Internet Marketing Clinic

Two recent articles present some interesting information about how the Internet is changing. One is in a eMarketer and the other in an article in Wired magazine.

The first talks about demographics on social media and points out how it is changing to an older crowd. In the group between 50-64, 47% use social media. This is a substantial representation. In the prime age group of 30-49, over 60% use social media. Facebook logged its 5oo millionth user in June of this year. That is a huge audience. And this is a worldwide group. Remember that this is more people than live in the United States.

These age groups tend to use the media in different ways from the younger group, an important consideration for marketers. Older users are involved in Facebook and Linked In, and have other differences in their pattern of use.

Ad spending for social media is also changing. This indicates that bigger companies recognize the appeal of this size audience and are working heard to find a position in it where they can capitalize on the attention that people pay to this medium. If you are in a retail business, you have to take this market seriously.

In the other article, the emphasis is on how traffic on the internet is changing. Keep in mind that there is a distinction between the web and the Internet. In broad terms, the Internet is the highway, and the web is destinations. That is an oversimplification, but useful and easy to remember.

This article points out that the volume of traffic on the Internet that is devoted to the web is now only 23% of the total volume of traffic! Keep in mind, this point is about traffic, not visitors. As marketers, we are interested in visitors. Traffic that comes from watching videos or listening to music consumes more bandwidth than traffic going to and from web sites, and that accounts for some of the huge change in where the volume of traffic comes from, but it still points to big changes in how the Internet is used.

What do these changes mean to your business, both in terms of threats and in terms of opportunities? It will certainly depend upon what segment of business you are in and what the demographics of your audience are, but no one will be unaffected by these changes. Pay attention so you will be on the bus instead of under it!

A new report from eMarketer shows the growth and potential of social media to businesses.

A couple of the interesting statistics cited in the piece include the percentage of ad spending that is going to social media, and the popularity of social media sites as compared to search sites.

This chart shows the growth in spending and is an indication of how seriously businesses are taking the media. This is a new factor in marketing and is still being explored to determine where and how it works best, but, whatever the findings, it is a factor that businesses must take into account when developing their strategy for the Internet.

This next graph shows the popularity of sites on the Internet in New Zealand. New Zealand may not be the biggest target in your marketing strategy, but the graph is still interesting because it reflects a trend that is much broader than NZ, which is that different applications are occupying more and more time of people on the Internet.

A recent magazine article in Wired announced that “The Web is Dead”. This may be an overstatement (not uncommon in selling magazines), but the point they are making is an important one to keep in mind, which is that the pattern of usage on the web is changing quickly and dramatically.

The question, as always, is, “What does this mean to me and to my marketing strategy?”

We will continue to explore that issue, and I plan to post some comments about the Wired article later after I have had more time to review it. Watch this space!

I have often commented in our clinic that big brands on big sites that have big budgets don’t really rank well in search engines. I just came across a long post that takes apart several sites to illustrate the point in considerable detail.

This post analyzes several big corporate sites and demonstrates pretty clearly that they just don’t do SEO very well! From my point of view, this is great news! What this means is that people who understand how to do their SEO properly, and who are willing to put the effort into doing it, can achieve great performance on search engines without having to spend a lot of money.

Since my clinic is oriented toward small businesses, and small businesses typically don’t have a lot of money (otherwise, they would be “big businesses”, yes?), this is really good news!

As I said, the article is a little long, and may seem, to some readers, technical, but it is worth reading to get a better understanding of what you are up against when working on your web site.

“According to Forrester Research, 25% of US online retailers are planning at least some mobile features for 2010, compared with just 4% in 2009.”

.
Mobile applications have not achieved much penetration in the marketing area yet, but there are signs that this may be changing. An article from eMarketer provides some of the reasons why businesses have not yet turned to mobile applications.

.

In our Internet Marketing Clinic, we plan to have a presentation from a local developer of mobile applications in the near future. This will be a good opportunity to learn something about the mobile application environment and a chance to identify ways that mobile applications might offer some benefit to your web site and business.

.
Watch our schedule to see when our guest will be presenting!

A new study reported in eMarketer indicates that 90% of local shoppers go online first to find what they are looking for! I find this an astonishing figure. It really says that no matter what kind of business you are in, you better have an Internet presence if you want to be effective  in meeting your competition.

Local shoppers shop online first!

This chart, coming from BIA/Kelsey, makes the point clearly. Ignore this at your peril! If you are in business and not utilizing the web to inform your prospects about your products and services, your competitors are going to have an advantage over you. Someone competing with you will be using the web, and they are who shoppers will encounter when they go online.