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Dear [contact-First_name] [contact-Last_name],

It’s year end time, holidays, vacations and a time to reflect on what has worked and what to try next.

I found these three story clips recently on MediaPost that I thought were particularly enlightening. Looks like including niche sites, newspaper sites and going after blog and online video audiences could improve your marketing results.

Take a look at what these marketing studies research has found out:

Study: Niche Sites' Ads More Engaging

BROADBAND USERS ARE SLIGHTLY MORE likely to pay attention to ads from brand marketers when those ads appear on smaller, niche Web sites than on sites with more than one million unique visitors a month. That's one of the key findings of a new report by Media-Screen, released this week.

For the report, Media Screen surveyed 1,356 broadband users, asking them to determine on a scale of one to seven how likely they were to be interested in products on given sites. Respondents gave 42% of the small sites (traffic of less than one million uniques) one of the top ratings, compared to 39% of the larger sites.

Cate Riegner, Media-Screen's director of research, said that smaller sites often have a tighter focus, and so are better able to capture consumers' attention. "People are more engaged and more involved in the smaller sites that speak to a topic of keen interest to them," she said. "If you can connect with a customer on a level of great attention or great involvement, they'll be more interested in the ads you have." Riegner added that users often perceived their favorite sites to have especially interesting ads.

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Scarborough: Newspaper Sites Draw Big Spenders

A NEW STUDY FROM SCARBOROUGH suggests that newspaper Web sites attract users who are more likely to spend significantly on online purchases than the average Internet user. The Scarborough study focused on the Web sites of five regional papers--the Sacramento Bee, Houston Chronicle, Providence Journal in Rhode Island, Orlando Sentinel, and the Kansas City Star.

In each one of these markets, visitors to the newspapers' Web sites were more likely to spend at least $1,000 a year online than the average Internet user. They were also more likely to purchase specific items identified by Scarborough as market leaders in online sales--including airline tickets and travel reservations, books and clothing. They are also more likely to use Internet banking and other online financial services.

MRI: Audience For Online Video, Blogs More Than Doubles

THE PROPORTION OF U.S. ADULTS who said they watched an online video in the last 30 days more than doubled to 11.4% over the last year, according to data from Mediamark Research Inc. Adults who reported visiting blogs almost tripled to 6.7%, and those making phone calls online tripled to 2.6%. Using e-mail, obtaining news, and personal shopping were the most common Internet activities--with 70.5%, 40.2% and 34.2% of the population, respectively, pursuing them. The research is derived from MRI's fall 2006 survey, for which interviews were conducted from September 2005 to October 2006.