Sharing, not shouting. image courtesy of jesadaphorn/freedigitalphotos.net
Marketing online is completely different from traditional advertising. That’s because its origins are based on sharing, not shouting. The internet has transformed everything you thought you knew about business marketing.
If you account for these differences when you market online, you’ll get better results in every medium you use including your website, blog, social media, and video.
Shift #1: The Web is not just a different medium than TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines…It’s a whole new marketplace.
Traditional Advertising
Traditional advertising has always been about companies. People sit passively watching, reading, or listening to TV, radio, or magazine ads talk about what the company wanted them to hear. They have no say in it.
Online Marketing
The origins of the Web had nothing to do with commerce. It was invented so the military, then university students, then scientists could share information with each other. Nothing to do with making money. Nothing to do with selling. It was a place where people could share information, views, and opinions.
Now, in 2014, think of some the Web’s most popular websites: Facebook, You Tube, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin. That’s right…they help people connect and share information, views, and opinions!
The Web has never been dominated by commercial sites. It’s always been about sites that enable people to connect with one another. The Web is different…now your advertising has to be user centric, not company centric or your dead in the water.
Shift #2: Prospects and customers interact differently with traditional advertising than they do online.
Traditional Advertising
Picture yourself watching TV. Your all slumped in a chair, relaxed and passive. That’s how you look at all the ads on TV.
If you’re listening to the radio, you’re probably driving, keeping track of the road and off handedly hearing the ads on the radio.
If you’re reading a magazine, you probably skip over the ads entirely.
If you receive a long winded sales letter in the mail, you didn’t know it was coming and unless it catches your eye, you throw it away.
In all these instances, you don’t care about the content of almost any of the ads rapidly firing at you.
Online Marketing
But, picture yourself searching the internet. Say you were just informed by your doctor that you had a heart arrhythmia. Your doctor tells you that at this point, it doesn’t look serious, but when you get home you want to find out more.
Now picture yourself searching for more info online. You sit up, alert, interested. Your task oriented, right?
You’re not distracted or disinterested…you care about what you’re searching for. And when you find a web page about arrhythmias, you want it to answer your questions. You want it to help you find what you’re looking for.
So, what does this mean for online marketers? Unlike traditional advertising, you don’t start off your website, sales pages, or information pages talking about yourself. You start out by solving your visitor’s problems, providing the info they want, answer their questions.
Shift #3 Because of the easy interaction between people online, customers are also your marketers.
Traditional Advertising
Here, companies control their marketing. They may have style guides and common words and phrases they want their writers and ad agencies to use. They can feed the marketplace just what they want whether its TV, radio, newspapers, billboards. They feed us what they want us to hear.
Online Marketing
Companies have no control over how people talk about them over the internet. How does this change advertising? It makes it really tough to BS the marketplace.
In TV or print advertising, companies can get away with some hyperbole here and there. But you just can’t get away with that on the web. In the blink of an eye, a company could have thousands of people calling them on their exaggeration.
Here’s the point: The Web is a shared medium. Visitors to your site are writers and publishers, too. They write emails, may have blogs, may comment on your blog. They certainly write on Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.
So…their BS detectors are far more sensitive than they are when they’re watching a TV ad or seeing an ad in the newspapers.
Be sure your web pages are honest and helpful. Exaggerated claims will be discounted as fast as you can snap your fingers. Remember, you are writing content to aware individuals…all of whom can write back at you. You’re not writing to a vague demographic.
So put your online advertising hat on when it comes to your website, blog, and social media marketing. The old, traditional advertising just won't cut it on the Web.
Until next time,
Nick
Nick Burns is an SEO web writer specializing in persuasive copywriting and content marketing. He provides clients a winning content strategy plus the special web writing to make it work. You can contact Nick here.
