Is rich media the future of Internet Marketing?

Some Internet marketing consultants believe that rich media is the future of Internet marketing. They point to broadband as the reason for that belief because it has the ability to make the Internet more like T.V.

So what does this mean for search and pay per click marketing?

Most Internet marketing analysts and strategists will tell you that this transition from search to rich media will take about a decade.

While I agree that this might happen, in terms of dollars, it will not diminish the importance of search in any way. On the contrary, perhaps it will increase searches significance.

First, the Internet will offer so many choices, it will be harder for just a few brands to dominate the entire market. The Internet is stealing T.V viewers because surfers are in control, not advertisers.

Second, rich media is expensive. It simply takes time to create good rich media.

Still, rich media, like beautiful-looking websites, is not necessarily effective. In fact, the majority of websites are just not effective, or they are not nearly as effective as they could be. Moreover, most websites are impossible to find, or to brand on the Internet, they simply get no exposure.

So, if you put a $1,000,000.00 rich media ad on a web page with minimum exposure, or unrelated exposure, how effective can that piece be? Of course that isn't as much of a worry for large corporations, but for small businesses, survival is dependent upon correct exposure.

Search provides not only exposure, but self-qualified segmentation of audience. This means that your perfect audience is viewing your rich media piece.

Rich media, by itself, cannot attain this audience.

Consequently, more advertising budget might be spent on rich media, but rich media will not diminish the importance of search engine marketing. More important, search marketing is probably the greatest piece of marketing leverage that small businesses can use to compete against large corporations.