MEDIA BUYING DIRECT RESPONSE TELEVISION (DRTV) ARTICLE ..

 

The Web and Decision-Making: Why (and how) the Internet is becoming our most powerful media.

By: Peter Koeppel
Published: 08/08

 

Here are some key points from the latest research that you can share with them:

 

Internet usage has increased worldwide. The growth in Internet marketing potential has been nothing short of phenomenal.

 

The Miniwatts Marketing Group has been charting Internet usage by world region since 1995. Statistics show an overall increase in Internet market penetration. In fact, less than 1 % of the world’s population (.4%) were regular Internet users in 1995. The most recent figures, from March of 2008, show an Internet usage increase of over 2000%. From that same source, we also know that worldwide Internet usage figures are now at 21.1 % or the world’s population (1,407 million Internet users worldwide).

 

No other type of media has grown so dramatically during the same time period.

 

Internet usage has grown most rapidly in industrialized nations. Internet usage in industrialized regions of the world, where individuals tend to have a higher per capita income, has increased even more rapidly than in other areas.

 

Through the Internet, you can reach over a billion individuals worldwide -- most of whom are educated and literate with a disposable income. No other single form of media can give you such a broad reach.

 

Some more statistics to bolster these claims:

 

• The most recent data from the Miniwatts Market Group statistics shows that Internet usage in the Americas (North and South) accounts for over 25% of international usage, with nearly half (42%) of everyone in this region using the Internet.

• Internet usage statistics for another industrialized region, Europe, accounts for another quarter (27.1%) of all Internet usage worldwide. In Europe, 47.7% of the population uses the Internet.

• As high as the Internet usage figures are for the Americas and for Europe, the statistics show that the highest number of Internet users in the Asian region of the world, where over 529 million Internet users account for 37.6% of all Internet usage worldwide.

• Taken together, Internet usage in these three regions alone (the Americas, Europe, and Asia) accounts for over 92% of the world’s Internet usage.

 

Internet usage is replacing television. What are all those Internet users doing online? An awful lot of them are watching videos that they might have seen on television (or heard on the radio) in an earlier generation.

 

In fact, studies show that 80% of all Internet users now watch online video. In a single month, February of 2008, there were 116 million unique viewers for online video. In that same month, there were 6.3 billion streams of online video viewed, or an average of 54.7 streams of online video per every online viewer.

 

There is no doubt that a growing marketing force within the Internet is the area of video. The online video audience is increasing. Studies show that online video is an increasingly effective marketing tool. It has also been shown that online video viewers rely on the information that they view to make decisions and form opinions.

Online video viewers rely on the Internet to make decisions. Online videos are also an important factor in influencing the decision-making process of viewers. Studies show that 80% of online video viewers have watched an ad online, and of that 80% who watched an ad, 52% then went on to take some kind action.

 

It may be these statistics that have caused advertisers to pour more money into online video advertising: $1.4 billion has been spent in online video advertising in 2008. In fact, it is estimated that by 2011 advertisers will spend over $4 billion a year on advertising for online video alone.

 

With these statistics and track record of proven results, your clients can’t afford to ignore the Internet and online video in particular (though, of course, there are still some who, for whatever reason, ignore it anyway).

 

Make sure that you (and your clients) take advantage of this ever-changing media whose enormous potential in terms of growing marketing presence and increasing the proverbial bottom line cannot and should not be overlooked or under-estimated.