SEO / SEM Blog by Search Circus

Here’s a recent item that anyone interested in the future of Web site marketing should take note; according to a recent joint survey by the DoubleClick Performance and ROI research, young consumers in the U.S. spent more time on the Internet than on any other form of media. 83% of all 10 to 14 year-olds spent an hour or more on line every day.

To anyone who follows media usage and Web site marketing trends, this isn’t very surprising. The Internet has been the fastest-growing form of media for awhile now. But one new surprising facet of this latest study was that many of these tweens were spending a lot of time shopping online.

And what’s even more interesting is that 40% of young consumers are using search engines like Google and Yahoo! to research products. Young consumers aren’t simply buying a product from the first Web site or the first Web site marketing campaign they see. They’re using online search to look for the best deals and to find out more information about the product.

Quite honestly, with all the hand wringing about “the kids these days,” I think it’s pretty encouraging to find that 10-14 year-olds are smart enough to engage in online product research and to ferret out deals.

But right now, most of these savvy younger consumers aren’t even counted as shoppers and buyers by most Web site marketing experts. That’s because the U.S. Department of Consumers lists 14 as the cutoff point in its definition of consumer.

What does this all mean for the future of Website marketing? It means that the newest generation of tweens (That would be the generation that comes after Generation Y, or the Millennial Generation) are not only going to be more familiar with the Internet, but they will also be sophisticated Web searchers. This generation will be the first that grew up in a world where it was possible to research and buy just about anything online. And as savvy online consumers, they will demand savvy online Web site marketing.

Tags: business website promotion, website marketing

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 10:08 am and is filed under Business Marketing Online, Local Internet Marketing, Ohio Search Engine Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.