Top Seven Trends in Internet Marketing

I recently made a presentation to some marketing professionals in the telecommunications industry in Chicago. The topic of the presentation was “Growing Your Business Online.” In that presentation, I identified seven trends that are having a dramatic impact on Internet marketing. I thought I would share those with you…

Trend 1: Growth of Broadband in the Home

• 57 percent of U.S. households have broadband access.
• Among active Internet users, broadband access will break 90 percent by June.
• Not only are there more households with broadband, but the speeds are increasing as well.
  • Nine percent of U.S. broadband households had speeds capable of streaming high-definition video at the end of 2007.

Trend 2: Multimedia is Now Mass Media

• U.S. Web users watched more than 10 billion online videos during the month of February. That’s a 66 percent gain from the previous year. ComScore – 2008
• 48 percent of Internet users have visited such a video-sharing site at least once to watch or post a video, a growth from 33 percent in December 2006. Pew – January 2008
• Nearly a quarter of Americans (24 percent) say they regularly learn something about the presidential campaign from the Internet, almost double the percentage from a comparable point in the 2004 campaign (13 percent). Pew – January 2008

Trend 3: Emergence of the “Prosumer”

• Today’s consumer is…
  • Intelligent
  • Empowered
  • Skeptical
  • Connected
  • Time-pressed
  • Demanding
  • Disloyal
  • Always on
  • Ahead of the curve
  • Vengeful

Trend 4: UGC is King

• 51 percent of all consumers engage in User Generated Content (UGC), with 71 percent of the “millennials” (18-25) using it. TopRank – 2008
• Product reviews increase retail conversion, rates and satisfaction.
• 80 percent of U.S. shoppers place more trust in brands that offer customer ratings and reviews. Bazaarvoice – 2008

Trend 5: Explosive Growth of Online Communities

• Facebook
  • More than 60 million active users
  • An average of 250,000 new registrations per day since January 2007
  • An average of three percent weekly growth since January 2007
  • Active users doubling every six months
• MySpace
  • More than 110 million monthly active users
  • The country’s most trafficked site on the Internet
  • One in four Americans is on MySpace
  • On average 300,000 new people sign up for MySpace every day

Trend 6: Email Has Never Been Bigger

• Email is the No. 1 Internet activity, with 91 percent of Internet users using it.
• 15 percent of Americans describe themselves as addicted to email.
• The average email user checks mail about five times a day, and 59 percent of those with portable devices are using them to check email every time a new message arrives.
• 83 percent of email users admit to checking their mail once a day while actually on vacation.

Trend 7: Mobile is the Next Big Thing

• Worldwide, there are more digital mobile phones than televisions and PCs combined.
• More than half of mobile handsets are less than a year old and most of them have full Internet capabilities.
• Smartphone sales (Blackberrys, Palms, iPhones) have grown 165 percent this year alone in the U.S.
• 30 million people in the U.S. will access the Web from their mobile devices this year, already representing one-fifth of those consumers that access the Web from their PCs.