Who's Online in America

We’ve been hearing a lot about the US Census Bureau lately, with the national census underway. However, the Census Bureau doesn’t just emerge, cicada-like, every 10 years. They’re collecting and analyzing data about the US population all the time.

A brief look at Census info from October 2009 pertaining to Internet usage provides some interesting observations:

--68% of individuals access the Internet from some location (either inside or outside the home), and 31% of US households have no Internet usage at home. It may be hard for us to imagine in 2010, but yes, roughly one-third of Americans are not on the Internet at all.

--Demographically, the groups with the lowest percentages of Internet access and usage at home are blacks, Hispanics, those over 55, and those with a high school education (or less).

--However, among those groups, the percentages with Internet access somewhere other than home are still relatively high (blacks 68%, Hispanics 64%, 55 and older 63%, high school graduates 66%). The lowest number in this category is for those who are less than high school graduates—only 41% of that group has Internet access outside the home.

--73% of the unemployed have Internet access.

--Interestingly, Alaska has both the highest percentage of individuals with Internet access somewhere (79%) and the lowest percentage of individuals with Internet access at home (57%). Apparently, lots of Alaskans access the Internet outside the home. The Census Bureau doesn’t mention how Alaskan employers feel about that!

It's hard to believe that a sizeable portion of Americans—about one-third—is not online. These are important stats to remember when creating your next marketing campaign. As online marketing is a great tool, but traditional (non-online) methods still serve a valuable purpose and shouldn’t be overlooked or discarded. These stats show that in order to reach the majority of prospective customers, a fully integrated marketing campaign would have the biggest impact.