Traffic vs. content

I have heard so many times the phrase “engage people into conversation” as a rule for internet marketing communications. Through couple of projects I have also noticed that 1000 loyal or active visitors (commenting, adding own content, and developing their own communities …) can give much stronger effect than 100k daily traffic.

But in the world of cost-per-contact, it is very hard to explain that besides frequency and reach, in the internet you need to engage people with best content; otherwise they will just slip away – to sites with better content.

Investment into traffic is of course easier and might look even cheaper (the rule quality communicates quality applies for all marketing communications in any of its forms).
How do you think Apple became so hot? And why Nokia is cool, some other mobile phones are not so cool …

At the end it is all about sales. Is it? Crisis came and there are no sales? No time and budget to do anything? Too bad. Think about 3 to 5 year perspective. Who will be the leaders? Why?