According to Google ZMOT, people will read reviews, ratings and testimonials online before they go shopping. Let's see how true it is.
A survey done by brightlocal.com about Local Consumer Review 2010 proved that people do read ratings, reviews and testimonials. The most important is people trust them. Below are 10 questions asked by brightlocal.com of the survey. I hope someone can do it for Malaysian market.

1. How many times have you used the internet to find a local business in the last 12 months?
2. Have you ever read online customer reviews to determine whether a local business is a good business?
3. How do online customer reviews affect your opinion of a local business?
4. How do online customer reviews influence your decision to use/select a local business?
5. Do you trust online customer reviews as much as personal recommendations?
6. (From the list provided) Select the Business Types you have searched for via the internet in the last 12 months?
7. (From the list provided) Which of these local business types have you read online customer reviews for in the last 12 months?
8. (From the list provided) For which of these local business types does 'Reputation' matter the most when choosing a business?
9. How many online reviews & ratings do you need to read before you feel that you can trust that business?
10. Which of the following 'Reputation-traits' is MOST important to you when selecting a local business to use?

 

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Question 1 : How many times have you used the internet to find a local business in the last 12 months?

Chart: Gender

Chart : Age

 

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Question 2 : Have you ever read online customer reviews to determine whether a local business is a good business?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 3 : How do online customer reviews affect your opinion of a local business?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 4 : How do online customer reviews influence your decision to use/select a local business?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 5: Do you trust online customer reviews as much as personal recommendations?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 6: (From the list provided) Select the Business Types you have searched for via the internet in the last 12 months?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 7: (From the list provided) Which of these local business types have you read online customer reviews for in the last 12 months?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 8: (From the list provided) For which of these local business types does 'Reputation' matter the most when choosing a business?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

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Question 9: How many online reviews & ratings do you need to read before you feel that you can trust that business?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

 

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Question 10: Which of the following 'Reputation-traits' is MOST important to you when selecting a local business to use?

Chart: Gender

Chart: Age

Source: brightlocal.com

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Need help in doing internet marketing in Malaysia, why not contact us at 017 24 30 307 (Kent) or via contact form

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Need help in doing internet marketing in Malaysia, why not contact us at 017 24 30 307 (Kent) or via contact form

"Drink 8 glasses of water a day." This is the advice from my grandmother, my mother, my relatives and my friends. But is that true that we need to drink 8 glasses of water or it is just anther marketing strategy.

According to Dr Heinz Valtin, a kidney specialist and author of two widely used textbooks on the kidney and water balance, sought to find the origin of this dictum and to examine the scientific evidence, if any, that might support it. Dr Heinz Valtin tried to searchef for 10 months with the help of professional librarian. There wasn't a single paper that gave any scientific support to this recommendation. But, far back to 1940s, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine makde recommendations on dietary intakes of nutrients, and one of them is water. The board wrote that a rough rule of thumb woud be 2 liters of water a day.

As of 2002, Dr Heinz Valtin thorougly reviewed the literature, there was still no conclusive scientific evidence that drinking large amounts of water helps prevent even kidney stones, urinary tract infections, or bladder cancer. It's not clear that you need 8 glasses of water a day. It is even not scientifically proven that drinking a lot of water helps in dieting and help in preventing constipation.

But bottled-water industry does encourage it. This is because the bottled-water industry is making billions of dollars on this MYTH. Bottled water is a huge money for Coca-cola , which sells Dasani and for Pepsi, which sells Aquafina. Both come out of tap. And those plastic bottles of water do damage the environment because it takes a lot of energy to make plastic bottles and they are not biodegradable.

There are a lot of myths that actually created by marketers. We will keep searching and post them to our blog! :)

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Need help in doing internet marketing in Malaysia, why not contact us at 017 24 30 307 (Kent) or via contact form

I am a big fan of Robert Kiyosaki (a multimillionaire) who advice people to invest in property in order to secure your retirement. What Robert Kiyosaki always tell is 4 green houses, one red hotel (monopoly game). In order to get rich, we need to invest in real estate as asset, hold it and collect rental for long term income. That's 10 years ago.

In today's world, real estate is not the only the asset that we can build in order to get rich. We can build even bigger asset - PLATFORMS!

In the world, we have Google who has built a lot of platforms for both users and merchants to use in order to make our lives easier. They have search engine, Google+, gmail, etc. We also have Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin as social media platform in connect people around the world.

In Malaysia, we have Lelong.com, Mudah.my, eBay.com.my as platforms for buyers and sellers to do business.

Each of them charge merchant a very small amount but when the quantiy is huge, they make money. This is especially true for advertising website like Google Adwords and auction website like eBay.com.

So, let say if you want to make money in digital world, make sure you go building a platform rather a single company eCommerce website.

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Need help in doing internet marketing in Malaysia, why not contact us at 017 24 30 307 (Kent) or via contact form

Have you tried Google Public Data Explorer? If not, you shoud try it. It is a very useful tool to do a simple marketing research in Malaysia. For example, how many internet users and internet users as percentage of population, how many mobile cellular subscriptions, etc. Almost all kinds of data are available by only click search on Google Public Data Explorer. You can even turn them to line chart, bar chart, map chart and bubble chart.

Just go to Google Public Data Explorer and type in anything you would like to know. Below is a very important statistic for internet marketers to convince their customers to build websites and do internet marketing.

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Need help in doing internet marketing in Malaysia, why not contact us at 017 24 30 307 (Kent) or via contact form