Missing Any Markets Lately?
How to Quickly and Easily Increase the Size of Your Market.
Copyright © 2004, Chris Marlow
Missing any markets lately? That's a good question to ask
yourself if you've never given much thought to the disabled.
I'm sorry to admit that I really hadn't, until a client gave me
directions to include a TTY telephone number (for the hearing
disabled) in a B2B print ad.
It's worth considering that the Internet is a liberating tool
for many disabled, and that the disabled could be a significant
market for your goods and services. According to a spokesman for
the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative,
these people make up some 8 to 10 percent of the Web-surfing
population. That's a big market to ignore!
In some camps, most notably the non-profit sector, Web page
designers are beginning to design for easier access and
navigation by the disabled. They're taking into account vision
problems, and motor skills problems. And they're making their
software compatible for the text readers and Braille translators
used by the blind.
Another market that may be somewhat invisible to American
e-marketers is not a group per se, but an entire country:
Canada.
In the Letters to the Editor section of Business 2.0, a Canadian
IT professional complained that he is forever responding to U.S.
ads that push him to their Web sites. Yet when he goes there and
attempts to register, the site requires his "state" and "zip
code." Not good - especially when you consider that per capita,
Canada has a history of having more people online than the
United States!
So whatever your product or service, think for a moment whether
you're pulling in the disabled, or pushing them away. And a few
tweaks to your Web site might just increase leads and sales from
our fine neighbors to the North.
A veteran freelancer and award-winning copywriter, Chris Marlow
offers business coaching to new, aspiring, and seasoned business
freelancers who want to accelerate their success. She can be
reached via http://www.TheCopywritersCoach.com
© Chris Marlow, 2004 All rights reserved.
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