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Pinpoint Your Profits with Diversified Digital Dollars

by Kamau Austin

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Published on this site: January 2004 - See more articles from this month



"Showcasing Your Products and Services with Different Ethnic Groups and Identities is Good for Your Business".

If you could increase your income or subscribers by 25%, in 2004 for...f-r-e-e, wouldn't this be a great boost for your business?

Just imagine if this increase in your business could be accomplished just by thinking outside of your comfort zone, or adjusting your mental attitudes. While the great Internet gurus sell us every secret to surviving and thriving on-line, I discovered a little secret many of the web gurus of the world overlook. This basic insight could really add a good bottom-line boost to your business.

Lacking from the discourse, of major Internet marketers, is the concept of simply helping your prospects, of various ethnic backgrounds and identities, to envision themselves using your products and services.

While major corporations have found out, through marketing research, and business schools also acknowledge the bottom-line benefits of diversity and ethnic marketing, many Internet business people don't understand the profit power of diversity.

I am amazed, at how so many web businesses act as if they are in a time warp, back in 1995, when the Internet audience was a general market male dominated media. Search many web business sites, and you will notice many have little if any pictures of Blacks, Hispanics, or Asians using their products or services.

Even women, the dominant group on the web now, are depicted very little on some small business web sites. Mature models are also very scarce on the web, which is ironic because, this is a great market to sell products to on-line.

"Women Rule the World On-line"

  • The Majority of Internet Users are Women (51% according to E marketer statistics). Women are responsible for 80% of household purchases. As of 2002 75% of Women had yet to shop on-line, therefore this market is posed for explosive growth.

  • Sixty three (63%) of women shop more than once a week. While men focus on transactions in shopping, women seem to focus on relationships (Source: Make My Site Sell!). Therefore, develop good perceptions and relations with women, let them experience your concern for them as customers, and your income is sure to grow.

Make More Money with the Mature Market On-line

  • By 2007 senior citizens will comprise about 25% of the percentage of people that buy products via the Internet.

  • Presently, there are about 7.6 million senior citizens on-line.

  • This population is predicted to grow to 16.3 million by 2007, with the biggest growth period being in 2004. Furthermore, mature persons comprise a large part of Internet users today with 40.2 million users being middle-aged adults (ages 35-49) and 23.7 million older adults (ages 50-64). That's over 71.5 million Internet users over the age of 35 (Source: Jupiter Research).

  • Contrary to popular belief, that young people are the primary group using the web, as a location for their business, 80 percent of on-line small business owners surveyed are over 30-years-old (Source: Affinity Internet).

  • The over 35 demographic disproportionately buy items over the Internet. This is why you should design your sites to be user friendly to people over 35, in most cases (unless you have a youth orientated site). Make sure your type is large enough and contrasts with your background to be readable because, eye sight tends to deteriorate with age. Moreover, make sure you include pictures of mature person's on your web site to woo this market.

People of Color Portend Phat Profits!

  • Hispanics are now the largest ethnic minority (Hispanics are not a racial minority because they are comprised of different races) with 38.8 million people in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census, there are about 15 million web users of Hispanic Descent (Source: U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy by AOL/Roper ASW U.S.). Hispanics spend more time on-line than the general population (Source: www.Terra.com).

  • Hispanics spend about $439 dollars each on-line a quarter, or approximately about 6,585,000,000 (almost 6.6 Billion dollars) in aggregate income (every 3 months). You do the math, this means Hispanic web users spend about 26.4 billion dollars on-line. The US Hispanic Market presently has a buying power of 580 Billion Dollars (Source: Emarket Inc.). You would be crazy to ignore this on-line ethnic market.

  • Blacks represent 8 percent of Internet users with 10 million users (While Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority, Blacks are still the largest racial minority with 38.3 million people according to the census). Blacks are converting to broadband (high speed Internet access) at a fast pace with over 32% of blacks on-line with high speed connections (Source:
    Nielsen Net Ratings). Blacks seem to be more brand loyal in their Internet consumer attributes, with most of them using the services of AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.

  • More importantly for our study, Blacks now have over 631 Billion dollars in buying power (Source: Target Market News). The Black or African American market, is projected to have a buying power of 850 billion dollars by 2007 (Source: Emarketer inc.), which means probably within 5-7 years it will reach 1 trillion dollars in buying power. If you are looking to expand your customer base, perhaps optimizing your site for both the search engines, and diversified digital dollars can help you reach your goals.

Surviving and Thriving in the New Era of Diversified Digital Dollars.

On a personal note, I have adjusted my thinking and attitude for the diversified marketplace and have seen big dividends in return. For instance, I have a site www.einfonews.com that helps close the digital divide in e-commerce. I was once using generic terms like Black and minority business to describe my site. My site was optimized for minority business keywords. I could only get 5 or 6 people a day (or about 175 a month) to subscribe to my ezine, despite every effort to increase my conversion rate. I brainstormed for a long time to figure out how to increase my ezine subscriber ratio.

One day I got the idea, to stop only using the keywords black and minority in my web copy, and to include the keyword Hispanic as well. The exact hour I included the keyword Hispanic, my subscriber rate increased 33%, with many of the new subscribers having Spanish sounding names. In other words, be inclusive in your words and graphics, and increase your response rates. I am sure, if I also used more diversified graphics my conversation rates would go up as well. Currently, I have increased my subscribers by almost 300% a month using these methods.

From Minorities to Emerging Markets with 1.5 Trillion Dollars in Buying Power!

I almost forgot to mention the phenomenal growth of the Asian market on-line. Just to make a point, according to a new report by E marketer statistics service, by 2007 half of the Internet's users will be Chinese (who are only a portion of the Asian net users)! Presently the US Asian market has a buying power of over
296.4 billion dollars, which is projected to grow to 454.9 billion dollars by 2007.

This means the three largest so called "minorities groups" in the US currently have a buying power of over 1.5 Trillion dollars. The marketing trend is to stop thinking of people of color as "minorities", and think of them as emerging markets.

It's time for all of us, to broaden our thinking towards other cultures, in order to survive and thrive in a new era of diversified digital dollars.

Kamau Austin, helps small and minority business make more money, by creating, search friendly web sites. He is the owner of www.Ebizbydesign.com , www.Einfonews.com , and the creator of the Free Search Engine Promotion Tele-course at: www.SearchEngineplan.com . He can be reached called free at 866-324-9669.

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