SuperSatellite

Web Marketing and the New School

// June 2nd, 2008 // Web

Having been moved into the marketing department at our university, it has afforded me the opportunity to attack some different problems from a new angle, and it has also allowed me to engage some ideas that had been floating around that weren’t necessarily an appropriate goal while in the IT department. Something I am coming to realize is just how different web marketing is from the garden variety, and how it is viewed and approached by those who need it to be successful these days. The reason the web office was transferred was to make the goal of the site redesign easier to achieve, connecting us with the tools and resources that would make this happen. While I firmly believe managing large web sites is worthy of its own, autonomous office, it’s easy to see why a lot of places are beginning to rely heavily on their marketing legs to Get the Job Done.

When you compare Old and New Marketing, there’s one distinct difference. Old Marketing was a passive attack. You gleaned information that you could get about your target, crafted a message, and tossed it out there, hoping it would stick, thinking you might catch a fish once in a while if they were in the biting mood. This is very passive (not to mention boring, and smelly). But on the whole, that’s how any kind of TV ad, radio spot, newspaper slot, or magazine fold out worked. Hope. The New Marketing that is coming to the forefront is more like a smelly hobo (clearly smelly is just part of the job) that assaults you on the street, screaming in your face and peeing on your shoes. Sure, they might call the cops, but once in a while they’ll give you a buck, or a half eaten sandwich. The difference is, this is active. With the web, you have the opportunity, even the expectation of interaction.

What I find interesting, particularly in our case, is how often web professionals are being relied upon not just to set up and maintain a site, but to also provide insight into marketing techniques. It’s similar to the case of: “Oh, you fix computers for a living? Will you come wire up some light switches for me some time?” (for the record, no, I won’t. 120AC has blown me across a room one too many times). Because we understand the web, we are seen as a resource for determining what is successful for web strategies in marketing. This reflects largely the effect that marketing training has had on the professional population, if it was learned outside of about the past five years.

It’s much more recently that web marketing has gained ground in academic disciplines. That is to say, it’s a must-know subject if you study marketing in college now. Previously, not so much. Even here, marketing students are being required to take rudimentary classes on page design (even though I hear rumors that they are being taught that Frontpage and frames are the end-all and be-all. And Jesus wept…). But students benefiting from this are just now starting to hit the job market, and are hardly dropping into positions to manage web initiatives out of the gates. And even if they are, they know just enough to be dangerous, and way more than enough to be frustrating. So for the time being, us web geeks are the fall back point.

What’s funny is that I don’t think that’s bad. Let’s face it, to be good at our jobs, we are forced to keep up on cutting edge tech, learn how to leverage third party APIs, and understand what people find usable and beneficial. In a way, we are the unofficial web marketing foot soldiers. Web work is one area where you can’t necessarily afford to be behind the curve (often, you’re better off not getting on the curve at all if being behind is the other option), and for marketing professionals whose focus is not 100% on the web, they can’t be expected to know just where in the pool to jump in. We tend to be much quicker to absorb concepts like video editing, sound bite assembly, photo slideshows, and all those techniques that used to be attached to broader, passive media. It’s frequently easier for us to learn about how to place that into social media than it is for a pure marketing person to figure out social media and how it relates to traditional media. More work? Yes. More responsibility? Yes. But all this also makes us a much more valuable resource.

So to those that have been like me, where you might think Marketing isn’t a good place for a web team, keep in mind the value that your skillset can provide, and why such a close proximity can be valuable. Obviously, I still believe that a well poised and staffed web office should be the ultimate goal, but in higher education, such a team is more of a luxury that most places can afford. Instead, we get a few hobos together on the street, and send them out to pee on a few shoes. But ultimately it gets attention, and more often than not, it can get results.