Online Communities Crowd the Internet, Advertisers ‘Get Real’ to Get Noticed

If you’ve been running a business over the last 10 years, you know how fast technology is moving and have seen the sweeping changes underway in the advertising and marketing industry. Traditional advertising venues like print publications, telephone directories, radio and television are under siege. As more and more people embrace the Internet and interact with each other online, traditional media becomes less effective, compelling ad agencies, marketers and designers to take their product pitches online.

Unfortunately, this paradigm shift encompasses more than just media selection. Effective online advertising also demands new creative executions. In recent years, too many ad agencies have just applied an online Band-Aid to their print creative, uploaded it to the Internet and hoped for the best. What they got was the worst: creative strategies that don’t work and too often alienate the recipient.

The Rise of Online Communities
Interacting with the consumer via radio, television and print has never been up close and personal. Word-of-mouth advertising (WOMA) and, occasionally, direct mail, have given us the ability to get closer to the consumer. With the exception of the one-on-one sales call, no method of advertising has ever afforded us the intimacy and interaction with the consumer allowed by the Internet. Print and electronic media can only aspire to this level of interaction.

The Internet is the first true opportunity for cost-efficient, effective one-on-one interaction with the consumer. Thanks to MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and BoingBoing, the term “online community” has been written into the advertising and marketing handbook. The power shift from bureaucracies and organizations to fluid, rapidly expanding communities of like-minded individuals is staggering in its impact on how we communicate.

Blogs are changing how we as a society gather and report news and events. YouTube and other social networks used successfully by viral marketers have leveled the playing field. It’s now cool to be real, edgy and under-produced. Slick and pre-packaged is out — at least in the world of online communities. The success of Starbucks as a major new brand is proof positive that a company can become an overnight sensation without ever running a print or television ad. Effective use of viral marketing techniques, word of mouth and buzz marketing can create a national brand presence.

Creative: It’s About ‘Getting Real’
The trend to create advertising messages that are real doesn’t mean everything now has to look like it was designed or produced in someone’s garage or basement. Getting real has more to do with the ad message itself and how truthful it is to the consumer. Most folks in the ad industry always suspected that consumers were getting tired of being fooled by ad messages that were more fluff than substance. Now we know.

How important is it to the success of your marketing plan to embrace and honor this new consumer commitment to real advertising? Consider this. The consumers that join online communities tend to be influencers and advocates. They are what ad industry gurus call “promoters.” If they like your product or service, they will promote it aggressively and often to family, friends and colleagues.

In the past, this kind of promotion was slow and linear, progressing from one person to another. Today, promoters access online communities that send the good news about your product or service exponentially, exploding in all directions at one time and creating a “buzz” throughout the Internet. This kind of unbiased, third party buzz will sell a lot of widgets today.

More About Blogs
Remember when pay per click campaigns on Google were cheap and you could place a company at the top of the search page for 25 cents a click or less? Now that the power of search has been discovered by almost everyone, those days are gone forever. Internet search and e-marketing lists are now two of the most powerful tools in the marketing toolbox. Although blog advertising grew 300% last year, it is still undiscovered and underutilized by the marketing and advertising industry.

For the most part, blog numbers are too small to show up on the radar screens of the big brands. However, since bloggers are influencers and promoters, their value to a good marketing plan is priceless. Too often, the big marketing and advertising companies get caught up in the shortcomings of their own analytical tools and fail to recognize emerging marketing opportunities. Early adopters of new technologies are almost always entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Harnessing the Power of the Web
Most smart companies today recognize that wherever their web site goes, so goes their brand. The Internet is now the first choice for consumers 60–80% of the time when they’re looking for anything. This means that a company better be at the top of the results page when a consumer types in a search phrase that relates to their product or service. If not, a competitor may very well get the sale, in spite of a large television, newspaper and radio advertising budget.

With the popularity of online communities and social networks, today’s effective company web site can’t afford to be static like a print brochure. It needs to be engaging, galvanizing and interactive. Customers are no longer readers and browsers; they are participators in the company mission, offering valuable feedback and insight into the benefits of the product line. Forums, polls, chat and e-newsletters are just a few of the dynamic components of today’s company web site. In a world where a fan can write the best Super Bowl ad, a company’s customers are fast becoming an integral part of the advertising and marketing team.

Ken Mays is President & Creative Director of Mays & Associates, Inc., (www.ad-mays.com) an innovative web hosting & design firm based in Columbia, Maryland. Mays develops high impact creative strategies for print, television, radio, interactive, multi-media, and the Internet. Ken is an award winning writer and designer and can be reached at
410-964-9701 or ken@ad-mays.com.