It has been in the news of course of the rising postal rates that became effective on January ninth. And I’m sure you had to go out and get some stamps to make up the difference.
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Because of the surge in natural resource prices, paper costs are being driven higher, as well as because of surcharges attached to energy. If we also take into account the soaring federal deficits, along with the pressure on the U.S. dollar to drop, combined with growing inflation and I’m sure that these costs will continue to rise this year if history has anything to teach us.
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For those of us who are in the Internet business, we will be facing increasing costs of doing business online also.
Because many internet marketers are putting most of their eggs in the SEO keyword arena, there is starting to be an escalating cost in search engine marketing. I talk about the lack of wisdom of obsessing on only one marketing area on another post.
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Now DoubleClick reports that in cost-per-keyword in search engine marketing is up almost 15%. And when considering cost-per-click, that is up 30%. This will not stop growing in cost as the explosion of new online businesses continues to zero in on keywords as the marketing strategy of choice.
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Banner Ads
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With the new IAB-recommended larger ad components being rapidly implemented, the loss of smaller buttons and banners has increased costs as there is less advertising space available to buyers. Couple this with the spending on Internet ads rising by 31.5% per year, and we should see the cost rise considerably.
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E-Mail Marketing
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One thing we can be thankful for is that the cost of e-mailing to our customers and prospects has had no upward move in price. The problem we have there is of course the endless attack of spam filters upon unwanted e-mails that eliminate not only the unwanted ones but the ones desired as well.
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This of course results in lower delivery rates which increases the cost of the sending by default.
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What should we do? The truth is that we are in the midst of a major shift in internet marketing. But those methods that have been used, while increasing in costs, still have their place, as long as they are part of an overall strategy and not betting your business on one method of delivery.
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The internet is challenging us in the mass customization area. Those who find a way to do this in its endless, changing variety will win huge with their customers and profit hugely from it.
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