Low-Budget Online Marketing. Holly Berkley

your success in delivering a clear, innovative message to a highly targeted audience.

      The number-one advantage of marketing online is that the Internet allows you to get extremely targeted, more so than any other form of advertising. So the more you know about your customers, the better your chances of a successful campaign. If you don’t know who your target audience is, start asking! Give away a product or coupon to encourage your customers to share their demographics.

      How to Target Different Types of Audiences

      Effective online marketing is no different than marketing cars, music, clothing, or anything else. Certain basic themes, lingo, technology, and even colors appeal to one generation, gender, or race more than another. So get to know your audience; cater to their individual needs. Remember, not all web users are created alike.

      By utilizing features that attract specific audiences to a website, you will be able to capture their trust, attention, and loyalty. Here are three examples of very different audiences: women, seniors, and teens.

      Women want to save time and money

      According to WomenTrend, a Washington consulting firm, 80 percent of all household purchases are made or influenced by women. In 2000, 52 percent of online shoppers were women. The likelihood of Internet use among women tends to increase with age. CommerceNet/Nielsen Media Research says that women older than the age of 50 are more likely than men to purchase online and twice as likely to purchase online as are women in general.

       Determine who your target audience is, then provide website content and features that will keep them interested.

      Women of all ages primarily use the Internet to save time and money. They see the value in 24-hour availability and being able to compare prices quickly and easily without any sales pressure — which could be one reason car and financial sites are now thriving!

      Women also enjoy a sense of community, which helps explain why www.women.com and www.iVillage.com are so successful. These sites not only give women a sense of community and comfort, but also help women with everyday-life problems. The number of women who visit education, health, and family sites is drastically higher than the number of men. To sum up, if you are trying to target women, be sure your site provides some of those features that interest them.

      Seniors prefer simple sites

      Although younger users may seem to be dominating the Web now, seniors are gaining ground. Web users aged 55 to 64 make up 22 percent of online households and are estimated to account for 40 percent as more of the baby boomers reach retirement, according to Forrester Research.

      With household incomes averaging about $60,000, seniors are an attractive target for online businesses. Although they are more skeptical about the security issues of buying online than younger users, they are quickly becoming more confident about making online purchases. Just be sure to always provide contact information, including a physical address and phone number. Most seniors agree that they will not buy from a website that does not provide this important information up front. For them, hidden contact information is a big red flag.

      Overall, what kind of sites do seniors like best? Simple ones, with light graphics and no complicated downloads or plug-ins.

      Teens represent a large, racially diverse generation

      You better get to know this group. “Think of them as the quiet little group about to change everything,” says Edward Winter of The U30 Group consulting firm.

      Generation Y is larger than any other consumer group. After all, they are the children of the baby boomers. This generation is also the most racially diverse. According to Business Week (“Cover Story: Generation Y”): “One in three is not Caucasian. One in four lives in a single-parent household. Three in four have working mothers.”

      For this younger crowd, the Web is where it’s at. Traditional advertising tactics just won’t cut it anymore. This group is far too sophisticated and computer savvy. Says Business Week, “[The Internet] is the Gen Y medium of choice, just as network tv was for boomers. Television drives homogeneity, the Internet drives diversity.” They find what to wear, what to buy, and what to listen to from two main sources: their peers and online. A well-designed website is crucial for any company hoping to reach this generation, perhaps the most computer literate yet. bmw is a perfect example of a company that zeroed in on their target audience and created an online promotion that attracted their ideal customers while strengthening their overall brand.

       Case Study

      “We knew that 85 percent of the people who buy our cars are web savvy,” said bmw’s Marketing vice president, Jim McDowell, during an interview with John Gaffney for Business 2.0. “Our buyers are fast-track people who usually have success early in their careers. They believe that the Internet is a wonderful thing.”

      With this in mind, the company launched the BMW Films campaign, a brilliant way to ensure BMW kept its cutting-edge and high-end brand in the forefront of its equally sophisticated and hip customers. There was nothing low-budget about this campaign, as bmw enticed big-name directors (such as Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer, and Guy Ritchie) and stars (such as Forest Whitaker, Mickey Rourke, and Madonna) to create six- to eight-minute films that provided the elusive mix of entertainment and product showcasing.

      People could log on to www.BMWfilms.com, and if truly BMW’s target audience (that is, a hip, wealthy, Internet-savvy car lover with a sound card and fast Internet connection), could download Guy Ritchie’s short film featuring Madonna in the back seat of the newest, coolest BMW being chauffeured at top speed through busy city streets. Or click over to an Ang Lee film, created soon after he completed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and watch the bad guys chase a mysterious BMW driver (Clive Owen), who is escorting a young Tibetan lama to safety.

      Although BMW would not disclose the exact amount spent on the campaign, it did announce that if one million online viewers logged on, the campaign would be a success. They were thrilled to learn that well over three million visitors had watched at least one film. And despite a cooling economy, BMW witnessed its highest car sales during the online campaign, exceeding the 40,000-vehicle mark.

      Get the Word out through Those You Know

      Using new technology or doing something truly innovative online will almost always get attention. You don’t need top directors and famous faces to make a campaign like bmw Films work for your small business or company. Just follow the same formula. For example, a really great Flash movie, photo, animation, or even urban legend can start a buzz about your product or company. Think about the types of emails that get forwarded around the world and back — all those silly pictures, jokes, and funny movie clips. Imagine tying in some kind of marketing message and watching your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors forward the message out to their email lists.

      An amazing graphic artist I used to work with created a clever animation with his new company logo and contact information discreetly located at the bottom. He forwarded the cute cartoon to his friends and family hoping they would find the animation clever enough to forward on to their email lists. It worked! His animation quickly spread around the Internet, and when it eventually reached people who were in need of graphic design, they were able to trace the animation back to its owner and give him a call.

      Any time you can get word of mouth or get friends to email each other about your website, product, or service, the results are invaluable. Efficient, low-cost online marketing is about quality, not quantity. That’s why I am firmly against any sort of email spam or purchasing of email lists. Build your own email list with people who are actually interested in you and your product. (See Chapter 5 for ideas on how to build your email list.) And always give people a way to unsubscribe from your list.

      Unlike online marketing theories of five years ago, smart marketing is no longer