TV is dying - an online marketing business opportunity?
A new report by ZenithOptmedia Group claims that ad buying on television is declining while advertisers are spending more money online. A Mediapost article says "Television’s share of ad expenditure is leveling off as the Internet takes over as the up-and coming advertising medium."
Does this create an online marketing business opportunity for small businesses trying to monetize traffic to their website? Sure, it could be if this noted trend continues. I’m pretty bullish on the internet as a great equalizer for entrepreneurs, but I’m not certain how excited we should get about this report. It’s the old “big ship in a small harbor” analogy when it comes to advertisers. It takes a long time to turn around old habits.
If your business plan leans heavily on online advertising as a revenue source, you’re running the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. (let’s see how many clichés I can fit into a three paragraph blog!)
February 16th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I think the idea of TV adverts as a standalone concept are dying, but overall it’’s just going to be wrapped up in the rapidly converging world of ”media” advertising…so it will still be out there, but the lines between all forms of advertising will be blurred.
April 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 pm
With the advent of SlingBox, travelers will now be able to watch their cable TV channels … or satellite dish channels … [b]ANYWHERE in the WORLD[/b], via their laptop.
You say that TV advertising dollars are dwindling … I wouldn’t bank on the death of the Old Silver Lady yet. (the Old Gray Lady being the NY Times).
And just recently, ABC announced that episodes of their most popular shows will be available via the web. Yes, I agree that the TV will be replaced (not right away though) by the laptop or desktop or some combination thereof; but the TV networks will simply adapt to an ever changing flow of information and entertainment.
We, at [link=http://gotruckstop.com' target='_blank']GoTruckStop.com[/link], are excited about the way that the trucking industry is able to now utilize the laptop as their "entertainment and comunications center" … accessing both information, news, business applications, and entertainment right from the comfort of a truck drivers cab, bunk area, inside a truckstop, shipper or receiver … or even simply at a rest area.
We feel that SlingBox and other exciting products like it will catapult GoTruckStop.com to the top within the trucking industry’s on-line stores.
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Joel - you talk about the Internet being the great equalizer for entrepreneurs, but it’s a double-edged sword.
Two or three years ago, before most of our competitors knew about Google and Overture (now Yahoo Search), search advertising was an absolute bonanza for us. Our average cost per click was about 70 cents and we were making in many cases $10 for every dollar that we spent.
Now that anyone with a credit card can easily advertise dozens of keywords on any of the search engines, not only are we competing with our usual competitors, we also now find ourselves in the strange position of competing with our own customers who are more than happy if they can generate their own leads and avoid having to pay us a referral fee.
The net result of this is that our costs per click have increased astronomically and our ROI per keyword has dropped like a rock.
So what are we doing about this?
Interestingly enough, more and more of our marketing is going offline - Long live TV!!!
You know the saying - the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I think the future will be bright for all forms of marketing - you have to do everything - not give-up one for the other. Of course, there are many great opportunities online, but as those costs increase, there may be better (and cheaper) opportunities offline.