Win at Internet Marketing

Why did I talk about IDEO and the Eames as if they are/were "agencies" in my last post? They are really industrial design studios not internet marketing agencies, I know . But they are closer to being internet marketing agencies than most ad agencies – and here’s why.

Internet Marketing is not Advertising.

Internet marketing is the outcome of building an interactive mechanism that engages people and supports them in engaging with each other. So it would be design studios with immense branding chops and proven tools for understanding the user and how they interact with things, studios like IDEO and Eames, that I would model if I was and ad agency trying to build out a department to offer internet marketing services.

In other words, advertising agencies get caught up with thinking that SEO and SEM is IM. I think it is because doing them well requires the same kind of language skills and consumer insights that traditional ad agencies have built empires on. They also feel like ads.

They are a small part of the equation, though. Working on SEO and SEM is something to give to the college intern to do. Give these bright young people the idiot’s guides to AdSense and let them loose. Check in on them on occasion. Make sure that they aren’t being dumb about the key words they are choosing and the ads they are testing. But check yourself.

Internet marketing is also (and more to the point if you want to win at this) the result of designing interactions and offering meaningful stuff to do and engage in. Making this stuff is more like designing a motorized toothbrush than it is like designing a print brochure.

Get it and you won't limit yourself to creating really searchable web brochures.