There is a disturbance in the world of internet marketing right now in May 2016. It might be going too far to say there is something rotten in the state of internet marketing…
…but certainly things aren’t like they used to be. In just the last week or so, I’ve heard the same message from 2 very experienced and successful marketers about how things have changed in the internet side of their operations.
Bottom line is that what used to work well online is no longer delivering the same kind of results. The main reason for this seems to be…the rise of “internet on the go”.
The arrival of fast wireless broadband, combined with smart phones and portable tablets has led to a big change in the way people (your prospective customers) access and experience content and sales messages delivered online. To illustrate this, let’s step back for a moment 5 years in time…imagine yourself in 2011 (seems like an eternity ago).
At that time, the vast majority of people would have experienced the internet through the medium of either a desktop computer or a laptop. Either would have a decent-sized screen and “mobile” access would still have been through a laptop computer. When someone accessed the internet, they were to a large extent engaged in the act and focused on what they were doing. It was hard to casually jump online.
Fast forward to today…
…and that’s all changed. Mobile overtook fixed line internet access in 2014 and continues to grow. The vast majority of internet access and use is through smart phones and tablets. The nature of that use has also changed. It’s generally much briefer and less focused. When people access the internet via tablet or smart phone, they are usually multi-tasking.
What that means it’s much harder to attract people’s attention in the first place and even when you’ve done that, they are not always fully focused on your message. Oh, and they are much more likely to be distracted and move on, just to make matters worse.
Other rumblings…YouTube is responsible for 10% of video and TV viewing by 16-24 year-old Britons but only 1.4% of ad consumption because users skip the ads (source Thinkbox). That raises the question about whether online is an engaging medium for advertising.
There’s also something of a crisis of trust in digital advertising. Users are blocking ads, computer bots are racking up fake views and advertisers are paying for ads even when people can’t view them properly on screen.
So, to recap…
- It’s harder to catch people’s attention online
- Even when you do, most likely you don;t have their full attention
- Because of the potential for distraction, it’s hard to keep someone’s attention…even if they are interested in what you have to say
There’s no easy solution to this. First step is to recognize that the days of easy and almost effortless online success are over. Beware any “Shiny Object” that promises to bring them back.
Better and smarter online marketing will be required. Perhaps more than ever the scientific approach of direct response marketing will be required. With so many options available online and the need to source traffic from a variety of sources, it will be imperative to make sure that you focus your efforts on what produces results.
Next, it never really did make sense to treat internet marketing as somehow unique and standalone. Smart internet marketers moved on from that some time ago to combine online and offline into a hybrid approach. From now on the sensible approach will be to simply adopt a unified marketing strategy that uses online and offline channels that best suit the strategy.