Survey: Blog readers are more mature and affluent

June 16, 2004

Source: eMarketer.com

A recent bloggers survey claims that blog readers are more mature and affluent than expected and more prone to click on ads and buy online. Many advertisers think bloggers—and blog readers—inhabit some kind of cyber backwater, full of stagnant, egotistical, overwritten and overblown opinion pages, but no real advertising opportunities.

Blogads, a Web ad network, surveyed 17,159 blog readers in hopes of changing that perception. Far from being young kids with little money in their pockets and lots of time on their hands, the survey found that blog readers are older and richer than many people suppose.

Exactly 61% of the blog readers that responded to the survey are over the age of 30, and 75% make more than $45,000 a year. In fact, nearly 30% of the respondents are between the ages of 31 and 40, and over 37% spanned the ages of 41 to 60. And nearly 40% have a household income of $90,000 or higher.

A partial profile of blog readers reveals:

-- 54% of their news consumption is online
-- 21% are bloggers themselves
-- 46% describe themselves as opinion makers

More importantly, from an advertiser's point of view, in the last six months:

-- 50% have spent more than $50 online on books
-- 47% have spent more than $500 online for plane tickets
-- 50% have contributed more than $50 to a cause or candidate online
-- 5% have contributed more than $1,000 to a cause or candidate online

A full 67% of respondents claimed they have clicked on a blog ad. Asked what they did after clicking, 39.4% said they donated money, and 22.3% said they purchased a product or service.

Without question, blog readers are biased toward the Internet. On average they said 54% of their news comes from online sources, with newpapers running second at only 16.5%.

But, according to the survey, blog readers suck up information from everywhere. They are media-mavens: 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly. Nevertheless, the survey found that " blog readers are united in their apathy about traditional news sources: 82% of blog readers say that television is worthless or only somewhat useful as a source of news and opinion. 55% percent say the same about print newspapers. 54% say the same about print magazines."

As Henry Copeland, author of the report and CEO of Blogads, summed up: "86% say that blogs are either useful or extremely useful as sources of news or opinion. 80% say they read blogs for news they can't find elsewhere. 78% read because the perspective is better. 66% value the faster news. 61% say that blogs are more honest. Divided on so much else, blog readers appear united in their dissatisfaction with conventional media and their rabid love of blogs."

Copeland went on to say, "I conclude that blog readers are, themselves, a distinct and important new demographic cohort: blog readers." He is hoping advertisers agree.

We strongly suggest you bookmark our web site by clicking here.
escalate your sales to succe$$ - Start Business Blogging today

escalate.ca runs on the Businessblog™ platform. You are free to link to this site as much as you like.