Cofamedia Blog

What the Debt Ceiling Crisis Can Teach You About Online Marketing

Although most of the debate about the recent debt ceiling crisis in Washington has revolved around who’s to blame, looking at the situation from a subjective point of view can teach us a little bit about the way things work, and even offer an important lesson about online marketing: that change is always right around the corner.

For decades, the government has been relying on deficits as a way to work and maneuver within the American economy. Now, with a couple new faces in office, the political mood has changed and suddenly we’re asking a whole new set of questions. A few observers might have studied the elections and predicted this situation, but it came to most of us out of the blue.

What does this have to do with finding customers over the Internet? Possibly more than you would think. There was a time, not so long ago, when companies like Netscape and America Online were “can’t miss” cornerstones of the growing Internet business world. These days, they’ve taken a backseat to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others. A year or two from now, some of those names may have changed.

What this should tell concerned the business owner or online marketer – even an experienced one – is that it’s always good to keep one eye on the horizon, and to never assume that things are going to stay the way they were before. Just because one technique or tactic is working for you today doesn’t mean that it always will in the future, and relying on any one marketing avenue for all of your revenue is almost always going to come back to bite you sooner or later.

Only time will tell whether the current discussion on federal government will turn out to be a productive starting point or not. For those of us who have businesses to run, however, it’s a wake-up call that reminds us just how quickly things can change.

Photo Credit: Renjith Krishnan