I started marketing when it was either TV/other mediums only for the big guys or yellow pages and flyers.
There was nothing in between and no way to measure results: you knew 50% of the investment was wasted and 50% was profitable. You just didn’t know which was which.
I sold advertising campaigns including a Fax book (yes, not a typo) selling adverts on a freaking fax book distributed in 20K copies. Basically, a big lump of paper no-one would ever dare to lift let alone read (didn’t quite understood this back then).
I made a gradual transition into digital marketing and was a relatively early adopter of Adwords. Looking back at my saved files, I run an Adwords course (even if just for total beginners) in 2004 – 4 years after it launched. I also ran affiliate marketing campaigns on CJ and Clickbank back then.
For the past 6 years at Genie, I’ve had the opportunity to be working with medium to large global brands with monstrous budgets and, whilst this isn’t so extraordinary with a 2018 head-on, if I think of it with a year 2000ish head on, it’s mind-boggling to think that:
BACK THEN
You were an insignificant little fish as a competitor for the big brands
NOW
Anyone can compete with Nike, Calvin Klein or freaking DFS online. In fact, often for large brands, their own affiliates/resellers are their biggest competitors.
BACK THEN
A 22 years old kid would sit in a board meeting and make the coffees with no or little right to speak and, if lucky and happy to stick with the same job for a decade, a chance to become a manager
NOW
A 22-year-old kid tells the board what they need to do on Facebook, Insta etc
BACK THEN
You had to pay thousands and travel hundreds of miles for days to learn anything
NOW
We can Youtube how to perform a heart transplant if you’re that dark
BACK THEN
Half the marketing investment was wasted and you (advertiser) could do absolutely nothing about it
NOW
You can measure how many seconds your FB video was watched for, by whom (down to the IP address – till GDPR kicks in at least), where and what they did next
BACK THEN
You spent thousands and threw the campaigns in hoping some of it would land on your target market
NOW
You can target a person who lives in Cambridge (north of it if you want to), between the age of 20 and 34 who likes horses, cycles, works in London and makes more than £90K/yr and got married this year… oh and who for the past few weeks has been searching and reading content on babies, so probably about to be a parent (!!!!!!!!)
Any many other mind-boggling realizations of sort (watch out for my book :)).
CONCLUSION:
This is absolutely the best time in history to be a marketer.