The number of ”graying and affluent” households is on the rise–and more and more of them are embracing the Internet as a shopping medium.

That’s the word from International Demographics, whose new Media Audit revealed that 65.6% of “graying and affluent” households had made at least one online purchase in the last 12 months–versus 50.2% the year before.

The Media Audit defines the graying and affluent market as those over the age of 50 with incomes of $50,000 or more–and they make up 15.7% of all the households in the US.

This certainly isn’t news for anyone who’s been following the social and economic impacts of the aging baby-boomer generation, but it may be a timely reminder for marketers who still think the Internet is only for targeting the Gen X and Y crowd.

Even if many of the older and wiser audience never go near the Internet, the fact remains that their children and grandchildren will.  As caregivers, they’ll use it to research and make decisions on behalf of their elders–on everything from finding a new doctor and purchasing a car to everyday things like filling a prescription or shopping for shoes.

So are the graying and affluent among your target audience? If so, take a step back and make sure you’re not ignoring their Internet savvy–or the Internet savvy of the ones who love them most.

A Marketer’s Introduction to Flash Animation

Flash animation is a pretty popular web design element these days, but most marketers still don’t recognize its full potential. In fact, if you’re like most people, you probably just associate it with the all too frequently used (and incredibly annoying) Flash “splash” page—the introductory page that prevents you from immediately getting to a website’s home page.

But Flash—like most things—can be used for good or evil.

Flash Brings Your Page to Life.  
One of the things that separates the Internet from print is the ability to have motion graphics. This same thing can help separate your site from your competition’s. It may sound cliché, but when done properly, a Flash animation can truly bring your page to life. Does your company build beautiful things? Does your restaurant have a one-of-a-kind atmosphere? If your company or organization does something much better than others, why not highlight that facet of your business with a Flash animation?

But Won’t People Need Special Players to View My Site? 
Five years ago, it was hard to convince a client to use Flash. It was a “new technology”, and not many people were able to view Flash. Latest versions were always required for download, and most people wouldn’t bother. Nowadays, though, Flash is used on virtually all the most trafficked sites on the Web—and for you that means that anyone that comes to your site is likely to already have been to a site which uses Flash and downloaded the necessary technology. In fact, Adobe’s latest stats tell us that over 98% of Internet users have at least Flash 6 installed on their systems. 

Flash Can Be Updated
Did you know that your Flash animation doesn’t have to be static-for-life, or static-until-you-ask-your-web-designer-to-update-it? With script, Flash can now pull images and text externally from your server. This means that you can effectively update your animations with fresh content whenever you want…in a Flash (yes, we did just go there.)

To learn more about how to enhance your site with Flash, contact your local TruePresence consultant.
 

Landing Pages, Part Two: How to Craft Your Landing Page Message

If you read our post on landing pages a couple weeks ago, you know how important it is to anchor your search marketing campaign with a landing page. But what makes for a good landing page? That’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

Eight out of ten times you conduct a search for a product or service, you will click on a paid search ad that leads you to a landing page that doesn’t speak to the two questions all searchers are looking to get answered: “How can you solve my problem?” and “Where do we go from here?”.

Simply put, most landing pages do not have a clear and concise call-to-action that spells out exactly what action they want the user to perform.

The key to a good landing page is to always focus your messaging in a way that guides users as to what you want them to do.

Here are a few best practices to go by when trying to develop your landing page message. Continue Reading…