Hey, Marketers, Here’s How To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet!

David Gillespie’s Digital Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

Hate Advertising? Get over it.

It’s not going away – much of the internet’s revenue is from Ads
As I understand it, 85% of Google’s revenue in the past has been from online advertising. Contextual Ad sense is Advertising, sure it’s not the annoying “punch a monkey” type of advertising, but it’s still advertising. I predict Google will start to do this with video in the near future, it’s certainly not going away.

We hate shotguns
Advertising is a shotgun approach, and sadly that means that innocents are subjected to the chaff. Advertising messages are often (or should be) targeted at a specific group or demographic, when we’re subjected to advertising that’s not aimed at us, we often don’t like it or try to screen it out.

We love lasers
When Advertising is focused and hits the right target, not unlike a laser, it hits home and resonates. Advertising becomes part of our culture, and people start to talk about (that’s a conversation) from Budd-wise-er, to Got Milk. We hate advertising when its not for us, but in the rare times that it’s on the mark, it resonates with us, and becomes part of us. This can apply for text ads, mobile, ads, and most importantly, contextual ads.

Even though we don’t like it, advertising works
Advertising works. In business school, you’re taught that 11-13 impressions of a brand (often advertising) will cause the prospect to be highly likely to try or purchase the product. This is a deep rooted human, psychological, and sociological instinct that’s difficult to ignore.

The Future
Is it possible for products to be adopted by people without word-of-mouth networks? Absolutely. Is it possible for both to co-exist? Advertising online will become more targated, the advanced media buyers will shift to sponosorships, and technology will allow us to triangulate data online, and using mobile devices like never seen before. If done right, there will be more lasers than shotguns.

Online Advertising will evolve, as will word of mouth, conversations, and communities too. Let’s evolve with it.

Who are the new Influencers? And how in-person Word of Mouth impacts decision making

Two interesting pieces out there today, Takahashi from the San Jose Mercury (link via Jennifer Jones) has a article on the “New Influencers”. He highlights what some early bloggers have done, and how being first helped them to become powerful.

He discusses how “Conversation Marketing” is key in the new marketplace:

“To influence the influencers, companies need to have two-way conversations with bloggers, whom Gillin terms “enthusiasts.” Disney courts John Frost, author of the DisneyBlog, for instance, because it knows that his posts can inspire stories on mainstream TV shows and in news publications.

Such “conversation marketing” requires a completely different set of skills than those that marketers typically use. When New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman criticized General Motors for fuel inefficient cars, GM punched back just as hard with a post on its corporate blog, Fastlane. Friedman fired back, and in the ensuing spotlight, GM got its points across to a big online audience.”

In the article, he futher suggest that being early is the only way to become powerful and infuelntial, which is not true. Guy Kawasaki was a late comer to blogging and quickly rose to the top 100.

While I’m not an A-lister, this blog is in the 2000 Technorati rank, which I started less than a year ago. Of course, I did have a previous URL domain, so reputations matter, and that’s really what’s important, not numbers.

To further the influence of word-of-mouth, eMarketer indicates that decision makers rely on first had, or in-person word of mouth above all other forms. It puts technology bloggers at a influence rate of 19%.

In the past, a few former colleagues and friends have teased me about attending so many tech events on weeknights. Well, if it’s not obvious to you, face to face meetings build so much more than any blog could.

Lastly, eMarketer reports that word of mouth only works when a company has solid offerings, without it, word will not travel effectively; “Without satisfied customers, there was nothing for WOM marketers to talk about. ”