What appears to be happening is online content is becoming more and more robust with the availability of faster access and faster download times on the consumers’ end. This allows webmasters to create more interactive and detailed content than was ever available in the past, and quite frankly, consumers demand it. Along with this shift in internet use, comes a change in marketing strategies. Companies are now forced to create and implement a completely new marketing campaign geared toward web advertising. If consumers are spending more time on these social sites, and other niche content, businesses need to tailor their advertising campaigns towards what type of sites are being used most. While this change can allow for more targeted advertising techniques, issues will arise in the sense that many more “smaller” advertising campaigns must be created to target individual markets instead of the previous standard of one “large” campaign to target everyone. While this may be a lot of work for advertising companies, the shift will allow for more specific advertising to a smaller, better suited, niche of consumers.
This type of change is facilitated by business to business marketing. In 2008, online advertising revenue increased 15.1% year-over-year, while magazine advertising showed a significant decline (O’Malley, 2009). This represents the shift in consumers’ online habits towards spending more time using social networking sites and other online niche browsing. Some businesses have begun to accept the fact that print advertising will eventually be replaced by online advertising. New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, believes eventually online will become the main business: “But the Web audience is growing at a great clip, while print circulation is not. And online revenues are growing faster, too, albeit from a smaller base. If the trend continues, there’s little doubt that — “eventually” — online becomes the main business” (Phillips, 2007).
The shift of online consumers’ browsing habits, and the shift of business to business advertising go hand-in-hand. Marketing and advertising have to change along with the needs of its target consumers. Businesses need to be able to adapt to change and embrace that a new revolution in advertising has begun. Accepting this change and working with it, will ultimately allow for businesses to create better, more specifically targeted, campaigns which, ideally, will generate a better revenue vs. advertising cost ratio.
References
Karp, S. (2007, July 17). Newspaper online vs. print ad revenue: the 10% problem. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://publishing2.com/2007/07/17/newspaper-online-vs-print-ad-revenue-the-10-problem/
O’Malley, G. (2009, May 4). The Business of B2B Is Online [Report]. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from Online Media Daily website: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105322#
Phillips, P. (2007, July 16). Bill Keller: ‘The New York Times Is Not Immutable’ . Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.iwantmedia.com/people/people68.html
US ranks 28th in Internet connection speed [report]. (2009, August 25). Retrieved October 10, 2010, from Physorg.com website: http://www.physorg.com/news170447728.html
Wayne, T. (2009, May 17). Social networks eclipse e-mail. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/technology/internet/18drill.html
