Pew Internet & American Life Project data suggest that consumption of mobile content shows significant variation among ethnic groups. Data shows that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to access the internet via a mobile device. Although 32% of all US consumers ages 18 and older have accessed the mobile Internet (up 8 points since 2007), usage by minorities climbed more quickly. By 2009, 29% of both blacks and Hispanics went online with a hand held device “on a typical day,” versus only 17% of whites.

“Black and Hispanic households are more likely to use a mobile phone as their primary phone, and have a lower rate of PCs and broadband than white households,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst. “It makes sense that these groups access the Internet via a mobile device more often than whites.”

So what does this mean for the small business owner?

Well, if you your target market includes minorities, it is a good idea to explore mobile internet marketing as a means to reach your potential customers. There are multiple ways to achieve better access to your customers that primarily use mobile Internet.

• Email campaigns are great to communicate with potential customers. 16 % of Blacks and 23% of Latinos send and receive email via a mobile device. To have an effective email campaign you need to gather a list of email  addresses. Don’t want to get a reputation as a Spammer. To do this, offer a potential customer something free or at a discount, but require an email address to get the reward. Once you have gathered a nice sized list, send information about your products or services, but keep it to no more than once a week so you don’t irritate people by flooding their inboxes, especially on their mobile device.  Make your emails short and to the point and also make them text-only emails. Graphics take longer to load and they may display differently on different devices.

• 47 % of Blacks and 59% of Latinos send and receive text messages via a mobile device. Get customers that are willing or required to give their mobile phone number to give you permission to send them text messages about new deals or sales. You want to be sure to get the customers explicit permission for this because, depending the person’s individual mobile plan, they may be charged per text message. Costing a person extra money is a sure way to anger them and you lose a customer! If you do get permission, I would keep the communications to twice a month, unless your customer base seems receptive to more frequent text messages.

• Popular social networking sites (Twitter, Yuwie, etc.) have integrated mobile components. Many people get their social network sites to send updates and messages from their account directly to their mobile device. This is a great way to reach potential customers. Set up an account for your business and post things relevant to your industry, with the occasional ‘sale’ or ‘deal’ posting. Network on these sites and gain ‘friends’. The more ‘friends’ you have, the more people that will receive your updates. Be careful to remain professional on these sites, you should not talk as if you are using your personal accounts ! Avoid any offensive language and stay on topic.

• You also want to start making your web pages more mobile ready. This can be done in a variety of ways… here is a good starting point:

Get your website ready for the Mobile Web in 10 steps

High mobile usage among minorities is not limited to online content. Black and Hispanic mobile users were more likely than whites to participate in every mobile activity studied by Pew, including sending and receiving text messages, taking pictures, playing games and accessing e-mail.

It appears that mobile devices may be one of the ways in which the digital-divide is being closed. Minorities seem to gravitate to mobile devices for internet. It is not a surprise though, more minorities have cell phones than do PC’s, they are cheaper and mobile. As more and more activities and services are available on the internet the cell phone is a readily available conduit to the Internet and it is already in most people’s pocket.

]]> http://vbsinsight.visionsbiz-online.com/2009/08/minorities-access-mobile-content-more-often/feed/ 6 http://vbsinsight.visionsbiz-online.com/2009/07/social-network-advertising/ http://vbsinsight.visionsbiz-online.com/2009/07/social-network-advertising/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:55:44 +0000 admin http://vbsinsight.visionsbiz-online.com/?p=416

Social Networking is one of the most active, online activities. People love to chat with friends and update their profiles to reflect their ‘to-the-minute’ state of being! This is a great place to advertise, and more emphasis has been placed on targeting this very active segment of the internet population. Word of mouth marketing can be viral in social networks and ads my be more effective because people are usually relaxed and ready to click and browse when they are social networking.

excerpts from eMarketer
Is Social Network Advertising Ready for Primetime?

As a result of the poor economy and various difficulties at MySpace, paid advertising on online social networks in the US is expected to fall 3% in 2009.
…..
eMarketer projects that US marketers will increase their social network ad spending 13.2% in 2010, to $1.3 billion.
…
While the US accounts for the majority of ad spending on MySpace and Facebook, non-US spending is growing rapidly at Facebook. eMarketer estimates that marketers will spend a total of $520 million to advertise on MySpace worldwide in 2009, down 14% from 2008. Worldwide spending on Facebook, by contrast, is expected to grow 20%, to $300 million, in 2009.
…
“Regardless of which site is in the lead, 2009 is the year of building social marketing strategy,” says Ms. Williamson. “2010 and beyond will see increased activity and deployments.”

Social network users create a gigantic amount of data about themselves—their friend networks, likes and dislikes, content-sharing activities and more.

“Harnessing this information to deliver advertising not only within social networks, but on other sites a consumer may visit, is a marketer’s dream come true,” says Ms. Williamson.

Just out from the Census: The U.S. added a million new non-employer businesses in 2007, for a total of 21.7 million. Together these businesses had sales of nearly $1 trillion — that’s about 7% of US GDP in 2007. Most of these are self-employed individuals with sole proprietorship, though the Census recorded 1.4 million corporations with no employees and 1.2 million partnerships.

The trend is coming into view. There are more people working for themselves instead of (or in addition to) being employees. A guess could be the recession is creating even more entrepreneurs as laid off workers go into business for themselves. Census data is always a couple years behind, and it will be interesting to see whether the numbers from 2008 and 2009 support the perceived trend — and whether it’s a significant, permanent change or a temporary response to the job market.

http://www.businessweek.com

As internet usage grows and as more and more people become internet savvy, we  see a continued rise in online sales and advertising. The internet is a great place to showcase your services or products, but statistics show that word-of-mouth is still one of the best marketing tools to expose your products or services and, more importantly, create a sale. There are various low-cost ways to market your service or product by word of mouth. There are a few things to consider first:

1. Your services , product or company must be memorable.

If no one remembers you they can’t tell anyone else. Create recognizable logos for you company or product. Create a catchy tag line for your business (ex. Nike – Just do it). Help people remember you for what you do! Sometimes, the uniqueness of your product or services will be memorable on it’s own (Ex. The Rubik’s Cube).

2.  Your services, products or company must be reliable.

Word of mouth can make or break you! If you make a concerted effort to generate some word-of-mouth sales, you better have your customer services skill and procedures in order. A customer that feels that have received sub-par service or that your product is not all you said it was…. you may quickly see how negative word-of-mouth can spread twice as fast. People will give you bad ‘press’ with greater speed and quantity, because they have negative feelings about your company. Negative emotions are usually a greater motivator than positive emotions, in relation to marketing. People must feel that they can easily contact your company if there is a problem.

———————————————————————————————–

Word-of-mouth recommendations can move consumers to make a purchase. Word-of-blog, on the other hand, is far less persuasive.

According to Mintel, 34% of US Internet users who bought a product or service based on a recommendation got that tip from a friend or relative, while one-quarter bought based on advice from a spouse or domestic partner.

Lower on the list were bloggers and chat rooms.

While bloggers may bring buzz to a product, converting the buzz to sales is another matter—unless, of course, the blogger is a friend.

eMarketer.com

Women are one of the most internet savvy groups of all internet users. A recent post (Woman and social media) we explored how woman are the most active users on social media sites. This post provides great supporting information to that post and gives greater insight into a sub-set of  woman online, namely, Moms! For small business owners, these statistics are extremely useful, when planning or adjusting your marketing techniques, searching for areas of growth (gaining new customers), introducing a new product or service or working on better customer retention.

Keeping pace with their children keeps many moms on the edge of new technologies and online activities. In fact, they are among the most savvy of all online users.

They are also one of the larger user groups online.

VBS - eMarketer graph

eMarketer estimates 34 million mothers in the US go online at least once a month.

Moms are the decision-makers for many family purchases, and increasingly the information they obtain and activities they engage in online affect those decisions.

“Moms visit parenting and family websites, but they also regularly view news, weather and political content online,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Moms Online: More Influential Than Ever. “They shop for their kids—and themselves, and when they find something great for their family, they talk about it, not only with their family and friends, but often with a much broader online audience.”

In ways that marketers are only beginning to understand, the Internet is influencing mothers—and enabling mothers to influence others.

A survey by Razorfish and CafeMom found that Websites, referrals from friends and family, and information from search engines were the most common sources online moms used to make a purchasing decision.

The moms were less likely to use TV, magazines, newspapers or radio.

VBS eMarketer business stats - moms online activity

According to Experian Simmons, 70% of online moms made a purchase online in the past 12 months.

When it comes to what moms shop for online, the Marketing to Moms Coalition found that 44% of online moms shopped for themselves—almost the same as the percentage who shopped online for their kids (45%).

In addition, 49% said they researched products online.

Moms surveyed by Razorfish and CafeMom were more likely to have shopped for clothing or accessories (40%) or food/cooking items (31%) online than baby/parenting gear (26%).

article from eMarketer

Woman tend to be more social than men and this truth is also evident when it come to internet usage. Statistics suggest that woman are the primary users of social media of all types. Woman seem to follow blogs, post on blogs, stay up to date with Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, at a greater rate than men do. To an entrepreneur or business owner, this means that your ad dollars may go a bit further when marketing to  woman.

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The “2009 Social Media Study” from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners found that women are turning to all sorts of social media for fun, entertainment, community and connection.

More than one-half (53%) of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly.

Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs. Nearly 23 million of the social media users read blogs.

Many women went beyond merely reading: 12 million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.

In fact, women who used blogs were more than twice as likely to do so when they were seeking information, advice and recommendations than were women who participated in social networking.

When providing advice or contributing to a community, more women also turned to blogs than social networks.

excerpt from article by ©2009 eMarketer Inc.

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Marketing opportunities can be found in many places…. for internet-based marketing …targeting the teen population is a good bet.

Just think…
Who are usually the most tech savvy in the household? Teens
Who has lots of free time and the interest to spend online? Teens
Who has disposable income (allowance/parents) and is willing to spend it freely? Teens

Here are few facts:
-Twice as many teens live in the South than in the North (9 mil vs 4 mil).

-Today the hispanic/Latino Teen market is 4.6 million strong. By 2020 it will grow more than
62%; 6 times the rest of the teen market.

-Asian-American teens ages 10 -14 are expected to have the highest growth rates in this decade
31% – from 903,000 in 2001 to 1,188,000 in 2010.

-The US Census estimates that by 2020, the non-white child population will increase to more than 17 million or 45% of all kids 6 -14.

-Nearly 6 out of ten kids get an allowance averaging $14 a week

-31% of kids 6-11 spending goes to candy
-23% of kids 6-11 spending goes to snack food

-75% of teens look for the lowest prices and 73% go for sales. Teens are very cost conscious.

-94% of teens say that having the right size is the most important factor when choosing a retailer

-Music is universal.

In light of theses facts …. I would bet that internet business and commerce will experience even greater and more explosive growth than we have seen thus far. As these teens grow to adults they will be far more comfortable with internet shopping, surfing and socializing. I believe that a properly built business that build a solid brand and get a piece of the coming boom.