Evolution of Internet Marketing

September 3, 2008

Light Speed Wonderland I have been in technology for longer than I care to discuss.  Long enough to see the entire evolution of Internet Marketing.  And also to see the evolution of me.

When I started in the 90’s, it was all about the technology.  We were really excited to offer eMagazine Publishing tools that cost us a fortune to build and were very cutting edge at the time.  We were doing Internet Marketing, but it was mostly about the technology.  Now technology is a footnote to marketing results.

Today, Internet Marketing is only about the technology if you are choosing to work with the wrong people.  You have to work with people that are marketing savvy first, and technology savvy second.  Otherwise, they will keep adding technology features thinking the next bell or whistle will get results.  It will not.

Internet Marketing should not have a big technology budget in 99% of the cases.

Instead, it is about publishing, aggregating, mashing and building relationships in your open source web real estate.

I have clients that build their first website with six figure budgets (not paid to us, we were never that high-end).  Today that just seems so silly.

Maybe they thought the big up front investment would mean they would stay ahead of everyone else.

But since the Internet and Search Engines keep evolving so fast, the investment did not stand the test of time.  Usually this kind of investment was for lots of fancy design and eCommerce.  They would have been better off keeping it simple and creating more content.

What does the evolution of Internet Marketing mean to you?

  • Don’t spend a lot on technology
  • Look for specialized tools already built that you can integrate
  • Get everyone involved in Internet Marketing - Employee Evangelists
  • Create more great information, but outsource your writing
  • Don’t invest one time, invest in continual improvement
  • Build relationships first - They will stand the test of time if you treat them well.

Internet Marketing will be very different in two years.  Marketing is going through a huge disruption as everyone tries to figure out what 10% of internet marketing will return 90% of the results.  You should bet on creating quality content and great relationships.  That is your best Internet Marketing long term strategy.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

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Comments

One Response to “Evolution of Internet Marketing”

  1. David on September 3rd, 2008 10:56 am

    Internet marketing has come a long since those days. In those days, you submitted to search engines, directories and exchanged links.

    Now, you have twitter, facebook, podcast, youtube, hubpages, squidoo,… and they are still constantly evolving, and new types of media are coming up all the time.

    Life was simple then. ;)

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