I want to go a little bit farther than this to determine where specifically on the Internet I’ll want to advertise.
For this part of my research, I’m going to put myself into my audience’s shoes. I’m going to assume that I am a male between the ages of 20-33 who is interested in computer games. If I was looking for a computer gaming site, I’d start with the obvious. I head to a search engine and type in PC gaming.
One of the first sites that shows up in my search results, GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com), has an Advertise link right at the bottom. This indicates that they do sell advertising to third-party companies, such as mine. The Advertise link takes me to a form where I can submit an advertising query. I also have the option to go to the CNET Networks’ Media Kit.
Going back to my search results, VideoGameReview (http://www.videogamereview.com) also offers an Advertise With Us link. Under this link, you can find information on the demographics of VGR’s visitors, along with their rates and other programs.
I would continue working through sites like these until I had a base of about 5-10 to choose from (depending on my budget), then I’d consider how to apportion my marketing dollars between these sites. My demographic compared to the demographic of the sites I consider will tell me what my best choices will be.
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