2005 is the Year Businesses Grow up on the Web

How will your business approach the Internet in 2005? Will you consider it nothing more than a place where teenagers hang-out to instant message their friend? Or, will you consider a valuable part of your businesses marketing strategy, one that will either give you a competitive advantage over your competition or one that will eventually assist is closing your doors.

Here’s are a couple of things that I observed happening in 2004:

Newspaper readership is down, yet businesses continue to pour more money in newspaper advertising – what exactly are they hoping for?
Print directory advertising, what you call your local print Yellow Pages, is no longer used by over 30% of the population, yet businesses continue to pour 100% of their budget into print advertising with no consideration of the Internet
Let me make myself clear. Print advertising is important, but the over-reliance on advertising exclusively in print advertising is a game for the fools or the naive.

What the #1 reason why businesses continue to make this mistake?

“If I do something, then logically all my customers must do the same”, “I read the newspaper, my customers must read the newspaper”.

What amazes me is I hear the above comments from businesses, who actually truly believe this, but in the same breath tell me that a) sales are harder to come by, b) they don’t understand what things don’t appear to be working, and c) they are fearful of losing their business.

My advice for businesses in 2005; consider how media usage is shifting in the marketplace and either develop a strategy, or find somebody who can help you develop a strategy, to take advantage of this shift.

Remember, there are 4 mass media products, a) newspapers, b) television, c) radio and d) Internet.