Web Marketing To A Segment Too Big To Be A Niche

Excerpted from Abilities Buzz E-News, November 2006

In the October 30 issue of The New York Times, Andrew Adam Newman reported that although 50 million people in the United States have some form of physical or mental disability, they spend money just as easily as others. But there are few efficient ways for advertisers to reach them, and that's what a new Web site, Disaboom.com, hopes to change.

Disaboom is the brainchild of J. Glen House, who graduated from medical school after becoming a quadriplegic as a result of a skiing accident at 20. The site combines the social-networking features of Web sites like Facebook with information of interest to its constituency: medical news, career advice, dating resources and travel tips. Disaboom.com went live Oct. 1 and hopes to attract more than a million unique visitors each month by the end of February and to double that o ver the next year. Mr. House and his investors took the company public in May, listing it on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board securities market.

“I don't think mainstream advertisers realize the magnitude of the marketplace and how underserved it was,” said Howard Lieber, vice president for sales at Disaboom. Among some advertisers who have already signed contracts with Disaboom are Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, Avis and Cricket Communications.

“I didn't have to think real long and hard about it,” said Kathy LaPointe, mobility motoring manager at the Ford Motor Company, about the automaker's decision to advertise prominently on the site. Ford is highlighting its $1,000 allowance for new car buyers to defray costs of adding adaptive equipment like wheelchair or scooter lifts, steering wheel knobs and pedal extensions. Click-throughs from the ads to Ford's Web site “have performed well above the benchmark,” Ms. LaPointe said. “This has been a huge success for us so far.” To Ms. LaPointe, this is part advertising outlay and part public service. “We're in the business to make money and sell vehicles, but it's also the right thing to do,” she said. “We can't even measure the societal benefit” of the effort, she added. “We're trying to make a difference in the world and help people.”