"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 poised 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 demographic of people over 35 years of age
disproportionately buys 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 eyesight tends to deteriorate
with age. Moreover, make sure you include pictures of mature
persons 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 U.S. 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 http://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 using the general 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 conversion
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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
By the year 2010 there will be more "ethnic people of color" in
the U.S. combined than the once known general market. This will
make the terms ethnic market and general market obsolete. 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.