Personal care firms must focus on search engine marketing

Online search engine marketing, which aims to maximize hits from online searches, is being touted as essential in ensuring the long term health of personal care brands, and other consumer packaged goods, in addition to increasing offline sales.

The strategy may replace the more traditional approach of brand advertising and promotions in order to drive in-store sales, according to Gord Hotchkiss, chairman of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO).

The study was conducted by comScore, an internet information provider, in conjunction with P&G, Yahoo!, and SEMPO, focussing on the role of online search in generating web site traffic for consumer packaged goods, concentrating on food, personal care, baby and household products.

According to the study, 27 percent of visitors to personal care websites in the US between February and April 2007 were the result of search engine queries, a total of 9.8 million site visitors.

In addition, the majority (73 percent) of these visitors were motivated by product research, compared to only 29 percent specifically looking for the company website.

Furthermore, the research found that searchers spend 20 percent more than non-searchers in offline purchases, leading comScore to conclude that they represent a highly attractive target segment.

CosmeticsDesign.com spoke to Randy Peterson, search innovation manager from P&G, who explained that it is the specific demographics of searchers - the fact that they are predominantly female, more media savvy and are higher spenders than non searchers - that make them particularly important as a target group.

In terms of the personal care sector, the study found that searchers spent an average of $40.30 during the study period, in comparison to $32.24 spent by non-searchers.

This finding led the researchers to conclude that improving search marketing would help offline sales, and should not just be viewed as a direct response marketing strategy.

"We knew that search engine marketing presented a big opportunity for companies, and this study helps us to identify and quantify how big that opportunity really is" Peterson told CosmeticsDesign.com.

There are two major methods that enable companies to maximize their hits from online searches.

The company can pay the search engine provider in order to ensure a higher position in the search results, resulting in the web site appearing as a sponsored link on search engine results page.

Alternatively, the company can tailor the content of its web pages, for example including highly specific key words and links to related material, as well as being referenced as related material from other sites, in order to improve its ranking within the search results.

According to SEMPO paid listings are playing an increasingly important role in marketing strategies, partly due to the increased space on search sites that is allotted to sponsored listings.

According to Peterson, P&G operates a brand by brand strategy, utilising different techniques for different brands, at different periods during the year.

"The amount of marketing dollars that are spent on strategies will differ between brands" he said, adding that P&G use sponsored links when there is an immediate need to communicate something particular to consumers about the brands.