Photography by Corey Graham 2.0
The shot above is of Paul "The Surfer" Bourne’s WRC Impreza which did alot of damage in back in Rally Barbados 2007. I am wondering when will Marketing/Advertising in the Caribbean do its damage while speeding along the Information Highway.
I spent the last week on a bit of a vacation and allowing myself to deeper explore the world of online advertising. We are consistently hearing that online is the way to go. The Association of Internet Junkies of the Caribbean stand together and proclaim that TV, Radio and the Newspapers are dying media and we should all switch to online. New Media, Social Media and Google Ads are some of the options you are hearing about for the advertisers who live among us.
Many content providers like myself are imagining the days of plenty when our main problem will be trying to keep all the different advertisers beating down our door at bay. We are also all convicted and fiercely loyal to information highway.
We know very well that there is no shortage of examples of people have been able to leverage the internet and expand and grow their businesses beyond what they can even imagine.
I want to ask you a question this Monday morning. Is that indeed our reality? If I were to give you a reasonable budget and a pretty decent product. Do you think you could make it pop by doing strictly online marketing? Honestly? Serious question?
Hmm? There is doubt? By why?
Alrite if there is doubt then that means we still have some way to go. Tell me then when do you think we will reach that critical point that we can activate a full fledged transition to online?
We have to really think about this. Let me add something into the the fray now. As I look around I see alot of webmasters and other internet folk embarking on a wide array of websites targeted at Caribbean people. I find that very few of them seem to be well thought out schemes to get Caribbean people more engaged online. Not many of the sites are to functional in terms of solving problems in day to day life.
Are any of the sites simply solving a real problem we might have?
We so many more smartphones in the hands of the average person now. Traffic reports? Public Transport Schedules? Specialised searches – e.g. Plumbers in St. Lucia? Listings? I don’t see an overwhelming presence of these kinds of sites full of entrepreneurial initiative.
Think about it? What is the attitude we approach the internet with in the Caribbean by the average user? Just for fun? Sending emails for serious business?
Do we approach it with a confidence that will find what we are looking for? How much does it really factor in our day to day? How many people forget that they can use the online phone directory? Is the internet really a part of our thinking as a collective?
The interesting thing about marketing and advertising, content, media – they all have to co-exist. Well at least that is how they have worked so far in the history of the world. Its an eco system. The content providers provide content, and atttract an audience, then the advertisers help pay the bills of the content providers in exchange for reaching the audience. In an ideal world the people in the audience would be glad to see the ads, because it educates them on the products and services available out there, to make their life better.
Ads then are also content? On some level? Right?
Now here is the big question how many websites are providing top notch advertising content that people are in the habit of finding out new things?
And since its easier it breaks the habit of the beautiful ladies grabbing their shopping bag and heading to their shopping spot to learn of the latest sales and see what is on show?
Think about it?
How is Advertising and Marketing on the internet truly going to evolve. We know the companies are interested we know the web folk would love to have the cash.
How will it move from a few brave marketing managers trying new things into a standard and well developed process?
Well my 2 cents is when your buying culture evolves and habits like the one I described above are broken.
What say you?
About Corey Graham 2.0
Great article Corey, this is still open country for Caribbean content producers. Very few understand how to monetize their websites properly and very few know of ad servers beyond Google. I say, those business owners who are serious about using the web to generate an income have a online and offline approach. Learn, Learn, overall, we are all in business to make money.