I recently came across some interesting research which if you are based in the UK you might find of interest.

Earlier this year, insurers Hiscox published the Hiscox Wealth Review for 2008 and identified that some 10% of the UK population, nearly 2.5 million households can now be  identified as wealthy.The report states that:

An average ‘Working Wealthy’ household in Britain earns £88,000 (close to triple the average household income of £33,000), takes two foreign holidays a year and has over £20,000 worth of disposable annual income.  Despite this over 90% of them do not consider themselves at all wealthy. 

However, this population described as the ‘Working Wealthy’ say they would need to earn around £150,000 per household, have paid off their mortgage, own more than one property or a holiday home and send their children to private school before saying they are well off. 

The report uncovers that:

• Four in ten go on more than one foreign holiday a year (38%)
• Almost a third own a luxury home entertainment system (29%)
• Almost a quarter have savings of more than £25,000 (23%)
• 15% own a piece of art work
• 14% own more than one property.

Here are the persona’s for the ‘Working Wealthy’ as defined in the report:

The Home County Happies

• A wealthy mature professional couple in their 40s and 50s, living in a 4-bedroom house in the Home Counties
• They are likely to have more than two cars, go on more than two foreign holidays a year, and are interested in golf, arts and charity
• Often with a second home, their children will have expensive possessions, such as laptops, and they spend a lot on private education
• Women likely to shop in Waitrose; men most likely to own an Audi  

The Shire Squires

• A wealthy professional living in a small village with his/her partner but commuting into a city for work
• Likely to be over 45, they live in a detached four-bedroom home in a small village, with two or more cars to help them with their hobbies of antiques, arts and nature
• They may have benefited from dramatic rises in the property market of the 90s
•  They spend their money on home entertainment, household appliances, restaurants, hotels and clothes, in that order
• They lead a comfortable lifestyle

The Urbanite Professionals

• Often categorised as the ‘late to start a family’ earner, the young professional has a high income but won’t necessarily think so, as they compare themselves to higher ‘city-esque’ earners
• Regularly drinking lattés, they can afford to indulge in expensive disposables, from fashion, wine, electronics to art
• They may also have benefited from an inheritance of antiques, art or jewellery, and are likely to go on annual ski-ing and/or diving holidays abroad
• Women shop in Whistles; men shop in Reiss

So if you are considering your target market for your products and services, consider how you might want to include the information from the Working Wealthy report to support you developing the persona’s for your core clients, customers and patients - does it give you a better understanding of what motivates them to spend and what their priorities are?

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Have you been wondering how you might engage in social networks for your business?Very often I am asked but how might social networks be relevant to a specific audience.

When I talk through social media platforms, I cover what I call focused or targeted social networks - where the social network is specifically relevant to a specific audience, just as you might think about joining an offline network or group for your professional association or hobby e.g. The Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors or Network Ireland for women in business in Ireland.

Let’s take a look at a few specific online networks that have been established recently:

• Saga Zone has been established by Saga the organisation who supports people in the UK over 50 with products from vacations to financial services has created their own social network. They offer their members the opportunity to create your own personal profile page and share your interests in our online forums; write your own web diary, or blog. They also plan to offer members the opportunity to create their own photo gallery and engage in live instant chats
• Club Penguin is an online community for children aged 6-14 brought to us by the Disney Corporation. Club Penguin is a virtual world where children can play games and connect with each other. There is a free and a paid membership option - the site comments that instead of financing their operations Club Penguin relies solely on paid memberships. The copy on the site says “By remaining ad-free, we can provide our users a safe haven from marketing.”
• Caboodle is a social networking community about Budapest and Hungary, including general interest news and original feature stories, comprehensive event listings - it’s aimed at foreign nationals living and working in Hungary and is written in the English Language
• SkiSpace is a new social networking and information site just for skiers, snowboarders and winter sports hounds. It’s co-founder is world champion skier Bode Miller. Members can share photos and videos, help you plan your snow adventures, find the best travel deals in fact everything it provides just about everything for the Ski enthusiast. Lanuched in December 2007, it had 10,000 members in the first month according to a review in Business Week.

In fact the Telegraph reported this week that the BBC is now planning to set up a social networking site for the 6-13 year old age group. The BBC site, which is costing £200,000 to develop, will launch in April piloted among 1,000 children. The BBC state that the site is designed to encourage discussion of the Corporation’s shows and will help raise awareness among youngsters about the risks of using the internet.

So what does this mean for you in terms of connecting to your clients and potential clients or customers through social networking?

Well even if you have no plan to develop your own social networking site or plan to advertise online through social netowrking sites is the fact that it’s important to keep tabs on where your potential clients are congregating online. Even by “listening to the conversation”, you could learn alot about what their current challenges are and what they are concerned about which can help you in fine turning your product, service or marketing copy.

What I can tell you with certainty is that increasingly your competition is investigating and learning more about social media marketing - I know that for a fact from the number of enquiries I have had already in the last month about running educational programmes and mentoring programmes in the field of social media marketing in Ireland.

So how can you start to build awareness and your knowledge in the field of social networking? Well here are some terrific resources and many of them are available at no cost:

• Don’t forget to join me on Monday 28 January 2008 when I will be in conversation with Jason Alba, author of “I’m on LinkedIn now what???” which you can register to attend here for just the cost of your phone call
• Join me for the preview session for the forthcoming Social Media Telesummit on the 6 February 2008 at 1pm ET/6pm Dublin and London where host of the summit, Leesa Barnes, will be in conversation with some of the worlds experts in the field of social media marketing including Paul Colligan, Darren Bearfoot and Sherman Hu. Again it’s free to register for - you will see a registration box half way down the page - all you need is a phone line to join us.

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If there was ever a question about how popular social networking and social media sites are in Ireland, a quick look at the Alexa rankings for sites in Ireland certainly provides an interesting insight. While not perfect, the statistics give us some indication of which websites attract the most traffic.

Of the top ten most popular sites according to Alexa as at 2 November 2007, no less than five of the sited were social networking or social media websites.

So if you are a marketer or involved in business development and are wondering how to connect with your ideal clients and customers, how to get up to date research on what your clients and customers are saying about your brand and what concerns them, my recommendation is ensure that you integrate reviewing social networking sites in your market research and your online marketing communications plan.

You won’t have to re-distribute much of your marketing budget you are currently investing in online marketing through banner ads and Google Adwords. 

What you will need is time rather than money from your marketing budget.

Consider building relationships and getting connected online through social networking sites where your customers and consumers are connecting.

In fact that is the conversation I had earlier this week with Adam Maguire of The Sunday Business Post who was researching for an article he was writing about how marketers can use social networking sites to connect to their target market.

I suggested to Adam that rather than cash, connecting to consumers and clients demands courage:

• courage to take a stand with your executive team to show them that social networking sites are worth investing time with
• courage to research online and take notice of what people are saying about your brands
• and courage to begin to engage and connect in real conversations about what matters most to your customers, clients and consumers.

So do you have the courage versus the cash?

Remember that there is a time and a place for banner adverts. Just as with traditional above the line advertising campaigns from TV adverts, to print ads, these marketing strategies build brand awareness but it is difficult to measure their effectiveness and they do not automatically lead to brand engagement or convert prospects to customers.

As for the current top ten most trafficked sites in Ireland according to Alexa rankings, here they are:

1. Google.ie
2. Bebo
3. Yahoo
4. Google.com
5. YouTube
6. Windows Live
7. MSN
8. Facebook
9. MySpace
10. Wikipedia

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One of the most effective no-cost research tools I have use and recommend to my clients is Google Alerts.

This is an amazing resource that I use to access information about:

• the industry I work in and trends in the market
• my competition and marketing strategies they are implementng
• research about market trends in my clients industry
• reviewing the strength of my clients brand
• researching my clients competition
• accessing statistics to use in presentations, reports and articles
• identifying potential joint ventures and strategic alliances
• discovering new business tools
• research for my book
•  content for my products, programmes and live events.

Google Alerts enables you to set up an email alert on a daily or weekly basis or if you prefer, in real time.

I recommend putting in place a once-a-day Google Alert which you can then review at the start of each day.

Items that feature in the news, in blogs or on the web can be included in the alert.

I highly recommend you setting up your own Google Alerts - and don’t forget to set an alert up for

• your own name
• the names of your key products
• and of course your business.

This will enable you to monitor and track your personal and corporate brand and where people are reporting on you, your products and services and your business. 

Google Alerts is how I found out that the Howth Coastguard had blogged about my review of their blog.  You are very welcome guys - just make sure that you enter for the Irish Blog Awards won’t you!

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