5 Reasons Why this Downturn is Good for Internet Marketing

You had a fixed number of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV outlets, networks, etc. But, with millions of people using Yahoo News, Google News, RSS feeds, blogs, email newsletters and the like, press releases have a new, reinvigorated life online.

If you send a newsworthy press release, you can reach the end user, news outlets and the blogosphere all at once.

But, wait: It gets better. You can track the success of that press release. You can see how many Tweets, blog mentions or pickups by syndicated RSS feeds it collects.

Press releases enjoy a new life because they are (when done right) content-driven. People turn to the Internet for commercial as well as editorial content. Display ads don't convey as much information as a press release.

2. Online marketing is closer to the money.

There are at least 3 ways in which Internet marketing is closer to the money than any other medium:

A. The offer and the call to action reside in the same channel. No other medium serves up the infinite array of offers and the ability to buy instantly the way the Internet does.

While U.S. cable companies allow many viewers to get movies on demand and purchase some products, they still fall far behind in the sheer variety that you get on the Internet.

Even though many cable companies recently announced plans to dramatically increase the variety of purchasable products, I am not convinced it will be nearly as effective as the Internet.

TV is a "lean-back" experience while the Internet is a "lean-in" experience in which the user is more engaged and thus more likely to buy.

B. Real-time testing optimizes ad budget. Testing ad effectiveness goes back to the beginning of direct response advertising. But testing feedback, in close to real time, makes the Internet an attractive medium when advertisers want to optimize every nickel of their ad budgets.

C. Web analytics helps justify your online media spend. Upper management is more likely to approve an ad budget that has a history of showing that the firm gets $2 back for every dollar it spends online.

But, let's keep it real. You and I know you can't always tie the sale directly back to the ad. There is a latency factor. Some people will see the ad online and buy later on the Internet, while others will see the ad online and purchase later in a physical store.

Nevertheless, there are more numbers and marketplace feedback immediately available online than in any other medium.

3. The permanent shift in media consumption favors online.

Tectonic shifts in media consumption were underway years before this downturn hit. However, the downturn might have accelerated this shifting economic landscape.

Almost weekly, we hear of another newspaper that has stopped publishing in print but maintains an online presence. People haven't grown uninterested in the news; quite the contrary.

A recent look at the top 10 Websites in the U.S. shows that The New York Times Digital, Fox Interactive Media and CBS Interactive consistently rank in the comScore Media Metrix monthly Top 50 U.S. Web Properties index.

The shift in media consumption is not just a B2C phenomenon; it includes B2B as well. Direct Magazine and Promo Magazine have ceased publishing in print but maintain Websites.

The new model, I believe, does not call for large newsrooms for newspapers or magazines, consumer or B2B. The ad revenue is smaller online and will not typically support large, centralized staffs in major metro real estate.

Many publishers say there must be some role for subscription content. But I believe competitive pressures prevent this in the main. With the exception of highly specialized content, I think it is wishful thinking.

Publishers will have to diversify their lines of revenue. An interesting example of this is VG Nett, the online outlet of the Norwegian tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang, which offers a subscription weight-loss program, a social network and streaming access to soccer games, each on a paid-subscription basis.

4. Online sales increased while offline sales decreased in 2008.

Last year, online sales rose 6% over 2007. In the third quarter of 2008, for example, retail ecommerce sales were up 0.3%, while total retail store sales were down by 1.4%.

In the coming months and years, look for more marketers to catch up to mobile users and start making offers in that medium. In tough times, marketing budgets for the newer channels tend to be minimized as they are seen as too experimental and without predictable payback.

Now is the time for savvy marketers to exploit the lack of competition, and the lower prices due to that lack of competition, in the mobile arena.

5. Search Marketing hits Main Street.

Internet Marketers tend to talk to each other and thus get very far ahead of John Q. Public. What you and I might think of as old hat may, in fact, be a revelation to the average local business.

In tough times, local businesses are forced to scrutinize all expenditures including their yellow page ads. When these businesses discover they don't have to pay up front for an ad that may or may not perform, and instead pay as they go for ads that are clicked on, they're liable to become quick converts to what they see as the new opportunity of search marketing.

Current circumstances will push these businesses into learning about site optimization in addition to PPC alternatives that you and I have thought to be obvious for years.

As local advertisers become more wedded to search marketing, they will also grow more sensitized to all those people around them who are conducting local searches on their mobile devices.

Wrap-up:

We're obviously in a time of great change. One of those changes is the moving away from one-way marketing and towards two-way marketing or Conversation Marketing, where the advertiser engages the audience in some level of dialogue.

Social Media is one such example of this upstream/downstream conversation path. The Internet is innately a two-way medium unlike any other medium that has come before it.

In short, this is where the action is. If you're in marketing, there is no better place to be than this Internet Marketing space. LC