August 02, 2007

What's Vintage vs What's Cheap

I was inspired to do some analysis on what I'll call 'search value determinants' following Bill's post covering xbox 360 and ps3 price drops. It's interesting to measure the search terms that consumers use when determining value on products or services, such as 'prices', 'sale', 'deals', 'cheap', 'used' and 'vintage'.

Here's a sample of the top 10 variations on each of these search terms - note that the number of variations for each go into the tens of thousands. I'll use the New Zealand market as my online testing ground (24 weeks ending 28/07/2007):

• The term 'prices' appears to be commonly associated with stocks and commodities, such as iron ore and gold. Consumer big-ticket items such as cars, boats and homes are searched for in combination with the term 'sale'.

• Both terms, 'deals' and 'cheap' are widely used for searches in the travel industry; with auto and computers also associated with the term 'cheap'.

• Consumers are specific about where they get their used cars from, including 'used cars auckland', 'japanese used cars' and 'used cars hamilton'. 'Vintage' is often associated with brands, such as 'mr vintage' and 'vintage barbie' as well as clothing items.

I have a feeling I've only scraped the surface of this type of comparative analysis, as I could see several other types of products listed further down each set. My initial finding (whether it's obvious or not) is that product categories appear to have different language rules from a consumer perspective. From a marketer's perspective, the process of refining keyword lists for search engine marketing can become more of an exact science, by knowing the search 'modifiers' specific to each industry.

Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 09:54 AM
Posted to Search

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