The Shift Is On (So Get Your Shift Together)

We buy online very differently than we buy offline.

With such a radical shift in the marketing foundations and many print publications going under, TV moving toward on-demand programming and convergence with online media, the Internet simply has to be the center of your marketing activities. (If you’re not convinced of that by this point, hand your offline keys to your competitors right now…because they are doing these things.)

With the rise of Internet TV and various set-top boxes that allow you to access the Internet, the line between TV and the web is gone. As these two media blend, the opportunities for your content to be shared will expand again, as in the early days of the Internet. Is your content ready for prime time in a world where people are no longer willing to watch “cute” and “market-y” commercials? Online video is exploding and TVs are in nearly every home—when these converge, the heart of the marketing world will skip a beat. Video is a great tool and should be a considerable part of your marketing, but the content has to be engaging, entertaining, or informative to stand out in a sea of professional and user-generated content. Are your YouTube videos in a specific channel? Are you reaching out to build your subscriber base? Are you treating YouTube less like a place to put a single video with a great keyword and more like a place that brings you consistent business?

Businesses rarely fully use YouTube as the social network force that it is.

Mobile phones are quickly allowing TV and video access that lets content flow from anywhere, at any time. The days of fixed timeslots and ads being put in front of captive couch potatoes are numbered. People still watch a ton of TV, of course, but be prepared for a deeper convergence and for this blending of web and TV to happen quickly.

With increased competition, to get the full benefit of Internet marketing you can’t just dabble in it. And if you cannot spend the time on it yourself, you need to hire a resource that can.

More important than using all the new bells and whistles is your ability to engage visitors, track their behavior, and make 100 percent sure they are eventually converting into sales. Can your traditional account executive or marketing director do this? Does he or she even really know how to use Google Analytics or how to decide what makes good landing page content based on conversion testing? The shift to a 50/50 split of traditional and online marketing spend is happening so fast that old-school marketers are struggling to explain and deal with these processes. Their clients are suffering because they are often misinformed by traditional strategists who simply don’t know what they are talking about and don’t push the right mix of spending.

What about your business? Have you started the shift toward a 50/50 split?

photo credit: Bill on Capitol Hill via photopin cc