How To Stand Out In a World of Dot.com Gerbils
April 16, 2012 Leave a comment
The internet has not only drastically changed industries, such as music, media and film, it has changed marketing forever. Let me restate that, it is changing marketing on an ongoing basis. How we send and receive information is in a constant state of flux. There is no final destination; no point of arrival, there is only a constant ever evolving journey. The not-so-long-ago lonesome trails of the net are now overly congested and traffic is bumper-to-bumper.
This is true not only of the number of web sites themselves but of the proliferation of web and dot-com advertisements. The amount has reached critical mass. Not only has how we receive our information changing from PCs and Macs to pads and smart phones, but the amount of information that is flowing to us seems to be growing exponentionally.
The problem is the more information we receive, the less we actually register. Every day we are bombarded with emails, pop ups, banners, etc. It’s bad enough that we’re assaulted online; the offline world offers little escape. From sponsorship of college football bowl games, to billboard ads, to stickers on produce, companies are trying any and every advertising and marketing avenue available to lure customers to their sites.
The sheer volume is so overwhelming that most of us are left with little more than a memory of countless dot-com companies that offer something – we’re just not sure what. From traditional ads and commercials, to PR and media relations campaigns, to email marketing and social media campaigns, companies are trying any and everything to get your attention.
In real time the internet has shot from toddler to grown-up overnight, and the marketing strategies of even one or two years ago will no longer suffice. So, where does that leave the entrepreneur who is looking to successfully market his or her online business? Advertising, when done adeptly and consistently, is essential, but these days it can only take an internet company so far. To truly establish a company in the public eye, it’s imperative at some point for the message to take that defining, and validating leap from an ad that precedes the evening news to the story featured on the news.
Whether a company’s objective is to obtain more funding or attract more consumers to its site, there is nothing as validating and legitimizing as a well-placed print piece or TV segment. The trouble is that not that many years ago, garnering Internet-oriented press was relatively easy. Remember all of those articles and TV segments heralding the emergence of MySpace? Stories about the launching of new IPOs, teen-aged wunderkinds who became overnight billionaires, and the very novelty of it all commanded reams of print as well as hours of TV and radio coverage. The wanna be Amazon.coms of the world were featured in every magazine and newspaper and on every TV and radio station.
Well, these days not only are consumers inundated with dot.com information, so is the media, and launching a successful media relations campaign is a bit tougher than it once was. Still, when it comes to launching and implementing a successful marketing campaign for your online company a strategic mix of traditional PR and social media is your best bet. As to the hows; I’ll be covering that in my follow up article.
Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012
PETERD. “Fish.” Photo. SEOBOOK. 17 Oct 2011. 15 Apr 2012. <http://www.seobook.com/web-publishing-strategies-help-you-stand-out-competition>










