19 Feb
The dynamics of marketing and advertising are changing at a constant rate, and many marketers are struggling to keep pace with the shifting landscape. If there is one thing that we count on when it comes to our marketing strategies, it’s that they need to be centered on the web.
E-Marketer.com published an article yesterday that contains some interesting statistics regarding U.S. web usage and how those stats are shifting. You can read the article here. The graphs below were taken from the E-Marketer.com website.
It is predicted that in the next five years, monthly Internet users in the U.S. will increase to 250.7 million. That is 221-million user increase from 2010. This is an incredible increase in monthly Internet use, which reinforces marketing theories that point solely to web.
An interesting stat represented in above data is that more than half of those new 221-million users will be of the ages of 45 and up. This reinforces a lot of the previous reports I have read about marketing to the 55+ markets. Many would argue that the older demographics can’t be reached with social media or web based marketing strategies. These report, along with so many others, debunk this theory quickly.
E-Marketer makes an interesting point when comparing the 12-24 year olds and the 45 and older group. The number of users will increase for the 12-24 year olds, but their grasp on the majority will begin to slip as the older groups begin to adopt the same Internet habits and tendencies as younger generations.
Maybe the most interesting point presented by the article is that way we use the web is changing, so the way we measure Internet use might not be completely reliable. Younger demographics tend to use the web all day, every day. The web never leaves their side thanks to their smart phones and other devices.
As we continue to see the introduction of new wireless web devices such as the iPad and net books, the landscape of the Internet marketing and the means we measure it by will continue to shift.