Have you ever had a day where you wanted to be interrupted and watch commercials or spend countless moments being diffused from your purpose? Didn’t think so, this is precisely why SEO and search are positioned as the new frontier for reaching consumers already looking for products and services like your own.
Rich-Media and Moving Past Traditional Marketing Mediums
With pull based marketing (meaning you opt in vs. it baiting you) the ability to bypass the sponsor is becoming more common and typical for modern consumers who are not as fascinated by what Seth Godin refers to as “the TV Industrial Complex” (click here to watch the video).
The only difference between an ad being considered annoying and an advertisement being considered relevant is timing. Just like you can please some of the people some of the time but you can’t please all of the people all of the time, this has stemmed into a new paradigm where daily battles are fought, won or lost based on this premise.
The web is solely responsible for creating content-rich media as an alternative to traditional television, radio and print. This empowerment of allowing the viewer to utilize their own discretion (in real time) each and every time a search is conducted using keywords, a link is clicked or a social media site is viewed that covers a topic that piques their interest. This has ultimately shifted the balance of power back into the fingertips of the consumer.
Not only has this created concern for other types of media (newspapers, television and print), as they fear extinction to the new precedent, but more importantly is has been a wake-up call for businesses still relying on dated methods of yesteryear or not moving forward to engage the new frontier of internet marketing with fervor.
The new quandary is not about advertising a lackluster offer and attempting to dissuade users into impulsive purchases, as much as it is about being the most relevant solution for the problem or circumstance confronting those searching for a means to remedy their dilemma.
Consumers are now aware that anything they want is essentially “just a few clicks away”, so, with the viewer holding the power to grant or retract their attention at will, the collective community at large has had to respond to this shift in the psyche of consumers, by creating more relevant information for mass consumption.
This transaction is the premise of websites, landing pages, search engine optimization and search engine marketing who attempt to tailor their propositions to meet the needs of those in need.
We know that ads pay the bills for advertisers, but at what cost; in most instances at the cost of irritating the viewer and discouraging them from using that medium? I would like to offer a few words of wisdom based on the premise of existing patterns.
The suggestion for those who have not foreseen the potential of a well executed internet marketing camapaign and the ability to receive traffic for years based on modifications to site architecture, optimizing content, titles and tags and driving relevant traffic. The web is not getting any smaller, so, those who have not invested in a suitable form of online positioning, you may not wish to wait too long as competition is carving out industry after industry and micro niche after niche each day.
Relevance will always be the solution for providing users with entertainment, solutions and a sense of community, so if you have yet to define how your business fits into this equation, it’s not too late to move past tradition and get into the black though investing in your website with rich media, SEO or SEM today.
