Thursday, March 20, 2008

Is the adoption of the Web 2.0 only a tactic to save money?

With troubled times ahead and a slowing if not crashing economy, I sometimes think that one of the most powerfull selling tool for the Web 2.0 vs traditional media is the cost.
A tv campaign does cost x times more than a buzz activity, as well as the implementation of a blog does cost much less money than a billboard campaign.
But is this a key fact to sell a project to a client?
Are we tarnishing the inner value of the on line activity making it cheap?

Indeed cost control is crucial and to tell the truth on line metrics are still at an early stage to detect the contribution of each single activity to the bottom line.

What's your opinion?

6 comments:

Mario Vellandi said...

Cost is great. Perhaps unique metrics visibility is better, depending on the context. You should ask Andy Sernovitz this question; I bet he'd have a good answer for you.

gianandrea said...

@Mario: I'll do it. I have to run a workshop about Worm roi and metrics on April 3 in Milan.

Pier said...

Internet is great to sell projects but still weak to sell a great amount of products to an equivalent great amount of consumers.
The lack of metrics is indeed a gap that needs to be filled!

gianandrea said...

@Pier: in my opinion Internet has not to be considered as a selling tool. It is a tool to facilitate the connection between brands and customers, therefore providing a consistent support, even if not a direct one, to sales.

Anonymous said...

Giananrea,

Cost is always a factor for businesses. But I think a bigger factor for most businesses before launching social media is reach. They aren't convinced that they can reach their products and services audiences with these tools. Social Media users continue to skew toward an average age of 30. Not a good audience for lots of businesses.

gianandrea said...

@Lewis: I'm afraid that the global demographic is not favourable to marketers. It' s a fact that in western countries, where the money still is, the age profile is turning quite old. In the emerging countries, this is not the case. But over there other problems take place: limited access to free internet, limited access to big money, etc.
So you are rught about reach concern.