Almost everyone on earth has heard about the big tumble in marketing online: profits falling, companies don't want to take out ads, people are realizing that it's not a cakewalk to advertise online. Wait a second: that's 2001.
Looking back at 2001
You probably recall that time as the dot-com bust. It was rough for everyone involved, everyone who placed their hopes on specific things, but from one vantage point it was necessary. There were too many gigantic promises being claimed on a base that wasn't really solid, so a big drop was pretty much guaranteed.
But then, once that was finished, people decided far too hastily that the online ad market was dead, which meant the bottom fell out of the developing marketplace that was still kicking around. This (un)fortunately allowed Google to move in and buy up huge swaths of the online ad market, which meant Google was suddenly ad placer #1.
How Online Advertising Came Crawling Back
Ever so gently, the market came back, matured, ad agencies and SEO companies flourished, and a new honeymoon began again with online advertising. People didn't make all the same mistakes as before, though.
Hop ahead to 2008/2009 and the crisis. Advertising spots dropped precipitously. Ad budgets were in tatters. And when a company, trying to stay afloat, murders its marketing budget, what goes first? Print ads? Video? Probably not. Try SEO and web-based advertising.
Are We Screwed Anew?
To the untrained eye (or the journalist who doesn't do her research), this looks like a heavy drop in online marketing. But where many viewed, all over again, the second death of an industry, anyone who looked harder could see that it just wasn't like that.
The truth is that the online marketplace for ads experienced a drop like everything else, but the place people are going to read content remains the internet. Just because advertisements had a rough go doesn't mean people fled the internet en masse. The opposite took place.
Everyone is Moving Online
Really, as we approach 2010, we're coming upon even more catastrophic drops in newspaper readership and TV viewers. And now books are facing attack from new ways of viewing content, like Amazon's kindle. Apple might release an entire new genre of touch-screen product specifically for web browsing and online content. People are without a doubt going online for their stuff.
This only tells us that online advertising is only going to increase as more opportunities for monetization increase. So while there has been a drop in ads online, and here and there it's clearly quite difficult, there are specific reasons for it that have nothing to do with whether or not the market for online advertising is feasible or not.
You Can't Find a Better Period Than Right Now
We're currently suffering through a rough period. Traditionally solid ad buyers have cut down their ad buys, rates are lower than ever, and yet every day the amount of information about an ad campaign available to us, the quantity of
SEO companies, doing an excellent job—all these things are still on the rise.
Are you going to be someone that lies low during a recession, waiting for big-time reassurances before doing anything? Or are you looking for how to make the best of a bad situation, constantly trying to see where the market is going and getting in while you can, when the times have never been more ideal to build a customer base and learn the market?
Don't be tricked by the illusion of a 'huge decline' in online advertising. Look at the 5-year plan, know where it's going, and get in on the ground floor.
