BCA

Boomers’ lives are going in many different directions, as empty-nesters, step-parents, grandparents and caregivers. For all of these roles, the internet and digital media are absolutely essential.

eMarketer estimates 78.2% of this cohort is online, nearly 60 million adults. Even as their numbers decline, that penetration rate will remain high through 2015. And they control more than $2 trillion in annual spending.

“The baby boomers grew up being chased by marketers and advertisers that tailored products and brands to appeal to them,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Digital Lives of Boomers: Reaching Them Online.” “Now the median age of this cohort is 55, and many boomers feel as if they have dropped off many marketers’ radar.”

Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic. Younger boomers (ages 47 to 55) spent an average of 39.3 hours online per month in 2010, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Older boomers (ages 56 to 65) averaged only slightly less, at 36.5 hours. A lot of that time was spent shopping—and buying. Forrester Research reported that boomers spent an average of about $650 online over a three-month period in 2010, compared with $581 by Generation X internet users (ages 35 to 46) and $429 by millennials (ages 18 to 34).

Boomers also stay connected on the go. eMarketer estimates 86.9% will have a mobile phone this year, and 16.9 million boomers will access the internet from a mobile browser or installed app. In 2015, that number will reach 25.4 million, or nearly 40% of boomer mobile users. This is a market that content providers, game publishers and brand marketers should not pass by.

Marketers who widen their messages to include boomers would be wise to make their efforts ageless, rather than targeted at an older set.

Most brands do not want to “age” their products

“Boomers are immediately turned off by association with old age, infirmity and decline,” said Phillips. “Most brands do not want to ‘age’ their products with blatant appeals to older consumers. The win-win is to create an overarching brand message that gives a nod to boomers, but also includes younger adults and even grandchildren.”

This often means turning a negative—fears about failing health, for example—into a positive, such as showing the benefits of products that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

The full report, “Digital Lives of Boomers: Reaching Them Online” also answers these key questions:

• How do baby boomers use the internet differently from other age groups?
• What other kinds of technology do boomers use?
• What forms of social media appeal most to boomers?
• How do you talk to an audience that avoids advertising?

For complete data charts and story, go to e-Marketer.com

From: World Advertising Research Center (WARC)

Online auction giant eBay is seeking to enhance its ecommerce credentials by moving into territory occupied by established players like Amazon.

The company has offered $2.4bn to purchase internet retail specialist GSI Commerce, which offers services covering website hosting and design, inventory management, customer support and marketing.

“Technology is changing how consumers shop, and retailers and brands are changing how they compete,” said John Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive.

“Commerce is at an inflection point where the lines between online and offline commerce are blurring.”

GSI’s roster includes adidas, Levi’s, the National Football League, RadioShack, Ralph Lauren and Toys R Us, adding a different shape to eBay’s client base.

“It wasn’t until 18 months ago that eBay even contemplated calling on larger companies or big brands,” Donahoe told Bloomberg.

“We are focused on delivering new ways for retailers and brands of all sizes … to drive innovation, engage customers and help people shop anytime, anywhere and on any device.”

eBay broadens their audience

Brian Walker, an analyst at Forrester, suggested this tactic made strategic sense, as it broadened eBay’s target audience.

“It makes them a solution for large, regular-price retailers and consumer brands who would not see eBay or PayPal as solutions,” he said.

eBay now a rival to technology providers

However, Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co, warned eBay was now a rival to expert technology providers such as Oracle and retailers like Amazon.

“This is a business of great complexity,” Rohan said.”It’s one eBay may or may not have their arms around in terms of understanding the competitive dynamics.”

The agreement with GSI means there is a 40-day window – or “go-shop” period – when the smaller firm is allowed to solicit bids from alternative sources, that eBay can match if it chooses.

“That ‘go-shop’ basically says, ‘OK, private equity, come and get me,’” Rohan said.

If completed, the takeover will enable eBay to supplement the revenues drawn from transaction system PayPal and its Marketplace auctions.

Considerable potential in moving larger customers to the GSI platform

“We see considerable potential related to moving larger Marketplaces customers to the [GSI] platform, and having [GSI] customers use Ebay.com as an additional channel and PayPal/Bill Me Later for payments,” said Scott Kessler, an IT analyst at Standard & Poor’s.

Gene Alvarez, a Gartner analyst, similarly argued the expansion of eBay’s stable might create a clearer structure for partners to progress through.

“For every eBay seller that gets successful and leaves, eBay has to get another one to replace it,” said Alvarez.

“Hopefully, they’ll be able to move them to GSI and keep them as customers, as new ones come in at the lower end.”

GSI does not compete with its suppliers

A further key strength of GSI is that it does not compete with suppliers, unlike Amazon, which has lost allies including Target, Borders and Circuit City after extending its product range.

“eBay is extremely interested in developing a portfolio of capabilities to compete against Amazon.com,” Leslie Hand, an IDC analyst, said.

Hand also outlined a countervailing trend currently at work, as brand owners and retailers develop their in-house capacity.

“As their e-commerce performance improves, there’s a general trend for retailers to build more internal capabilities to support those operations,” she said.

Data sourced from Bloomberg, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times; additional content by Warc staff30 March 2011

 For complete data charts and story, got to e-Marketer.com

From: eMarketer

Time-tested online media to see budget increases.

According to a survey of business-to-business (B2B) marketers, traditional online tactics remain key to marketing success.

Just over half of B2B marketers surveyed told BtoB Magazine their budgets would go up this year, mostly by less than 15%. With a primary marketing goal of customer acquisition (69%), the greatest number of respondents expected spending increases to come from online (78%). By contrast, 44% said they would be spending more on events and 36% on direct mail.

Online, B2B marketers were most likely to report planned increases in marketing spending on their websites and email programs, followed by social media. These results differed in priority from those of a survey of general US marketers by RSW/US. Among that group, 65% planned to spend more on social media, followed by 47% on email. RSW/US did not report on increases in website spending.

More than two-thirds of B2B marketers already used social media marketing as of December 2010, where the main focus of marketing efforts was brand building. Despite customer acquisition being B2B’s top goal for the year, less than half of respondents were using social media for lead generation.

In 2010, social media, websites and email each received a median of 10% of B2Bs’ online marketing budgets. Spending levels were higher on display and video advertising.

From: World Advertising Research Center

Experts have reported strong competition for Super Bowl ads, with overall viewership forecast to increase and 30 second spots costing advertisers up to $3m.

Kantar Media research suggests that total ad revenue from the event will reach $200m for the third year in a row, despite the downwards pressure on budgets exerted by the global economic slowdown.

Moreover, the total ad time allocated within the Super Bowl broadcast was found to have increased over the course of the last decade.

A total of 47 minutes and 50 seconds of 2010′s broadcast were given over to promotional messages of some kind, up 18% from 2001.

The New York Times reports that Fox, the 2011 Super Bowl’s broadcaster, has sold all of this year’s available ad slots at a rate of $2.8-$3m per 30 seconds.

In 2001, Kantar says, the rate was just $2.2m.

Speaking to the newspaper, Nick Hutton, a cmo for financial services firm E*Trade, one of this year’s Super Bowl advertisers, said viewing figures for the game could hit 110m.

Nielsen figures show the 2010 Super Bowl attracted 106.5m viewers, an all-time high.

The game is “the only event of the year where advertising is not the uninvited guest,” Hutton said.

“[When] commercials come on, people stop talking.”

Data sourced from New York Times/Ad Week/Mediapost; additional content by Warc staff24 January 2011

By Bart Icles

Business line of credit online, merchant funding, and bank loans help entrepreneurs make their businesses successful. Merchant cash advance is a new kind of merchant funding known to many. In merchant funding through merchant cash advance, a credit card company converts future credit card sales into instant cash that the business owner can use for his/her business. There are several reasons why this type of loan is being preferred by many entrepreneurs than conventional bank loans. Let us look at some of their advantages.

For one, the processing and turnaround with merchant advance is faster. Merchant funding through merchant cash advance can be processed within a few days compared to bank loans, which usually takes a few weeks to months to process. Also, you need to provide a lot of documents such as tax returns, financial statements, etc. A merchant cash advance can be had faster and without too much hassle.

It has a higher approval rate. Merchant advance providers are more generous than banks; they are not so particular and choosy when it comes to approving applications. History of earlier bankruptcies and low FICO does not merit you possibilities of application denial. Generally you are only judged in two things, by your monthly credit card sales and by your number of months in business.

It has no upfront charges. Merchant advances do not oblige you to pay upfront costs such as application fees and some sorts of closing costs. It features a repayment that is more flexible. Typical bank loans strictly need you to repay them a fixed amount monthly. Merchant funding like merchant cash advance is more flexible. Plus, the required monthly repayment amount depends with your business performance. Merchant cash advance is more convenient as they do not usually impose overly expensive penalties if you happen to miss repayment due dates. What happens is that you will be asked to pledge a fixed part of your future credit card sales. Charges are lower when your business is poorly performing.

Personal guarantees are not usually required

When applying for merchant cash advances, you do not have to provide any collateral. When applying for merchant cash advances, you do not have to find a personal guarantor who will assure them of repayment in case you fail to do so. This is because they are more into the business credit card sales and not the owner per se.

Business line of credit online, merchant funding and bank loans sometimes serve as the lifeline of several entrepreneurs. A merchant cash advance would be best for the entrepreneur who needs short term funding to give his/her business a chance to thrive and grow bigger.

Having a good source of business line of credit online or merchant funding online is ideal for any type of small business. For the best deals, check out Principis Capital.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bart_Icles

From: e-Marketer

Two-thirds of web users have paid for digital content.

Publishers still struggling with the choices involved in monetizing their content may have some good news about paid models: According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 65% of online Americans have paid for intangible digital content over the web. That’s just under the 66% who told Pew earlier in 2010 they had made an ecommerce purchase of physical goods.

The most popular online content for purchase were music and software, with 33% of respondents reporting they had paid for each. For the most part, men and women had similar purchasing habits, except that men were more likely to purchase software online. Larger differences existed between age groups; more adults ages 18 to 49 purchased each content type other than news than did those over 50.

“When you hear that 65% of US internet users pay for online content, the number sounds impressive,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. “But when you drill down into the data, you find that this aggregate number is spread out among a broad base of content types that includes everything from music, software and apps to movies, ebooks and game cheats. No single category in the survey had a paying user base of more than 33%, and relatively few respondents have paid for more than three types of content. This means that content owners still have an uphill climb as they transition their businesses from physical products to digital media.”

Many seniors have never purchased any type of online content

The oldest adults, seniors over 65, were most likely to fall into the group that had never purchased any type of online content, followed by their younger-boomer counterparts.

The average respondent spent about $10 per month on digital content. Asked whether they had accessed digital content via subscriptions, individual downloads or streaming, internet users indicated subscriptions were the most popular model, at 23%. Two-thirds of respondents had only used a single payment method to access content.

“These findings put paid content on an equal footing with tangible goods and travel services—both of which also have online paying user bases of two-thirds of internet users,” said Verna. “This is a good barometer of online commerce overall, but it leaves content owners with the same quandary they’ve been facing for years: how to convert more people to paying customers in the digital domain. When they figure this out, we’ll start seeing mass-market numbers in surveys such as Pew’s.”

From: e-Marketer.com

Nearly three-quarters this year…

As consumer usage of social media continues to increase in the US and around the world, marketers have transitioned from cautious engagement to full deployment.

Next year, four in five US businesses with at least 100 employees will take part in social media marketing, eMarketer estimates. That’s up from just 42% as recently as 2008, and the number of marketers using the channel will continue to rise through 2012.

“Marketers that have spent the past few years ramping up their internal social media marketing infrastructure—and their presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter—will take social media to new heights in 2011,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report “Social Media in the Marketing Mix: Budgeting for 2011.” “And as they do, they will evolve the way they market across all media, not just online.”

eMarketer developed its social media marketing forecast through analysis of a dozen third-party surveys and their methodologies. The increase in usage stems from several trends, including rising consumer social media usage, the fact that Facebook now has a truly mass audience, and the promotional firepower companies have seen in action on social sites.

Social media is top of mind for spending

Social media is top of mind not only when it comes to usage but also spending. A worldwide survey of marketers by Maxymiser, a provider of website personalization tools, found that social media ranked third among areas marketers planned to focus their online marketing budget in 2011, after search and their own website.

According to several independent studies, spending on social media continues to rise.

“As spending increases, other marketing channels may lose budget,” said Williamson. “Total marketing budgets in general are not increasing, so social media spending must come from other types of marketing. Early indications are that offline media and promotions may be hit first.”

While the spending picture is bright, future increases will be tied to ROI. The need for effective measurement will reach its strongest point to date in 2011.

To view data charts and complete story, go emarketer..com