Some businesses are discovering that Web search isn’t just for marketing their offerings — but also for deciding what to sell in the first place.
National Instruments Corp., an Austin, Texas, maker of software and hardware for engineers and scientists, had for years sold products that required buyers to install circuit boards in their desktop computers. Then research revealed that engineers, when searching the Web for such products, were increasingly attaching the letters “USB” — the initials of Universal Serial Bus, a type of interface commonly found on computers — to their queries. That observation reinforced National Instruments’ decision to sell new versions of its products with USB interfaces and helped it pick which products to start with.
The result was “one of the fastest-growing and most-successful product launches from a volume and revenue perspective, ever” for the company, says Christer Ljungdahl, National Instruments’ director of Web and direct marketing.
Companies such as National Instruments are figuring that what users type into search boxes offers insight into what people are actually interested in buying.
There is evidence that data about consumer searches could prove valuable to businesses in other ways. As part of an experiment, Google analyzed search-query volumes related to movies released in 2005 and compared them with opening weekend box-office revenue for each movie. The company found that it could predict with 82% or higher accuracy based on consumer search activity as early as six weeks before the opening whether a film would top $25 million in receipts its first weekend.
So, how can this help a small business owner? Thomas McDermott, owner of 4 Aces Golf in Gettysburg, Pa., is using query-volume data to help decide which brands of golf clubs to carry in the online golf store he plans to open this summer. McDermott says initially he can only carry a handful of brands of clubs and that he is looking to find the brands with the strongest consumer-search interest to help his business quickly get off the ground.
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