So, it’s March and I am finally ready to stick my neck out - something I don’t tend to do - because there are a few trends I am seeing that could be opportunities for someone, somewhere.

E-Commerce

I would expect to see a few e-commerce sites go this year - mainly from the lower end of the market. The once cost-effective pay-per-click model isn’t so cheap anymore and unless companies have built a customer database that can be leveraged, they have no asset. The price comparison market is already taking casualties and search is being dominated by the big boys that have the budget and the scale. I realise I am only one person, but I find myself going to Amazon more than ever for any product.

The only way to combat this is to get niche - even more niche. I find with one of my e-commerce solutions, most of the sales come from one product range. Perhaps I should scrap the others, stick to one single range and completely focus my marketing? Less income, but more profit.

Content is rising

Content’s where it’s at. Rich, value added information that builds trust, authority and credibility and gets attention from search and social sites. It’s a hard one to sell to a client but I am telling my clients to invest their marketing money into quality content for their web sites. I would also make sure I am not forcing it behind walls such as “you must give us your e-mail”.

Growth of the subscription model

Online websites with real quality information as their model, such as the high profile Bloggers, seem to be moving into a subscription model for the real quality (premium) content. This kind of goes against my last point but these are channels with solid information that have built a reputation over a number of years. They have eclipsed traditional publishers online to become publishers themselves and now they have authority, they are charging for some of it. It didn’t happen over night though.

Competition may be free

Do you use Google for search? How much do you pay them? Their whole business model is based around giving stuff away for free, yet they have managed to monetize what they do. It is a model that is being copied with a lot of online companies and it may transfer to a business model near you. Are you ready? Sound unrealistic?

The Escape competes with Indian companies doing the job for a fraction of the cost. We compete with “my sisters son who has just studied web design at college”. We also compete with Mr Website and software like iWeb.

Our value proposition needs to stand out and is defined with two clear points: The market sectors we approach and the level of which we operate; and secondly, the value proposition. That is the added extra we offer above and beyond a website - a website that delivers relevant traffic that converts to business. That takes proving so we can use my second point above.

Summary

It’s interesting times on the web as technology moves forward and the way we use the web matures. Ideas that would once make a marketer choke are now at a stage where they are real and if you are not doing them, perhaps a competitor is.

Polaroid are to stop making the film for their iconic cameras (they stopped making them last year).

A client asked me to put their fax number on their website this week. When’s the last time you sent or received a fax?

Our design company in Basingstoke is ten years old in April. When my partner Rob and I started off, under the staircase, we got excited about £30 orders for business cards. We used to have to get our films produced in a town 20 miles away, take them to a printer 15 miles away and then deliver them to the client another 15 miles away. Looking back, I wonder how we made money!

Anyway, our industry, like those of the camera and fax world, has also changed. Many litho printers take your files by e-mail, send them straight to plate, or even digitally print. Technology is killing a lot of small industries.

In fact, 2007 was the first time for us that our web revenue has exceeded out revenue from print. Our customers don’t want what they used to. And, If we don’t give them what they want, how they want it, they also have a friend called Google who will tell them anywhere in the world where they can get it.

Competition is getting just that little bit harder… are you flexible enough?

The world is changing thanks to the web [especially] and one industry feeling the brunt of it is the music industry.

Radiohead are about to push the envelope on that front with their new album “In Rainbows” due out on October 11th when they ask you to pay what you feel it’s worth…

Radiohead fans will be able to choose how much to pay for the band’s next album, In Rainbows, which is available for download on 10 October. Instead of listing a price for the music, the group’s website simply states “it’s up to you” - and then adds: “No really, it’s up to you [BBC].

They have the luxury, having built a reputation and fan base worldwide over their seven albums to date. But, think about it, how soon will it be with out the need for record companies? Lilly Allen built her career on MySpace.

Which begs the question, how soon will it be before what you or I do becomes redundant as a service? … or even an industry.

Gulp…

With the ‘chosen one’ now departed and the football club with the deepest pockets in the UK, if not the world, looking a little lost it makes me wonder how much freedom and power money actually gives you in business.

Here you have a football club owned by a man with so much money that Chelsea is almost like a hobby and he has placed such high expectations on what he expects in terms of success that, in my opinion, they won’t ever be enough. He keeps throwing money at it to get the ‘best’ but it’s not working. Sport is about preparation, tactics, optimisation of performance and, in the case of football, teamwork.

Compare it to my team, Arsenal, who sold [arguably] their best player during the summer and have a team often referred to as ‘kids’ at the moment. Arsenal actually made a profit of £10 million in transfers over the summer and from what I have seen of them this season, they have created the best Arsenal ‘team’ I have seen in a few years. All that, without the big-name signings and throwing too much money at it.

Part of the fun for me of running a business, running a campaign for a client, or creating a new website are the restrictions. Yes, I might battle like hell against them at the time but it adds to the excitement, creates the challenge and adds to the value of the return.

How much effort gets lost because money is the cushion to fall back on; how much creativity lost, and innovation?

You could argue that money gives you the room to take risks but any business needs to take risks and the risks where money is involved usually revolve around the spending of the money, rather than return.

I know a young guy (all of eighteen) who runs a ‘Showbiz Gossip‘ website. I won’t go into figures but he will probably make more money from his website within six months than he could in a full-time job. Based on advertising page impressions, he got 35,000 visitors yesterday alone.

But he’s eighteen. Bring on Ashley Qualls who is seventeen:

…her monthly audience is around 7 million, and revenue has grown from a couple of thousand bucks a month to as much as $70,000 - more than $1 million in less than two years.

Try explaining this to most people - your mum for instance - they just can’t comprehend.

And, because the rules are changing there is massive opportunity to those who just get on and do stuff, with very little up-front costs to hold them back. In fact, many of these “geeky” new businesses will start as hobbies.

As much as the corporate world use phrases like “think outside the box”, I am sure these teenagers aren’t even aware that any boxes exist. Watch and learn old timers!