If you run a brick and mortar business it may seem like online marketing really doesn't have a big place in your advertising budget.  Even if you have a website, the majority of your sales probably come from visits to your store, right?  Maybe your website doesn't even offer online shopping, but instead, is simply an online storefront to drive people in your front door.  New research is starting to show a growing trend among shoppers, even those who still primarily shop in stores.

While they may still want to walk through your front door, many of your customers are probably researching their purchases online first.

That's according to new studies by DoubleClick and Harris Interactive.  As reported by Matthew Nelson for ClickZ, a vast percentage of shoppers are turning to the internet to study their potential purchases before venturing out into stores.  In fact, DoubleClick reported 58% of their survey respondents planned to do some form of online research before making offline purchases.

With the growth of comparison shopping search engines and services, the online shopping sector is becoming more competitive and more search-based.  Before, word of mouth was often the referring source cited by most online shoppers.  But more often than not, current online researchers and shoppers are using search engine and specialty services to find and compare products.

It's too late to do much about the current busy holiday shopping season.  But it could be the perfect time to start thinking about ways to change next year's advertising budget to include more online and search advertising, regardless of your company's primary avenue of sales.  Even if you don't sell online, your customers are looking for you and your products online.

If they don't find you… they'll find someone else.