The Two Most Dis­rup­tive Changes In In­ter­net Marketing

The re­cent years brought 2 sig­nif­i­cant changes to the in­ter­net, af­fect­ing in­ter­net mar­ket­ing for small and medium sized busi­nesses on a scale that is over­looked by most consultants.

Pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion

Dis­rup­tive In­ter­net Mar­ket­ing Trend # 1

Peo­ple keep call­ing the in­ter­net „a level play­ing field” where the lit­tle guy has the same chances for suc­cess as the big guys.

Nice talk­ing, ex­cept it’s not true anymore.

• 10 years ago, yes, even the big guys were amateurs.
• 10 years ago, a one-per­­son-busi­­ness could slap up a crappy look­ing web site, fill in a few key­words, and start mak­ing money.
• 10 years ago, you could start a PPC cam­paign, pay­ing peanuts, laugh­ing all the way to the bank.

Those times are over.

• To­day, large pub­lish­ers (who did­n’t even ex­ist 10 years ago) op­er­ate with teams and bud­gets bring­ing tears to the lit­tle guy’s eyes.
• To­day, In­ter­net mar­ket­ing re­quires time, money, and knowl­edge far be­yond what was needed ten years ago.
• To­day, ad­ver­tis­ing prices are as­tro­nom­i­cal com­pared to 2003. Prof­itabil­ity is re­ally hard to achieve.

Am­a­teur­ish ef­forts that might have turned a profit 10 or 5 years ago will lead nowhere today.

If you’re not will­ing to up­grade your in­ter­net mar­ket­ing to a pro­fes­sional level, you might as well just STOP.

The best way to sur­vive the next 5 years on the in­ter­net is to learn more, pro­fes­sion­al­ize your mar­ket­ing and con­ver­sion fun­nels for higher prof­its, and in­crease your in­ter­net mar­ket­ing budget.

Frag­men­ta­tion

Dis­rup­tive In­ter­net Mar­ket­ing Trend # 2

My first web site in 2001 was a sta­tic site with no other con­tent than text and im­ages.

No blog. No so­cial me­dia. No con­tent mar­ket­ing. No YouTube.

Since then we’ve seen a 2-fold frag­men­ta­tion in in­ter­net mar­ket­ing. A frag­men­ta­tion of me­dia, and a frag­men­ta­tion of plat­forms.

Text and im­ages is­n’t enough any­more. Mar­keters need to fill their con­tent mar­ket­ing queue with

• Videos
• Pod­casts
• In­fo­graph­ics
• Pre­sen­ta­tions
• Ebooks, Whitepa­pers
• 3-D prod­uct views

Hav­ing a busi­ness web site also is­n’t enough anymore.

Now you’re sup­posed to have pres­ences on:

Face­book & Twit­ter & Google Plus & LinkedIn & Pinterest.

And you’re sup­posed to mon­i­tor those ²⁴⁄₇ and re­spond quickly to any engagement.

Hav­ing 6 in­ter­net pres­ences still is­n’t enough.

Mar­ket­ing has spread to …

Mo­bile

iTunes

Kin­dle

Plus 2 up­com­ing frag­men­ta­tion trends 

• Aug­mented re­al­ity
• Voice based search

Adopt or perrish!

You may think you can ig­nore these trends and still make great money.

1. Yes, it’s true in 2013.
2. A lit­tle bit less true in 2014.
3. Even less true in 2015.
4. Start­ing to se­ri­ously worry you in 2016.
5. Killed you by 2017.

How can small and medium sized busi­nesses adopt to these dra­matic changes?

At first I was afraid. I was petrified.

One thing is sure: you can’t ig­nore them.

The frag­men­ta­tion trend, as well as the pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion trend, can and must be an­swered with higher in­ter­net mar­ket­ing budgets.

To sur­vive, small and medium sized busi­nesses can adopt 2 strategies:

1. De­velop a much tighter fo­cus on who you want to reach, and which chan­nels to use. In­ter­net mar­ket­ing is be­com­ing too com­pli­cated and too ex­pen­sive for a scat­ter­shot ap­proach.
2. Next, as  I men­tioned above, you can de­velop more so­phis­ti­cated mar­ket­ing and con­ver­sion fun­nels to in­crease profitability.

Busi­nesses with a tight fo­cus and with eyes on prof­itabil­ity will blos­som. De­spite the in­creas­ing com­plex­ity they will use these trends to their advantage.

And I grew strong. And I learned how to get along.