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The day that marketing stood still - Internet Advertising
Greetings people of earth, i have a message from the future. Internet Advertising enjoys only 7% of the total advertising spending each year. Thats seems to be a pretty small number, but the tides are shifting. Each year the transfer of ad spending from traditional media (tv, radio, print) are being shifted to the web. It has been shown that overall this is good move, provided you do it right.
The internet, as we have found, does not work as a traditional marketing tool. The keyword here is traditional. We tried banner ads and pop-ups when the web was born, and found quickly that they didn’t produce as we expected. This happened for three reasons.
1.) Banner ads and pop-ups we’re implemented as if the web we’re TV and the ads worked like 30 second spots. Interruption techniques don’t work well on the internet because that is not how the internet works. The internet works by people looking for what they want, not by getting thing you don’t.
2.) we missed our greatest successes because we didn’t see them. The internet strategies we employed were measured by the way we knew how to measure, unfortunately, it didn’t work. Then we got stuck on eyeballs (again, TV Broadcast thinking). When you measure nothing but click-throughs and page view, it easy to forget the intention and start making seemingly justified decision that don’t have much effect on branding or sales, but just attracts people. This can quickly distort your ideas of good internet marketing. Its like running a casino on head counts. “If we have a higher head count, we must be making more money”…no…it just means you have more people, and if you have a casino full of less than valuable customers, your valuable customer cant find a place a sit. Many groups forgot that the purpose was to make the company successful using the internet, not making the website popular.
3.) People love the internet because its not a good place for ads. Marketing on the internet can be very successful, as long as your don’t advertise. The internet was build and doesn’t work according to its inhabitants as an ad platform. Not the way we think traditionally. Frankly, ad just don’t work on the internet. Branding, however, can. People are on the internet to connect, to see what they want and overall, on their terms. If you want to connect with them, and live in their space according to their definition of your place there, you can have a powerful impact.
Marketing on the internet it most successful when you learn to live with your customers, not yell at them. They want you to be that cool friend they know and most of their friends have heard of, that has no trace of arrogance despite their popularity. “Yea, me and pepsi hung out today, it was cool”.
Look at your strategy to find where to fit in with your customers, and if you need help, ask your customers, they would love to talk to you. If you don’t, i would stay away from the internet, otherwise you might be in for a rude awakening at 2:00 am from gort.