Working the Web: Moving your business into the next media age

Two years ago, Advertising Age Magazine Editor Bob Garfield wrote an article with the title, "The Post-Advertising Age."

Considering who was signing his paycheck, it was a gutsy thing to do. It was also an eye-opening look into where media and advertising are heading.

Garfield pointed out that the Internet so disrupts mass media that eventually we will see the typical brand advertising model go by the wayside. It hasn't happened yet, but more and more signs keep pointing that way.

The Internet gives users great control over what they see, and it's harder and harder to get readers to pay attention to ads they don't want to see.

But it also creates ways for companies to reach customers directly and form better relationships with them.

One anecdote Garfield relayed was from an ad agency trying to give away 45,000 tickets for Six Flag's 45th anniversary. While they contemplated what kind of flashy ad campaign to run to accomplish this, one of their people posted the tickets for free on Craigslist, and they were gone in five hours.

Mission accomplished.

To summarize Garfield's main point is that companies need to quit trying to force feed potential customers their marketing messages, and instead concede that the customers are in control, and to give them what they want.

Customers want information about products and companies, but on their terms. That doesn't mean that advertising is dead, but that it needs to be aimed at helping customers. Perhaps the airbrushed photos and fancy graphics need to give way to actual product information about why people should buy your brand over another.

And when it comes to your business Web site, it needs to answer pretty much any questions that any customer might want to know about your products and services, and then some. Have you been around for a long time? Why not put a detailed history on your site? I'm not the only one who likes to know about the history of different businesses. What about biographies of you and your employees? Customers like to know who they do business with.

Humans are curious creatures, and we'll seek out the businesses that satisfy that need " and avoid those that don't.

For small businesses to survive in the Information Age, they need to embrace sharing their information with their customers.

While this might seem like a new idea, its roots are really pretty old. I was reminded of this last week when talking with Ted Rupert of Rupert's Auto Body. His grandfather passed onto him what should be the golden rule of business: take care of your customers, and they will take care of you.

That kind of wisdom will never go out of style, no matter how technology changes.

- Contact reporter Kirk Caraway at kcaraway@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1261.