Marketing in the New Media. Holly Berkley
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by Age, Education, and Income Level
So, who exactly do new media marketing strategies target? Well, almost everyone, actually. According to Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 400 million people globally are online (Madden, April 2006). In the US alone, more than 172 million people (77 percent of the adult population) are regular Internet users according to a Harris Interactive poll (eMarketer, May 2006f).
There is a direct correlation between higher education/higher income and using the Internet more frequently. For example, the Internet Penetration and Impact report by Pew/Internet found that 91 percent of college graduates regularly go online while only 40 percent of adults with less than a high school education do so. As income level rises, so does the likelihood of having an Internet connection at home and using it frequently. Households with an annual income of less than $30,000 are only 53 percent likely to be online, while households with income between $30,000 and $50,000 are 80 percent likely to be online. And that percentage continues to increase as income level rises (Madden, April 2006).
Another important statistic for marketers to consider is that about 84 million Americans have broadband connection in their homes. That is almost double the number from the previous year. This growing number of high speed Internet connections allows marketers to get much more creative with their online promotions, which were once limited by file size and slow downloads with dial-up connections.
Breaking down the Internet usage numbers even further, by age group, shows that nearly everyone is an active part of the digital lifestyle (Madden, April 2006). Here are the current statistics:
• 12–17-year-olds: 87 percent online
• 18–29-year-olds: 88 percent online
• 30–49-year-olds: 84 percent online
• 50–64-year-olds: 71 percent online
• 65+ years old: 32 percent online
(See Chapter 5 for more details on ways to reach these specific target audiences and how different demographic segments differ in their use of new media technology.)
What are people doing online?
So what are all of these millions of people doing online? According to a February to April 2006 Pew/Internet survey (representing 143 million Americans), users are spending 91 percent of their online time reading and sending emails, followed by using search engines or map sites. Seventy-nine percent of users are looking up health and medical information, followed by 78 percent of people researching products, services, weather, hobby information, or travel information. Sixty-eight percent of users are getting news online (Madden, April 2006).
Shopping is another primary activity for Internet users, whether directly purchasing a product over the Internet or researching a product before they buy offline. A study from Shop.org, conducted by Forrester Research, projects that online sales will exceed $200 billion in 2006 (eMarketer, May 2006d). Internet marketing and well-designed websites allow retailers to consistently find more than one-third of their new customers. Most often, online consumers are purchasing travel-related items, including airline tickets, vacation packages, and hotel accommodation. The next largest industry categories of online sales include computer hardware and software, automobiles, clothing, and footwear. Pet supplies, cosmetics, and fragrances are expected to see growth rates of 30 percent in 2006, exceeding any other categories. (We’ll take a look at the best ways to market to consumers in each of these industry categories, as well as others, in Chapter 6.)
Using the Internet at work
During the workday, the average employee spends about 13 hours per week accessing the Internet, 24 percent of which is spent visiting non-work-related sites. So where are all these workers going on company time? According to the seventh annual Web@Work study from Websense, conducted by Harris Interactive, top sites include map sites, news, and weather. These findings were consistently reported by both employees and IT managers who monitored staff Internet usage; however, as you get further down the list of non-work-related sites, the numbers start to conflict. For example, 3 percent of employees admit visiting dating sites, while IT managers found the number is actually closer to 18 percent. And while less than 1 percent admit visiting gambling or sex sites while at work, IT managers found those stats average 10 percent (eMarketer, May 2006c).
Now that we know what the average employee is doing online, what about the upper-level executives, business owners, and key decisions makers in the company? According to a 2002 survey conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings and the Washington Post, 77 percent of key business decision makers believe that the Internet is the absolute best place to find out about new products. Sixty-six percent recommend online advertising as the best way to reach them. That is higher than magazines, newspapers, radio, and even television! By using the web to market your product, you have the opportunity to put your product in front of the most demographically desirable customers during the web’s prime time — the business day, when consumers are more likely to take action and less likely to be distracted by other forms of media.
The study found that the Internet is not only the most used medium during the workday, but over 90 percent of executives who use the Internet regularly at work log on from home as well. This makes Internet use during the evening and late hours second only to television viewing.
Using the Internet strictly for fun
On any given day, 40 million Internet users go online just for fun, to pass the time (Fallows, February 2006). Men are typically more likely to “hang out” online with no particular goal, while women users tend to be a bit more goal oriented. Also, the younger the web user, the more likely they are to go online strictly for fun. Other determining factors in web usage for fun are Internet experience and home broadband access. Thirty-six percent of those Internet users with more than six years of Internet experience will surf the Internet for no particular reason, and also 72 percent of those with home broadband Internet connections will use the web in this way.
The Importance of Social Networking Channels
Surfing the web for fun often leads users to get involved in the fastest growing online phenomenon: social networking. In the past few years, online social networking has become a core component to a successful new media strategy, which is why in this second edition of Marketing in the New Media I have dedicated a new chapter to this topic. Skip to Chapter 3 for Social Media Optimization (SMO) strategies to help leverage your company, brand, or message on top social sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, LinkedIn, and more.
The Growth of Blogs
Donald Trump has a blog. So do Michael Moore and Ariana Huffington, as well as thousands of celebrities, musicians, business executives, and average people. Blogs (also called “weblogs”) provide a way for nontechnical people to post information about their personal lives, beliefs, politics, businesses, products, services, or anything else in a chronological, diary-type format. Many blogs allow visitors to provide feedback on those comments as well.
Since 2003, the growth rate of blogs has doubled about every six months, reaching 35.3 million in April 2006. According to Technorati (http://technorati.com), a blog tracking site, the Internet world sees an average of 1.6 million legitimate blog posts every day, many posts related to new product announcements and scheduled events (Burns, April 2006b).
Blogs are an important marketing tool for your business for many reasons. First, they allow you to develop a closer connection with customers, to generate feedback, and to provide customer support. For an example of a corporate blog, take a look at GM Blogs (www.gmblogs.com) — the General Motors home for their corporate blogs.
The second reason blogs are an important piece of marketing is because they are a great way to help increase search engine ranking for your site. Because blogs are largely text based, they are easy for search engines to index. And because every entry includes a date and search engines look to post the most recently updated