As I said yesterday, many companies enter the web without a clue of why they do it. Some enter so customers can find them, some to show off products and add pretty pictures of them in a vain hope that the customers don’t know how to use a camera, some even to cope with people always losing service manuals and CDs. But very few do it to connect to the customer in this new age and in this new field.

People tend to think that traditional marketing and online marketing are one and the same. And while it is understandable (many people still do not understand what good the internet is for business) it is in no way acceptable. It’s like going to rob a bank with an 9th century mace, you’re going to get your head blown off… Methods are antiquated and media is changing. The so called new media is making up ground to the old school mediums. Radio is dead, TV is dying and newspapers are used to mask cars for paintjobs. The world is changing, and as pointed out in a million cases so far, the choice is change or die.

Let’s take TV for example. With the advent of modern technology, digital TV especially, you would expect TV stations to begin offering clients more features for their TV, like choosing which episode to view, and at any hour, as many times as they want. However, all that TV does is give you half an hour of ads, then a fragmented movie from 1996, and follow it with bland sensationalist news to wash off the ads. So what happened? TiVo happened. A true revolution for the American market, TiVo put content in the hands of the viewers, and with legal backing (timeshifting is now legal, as it should be) it gave the networks a scare. Why? Because people did what they wanted to TV. They could record shows, skip ads and even download content off the Internet to view it on the TV. They took control, and made TV what they wanted. So now networks are pissed off and can’t do anything about it. However, take TiVo, and now compare it to the PirateBay… There is no doubt in my mind that more shows are downloaded every day from trackers than there are shows recorded to all TiVos in a week… And what that means is that TV is dying. Even with timeshifting, you can’t beat the simplicity of Internet downloading. And why pay when you can get them for free…

The Internet is the future, no doubt about that. The only thing the will remain of traditional TV will be the big screen. Otherwise centralized content providers should rethink their strategies fast…

But forget TV, let’s think of a regular company. Say I have Joe Inc. who sells hot dogs on the corner of 2nd and Main. He heard that everyone is now building themselves websites, to let customers know where his HQ is and how to email him for an order. While this in itself is quite pointless for poor Joe, he feels he needs to because everyone else is doing it. And this is perhaps the most common marketing error possible. And costly. So Joe made himself a website, and it went ok. The blackberry he used to keep track of emails cost a bunch and the web design services, hosting and all that cost a bit, but he did have customers say they came to buy hot dogs from him because they found the website. He even got some buzz since it was a freaky idea. But pretty soon others copied the idea and Joe’s site started costing more than it made. And if anything, this heightened competition around him. Also, Joe didn’t have the time to maintain the site so it pretty much died down, since he didn’t want to pay outrageous fees for the site.

Enter SEO. Now, if Joe had given the website a moment of thought beforehand, a lot of costs would have been reduced. Firstly, he could have thought what advantages the website brings him in the first place. He’s in a neighborhood with good business and clients are loyal. His products are of a good quality, and he gets many referrals. He just heard that the Internet can bring him more money but ended up diving into his profits. Also, because he failed to read his email one day he had a very angry baseball coach arrive at his stand expecting to pick up 75 hot dogs, when there were none waiting for him, just a long queue and a buss full of hungry kids. So, in a sense the extension complicated Joe’s business and created dissatisfied customers.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean Joe did a stupid thing, only that he should have thought about it. The website with the contact info is always a good thing, but he should have adopted an SMS form rather than an email form, which would have produced smaller costs in the end and a more reliable measure, keeping email only for casual conversations. Also, Joe could have created a brand, since that’s how the Internet works, you need a strong brand to become at least a little famous. Make it Joe’s Dogs, the traditional experience. He could have opened a dialog with his buyers, encouraging them to tell him what they like and what they want, help him build a house of quality to determine what he should invest in next. He could have written a blog about hot dogs, funny facts, stories, and all the things he deals with every day, make the customers feel more connected to the story of the place, not only the products. That’s what makes good marketing. And then, he could have hired an SEO to make all these show up when people search for main hot dogs, or hot dogs funny, and establish a brand that is tied to that field, make people know Joe’s is the way to go, and have a connection to the place.

Too many companies in this age of globalization have bland, boring messages (or none at all) targeted at their customers and we need a story to feel attached to any of them. Apple is the big company it is because it sometimes listens to customers, makes interesting things (although not that unique - just designed better visually) and because it has the whole “think different” approach. The Macbook air is NOT the world’s thinnest laptop. There have been at least two other attempts which have been thinner and probably plenty which were just a bit less thin. But they made the whole manila envelope thing, and people were astonished. It’s no longer a thin laptop, it’s a laptop thin enough to come from an envelope. Think of all the hours of showing off at the office when you drop the envelope on the table and pull the laptop out. Apple has created more than a laptop (and not a very good one at that - they forgot a few bits…), a product worth discussing.

And here is why I try to use the word SEO less frequently. It has become a target word for people not understanding what we do. It’s been attacked, and it’s been defined in a million ways. The seo is bullshit guy even went to compare SEOs to lawyers, and well, there’s more to SEO than SEO if I can say so. Online marketing however, is a different thing. It’s knowing what to do when Joe makes that website. It’s knowing how to pitch it and to who and through which channels. There’s no point in having a flash game designed by Ernst and Young, their clients don’t have time for games. But a Vista sidebar widget for stocks, that would be a nice idea. Target the proper client.

As for my last disparate idea, it’s about using the right tools for the job. The Internet is a new medium, and therefore requires new marketing tools. I was having a discussion a few weeks ago to the brand manager for Procter&Gamble Balkans (responsible for about 13 countries or so for the Pampers brand) and talking about what SEO can do for them. As a result to this, I examined the Pampers website which is out of 1980. It uses frames, it has cluttered text, and a very very busy homepage, not a very clear structure of the navigation, and basically is ancient. They don’t even have an email address for contact. And this got me thinking, how in the world can a brand so large, with millions of dollars in marketing budget, not have a decent site? Can’t they afford to pay 5000$ for a amazingly awesome site? Yes they can. Can’t they afford to spend some time devising some online content? Well, they can hire people. Don’t they realize that this is destroying their brand, making them look antiquated and outdated? No. We also discussed the other side of SEO, damage control, where basically people get screwed over by the company and they get pissed off and start a crusade against it. And they’re still using posts on forums for that. They’re P&G, they have money to buy all the hits for a search term and all they do is post on forums. Not taking control over the forums, not making your own centralized forum where you can assess this instantly and reward it.

I’m not sure you know the x box story, where a gamer sent an autographed console for repairs and when he got it back the signature and artwork was washed off. And instead of ignoring him, like Microsoft could have done, they didn’t. Bungie, creators of the game, sent him a bag full of goodies, including a helmet signed by most of the guys there, and Microsoft responded too, by sending him a new x box, signed by all of the guys at the department, and even freaking Bill Gates. That is the Internet, connection to people, making your customers feel ecstatic through small gestures that cost you less than damage control. And see, now I’m making the Microsoft and Bungie brands grow by writing this, and it’s at no cost to them. All they spent was an x box and some time, and now look at it, it’s an internet phenomenon…

So online marketing is a big thing, and many people still don’t use it. And of those, many use it improperly. It’s incredible how in this age marketing isn’t everywhere, and how big companies squander away their brand by not investing in it…

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