February 29, 2004
driving traffic
As an advertising hack, the thing I like about weblogs-as-advertising-medium is the control.
Also, having briefly worked in the magazine business, I know the perils of traditional media: having to keep an army of editorial and freelance people happy (not to mention paid). And then there are those dreaded paper, printing and distribution costs. All that trouble just to tell 400,000 nobodies that purple is the new black. Why bother?
My 'blogvertising' model dictates that the major cost to the advertiser is driving traffic to an environment where the desired outcomes (including the imparting of the advertising message) can all be achieved. The actual cost of creating and maintaining that environment is minimal.
Hey, guess what? Driving traffic is cheap and easy compared to the rigors of financing and maintaining a traditional media organ. And it's also a lot cheaper than building and maintaining a good enough site where the desired audience will just appear on its own volition.
We all know that traditional advertising is far too expensive. We all know that banner advertising doesn't work (0.01% CTR is the industry standard. One click per 10,000 people seeing it. Ouch...). And we all know that a traditional new media version of old media (the dreaded "dotcom") is economic suicide.
The future of advertising is "simple and cheap". But there are still too many people out there with an incentive to keep it "complicated and expensive". You have been warned.
Posted by hugh macleod at February 29, 2004 10:56 AM