My last post covered the “old school” method of marketing known as direct marketing. A method used to target a wide range of consumers in a particular demographic or “geographic.” Initially the direct marketing mindset was attempted on the Internet via banner ads, mass market e-mails (Ok, let’s just call it spam now)

In the beginning stages of when businesses started using the Internet they attempted to do things the way they were done in the older media of print, TV and radio among others. We were indurated with banner ads we soon learned to commit to a blind spot, pop-up ads we soon learned to remove through third party software or different web browsers.  thankfully things have changed and Google used their great search algorithm to not only return better search results but also to display ads in a textual form people would be more interested in seeing. This is an example of using the technology in the particular media to it’s greatest advantage.

Blogging and podcasting also take advantage of another aspect of marketing in the “real world” but aggregates the information in such a way they you can only do on the Internet.  People will look very suspect at companies who do blatant advertising but we get great assurance from talking to friends and third party authorities we can trust.  Even if I blog or podcast is on a businesses own web site people will place greater trust if they are being taught and informed as opposed to a forceful sale. Two great examples of how podcasting/blogging is used to market products are Photoshop User TV and The Adobe Creative Suite Podcast.  Both of these promote Adobe products and Photoshop User TV even has advertising but it’s advertising I don’t mind because I have already sought out the podcasts and blogs for their topics and more than likely I am a likely candidate to purchase either the Adobe products, software or camera equipment.

What aspects of Internet marketing have you grown to despise and which one do you find refreshing?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 10:21 am and is filed under Innovation, Internet, branding, marketing, podcasting, web development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.