Strange Questions

One of the reasons why I love the end of the year so much is the fact that everyone starts churning out random yearly reports.

Following on from my recent post about the terrible top searches queried on Yahoo, today sees Ask.com releasing their query-question data. As with Yahoo, the UK once again displays a wonderful cultural sophisitication and completely plays up to the sterotype with which Europe, if not the world views us… The top question on Ask UK was… “Am I pregnant?”

The top ten results were also peppered with other such lovely gems like: “What’s the minimum wage?” and “Where can I get a cheap loan?” One question that narrowly missed making the grade was “How can I improve my libido?” Obviously, celebrity made the list, with (in all fairness, quite a good question), “Who is the Stig?”, but more randomly “Why is the sky blue?” also made the list.

I’m not sure about you guys, but I suddenly have a very vivid mental image as to what the core demographic of UK internet users looks like…

Ask And Ye Shall Find

Once again, I return to an issue I’ve already mentioned before… The importance of websites realising that in order to be competitive, they have to move forward with user’s needs.

So, it’s with no great surprise that Ask, an old-school search engine, has opted for a total facelift and new approach to dealing with user searches. If you happen to be as old as me, you’ll remember that they did this before, back in 2006, when they gave their butler-image the sack. Now, after alread intoducing new applications, they’re going to be focusing upon being the search engine of choice for users who are asking direct questons. (eg. Is there no end to the talents of DigitalGeekUK? Will he ever be the next Bill Gates? Why have I read this far?!) Recent data from ComScore support this, as they found that Ask is more often used by people searching for specific answers to questions… (The clue is in the name)… Search Queries that use questions make up around 5% of searches on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live, but accounts for 15% of Ask’s searches. Sounds like a lot, but remember that Ask only has a 2% market share in online search!

So, it seems that Ask will be restructuring themselves around this as we well know that rivals are increasingly looking at ways to set themselves apart from Google in the competitive world of search. The new Ask site will be launched in the UK on October 20th, but is already live in the US. Sneak preview here, guys.

It looks a lot like Google, and doesn’t try to hide this fact, openly claiming to have “borrowed” design ideas from the mighty search leader. Ask also claim that the re-designed site will be faster, improve search results and produce more relevant results for the user.

Whilst they undoubtably have a challenging task ahead, it’s not all bad news. Even with such a small UK marketshare, the lastest figures from Neilson show that during August, 46m searches were conducted on Ask, which is roughly one in five of all people using a search engine. Maybe the figures will be even better this time next year?

Economic Highs, Not Lows

The wonderful thing about the digital world is that everything can be recorded. Inevitably, the usual privacy/infringement issues arise, but for marketing-men (and women) , this is brilliant. By recording user information, patterns, online data etc. almost instantly, advertisers can see if a campaign is working or not. Following the entire process from start to finish in such detail, they can indentify where users become disinterested or excited, they can tell how users react to specific offers, products, services and websites, they can collect and assess and conclude data like you wouldn’t believe.

Actually, that’s the theory. I’ve seen quite a lot of poorly-run campaigns over time (I’m not the only one); doesn’t matter what they are: PPC, Affiliate, SEO, Display… You could have the best campaign idea ever, but if the strategy isn’t right, I can assure you that it won’t achieve it’s full potential. Digital is about quick response – in this sense, it’s direct marketing at it’s finest: Ads targeted at relevent users, responses that can be traced and assessed, strategies that can be tweaked and fine-tuned for maximum effect. Because of this, it’s a total no-brainer that whilst the economy is down, digital is on the up.

From a marketing perspective, digital is inexpensive, trackable, changeable and direct. Far cheaper than TV, Radio, Press or Outdoor, in the current economic climate, it will practically guarantee money well-spent and yeild a return on investment. (Providing any campaign is well-run). It even enables SME’s to successfully compete with bigger players (all the more important right now). From a user’s perspective, the internet can provide more services, information and products than they would find offline – usually at cheap, comparable prices.

It’s a win-win situation for everyone and, with the slump we’re seeing offline, where people are opting to try and save money, it’s no suprise that the digital world has grown enormously these past few months. I’m seeing it everyday and I imagine that it’ll soon be pretty apparent to even the most digital-shy technophobes.

As an addendum, I found this. It pretty much proves my point.