If you're looking for a fast-paced career that puts you right on the edge
and in line with technology and business, becoming an Internet marketer could
be for you.
Gregg Meiklejohn is an Internet marketer who works primarily in the post-secondary
education field. He helps colleges and universities use the Internet to attract
students.
Meiklejohn says that Internet marketing is valuable for any organization
interested in building a relationship with their customers.
"What I really enjoy about Internet marketing is its ability to go and
engage people in a very efficient, accountable way," Meiklejohn says.
Internet marketing is efficient because you can reach millions of potential
customers quickly and cheaply. And it's accountable because clients know exactly
how many people have viewed their website or clicked on their ad. In other
words, clients know exactly how much bang they're getting for their marketing
buck. But no matter how good you are at marketing, you won't succeed if you
don't have a strong product.
"The big problem with people in business and in marketing companies is
they get an idea for a business... and they become so enamored with it that
they spend all kinds of boatloads of money to promote it and they [end up
thinking], 'Oh, the marketing doesn't work, the advertising doesn't work,'"
says Meiklejohn. "But in fact what it is, it's a very weak product, and so
they're trying to run a thoroughbred race on a donkey."
Susan Negen is an Internet marketer and a consultant who helps retail stores
market themselves online. She says many small business owners aren't technologically
savvy, and that can hurt them if they don't get the right advice.
"They know they need to market their business online and so they do one
of two things," Negen says. "They spend tens of thousands of dollars with
a very expensive web development company for a beautiful site that they then
never change or touch again, and it probably doesn't [earn a full] return
on that investment, or they go to their cousin's friend who knows how to use
Dreamweaver and they get a really awful looking website that doesn't do their
business any marketing favors either."
Hiring an experienced Internet marketer helps companies avoid these mistakes.
Sam Alfstad is the co-founder and chairman of a publication that focuses
on electronic marketing. He started the publication after spending the 1970s,
'80s and '90s working in the New York advertising business. He has been watching
Internet marketing evolve since 1996.
"It has kind of evolved from a dream that few were involved with into something
that almost every company and corporation is involved with," says Alfstad.
There are so many opportunities that it's possible to blend your interests
in science, nutrition or nonprofit work (or almost anything!) with a career
in Internet marketing, Alfstad says.
Rick Broadhead shares this view. Broadhead first got online in 1991 and
from that moment on, he says, "I was hooked." Since then, Broadhead has written
and co-written more than 30 books about the Internet and online marketing.
He also helps companies develop online marketing strategies.
Internet marketing didn't exist even as a concept when he first got online,
says Broadhead. After all, the Internet didn't start as a commercial venture.
Rather, it was first a military network and then an academic network. "There
was a time when commercial activity was prohibited for the most part on the
Internet, so Internet marketing was an oxymoron, it just didn't exist," says
Broadhead.
How times have changed!
"There was a lot of resistance in the early days to commercial organizations
using the Internet and changing its culture, and obviously that's happened,
and there's no going back," says Broadhead. "It has changed immensely."
Today, we're witnessing the next stage in the evolution of the Internet.
Audio and video are becoming more commonly used by Internet marketers. They're
trying to start tapping into social networking sites such as Facebook. And
they're trying to figure out how to use blogging to reach customers.
"At some point it's going to peak like any industry does, but the future
is so bright," says Broadhead. "We're only at the tip of the iceberg in terms
of how the online world can complement or enhance traditional marketing.
"We're still trying to figure out how audio and video can be used as marketing
tools," Broadhead adds. "Blogging didn't exist a few years ago and then it
emerged, and there'll be other tools and technology that come along that we
can't even conceive of, that we haven't heard of today."
Above all, if you're considering a career as an Internet marketer, be ready
for change. It's the rapid rate of change that makes it an exciting and rewarding
field in which to work.
"The Internet space is one that continues to move at a very brisk pace,"
says Broadhead. "There's lots of variety. It's a fast-paced industry. And
I still find there's very much a sense of community, so it's a fun industry
to work in."