Is Getting Into the E-marketing Field Now Good Timing?
Here’s a question that came in to LinkedIn about the climate for E-Marketers. The bottom line is that it’s tough for everybody and every industry right now, there’s just that much more competition from the newly-unemployed (ahem, “self-employed”), and that much less money to go around. Even so, there are opportunities, which I speak to in my answer here.
The Question
Is Getting Into the E-marketing Field Now Good Timing?
Considering a move to a well established e-marketing firm in NYC. Is now a good time to be developing business in this field and in these market conditions? Is money being spent here still or will I be trying to eat out of an empty cupboard?
My Answer
I think this is a great time for people and agencies who can bring efficiencies and cost savings to client companies, so the success of an e-marketer will depend on their focus. Big banner ad spends and PPC campaigns will be harder to find, but other practices will be popular, such as:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For a client with a site that’s not currently set up for SEO, it’s a very low-cost proposition to optimize and improve organic results. Just doing the SEO 101′s for a site can have real impact, for the cost of a few hundred or thousand bucks. So I think there will be great interest in SEO services.
- Social Media Marketing. The cost of entry is low to none so it’s just the overhead of the talent. Compared to traditional web ad spends this will be attractive to clients, especially if you can prove you’ve gotten results before.
- Analytics. When companies see their web stats for the first time and learn that their bounce rate is ridiculously high for the traffic that they’ve been paying for, or that the sites they’re paying for ads on are bringing no traffic at all, that’s immediately actionable info that can bring substantial savings. Even if they don’t have a pro analytics package, Google Analytics is free, you can set up a client and train them and that’s pure value, which clients like. And then they’ll trust you because they can now benchmark and monitor their own campaign progress.
There are a number of discipline areas like this, activities that help clients get more for less. I would ask the company that you’re looking at about their plan for overcoming the economic meltdown. If they talk about client savings and efficiencies, that will definitely be a good sign.
Good luck!
