Banner Advertisement

2008 is Going to be a Great Year!

Posted on | January 4, 2008 | No Comments

Women Entrepreneur Tip: We have partnered with several companies that help you get cash for your business, or process credit cards, or ATM services. There are several options available please visit their website to get more information on how they can grow your women-owned business.

I don’t know about you but I’m excited about 2008. Despite downbeat messages in the media I want you to focus on the fact that even though, as a whole, online holiday spending missed projections, there were individual days that showed dramatic increases over the same dates a year earlier. For example, according to ComScore, on December 10th, 2007, online registers rang up $880,000,000 in sales. A 33% increase. Cyber Monday drove a 21% increase over the previous year.

Gian Fulgoni, ComScore chairman, calls the 21% increase that merchants saw between Thanksgiving and Christmas, encouraging given “economic challenges facing consumers this year as a result of higher gas prices, lower home values and a jittery stock market.” In my opinion, a tighter economy will help online retailers as more people look online for better prices. These consumers will augment those who already use the internet as their first choice for shopping.

This good news doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be prepared though. More than ever successful online marketers will have to be true professionals. The “cherry-picking” days are probably over. And that excites me. Too often we, as an agency, have had to spend considerable time earning the trust of advertisers who’ve suffered because some “web slinger” sold that company on a marketing campaign that had little or no chance of actualizing success. More often than not the objective seems to have been to close a deal rather than starting and nurturing relationships. With many agencies and marketing companies the thinking appears to have been that there will always be plenty of companies to burn and churn through. Everyone was rolling in dough. That won’t be the case much longer, I’m afraid.

There’ll continue to be a lot of talk about social media, behavioral targeting, retargeting, branding as a viable ROI and return on influence but at the end of the day, whether you represent Ford or Mom and Pop, the prevailing question will become; does it back into a targeted CPA? I believe, only those agencies that know how to successfully buy and manage media into mandated performance metrics will prosper in 2008. This is a task that requires professionals who have the desire and the will to stay current with the ever-changing internet marketing landscape.

I suspect that from here on in, rather than expecting to find another advertiser down the road to sell, the focus will be on developing long term relationships just as it always should have been. Quality business relationships evolve on strings of successes with minimal pain in between. It will be critical for agencies to develop intelligent, quantifiable marketing plans that meet or beat the success standards of the advertiser.

Yesterday’s abundant consciousness has been replaced by fear, real and imagined. It’s all too true that a pervasive feeling of scarcity affects everyone; even senior managers at major companies. In my opinion, marketers who are prepared, diligent and savvy will flourish. The cyber-sloth’s who grabbed the low hanging fruit without a thought about tomorrow are destined to join real estate agents and mortgage brokers on the sidelines thinking about what was and could’ve been.

If you’re a lean and mean marketing machine based on a client-centric model, I salute you! You’re going to have a great year grabbing market share from the marketers who, for what ever reason, can’t compete.

Tom Polanski is President of eBrand Interactive, a full service interactive agency connecting buyers with brands

Comments

Leave a Reply