Marketing: Internet Time Revisited

Internet Time Revisited

Written by Andrew Eklund, CEO, Ciceron

In repparttar

Summer of 1995, I was having dinner with some early Internet "pioneers" in San Francisco at Lulu's Bistro just off of repparttar 120443

Moscone Center. These "pioneers" were snotty little twenty- and thirty-somethings, like me at repparttar 120444

time (at least repparttar 120445

snotty part), hell bent on changing repparttar 120446

world through Web connections, Mountain Dew, iguanas running repparttar 120447

office corridors, "just say no to senior management," and countless fanny packs full of stock options.

"The Market be damned!" they'd say. "This is repparttar 120448 Internet economy!"

"The old paradigm is OVER," they'd drool between sips of Sierra Nevada. "Wells Fargo. Wall-Mart. Berkshire Hathaway. O-V-E-R. Like Pearl Jam." (Remember, this is '95.)

Drunk on power and visions of world domination I raced home to Minneapolis to start Ciceron.

We all know how repparttar 120449 California version of repparttar 120450 Internet bubble ended. You probably know an ex-CEO who now mixes martinis for hire south of Market Street.

Recently, I revisited one of repparttar 120451 Old New Paradigms: "Internet Time." You remember that one? The one where everything happens faster on repparttar 120452 Internet. Is it still true? Does this dusty ol' ditty still play well on repparttar 120453 e-jukebox of time?

I'm going to make repparttar 120454 argument that, of all repparttar 120455 paradigm-shifting, new age, margon-jargon (that's modern for "mumbo-jumbo"), geek-speak of repparttar 120456 '90s, "Internet time" is repparttar 120457 one that still stands for something.

That "something" is repparttar 120458 speed in which we can gain empirical knowledge about how consumers behave in repparttar 120459 marketplace, as represented on repparttar 120460 Internet. Customer research is repparttar 120461 next Big Boom on repparttar 120462 Internet. Right now, as you're reading this, perhaps tens if not hundreds or thousands of people (depending upon repparttar 120463 size of your online marketplace) are online, at your site, creating data. They're "behaving" in some form or fashion, either in a way that you want or in a way that you should know about. Either they're "getting it" or they're not. They've either bought something from you, signed up for that newsletter, filled out that form, downloaded that document, or forwarded that page to their boss, or they haven't.

Where's your focus, Money or Customer needs?

Written by Andrew henry

I had a 'rep' in yesterday who was telling me he had a website, not realising I'm a man of many talents he was telling me about all repparttar

new companies he was working with and repparttar 120442

great products he could offer and reminded me to go to his website. When he'd finished, I asked him:-

"what is repparttar 120443 purpose of your website?" a question which he couldn't answer.

"does your website tell me what you want me to do when I go there?" - err no was repparttar 120444 answer.

"Can I sign up somewhere to hear about what your latest products/services are?" No.

"Can I buy something directly from repparttar 120445 website?" No

"Is there a list of your products and services, or reviews of any of them or of repparttar 120446 companies you resell for?" No

"Are there any articles about what's happening in that industry and repparttar 120447 issues I should be concerned about?" No

"So what's repparttar 120448 purpose of your site?" Don't know really.

"What do repparttar 120449 people that normally go there do?" Can I get that information?

As you can see, his website was a complete waste of time. He's running his own business and supporting his family (and driving a nice Mercedes) and his online marketing is effectively ZERO.

How many people are there online who could help this guy - Thousands? Easily.

So why are so many people failing?

My Answer = Because they put repparttar 120450 money before repparttar 120451 business.

For most Internet newbies looking to start making money - that's as far as they define their model. There are thousands of people around who can tell you how to make a website, where to host it, where to get content, how to create a product, how to start a newsletter, how to buy and sell on Ebay, how to setup an affiliate program, how to arrange JVs and how to get traffic (and all repparttar 120452 other aspects of an online business) - but even with this knowledge they're failing to achieve their goals.

They need to take action, that goes without saying and there are lots of people not becoming successful purely because they're not taking any action to move them towards their goal, but I think repparttar 120453 fundamental issue even before that action is repparttar 120454 state of mind that they're in.

I'm sure that any 1/2 decent marketer can tell you that you're not going to make money by 'selling', matching products with peoples needs is slightly different to 'selling', and that difference is responsible for more failing efforts than you can imagine.

My 'rep' yesterday could see so much improvement in his business just by thinking of repparttar 120455 needs of his customers (and potential customers) and there are lots of small actions he could take to improve things. Why hasn't he? because he's thinking constantly about 'selling', he's forgottent that having a website is one thing but making money from it by offering people something that addresses a need they have is a different thing.

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