A few days ago I was invited to a seminar, The New eMarketing Essentials, presented by ExactTarget.com at the downtown Hyatt Regency. VP Joel Books, in his opening comments, described the exploding communications time line. 1990: Four primary media; TV, Radio, Print and Display plus Direct Mail and Telephone. Today, 2008, there are some 32 alternatives!  That’s amazing!

    Let’s put Joel’s time line in historical perspective. Blame our ‘ABC’s on the bean counters. Records created by accountants have been dated back to 3000 BC. Not much happened with communications until 1450 when Johannes Guttenberg came along with his moveable metal type and printing press. It took another 470 years to kick up another notch: science and electronics did the job.

    On November 2, 1920, KDKA in Pittsburgh PA, the first licensed commercial radio station, broadcast the US presidential election returns. The late 1940s saw television broadcasts emerge from their experimental stage. And in the ‘60’s, primitive computers helped both direct mail and telemarketing come of age, reaching out to the individual.

    Now, 2008, a totally new electronic structure is in the early stages of development. Driven by an increasingly wide variety of personal computers and communication devices, it’s bound together by the Internet. Rather than a broadcast this new structure is focused by the individual’s needs: Marketing’s “Holy Grail!”

    Three titans are faced off fighting for your digital advertising dollar: Google, Facebook and YouTube. Each has a different set of communications values. And contenders are nipping at their heels!

    Just 10 short years ago, 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google.com. Their key word search engine and AdWords advertising business model rapidly became the industry standard: 99% of their revenues come from advertising.

    FaceBook.com, a relative newcomer to the Internet, was launched as a social networking website during February 2004. You connect with people around the world.

    By November 2007, with an impressive following, Facebook launched an entirely new advertising solution. Reach the exact audience you want with relevant targeted ads. That sounds like Google but ads are placed within a personally created environment. Like Google, you get easy to use analytics and optimization. (Visit facebook.com/ads)

    Naturally, Google beefed up their powerful AdWords advertising capabilities adding its Google Website Optimizer. The GWO testing and analytic process tells you what works and what doesn't work in your website. For more info, enter “Website Optimizer” in a Google search.

    YouTube was launched in mid-February 2005. Many saw it as a place where people (some slightly strange) go to share homemade videos. But YouTube metamorphosed into a fast growing, powerful advertising medium using a “watch page” that responds to each individual’s interests. For the details, visit their advertising watch page at youtube.com/advertise.

    No, there is no clearly defined development path! It’s impossible to guess what will be the media habits of today’s children some ten years from now.

Yes, there is a master key: the individual’s eMail address. Digital marketing tools all are based upon its collection and enrichment. With an eMail address in hand you’ve taken the first step to developing a meaningful relationship.

    John Naisbrit, in his book Mind Set, points out “It is not an either/or world. Both word and image will remain. But in many cases the written word will be replaced by visual representations and literary narrative displaced by illustration.  Within the changing communications mix of words and visual, the visual will dominate. The challenge is to ascertain the optimum mix of word and visual in each field of endeavor.”

    What’s my take? Focus. Take your pick between the three titans. Keep an eye on those nippers. Advertise, creating an ongoing dialogue, any time, anywhere. Costs fit within any bootstrap budget. Creating content is the primary challenge!

Are you really collecting and protecting those eMail addresses?

    During the seminar, Joel Books announced ExactTarget’s recently released whitepaper updating eMail marketers on the CAN-SPAM Act. Included are all the provisions added during July 2008. Download your free copy of the whitepaper at: email.exacttarget.com/canspam.

Jack G Hardy