Traditionally QR Codes are just scannable versions of lengthy URLs that would be impractical to try and market in the real world. As a result many marketers don’t see the need to place QR Codes on the Internet when they already have clickable URLs available for online users.

Although, this does not mean that QR Codes can’t have an impact online. In fact they’ve actually began to converge with Internet video in an exceptionally strong way. With this bond only getting stronger and more popular on the web, this article aims to find out precisely how best to use QR Codes to market Internet video.

Using QR Codes Within Internet Video
There are two key uses of QR Codes with Internet video; using QR Codes within Internet video and Using QR Codes to market Internet video.

There’s much debate over the inclusion of QR codes within Internet videos due to that fact that QR Codes can be easily swapped for URLs to achieve the exact same result. However, QR Codes are for a Smart Phone market, and Smart Phones are yet to become universal. That means that there’s still users out there getting a new Smart Phone who will excitedly want to use the features it provides, such as QR Code scanning.

Never underestimate the power of novelty value that’s surrounding the tools of Smart Phones. It’s a concept that will stay with the device until it reaches worldwide saturation, which it’s further away from doing then some might think.

By playing on this unique nature of QR Codes, marketers can ensure that users scanning their codes within Internet videos will pay close attention to the material that generates as a result of the scan.

The guys and gals at Mighty Wallet used this unique power of QR Codes in the Internet video marketing campaigns of their wallets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPjq8qdpgeI&feature=player_embedded

Now the downside to this Mighty Wallet ad is that it’s a repurposed Television ad rather than a specific online ad. The repurposed ad was made to reach a wider online audience, not just regional TV viewership. The concept to note is the clever call to action for the QR Code, which means that users will be even more inclined to scan the code than perhaps they would were it just a typical QR Code placement.

Hyundai also take this approach in a far more creative QR Code creation, whilst promoting the codes placement in the local newspaper. Unfortunately the indication of where to look out for the code is severely stunted by showing the code already in the video. Regardless of that slip up the viral potential this video has with its creation of the code, will certainly have boosted the awareness of the campaign and generated a substantial amount of QR Code scans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U53YWmleTGs&feature=player_embedded

Eventually the novelty of QR Code scanning may wear off, which will make its placement within Internet videos very rare. Unique ways of using the codes within videos will perhaps still be able to create a large amount of scans, but in time the relationship between QR Codes and Internet video will shift towards the second key use of QR Codes – marketing Internet video using QR Codes.
Using QR Codes To Market Internet Video
QR Codes are used to market just about anything, from events and special offers to websites and of course videos. The use of the QR Code differs here because the code is being used on and offline to promote certain media. Although the essence of using QR Codes because they are new, exciting and quirky ways to get users to check out online media is still the same. In time this quirkiness may fade, but for now QR Codes are marketing Internet videos in some very innovative ways:

Musician Jessica Lea Mayfield uses QR Codes on concert posters to ensure audiences come and check out her performances by linking the code to her music video. By using the popularity of Internet video and the effortless nature of the QR Code scan, the performer has helped to strengthen the power of her print-based campaign:

http://tommartin.typepad.com/positive_disruption/2011/05/how-to-use-qr-codes-in-marketing.html

It’s not just DIY performers who are utilising the powerful convergence of QR Codes and Internet video, so too are Calvin Klein Jeans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_N559yMLZc

Three similar QR Code billboards were created to get users to check out the ‘uncensored’ version of their Jeans advertisement on the web. A large placement of a QR Code like this will certainly boost brand awareness and maximise the amount of scans, which will in turn optimise the amount of views for their Internet video ad.

The majority of Smart Phones that scan a link directly for a YouTube video will instantly bring up the video on screen allowing the user to go from scan to view extremely quickly. This speed allows users to see a brand and pick up its message easily and effectively. This will make the connection between the brand and the viewer much stronger as a result of the quick, user-friendly interface.

With Internet video being one of the most popular forms of media on the web, linking QR Codes to videos is quite possibly the most powerful combination of QR Code and media out there. Websites and text based media could potentially be far too daunting to digest on a small Smart Phone screen, whereas a video is a perfect fit for the Smart Phone platform.

Summary
The powerful convergence between QR Codes and Internet video essentially comes down to the popularity of the video media, videos ability to fit perfectly onto a Smart Phone screen, the ease of use to go from QR Code scan to video content, and the curiosity both QR Codes and video play buttons provide to a viewer. Utilising this connection both inside Internet videos and in order to market Internet videos will be an exceptional marketing benefit for any blog, brand or business in any niche.

About The Author
Andy Havard is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based Internet video production company.

Potential of the QR Code

The QR code has tremendous potential for powering your business’s web traffic. While it may or may not be suitable for custom golf shirts and other standard promotional wears (it’d probably be most effective printed on the back of a T-shirt if you were to go with the clothing option), the QR code can be printed from just about anywhere, slapped onto just about anything, and turns into an instant and even permanent portal for people to visit your website.

By the end of this year statistics project that the smartphone will outsell the feature phone in the United States. That means more mobile phone users than not will be armed with the ability to scan QR codes with their devices. While not every smartphone user is familiar with their phone’s bar code scanning ability, they will. Not everyone knows what the QR code is as opposed to traditional bar codes, but that will change too. This is going to become a popular gimmick because clever marketers are going to start implementing it, starting now.

The Future of the QR Code

By 2015 mobile internet traffic is going to be 400% more than it is today. So much of your market is going to be funneled through mobile devices that there’s no way you can justify not taking advantage of the connectivity of QR codes. They’re an effective way to reach out to people and gain some mobile web traffic in the process. As an Internet marketer you simply can’t do better than that.

Learn how to create a QR code for your blog!

The answer to your problem is affectation.

Doll up your business website

Since you are a startup, the only way to speed up your promotion is through SEO and a well-executed online presence. Now that you have a business website, the first thing you should do is give it a makeover. If your site is still not yet SEO-friendly and ready (has not gone through proper keyword optimization research yet, has too much Flash contents), or if it still has a very awkward unprofessional design, then approach a Web developer and give your site a decent redesign. In addition, write a keyword-rich About Page. This page must contain your achievements, goals and visions as a business owner, a list of your skills and knowledge (and where you learned them), and a brief history of your business (and why you chose it from among other businesses). Keep in mind that you still have to be professional when you write your About Page; do not be “too braggy” about it, because most people hate “over the top” descriptions.

Publicize yourself as a business owner on your social networking accounts

If you are really serious about your business, you have to forget being overly narcissistic on your social networking account. You should learn how to separate your personal life from your business life. Get a separate business account and use it for promotion and marketing purposes only. In addition, when tweeting or creating Facebook updates, remember to use the proper language to brand yourself as a serious, knowledgeable businessperson. Do not over tweet and over promote your services and products. Focus more on answering their queries just as professionals do.

Your goal is to “make it”

This affectation should come with learning. If you will just pretend for the rest of your business life, then you will just end up faking and fooling both your customers and yourself. As you perform your affectation in your personal business website and social media accounts, read more books about your niche and business, study your target market, and formulate possible products and services from the results of your studies. Lastly, always remember that your main goal is to transform your affectation into reality, so that in the future, you do not have to display a “not-so-real-you” just to get your market’s approval.

Don’t give up on your e-commerce site! Yes, optimization can be very tedious and time consuming, but it is so important for your SEO. The search engines don’t rank sites as a whole, they rank individual pages. Unlike other sites, the homepage of an e-commerce site isn’t usually the entry point for visitors. They often arrive on the site through one of the many product pages.

It is also important to start with the best ecommerce solutions available, with minimal SEO limitations.

Here are 5 tips to help you fully optimize your e-commerce site:

1. Write unique product descriptions

Manufacturers write generic product descriptions for their products that get used on dozens of smaller e-commerce sites all across the web. If you are using the same product descriptions on your e-commerce site, why would anyone choose your site over another? You aren’t offering any reason to convince consumers to buy from you. Rewrite the description to include your unique selling proposition.

You also have to consider that by using the same product description as everyone else, you are filling your site with duplicate content. Duplicate content is frowned upon by the search engines and your site could end up being penalized.

2. Weigh time vs. return

If your e-commerce site has hundreds or thousands of pages, don’t wait until all of them are optimized before you start rolling out the improved pages. Determine which product pages are the most profitable for your business (most popular and/or highest return) and optimize those first. You can roll the rest of your newly optimized pages out in batches.

3. Create templates

Coming up with hundreds of unique Meta descriptions can be very frustrating and time consuming. After all, there are only so many ways to say “Shop online for our X product or call today!” To save yourself some time and heartache, start your optimization process by writing 30-50 (more or less depending on how big your site is) varying Meta descriptions and title tags. You can insert product keywords on a page-by-page basis. Pick a different template for each page to avoid being labeled a spammer. This can make the optimization process move along much faster.

4. Incorporate consumer reviews

A major problem with many e-commerce sites is a lack of content. Aside from the product description and maybe a sentence or two with a call-to-action, what else are you putting on that page? A consumer review not only gives the search spiders more content to work with, but it also adds a trust element to your site. Shopping online is a very social activity. Potential customers want to know what previous buyers thought about your products. Having those consumer reviews on your product pages assures them they are making the right purchasing decision.

5. Develop a horizontal linking structure

You want to make it easy for visitors to navigate your site and fill up their shopping carts. A horizontal linking structure links from page to page to page across your site. This means that someone looking to buy a pair of jeans can easily click over to pair of shoes or jacket they might also be interested in purchasing. Having a “customers who bought this also bought” type section keeps visitors involved with your site and may encourage them to purchase more items. You don’t want to make your visitors go all the way back to the homepage to start looking for a different product. This detracts from the overall user-experience and they may just leave all together.

Here, we provide the top TEN link-building ideas for an e-commerce store for beginners:

1. Start blogging

Nowadays corporate blogging is counted as a more genuine way to connect your customers. The moment you began blogging, people start commenting on your posts, share them among their own circle and in social media, thus adding back links, and spreading the news about your business.  More importantly, it’s not necessary that every time you create the content on your own, but instead accept guest bloggers who are always looking to exchange a quality backlink for free content.

2. Post on niche forums

We’re not discussing just spamming forums here. Being an owner of e-commerce store, you’re an expertise at what you sell, so provide free knowledge to people asking questions about your industry.  An addition to a link to your site in the forum signature section, you are being credibility with your target audience.

3. Get involved in niche organizations and local business associations

In this way, you can successfully establish good business contacts offline, sharing experience, availing new ideas, partners, customers, friends, and many more. Further, your e-commerce store will remain attached within the member area of the association’s site. This will help in generating more backlinks from a recognized and authoritative resource.

4. Donate to local charities and nonprofit organizations

Search for those charities and nonprofit organizations that remain linked to their donor’s sites. It will be a win-win situation, if you do the donation to such organizations. As a matter of fact, these organizations will get financial support for their cause, and you will get a high quality link.

5. Sponsor/organize contests and giveaways

Organize lots of contests or just sponsor them will create another way to attract some more links. Find those bloggers who organize contest actively for their valuable readers. Take their help in organizing a contest on your blog promoting your company, or simply follow their ideas and practices and do something alike or differently (make sure that creativity is the key factor for online success!!!)

6. Create a coupon code

Coupons have become part of our lives, and usually every shopper will search for a coupon code on a store before making a purchase.

Choose a discount coupon code, and submit it into coupon sharing websites and blogs. Many of these sites will offer a do follow link to the store site. This technique will not only help in developing link building but also in increasing brand awareness.

Over excessiveness is always harmful, so do with the coupons. Customers will not purchase your products or services full price, the moment they realize the next coupon is near by.

7. Offer products for review

Find relevant and influential website owners in your area who can write about your products and service, from a ‘REVIEW’ point of view. Internet statistics show that up to 90% of customers take buying decisions online, and most of them also look at the date of each of these reviews and customer’s opinions. This way, you not only get link towards your website but also attract your upcoming customers.

8. Issue news releases

Always use online press release distribution services for the submission of news / press releases. You will be surprised at how fast your news with a link to your site can spread on the web. To begin with, submit a news release on your online store in the local newspaper’s online version or in chamber of commerce newsletter.

9. Submit your online store to directories

Create awareness about your site in search engine directories, social shopping sites, and other highly regarded directories that have known to provide thematic grouping of e-commerce websites. This may take some time but the importance & recognition will get an edge over competition.

10. Plan and track your link-building efforts

Lastly, your link building campaign is said to be successful only if done with advance preparation. Moreover, availability of special SEO software will assist you in your link building efforts. You can also use a backlink checker for tracking your own link building results, and can spy on your competitors: acquire their list of back links, do analyzation of their SEO value and have the same ones. Moreover, link exchange software can be used to acquire partnership suggestions, to create link directories and to manage your link-building correspondence.

The problem with business owners and site owners today is that they are too concerned with their sites’ aesthetics. Unknowingly, they end up giving web designers the money they should allocate to more important aspects of their business. This isn’t much of a problem for personal and non-profit websites, but, when it comes to e-commerce sites and online businesses, spending too much money for your web design expenses is bad for business.

We should begin positioning ourselves in our target market’s mind. This includes imposing a personal brand, creating an image, and building a stronger network.

Positioning ourselves in our target niche starts with link building.

We know that adding a blog to your website is a great way to establish a perfect link building strategy. Another way to do so is to build a separate website where you can put all the links from your main website, but this requires some time and effort. The new website should be as strong as your main site in terms of PR, DA, and online reputation. Achieving these definitely can’t be done overnight.

Building relationships is the key to a successful business. Having people and other companies trust you secures your business’ success. As you build relationships through a network, you automatically gain truthful critics, believers who will push your company to become better, especially if you’re a startup business owner.

In addition, you have the responsibility to connect people to others. Be a bridge, and let them know about your company as you act as a bridge for them. Blogs are perfect for this purpose. When the owners of two linked blogs talk about how met each other, they’re likely to mention you as the bridge that connected them.

Marketing is a selfish environment.

It does not really matter what people think about you and your company. If they see and feel that your products and services are efficient, it stops there. What matters to your consumers is what they feel about themselves and their decisions. They only care about how your products, services, or even your company will affect their lives. Do not expect them to praise your website design or cry over your internal company disputes; they are customers, and they’re not concerned with your company. However, these people need you, especially if your business becomes an integral part of their daily lives.

Competition kills.

Competition gives life to the market, but kills those who breathe it. Thinking of competition on a daily basis can wear a business owner out. When we focus too much on the idea of competition, we tend to do things that aren’t really beneficial to our business: we tend to copy ideas, or conceptualize new business strategies that are products of the pressure of being knocked out by competitors. Competition should push business owners to be more innovative. When competition makes us follow trends, we’ll end up like the dull and boring companies on the market.

Convey your brand to consumers.

The art of conveying your brand to consumers is a personal process. It all begins with you as a business owner. The process involves the information you use as site content, how you create your products, how you deal with consumers, and how you use your company to provide the needs of your market. Conveying is a personal process, and it becomes physical only through promotion and advertising.

Why not learn from the experts? Let’s look at how you can analyze the strategy of Internet marketing experts who are successful at email marketing.

1. Create a New Email Address

You don’t have to do this one, but I would highly suggest it if you would like to keep your primary email address free of lots of incoming email. Also, I would recommend using Gmail for this experiment as it has a great organization and search system which might come in handy. If you’re already using Gmail and don’t mind sending lots of email in its direction, move on to the next section.

2. Find Some Known Email Marketers

This part is relatively easy. Chances are, if you frequent blogs as much as I do, you have come across the bloggers that are well known in the making money online and online marketing industry. Some blogs to get you started include:

• Zac Johnson
• Chris Guthrie
• Yaro Starak
• Pat Flynn
• David Risley
• John Chow
• Gideon Shalwick
• Katie Freiling
• Jeremy Shoemaker
• Jonathan Volk

3. Create a Email Marketing Analysis Spreadsheet

Next, you need to create a spreadsheet. Everyone likes to organize their data in specific ways, and if you prefer another, that is fine. But if you have a Google Account or created one in the first step, then you have access to Google Documents which allows you to create spreadsheets (in the event that you don’t have Microsoft Excel or another office program).

4. Determine How These Sites Entice You to Subscribe

Here’s where we start our analysis. Look at these sites. How do they encourage sign ups? Do they use:

• Popups? If so, do they use Popup Domination (see example popup designs in this review of the plugin), pop unders (pop ups that appear in the bottom of the screen for a mailing list signup), or other technologies. Generally if it’s a plugin, then there will be a credit / affiliate link to the product somewhere nearby.
• Opt-in Forms? Look at alternative opt-in form placement, such as in the sidebar, at the top or bottom of blog posts, in the header or footer of the blog posts, or other areas.
• Free products? Are they giving away a free report, ebook, auto-responder course, or other valuable content?

These are all things you want to note in your spreadsheet, along with any other details you find may lead to possible list building inspiration.

5. Document What Happens When You Subscribe

This is the part that you might want that new email address for. I want you to subscribe to the email marketing pros that you are analyzing and then take a look at their list from the subscriber’s point of view. The first things to note include:

• Do you get a customized confirmation message or page?
• What do you get in your first email? Is it a simple thank you, contact information, free product, first part of an autoresponder course, etc.

Be sure to note the things that stand out to you. Jot down the things you like and things you dislike – especially things that make you want to unsubscribe immediately.

6. Note What Are They Selling and How

Most sites that do mailing lists are trying to sell you something, whether it is their own product or affiliate products. Take a look at what they are selling to you through their mailing list and how they promoting it. Some marketers start with their product or affiliate product links in the free product you are getting with your subscription, usually in the form of helpful “recommendations” built into helpful tips.

7. Record Email Frequency and Promotions vs. Valuable Content

Not to say that promotions are not valuable, or that valuable content can’t have promotions for something to buy, but keep track of the frequency you receive emails from the mailing list, after the email(s) including your free subscription gift or course. Also, you will want to keep track of the ratio of emails that are sent purely to be informational or purely to promote something they are selling.

What’s Next?

So what do you do with all of your analysis? Apply it, of course, to your own strategy. On a whole, after taking a look at all of these things, you will begin to get a feel of what is popular, what you are comfortable with, and what is successful and will be able to begin to apply these elements to your own list building and email marketing strategy.

Your Thoughts on Email Marketing Research

Have you ever conducted research to learn how your colleagues or competitors are implementing their email marketing campaign? What other suggestions do you have on what to look for and how to apply it to your own plan for success?

1. Big, Bold Fonts

This is the equivalent of talking louder when people stop listening in the offline world. If no one is paying attention to your content, bigger fonts, bolder colors, or flashier graphics won’t make a bit of difference. In fact, a visual assault is one way to guarantee the user will change the channel, so to speak.

2. Not Listening

If you talk, talk, talk, and talk some more without stopping to listen to your audience, you’ll quickly lose their attention. Ask for their opinion, solicit comments, and encourage discussion and debate. A conversation is much more engaging than a monologue. An easy way to gather private opinions is to use online survey software to ask a question or two that customers can answer confidentially. It will be just between the two of you and show that you value their opinion.

3. Constantly Repeating Yourself

OK, we get it. We actually got it the first time. While it’s okay to repeat key points once or twice to make an impact, don’t repeat the same information 10 times. Treat your readers like the intelligent people that they are. The same holds true with email communications. If you have something new to say, go ahead and send the email. However, if your message is basically the same as yesterday or last week, don’t just send a rephrased version of the same old thing.

4. Not Making Sense

It’s tempting to show that you’re an expert by filling your content with keywords and technical jargon. However, your goal is to deliver a simple, easy-to-understand message that catches your reader’s attention. If they can’t weed out the actual meaning from the fluff, you’ve missed your target.

5. The Hard Sell

If you’re filling your message with a call-to-action that is too much of a hard sell, you’ll quickly irritate your customer. Avoid too many “buy now” or “hurry, time is running out” statements. While this might work on a used car lot, it’s not effective with savvy internet shoppers. Even if you’re the most trustworthy online business owner in the entire cyber world, this tactic screams scam.

6. Not Selling at All

Just like you don’t want a hard sell, don’t use a sales tactic that’s too soft. Don’t be so scared of annoying or offending your customers that you never ask for the sale at all. Be engaging, be sensitive, be appropriate, but above all else, provide enough information that your customer knows how to buy your product.

Once you eliminate these annoying habits from your online repertoire, you’ll be amazed at the increase in your traffic and your bottom line.

If you are a e-retailers you are probably dealing with the never ending battle of improving your cart or in the process of integrating a completely new cart to your site.  From my experience there are 5 musts that you definitely need to have when choosing a shopping cart.

1.  Dynamic Meta-Data

This is especially important for e-retailers who have hundreds or thousands of products.  The last thing you want to do is have to manually craft each title and meta tag for every product.  So in order to keep every products meta data unique for lots of products, you can dynamically pull in the products name, category and business name into the title tag.  You can then take the product description and pull it into the meta description tag.  This will help optimize for the long-tail and remove any opportunity for duplicate content.

2.  Multiple Image View & High Resolution

One major down-fall to buying online is the inability to be able to touch and feel the product you are looking to buy.  So in order to resolve this issue and help users picture what it actually looks and feels like, you should have multiple product images and angles.  This gives the user a sense of tangibility and makes them feel like they are right there at the store.

3.  Newsletter Integration

For e-commerce sites, your existing customers are vital to the success of your business.  Existing customers are much more likely to continue buying from you if they had a good experience before.  The reason is that they have already built a relationship with you and are comfortable with your brand/products.

Making sure that when someone purchasing, you give them the option to be signed up for your newsletter is HUGE.  This gives you the opportunity to re-market to them time and time again.  Sending them emails about complimentary products, specials, promotions, holiday sales, new products and product news  is a large component of driving existing customers back to your site and re-purchasing.

So make sure your shopping cart has the ability to either feed into a e-mail marketing system like AWeber or MailChimp, or has the functionality built-in to the cart.

4.  Shopping Site Integration or XML Data Feed

You have probably noticed when you do a search for a product in Google, Google will pull in results for their product search engine.  Since these results are at the forefront of the SERPs, you want to make sure you are listed there.  How do you do this???  Use a shopping cart that integrates with Google Product Search or creates a XML feed of your products that you can easily upload to Google.

You have also probably seen sites like Amazon, ShopZilla, Shopping.com and other comparison shopping engines are getting high placement in Google results as well.  So you want to be able to syndicate your products onto these sites for massive product exposure.  Many of these sites allow you to submit a XML data feed, so again this is another important reason why your cart should be able to integrate with these other shopping sites.

5.  Payment Options

With more people shopping online, more people are using various payment methods to purchase products.  So make sure you give the user all of the mainstream options for buying online.  Credit cards, Google Checkout, Paypal and Pay Later are all important options to have which will cater to all online shoppers.

BONUS.  Single Sign-On

The last thing you want to do is have a ready to buy customer, leave, because they had to create a profile before they purchase.  Give users the option to either Register, One-Click Sign-On like what Amazon does, or Buy as a Guest.  This can give the user an option to buy without having to sign-up.

1.  Optimize or Bid on the Following Keywords

Over the years I have noticed that when users search certain keywords it increases the likelihood that they are ready to purchase.  Think about using these terms into your SEO or PPC campaigns.

• “Buy + Keyword”
• “Keyword + Review”
• “Keyword + Company”
• “Keyword + Comparison”
• “Best + Keyword”
• “Top + Keywords”
• Specific Brands + Model #s

2. Wordtracker Labs:  Keyword Questions

This is a great tool to find questions people are searching for in the search engines.  Unlike the regular keyword tools that are available, this tool will help you understand possible needs in an industry.  If you notice that there is a lot of search volume for a certain question…ask yourself “what would solve that problem or question?”, “what products or services would fix their issue?”.

3. MSN AdCenter Labs – Detecting Commercial Intent Tool

Probably my favorite tool for detecting commercial intent, MSN has providing an outstanding easy tool to use, that will allow you to enter in a term and it will identify its commercial intent.

4. Google Keyword Tool

The Google keyword tool is not really meant for detecting commercial intent, but there is a specific part of the tool that will help you find keywords that will convert at a higher rate.

When you do a search in the tool, go to the Average CPC data.  This is approximately what you would pay for keywords in the Google Adwords platform.  Some things that you will notice are that certain keywords will have significantly higher cost-per-click than others.  Generally they more specific or longer-tail keywords are the keywords that have a higher CPC.  The reason that is, is because they are more targeted.  Identifying those keywords that have a higher CPC, usually have a higher commercial intent, than the broader, lower CPC keywords.

For Example:

• Sony TV:  $1.25
• Sony HDTV: $1.46
• Sony 46 LCD TV: $1.57
• Sony TV Stands: $2.56

As you can see the more targeted the keyword, the higher the CPC goes up, which usually equals that the commercial intent is much higher.  In this example, you can tell that someone that is searching for a Sony 46” LCD TV, obviously has done some research on TV already and is closer to purchasing, compared to someone just putting in Sony TV or HDTV.

5.  Read these 2 Posts

This was a great post by Rand over at SEOmoz and Search Marketing Man that I think will help everyone better understand that different types of search intent.  By understanding the different types of searches, it will help with your overall knowledge of search intent.

They break down:

Navigational Queries

Informational Queries

Transactional Queries