84% of people use search engines as a primary source to research financial products
03 December, 2009
A survey conducted by Netpop Research on behalf of Google India to understand the role of internet in purchase of financial products has revealed that 84 per cent of those surveyed use search engines as either a primary source or a gateway to other websites in the purchase decision process for financial products such as home loan, credit card, banking services, insurance, remittance, personal loan and investment.
While 70 per cent of financial purchasers said they use at least one of the user generated content (UGC) sites especially consumer reviews, social networking and blogs in their research, over 40 per cent said they watch finance related online videos on either dedicated video sites like YouTube or financial news or company sites.
An interesting finding of the research was that consumers were found to be more concerned about finance related information during the economic slowdown triggering more comparison and research for information leading to increase in search engine use by 17 per cent in the last one year.
According to Google India, the survey was conducted amongst users who had purchased a product from banking services, home loans, personal loans, credit cards, investments, insurance policies and remittances in the last six months. The respondents also said that traditional media ads and news are also effective in prompting purchasers to go to a search engine to look for more information.
“Internet is emerging as an indispensable part of research and purchase of products and services in India,” Parminder Singh, business head, Google India, has said. “Increase in usage of UGC and online videos also highlight the need to effectively manage brand perceptions which is critical for the finance category as trust is a major component of the final purchase decision.”
Internet has taken a toll over all technologies. In the present era it has become an indispensable part of almost every human life. People are increasingly using internet for many of their needs like research, buying, social networking, banking services, and music downloads. People are gaining lot of wisdom as search engines are providing a huge platform to research and gain information on any kind of product or service. Anything and everything is available on your fingertips...what else is required in this fast running world?
That must have come as a boost to financial companies who will now seek to emphasise more on internet for marketing their financial products.
Search engine is now become an integral part of decision making for any purchases. What is more encouraging is that even in high end products i.e., finance, search engine is playing a crucial role. The usage of search engine is bound to increase and this will lead advertisers to more seriousness for their online content and online advertisement campaign.
Even in times of recession, search engines can have a silver lining over the dark cloud. It is ironic that it is financial products that concern the minds of its users during a downturn.
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