This fall I completed the Digital Marketing Mini-MBA program at the Rutgers Center for Management Development. My intent was to sharpen the skills I’ve acquired during 15+ years spent at agencies, corporations and running Ridge Marketing, to get exposed to what other marketers are doing today, and to bring back some ideas to the team. It’s been a lot of fun turning off the deadlines for a few hours each week and geeking out on digital with my peers and other industry leaders.
One thing struck me recently — despite the fact that we’re still in the midst of what some call the Great Recession, not a single speaker or marketing professional there mentioned the poor economy. It just didn’t come up. Instead, there was nothing but excitement, enthusiasm and example after example of quantifiable ways that clever marketers have used Internet marketing in NJ and around the world to increase ROI for a wide variety of companies.
I think that enthusiasm stems from two things. Marketers absolutely love what they do and, even if they didn’t, would put a positive spin on it anyway. (Hey, it’s what we do.) And, more importantly, despite the less-than-stellar economic situation, we are in the midst of a social and digital movement the likes of which the world has never experienced.
What’s so revolutionary in Internet marketing these days? Here are some eye-popping facts:
The late 90’s/early 2000’s were an amazing time to start a professional career in design, technology and the Internet. Having worked at Intel, then in it’s computer-chip-making heyday, and later at GTriad, an up-and-coming Internet solutions agency, I was lucky to experience Internet marketing in its exciting infancy. But Internet access was slow, most websites were simply static brochures, and people had only just begun to connect to one another online.
Then in the mid-00’s social media exploded, broadband speeds increased and along came the smartphone. Now, as we move through our second decade of the new millennium, we’re enjoying our own modern-day equivalent of Renaissance-meets-Industrial Revolution. Innovations abound, technology changes for the better every day and the masses are hungry for new ways to engage with brands and each other in an interactive way.
Welcome to the Internet Marketing Revolution. It’s a great time to be a marketer, and a great time to be in business!
If you’d like to discover ways to leverage digital to grow your business, or if you have a success story of your own to share, please get in touch or send us a comment below.