The Invincible Internet Let's get one thing straight, the Internet isn't going anywhere. That isn't to say that many of the applications we put on top of this amazing structure aren't toast; they are. But the point here is that the Net was indispensable during and after September 11th, 2001. It did what it was designed to do way back in 1969 when "DarpaNet" was a pet project of the National Science Foundation and the US Defense Department: the Net stayed up even when a piece of it was under attack. When both landline and cell phone networks were overloaded or destroyed, email served as a lifeline for many, including yours truly, for days thereafter. TV and radio station transmission facilities were felled and here again, the Net did its job by continuing to disseminate information. Many Internet companies were headed for the buzz saw long before September 11th, and no doubt there are more going down that path, but I don't think anyone really thinks that the internet is toast because so many companies went belly-up. No one said it was the end of the automotive age when a few hundred car companies failed, though it must have seemed like it at times. The question here is how to learn from what went down on the Net. Just because ad banners draw fewer clicks than a camel does water, doesn't mean marketing on the net is a no go. Far from it: all it means is that many of the models tried thus far have failed. Historically, we typically overlay the formats of old media onto the new media, the way early TV spots looked like illustrated radio advertisements. Net advertising more resembles direct marketing than anything else. That isn't to say people should slavishly execute all online campaigns like a traditional DM'er; they shouldn't. They should take their cues from DM and adjust according to results. I'm not a big believer of online branding campaigns. That's like calling outer envelope teasers "branding." You could make that case I suppose, but there won't be many people left in their seats at the end of your speech. Take advertising in newsletters like WDFM. Last year ebanner ads in this publication went for $100 cpm. This year they decidedly don't. They now go for $10-$50 cpm. So cheap that the ad typically pays for itself! What a concept: having the ad pay for itself and then some. The challenge is making sure your ad is in dialog with the readers of WDFM. The stand-alone emails that now go out once a week to WDFM'ers are working and rational. What I mean by rational is that there is a rational and reasonable expectation that the cost of renting the list actually is recouped by the response you get as the one paying for the message. This would appear to be just one of the models that works for advertiser, publisher, and subscriber alike. It has to be a win/win/win situation, which is entirely possible on the Net. This is only one of many examples of marketing models that do work on the Net. Some affiliate programs work quite nicely. Many catalogs perform well for their masters. White paper marketing is another model proven to generate qualified leads for less. CRM applications, such as those from WDFM advertiser RightNow.com, save companies loads of money in customer service costs. Do these models support IPO's and investor expectations of companies already gone public? Some certainly do. Perhaps other models need to function as a cottage industry before they scale up to investor expectations, sort of like the way it worked pre-IPO craze. The lesson here? Believe in what works. Learn from that which doesn't work and keep moving like a shark. The cost of distribution is so low that it allows for new opportunities that would have been prohibitively expensive prior to the Net. Where else can you reach marketers w/ power of the purse for $10-$50 per thousand? Nowhere. Oh, BTW: if you'd like to see the ad rates for WDFM, http://wdfm.com/advertisingraterequest.php :) If you're interested in having us send your message as a stand-alone email to the WDFM readership http://wdfm.com/fyidatacardrequest.php and we'll first get in touch with you by sending the data card. |
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