If you took marketing classes in college more than a few years ago, much of what you studied has already been un-learned, rewritten, or otherwise done away with in the Internet age. One thing that business regularly teaches us, however, is that although products and technologies change rapidly, people do so slowly or not at all.
For that reason, not everything from the old era of marketing is irrelevant. In fact, here are three enduring truths that still count today… and what they could mean for your company’s Internet marketing plan.
Old Marketing Truths
You can’t sell everything to everyone. The Internet enhances competitive strength, but it doesn’t take away the need for them. Your business website should practically scream the reasons that customers want to do business with you and not one of your competitors. If it doesn’t, then there’s a good chance that you are trying to be too many things to too many people, rather than simply finding a profitable niche and exploiting it.
Prices can always be undercut. In the first days of e-commerce, it seems that people would buy anything over the Internet, so long as it was cheaper than they could get it in their local stores. While that has proven to be true for certain types of products and industries, we have since seen that lots of shoppers will still pay for quality and convenience. It’s best not to rely just on price savings to attract customers, if possible. That’s because there’s always someone who can sell for less, and you don’t want to have to undercut them even further to find customers.
Word of mouth is everything. When it comes to important purchases like cars, life insurance, or premium electronics, people still want to go with the stores and brands they trust most. The growing field of “online reputation management” is a testament to this – online or off, having customers say the right things about you can make or break your company.
Business is changing all the time, but the principles that drive it aren’t. Do you have the right online marketing team steering your company in a profitable direction?
