Working from one’s home – whether as a home-based business owner, remote worker, or telecommuter – has become a dominant trend in American business. The dominant magazine to target this home business market is HOME BUSINESS® Magazine (HBM). Working from home has grown 15.6 percent annually since 1995 (Catalog Age). One out of every two workers (as projected by Readers Digest) now work from home, and they operate full or part time businesses. Alternately, they work as remote workers or home office workers (telecommuters).
Home business, remote working, and telecommuting comprise a $1 trillion market. In addition, home-based businesses represent 53.4 percent of all businesses (SBA Research). This is also a well-educated market for advertisers. For example, 51% of home office users are college graduates (IDC Link).
HOME BUSINESS® Magazine provides advertisers with the most viable medium to target the exploding and lucrative home business, remote working, and teleworking market.
Major Groups That Work From Home and Read HBM
Part-Time Home-Based Entrepreneurs: Millions of new entrepreneurs launch part-time businesses from home each year. This is in an effort to gain greater financial freedom and to take control of their own destiny. Part-time operators include entrepreneurs who perform administrative work at their home office.
Telecommuters, Remote Workers, and Home Office Workers: A fast-growing home-based segment (20 million+, JALA International, Inc.) – remote working and telecommuting – enables people employed at an outside office to work from home. A key advertising point about remote workers and telecommuters is that a majority of them pay for all or a portion of their computer and other home office costs. As a result, it makes them a target market for home office products and services advertisers.
Full-Time Home Business Owners: A growing number of full-time small businesses are now moving to home-based operations. Moreover, they are increasing the amount of money that they invest in their businesses. The average full-time home-based entrepreneur earns nearly twice the average annual income of American workers (IDC Link).
“In a country that has been moaning about low productivity and searching for new ways to increase it, the single most anti-productive thing we do is ship millions of workers back and forth across the landscape every morning and evening.” – Alvin Toffler, the author or Future Shock and The Third Wave
Trends Driving the Home Business Sector
• Dramatic improvements in communications technology and Internet access that makes working from home a viable option for almost anyone.
* A growing trend towards entrepreneurism and achieving a higher quality of life.
• Powerful personal computing and home office technologies that enable home-based business owners to be as productive as office-based operations.
* The growth in telecommuting and teleworking as companies look for ways to cut overhead.
• Emerging home office networking technologies that enable disparate entrepreneurs to collaborate in larger business endeavors.
* A declining economy that continues to push more and more people into owning their own full or part-time business.
Small Business Economic Powerhouse*
• Of the 22.4 million businesses in the United States, only 17,000 are considered large businesses (500+ employees)
• 52 percent of all small businesses began at home
* Represents more than 99% of all employers
• Provides two-thirds to three-quarters of the net new jobs
* Produces 51% of private sector output
• Represents 96% of all exporters of goods
* Are 53% home-based
* Sources: The United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; the United States Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration; and the SBA Office of Government Contracting.
