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Publisher's Note
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10 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Will Be the #1 Ad Medium in 10 Years

Sounds outrageous, right? Actually, it's a no-brainer. Here's why:

1. It's Happening Now: You can track everything in real time. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to do that?

2. It's Cheap: Production costs are inconsequential when compared to print production, let alone TV production.

3. Real-Time Tweaking: You can change creative, media buys, offers, etc. on the fly in reaction to live market feedback.

4. Increasing Mindshare: The Internet is still growing and more people from all demographics are spending more time online. Time is a zero sum game. The more they spend online, the less they spend elsewhere.

5. Increased Bandwidth: Yes, streaming video ads are coming, but they're not going to be low-res TV spots. They'll be more like infomercials that people really want to see. Think of it as catalogs with moving pictures.

6. Net Morphing: Internet marketing isn't just email marketing or search engine marketing. Blogs, RSS, Pay-Per-Call and other schemes not even imagined yet are coming, which will split and target audiences even further than they have been in the past decade.

7. Mass is Crass: The more narrowly defined the audience, the more relevant the message. The Internet beats all other media at slicing and dicing target audiences. Sure, direct mail already does this. But higher postage and printing costs make it more expensive each year, and of course there's the clutter factor, which depresses response rates (and direct marketers).

8. Proactivity: Right now, the only thing I can do with cable TV is rent a movie using video on demand. Sure, I can dial an 800 number and buy some machine that will give me washboard abs, but I still have to be in the right place at the right time to see that infomercial. The Internet allows for my being proactive when I'm ready, not when the advertiser is ready.

9. Ubiquitous Internet: With wi-fi and other schemes, this will be a reality sooner than we think. Increasingly relevant messages will come to the user at the right place and the right time. Mark my words.

10. Look at the Numbers: eMarketer reports that budgets for Internet marketing will surpass those for radio in the foreseeable future. Radio has been around 80 years. The commercial Internet is just over 10 years old. The last time this happened is when TV ad spending overtook radio in the '50s in the US.

Twelve years ago, a network TV executive told me that the Internet would never become the norm. When I go to Starbucks or ride the trains or listen to other people's conversations in restaurants, I keep hearing words like email, IM and website -- and even the word "Google" has become a verb. That network exec was dead wrong. It most certainly has become the norm, and then some. LC

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