• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 22, 2006

Consumers are more likely to open their wallets for companies that offer useful product and service tutorials online. That's according to a survey of some 200,000 consumers to be released today by Next Generation Media, and commissioned by Powered, Inc.

One in five respondents said pointed educational offerings would get them to buy a particular product or service, while nine in ten said they would tell a friend about the deal. Citing its "gratitude effect" theory, Next Generation calculates that helpful freebees are 29 times more likely to sell products or services than generic media advertising, and five times more effective than direct marketing.

Next Generation's findings champion the business model of Austin-based Powered, which helps companies like Hewlett-Packard and Atkins Nutritionals educate consumers on a range of topics from shooting home videos to keeping eating meals out healthy.

Powered also released the results from recent partnership between itself, the female-focused online community iVillage, and Sony Electronics. Following ten free, instructor-led online courses for iVillage--and underwritten by Sony--over 90 percent of participating consumers said they would enroll in another course, and 91 percent would recommend iVillage online courses to a friend.

Sony, which was able to interweave its products throughout the course material, saw positive results. Some 70 percent of participants elected to opt in to Sony's e-mail program upon registration, and more than a quarter of all students clicked through from a course to various Sony Electronic microsites. Also, nearly one-third of students stated that completing the courses increased their purchase consideration of Sony products, and more than 15 percent purchased a product as a result.