Marketing Pilgrim

The headline appears to be a little alarmist but there are articles written all the time that appear to be trying to bury e-mail as a communication tool for now and the future. In most cases I can’t tell if this is intentional or not but oftentimes it looks like e-mail gets painted as something for those who are older, less tech savvy and, dare I say, uncool.

Here is a demographic breakdown (courtesy of comScore by way of NY Times Bits blog) of year over year web based e-maill usage rates for e-mail by demographic segment. On the surface, one could say that e-mail is definitely on the decline.

In a recent article from the New York Times the picture of how the younger set views e-mail is summed up in this assessment.

We’ve seen it coming but the day is finally here, by the time we ring in the new year, spending on online ads will have passed newspaper ad spending for the first time ever.

According to eMarketer, print advertising in newspapers will fall to $22.8 billion while online ad spending will rise to $25.8 billion. They expect the difference to be even more significant by the end of 2011.

This past October, the Associated Press published a report that noted a 5% drop in newspaper circulation and an 8.7% drop the year before that.

Says the report:

Circulation declines hurt newspapers financially not only because they are losing revenue from subscriptions, but also because the bulk of newspaper advertising revenue is still generated by printed editions rather than their websites.

My hobby is entering giveaways. It’s probably akin to a gambling addiction but it doesn’t cost me a penny and I win some pretty cool stuff. Last week, I won a $25 gift certificate to a gourmet food company that I had never tried.

Last Friday was free shipping day, so it was the perfect day to get the best out of my win. Except for the fact that the system they use sees a gift code as a discount code so I could only use my gift certificate or get the free shipping, not both. Why? A gift certificate is money, not a discount. Determined to fix this, I called the company’s toll free number in the early evening, California time. I was directed to the “customer service” line which was a recording saying they were closed. Hmmm.

Here is a question that I always have and want some input from our readers on. This morning I was alerted by Paul Gillin about a social media manager’s job with USAToday that is listed on CareerBuilder. Pretty nice gig, right?

Well, considering you would need to live in the Washington, DC area (job is listed in McLean, VA) and you need to do the following (see description below), what is this job worth? What should it pay?

Since USAToday doesn’t post anything about salary let’s play the hottest new social media game “HOW MUCH DOES THIS SOCIAL MEDIA JOB PAY?!” It’s fun and I hear it’s all the rage (which is an out and out lie but whatever).

Remember not so very long ago (probably just yesterday) when someone looking to really get involved in social media for business was told “It’s free so just go for it!” ? This usually came from a social media “expert / guru / ninja / maven / superstar / hero / stud / wizard /expert” (oops, already used that last one so I must be out of pathetic self-naming options).

This ‘expert’ actually didn’t realize that by promoting the medium as easy and free that no one would pay them to help them (hey, if there are any experts etc. etc. in finance who want to teach social media people what it means to be in business there is “gold in them thar hills” for sure). This phenomenon has created our current glut of social media ‘talent’ looking for a check which means they will say anything to get someone to sign up with them (look to the search marketing industry to see how well that has worked out).

I don’t have a pet and I have no interest in male enhancement products, yet during an average week, I’ll see plenty of commercials for kitty litter, dog food and ExtenZe. DirecTV says that’s going to change and it may happen as soon as the summer of 2011.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, DirectTV has a $10 – $20 million dollar commitment from Starcom MediaVest, a company that buys ad time on behalf of heavyhitters.

Under the new program, the ad buyer would list the characteristics of their target household and DirectTV’s system would search the data pools to find a match. A variety of commercial options would then be loaded into the box and the box itself would decide on the most appropriate commercial for each occasion.