It used to be if you were a small business, you were at adistinct disadvantage with your marketing compared to thebigger companies.

No more. Small business owners will actually have an edgeover bigger companies thanks to the emerging marketingmodel.

Yes, you heard right. Emerging marketing model. The oldways of marketing are dying. And a new regime is coming ofage.

To understand how marketing is changing, it's important tostart with a bit of history. The image most of us have ofmarketing is based on an old communications model, onethat was popular in, say, the 1970s. That was when we hadthree broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC -- no FOXeither) a public station, one newspaper and a handful ofmagazines and radio stations. Trade magazines andnewsletters were few and far between, we had no Internetand no e-mail.

Because consumers had so few choices, it was fairly easyto market to them. Chances were pretty good they werewatching, reading or listening to one of a handful of massmedia sources.

In fact, to be successful in this marketing model, all youreally needed was money.

Here's how it worked. A business created a good product.The business hired an advertising agency. The agencyspent thousands of dollars placing ads on the threenetwork television stations and national magazines.Perhaps it also bought a few spots on local radio stationsand newspapers. And if the ad budget was big enough,success was practically guaranteed.

There was no mystery to marketing. Mostly it was anumbers game. Spend the money and get a return.Businesses were selling products. Mass mediabusinesses were selling advertising space. Advertisingagencies were buying space. Everyone was making money.And everyone was happy.

Fast forward to 2004. Now, instead of three televisionchannels we have hundreds. Instead of a handful ofmagazines we have dozens, including about a million tradepublications. On top of that, we have the Internet and e-mailjust begging for a piece of our time.

Never before in the history of communications haveaudiences been so fragmented. Just finding yourcustomers has turned into that old adage of finding aneedle in a haystack. But that's not the only challenge --even if you do locate your customers that's no guaranteethey'll listen to you.

Wherever we go, we are confronted by marketing messageafter marketing message. It's been estimated that we'rebombarded with over 3,000 messages a day...and thatnumber keeps going up. How have we responded? Bylearning to shut most of those messages out (which ofcourse makes it even harder for marketers to get us to actupon their message).

But the woes of the traditional marketing model don't endthere. The Internet has also introduced a little thing calledaccountability

When you market online, you can track what people arelooking at and, even more importantly, where you lost themin selling process. For instance, you can check your Website stats and see which pages people entered your siteand which pages made them leave. You can track whatpeople clicked on in your e-mail campaign or if they clickedat all.

With traditional or offline marketing, you only know if itworked (a customer bought something) or didn't (acustomer didn't buy something). You don't know if they sawthe ad, read the ad or what happened.

All of this is bad news for those who have built theirbusiness on the traditional marketing model. But, it could begood news for you. How? Find out in part two.

Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts andCopywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. Sheoffers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combinetheir creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywritingprinciples to become more successful at attracting newclients, selling products and services and boostingbusiness. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com