It should be noted before you read this that if you are a marketing director then this story is not about tip is not about you it is about the Marketing Directors who would not read this… those are the ones who are having difficulty evolving.

Companies in today’s market are having a really hard time gaining any traction on the internet. Gone are the days when you could graduate with a degree in marketing and not end up pulling your hair out over failing campaigns and zero traffic.

I personally out lived two marketing directors at my last position who completely ignored me do to their fear of the web.

I was running a website that generated millions of views a month and they shut it down to advertise with Chrysler or something equally as wasteful and more expensive. Did they sell car parts… nope… not even close.

The company also had a really horrible PR problem. After the CEO was spanked on 60 minutes things pretty much went from bad to worse…

Here are few good reasons to ditch your marketing director for a web PR and marketing expert.

No Formal training available for the WEB.

The fact of the matter is that there is no formal training on how to market successfully on the web. No schools have cracked that nut, and if they claim to have a methodolgy by the time the individual graduates the nut will have gone from a chestnut to a peanut or perhaps an orange.

The problem is that web marketing changes, evolves and mutates at an alarming rate. The reason for this is that the medium is so cheap and anyone can add content. Once something works it is quickly mimicked a thousand times over and it suddenly becomes annoying and your target audience tunes it out. Rule number one don’t annoy your customer.

Most marketing directors are afraid of the internet.

This is a fact because companies lose billions of dollars each year on the web. This is not the Internets fault but is due to lazy and inexperienced web marketers who want to throw money at problem as opposed to thinking outside the box. If your Marketing director is not utilizing the web its not because it isn’t valuable its because he or she has no idea how to utilize it successfully. Also if this persons idea of marketing consists of only buying and tracking Google Adword campaigns be prepared to kiss your budget good bye or at least be completely ignored. Click ratios for Google adwords have pretty much gone through the floor.

If your marketing Director has never used Myspace, wikipedia, twitter, facebook, or an of these other social networking sites then your penetration and stickiness will suffer.

True web marketers know how to utilize all aspects of the web. We don’t just focus on SEO or SEF ( same thing actually) but instead are constantly seeking new areas to find target eyeballs. Sometimes we even find our own ways to create this right out of thin air. Marketing on the web is more an art form then a Science so you need an artist not a lab rat.

Example:

GOOGLE -

Google has a tremendous amount of clout on the web and yet it is not successfully turning these eyeballs into money. The problem is that Google is suffering under its on success. In the infantsy stage of Google it was small and much more able to evolve with the internet. Now it has gotten big and bulky and it has not properly spread around decision making ability. The big money maker for Google has been Adwords but what was initially a great idea has turned on them. The concept that anyone can post adds in an unregulated environment was genius in that it offered to make $ for Google with little or no work. Unregulated and completely Automated was nice at first until Google ads began suffering from a lack of credible advertisers. Finally the ads just where not appealing to the end user and they stopped clicking on them because Google ads where inundated with spam and crap.

Now Google is suffering do to loss of ad revenue and they just don’t know what to do. The company has gotten to big so any fix could be months if not years down the line. Sites are pulling ads cause they are not making any money. I personally ran a site that was receiving 4 million views a month. Google ads even showed 4 million views a month. For 4 million displays I received around $220. Thats .006 cents a view or 5.5 cents per 1000 views. This is down from where it used to be many years ago. The exact number cost per click over time is difficult to follow since Google does not release these statistics. Why does Google not release stats on average CPC over time were adsence account holders can easily gain access to them?  Because they are going down and you just don’t advertise that you are losing money or your product is broken.

There are reasons for Googles troubles and most web marketers can give you some insight but due to the fact that its marketing strategy is so inflexible and run by pedigreed marketing people who have probably never touched Myspace or Twitter it is this persons view that Google will have to restructure or continue to have losses.

Thanks for reading and I hope that it helps.

All of my consulting tips are free to use but of course everyone’s situation is a little different. If you would like consulting on your particular needs feel free to contact me as some of these tips may not be appropriate for your needs.