The pages of the blog have gone a bit dark in recent months. That’s an indication of what’s happening in the professional internet marketing business: we’re all bleeping busier now than we were even at the peak of 2000.

Here’s why…

Reason #1: The Internet Channel is no longer an option but the focal point of marketing.

We predicted this all along, but the migration of dollars to the web has become a grand exodus this year. I suppose macro-economists have their theories about why now, and perhaps even the rise in gas prices has tweaked our collective brains to look for cost-savings at all steps in our lives, including how we spend our companies’ money on marketing. It only makes sense: why would you exhibit extraordinary adeptness at cost-savings at home and not have that translate to work. Saving money and spending more wisely is a hardwired behavior.

Reason #2: We’ve merged how we behave as consumers into our lives as marketers. We’re thinking and executing like consumers.

For far too long how we behaved as consumers elsewhere never translated into the user experiences we provide back out to the marketplace as marketers. The gap between what we do as consumers and what we provide as brands was long and wide. That gap is closing quickly.

Where I see the gap closing quickly is in the B2B market, where depth of knowledge is required to make purchasing decisions, and the dollar value of each transaction is gargantuan in comparison to, say, packaged consumer goods in retail. The risks are higher so the investments in better user experiences and backend supporting technology and digital infrastructure are apropos. In addition, the consumers of B2B products and services tend to be less responsive to visual or emotional marketing strategies. The web provides the ultimate platform for self-education, self-service, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, and customized product integration planning tools.

Reason #3: The numbers add up.

In recent years, companies of all types and sizes have invested in metrics and analytics programs giving them visibility into what works and what does not from a return on investment perspective. The internet simply out-performs on numerous levels when compared to many traditional tactics. All sort of metrics, from cost-per-lead/sale to engagement measures, show that the Internet more often than not gives brands the most bang for the buck. Marketing is becoming more black and white in terms of execution, leaving more room — not less as one might think — for creative minds to come together and formulate more creative marketing and advertising solutions.

The Ultimate Challenge

There has never been a better time for the left and right brains to merge their respective talents to build truly worthwhile and compelling brand experiences. Yet culturally this remains the greatest challenge to tackle: how do we build or bring together teams of people who traditionally have not always worked well together to actualize the opportunities the Internet channel provides. The most serious problems are not reserved for marketing or advertising but for organizational development.

Effective web teams cannot live within a single traditional department such as marketing or IT. In my mind, a new Department of the Customer needs to be established where marketing, product development, and IT work side by side to achieve new levels of customer satisfaction and market intelligence. The engine of this new department is a metrics and analytics platform that prevents internal departmental fiefdoms and puts attention squarely on what the customer is actually doing, what she wants, when she wants attention, and why she’s buying or not buying your products and services.

In the absence of knowledge comes internal company strife. We are human-beings after all whose most base need is survival. And survival — now and forever into the future — depends entirely upon how well you know your customers’ wants and needs and can execute multi-dimensional, inter-disciplinary, knock-’em-dead creative programs that deliver results.

It’s happening now. Grab it. Be a part of it.