The Twenty-First Century Will Happen Online.
If you and your people are not already starting to think about the Web as your primary media for reaching your customers and your potential customers, you had better start soon.
I love driving with my wife. We have the best conversations. And I can still remember that time, not too long ago, when we would start talking about some new technology, some old product or company or some historical event and one of us would say, "I wonder if there is a Web site about that?" or "I wonder if there is anything online, about that?" After two or three years, we finally stopped being surprised when we got back home and discovered that very often was plenty online about "that".
Today, we are surprised when we cannot find anything about something, online.
When I sold radio commercials, it was a time between technologies. More and more people were spending their time with electronic media like TV and radio than with print media like newspapers and billboards. But people easily believe that "everyone" acts the way they do. I visited business after business who was satisfied with their current ad budget and placement because "everyone reads the newspaper". I would point out that great masses of people did not subscribe to the paper and did not even buy so much as a single copy in a week, comparing the population of the town with the published sales figures for the paper, but a lot of folks stayed with the paper because it was substantial.
I was selling air and echoes, to them. A newspaper could be read, set aside and read again. A newspaper could be passed around. My commercials might play while someone was walking from the house to the car, on their way to a competitor, and if it did its value evaporated instantly, in their eyes.
I visited that town for the first time in twenty years and was surprised that all—all—of those old-line businesses are gone, now. I'm sure it's just coincidence in many cases. But I'm also sure it was a factor in some of them, too.
With a few of my clients, I was able to talk them out of four-color ads in the Sunday paper, going for two or three colors and giving me the money they would have spent for another color, to run ads all week long, not just on Sunday. Three out of five of those businesses were still in business, twenty-one years later. I'm sure that is coincidence, too but again, I'm also sure it was a factor.
An awful lot of decisions get made, or more properly don't get made, because "We've always done it like this". In an economy like ours today, it may be well to look over everything and ask yourself if you're maybe backing a very tired old horse? Newsletters, flyers, pamphlets and brochures and now even radio and TV press releases have all had their day in the sun, but increasingly it's the aptly-named World-Wide Web that is holding sway.
The kids coming up today with their netbooks and smart phones have an expectation of finding what they want and need, online. They will never, ever, be newspaper readers.
The Twenty-First Century Will Happen Online. Make sure you're a part of it.
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