CREATIVE AND MEDIA STRATEGY
FOR THE INTERNET
I. An Overview of Cyberspace and Cybercommunication <Reinventing
Advertising> <Bluefly.com>
A. Evolution
of the Internet
The
Internet (information superhighway)
is a worldwide means of exchanging information and communication via a computer
network consisting of smaller, interconnected networks. A network
consists of two or more computers connected to one another for the purpose of
sharing communication and resources. The
Internet links both public and private computer systems to allow users to
access information and documents from distant sources. <Exhibit 17.1> The
ability to transfer files from one mainframe computer to another or from a Web
server to a Web browser is known as file
transfer protocol (ftp) or hypertext
transfer protocol (http).
Born on
Sept. 2, 1969 on a room-size computer at UCLA, the Internet (originally named
ARPANET—Advanced Research Project Agency) was developed in conjunction with the
U.S. Department of Defense as a way to connect research agencies and military
facilities across the nation. When
e-mail was added in 1972, allowing person-to-person communication (rather than
just computer-to-computer communication), the Internet began to catch on,
although it was still rather obscure, being used primarily by academics,
military researchers, and scientists around the world to send and receive
electronic mail, transfer files, and find or retrieve data from databases.
During the
‘80s, a number of commercial online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, and
America Online began operations by capitalizing on local electronic bulletin board services (BBSs)—services that delivered e-mail between subscribers, supplied
catalogs for online shopping, provided chat rooms (Internet Relay Chat [IRC]
for discussions, organized interactive game playing, and offered software
downloading capabilities. Anyone with a
modem-equipped PC could join services such as AOL for a basic fee of about $10
a month plus a charge for any time spent beyond the monthly allowance. At that time subscribers were limited to
sharing e-mail and information with users of the same online service
provider. Several large advertisers such
as General Motors, Chrysler, MCI, 1-800-FLOWERS, and Lands’ End began using online
services as a medium of both advertising and e-commerce.
Growth
really took off after Jan. 15, 1992, when Tim Berners-Lee wowed a roomful of
physicists with the first public demonstration of the World Wide Web (WWW), which enabled businesses and consumers to
hook up, resulting in the Internet being the fastest-growing medium of all
time. At that time, the Internet hadn’t
developed graphical browsers and so it wasn’t as easy to use as the online
services. Users had to find an Internet Service Provider (ISP) (the
first two of which were Prodigy and CompuServe) and needed a lot of technical
knowledge including memorizing arcane text commands to navigate around the
first version of the World Wide Web, which was entirely text-based (no
graphics). Therefore, the earliest ads
resembled classifieds.
In 1994,
the first commercially available Web
browser software that accommodated graphics, Netscape Navigator 1.0, was released (the precursor to Netscape was
Mosaic). T, 1994, the first online ads
began appearing in Wired magazine). People
could now navigate in cyberspace by pointing and clicking on icons, making the
Internet almost as user-friendly as the online services.
Initially,
people found it difficult to find information on the WWW—it was like trying to
find a book in the library without a card catalog. This problem created demand for another
software program, the search engine—a
computer program on the Internet where users could type in a name, word, or
phrase, and the search engine would troll the Net to locate relevant
information and Website addresses. In
rapid succession a number of programs with catchy names like Yahoo! (founded in
1994 as a bare-bones directory founded by Stanford University students Jerry
Yang and David Filo and now the Web’s most popular site, followed by MSN and
AOL), Excite, and InfoSeek emerged as search
engines—
The search engines rapidly became
high-traffic locations, and advertisers began to advertise on them using banner ads— little, rectangular static or animated billboards that are
located on at he top of a Web page and that can serve as a gateway to send a
consumer to an advertiser’s Web page.
The first appeared in 1994 on HotWired Inc’s site, which was part of
AT&T’s “You will” campaign. In 1994
the fist shopping sites went online. By
1995, over 71,000 commercially-registered Websites or commercial “domains,” the Internet equivalent of
storefront addresses, were set up by companies such as IBM, AT&T, Ford,
Merrill Lynch, JCPenney, and Mitsubishi.
By 1997 that number had jumped to 1.3 million. When Java was introduced in 1995, it became
possible to create fancier graphics, audio, and animation. Advertising on the Internet
began in 1994, when the first commercially available browser (Netscape
Navigator 1.0) was introduced and the first banner ads were sold.
E-commerce—the
sale of goods and services on the Internet—had its genesis when in 1994 Jeffrey
Bezos envisioned a new business paradigm that involved selling books online at
Amazon.com. In 1995, Pierre Omidyar
launched eBay, an online marketplace.
Today,
virtually every business, from the local florist to global corporations, has
its own Website, and many individuals have their own home pages. Since the
online services and the search engines are the gateways to all of these sites,
they also attract the greatest number of “hits”
(landings on the site) and the greatest volume of advertising. For many college students, the WWW is the
first source of information from everything from news to term paper research to
travel planning. For advertisers, the
Internet is a valuable component of an integrated marketing communication (IMC)
program and, like other media advertising and promotional tools, is most
effective when used in conjunction with the other program elements.
Internet
advertising is rapidly growing. Yet, the
cost of advertising on the Internet is slowly declining. Q. How can this be? Demand for Internet advertising is
increasing, but apparently supply is increasing at an even faster clip. Yet, in 2000 Internet advertising only
represents about 1% of all U.S. media advertising (about half the amount spent
on unglamorous outdoor advertising). Today,
virtually every business, from the local florist to global corporations, has
its own Website, and many individuals have their own home pages. Since the
online services and the search engines are the gateways to all of these sites,
they also attract the greatest number of “hits” and the greatest volume of
advertising. For many college students,
the WWW is the first source of information from everything from news to term
paper research to travel planning. For
advertisers, the Internet is a valuable component of an integrated marketing
communication (IMC) program and, like other media advertising and promotional
tools, is most effective when used in conjunction with the other program
elements.
The Internet is a digital interactive medium, hence marketing on it is sometimes
known as digital marketing. It is interesting to note that initially
marketing was interactive, with the majority of marketing communication being
carried out by salespeople and face-to-face communication in retail
stores. Subsequently, marketers and
consumers relied more on mass communication, and, for the most part,
interactivity left marketing communications.
With the Internet, marketing communications increasingly involve
interaction between buyer and seller.
Advertising on the Internet is considered interactive advertising since, unlike
traditional advertising media, it offers the consumer an opportunity to respond
to the ad (as do other interactive media: CD-ROM catalogs and magazines,
stand-alone sales and information kiosks, and interactive TV). CD-ROM
catalogs and magazines are stored on compact disks, offering a high
concentration of data, combined with full-motion video and high-quality
audio. Stand-alone digital kiosks can be found in stores and other high-traffic
locations. Interactive TV (ITV)
allows users to interact with their TV using the remote control.
Interactivity is a big plus since it gets
the customer actively involved, leading to better learning and often a
sale. While some observers believe these
new interactive media will totally transform the nature of advertising as we
know it, others say that, like TV and radio before it, it will simply be one
more addition to the media mix.
Nonetheless, given that consumers can make purchases over the Internet,
it also ads new channels of distribution.
Most Internet advertising most closely resembles broadcast advertising
in that it has sound and motion.
B. The Basic Parts of the Internet
There are four main components of
the Internet:
1.
Electronic mail
(E-mail) allows people anywhere in
the world to instantaneously send electronic messages to one another.
2.
Instant messaging or electronic relay chat (IRC)
makes it possible for people to “talk” electronically with each other in real
time.
3.
Usenet
provides a forum for people with common interests to share knowledge in a
public “cyberspace.” It is a collection
of over 13,000 discussion groups, newsgroups, and electronic bulletin boards on
the Internet. People can read messages
pertaining to a given topic, post new messages to the group, and reply to
messages.
4.
The World Wide Web (WWW or “Web”), the most popular component of the
Internet (“Net”) and the main commercial component, is that portion of the
Internet servers that support a graphical interface retrieval system which
organizes information into thousands of interconnected pages or documents
called Web pages or home pages, making navigation simple and
exciting. It combines sound, graphic
images, video, and hypertext on a single page. Each home page is like a
bookcover or gateway, acting as the starting point to additional
information. Early Websites typically
consisted of a homepage resembling a poorly designed brochure cover, with
perhaps limited information about the company and its products. These were, in effect, storefronts.
Content
providers are the parties that provide information on the WWW known as Websites, which consist of one or more
Web pages with related information about a particular topic. The three major online services rushed to
marry their services to the Internet to provide communication to users
worldwide. Today marketing content providers include companies,
direct marketers, electronic retailers (e-tailers)
and other organizations that have their own Websites <Exhibit 17.19 >, as
well as Websites that contain secondary data.
Of these four components, the WWW holds the greatest potential for
advertisers.
On the WWW netizens—those who spend a considerable amount of time on
the Internet–can access an immense database of information in a graphical
environment through the use of programs called Web browsers—software programs with a graphical user interface that
enables the user to display Web pages as well as navigate the Internet, e.g.,
Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
To connect to the Web, one needs to gain access in one of four ways:
through a commercial online service (e.g., America Online), a corporate gateway
(e.g., AT&T’s WorldNet Service,) a local Internet Service Provider (ISP),
or an educational institution.
C. Surfing the World Wide Web
There are
four ways that people access the Net.
The oldest is via dial-up modem
through an Internet service provider (ISP).
You simply contact one of the hundreds of ISP companies (e.g., AOL) that
advertise regularly in local newspapers and computer publications to get an
e-mail account and Internet access for a monthly fee of about $20. You use the computer’s modem, hook up to the
Internet via a phone line, dial up the local ISP number, and type in a password
to connect to the Net. A second method
of hooking in is called cable modem,
available from TV cable companies offering cable modem services such as
Roadrunner or @Home. No dial up is
necessary—once the coaxial cable is plugged into an Ethernet card inside your
computer, you’re online (“always on”).
Third is DirecPC, a satellite-based
system that offers even faster downloading than cable but is very
expensive. Finally, is WebTV, backed by Microsoft and TCI. The viewing and receiving device is the TV,
which is hooked up to an analog phone line via a set-top box and remote, which
sell for around $99 to $199. Once the
equipment is purchased, the cost is a small monthly fee.
There are
two general ways people search for information on the Internet. First is directed
search/prepurchase search (“shopping”) with purchase of one or more
particular products in mind. Consumers
know what they are looking for and usually have some existing information to
rely on (e.g., a producer’s name, brand name, or a set of terms that describes
the product category. Here, they usually
search for key/search terms in search engines as described below. Second is browsing
or casual search, with no particular
immediate purchase in mind. Here, the
user might not have an immediate need or might have a less precise view of the
information that might be available.
Browsing relies heavily on hyperlinks between documents, allowing the
browser to navigate through cyberspace in a non-sequential manner.
The Web has been likened to a library
lacking a card catalog—there is no central authority that lists all possible
sites accessible via the Internet. This
results in surfing—gliding in an
unplanned fashion from home page to home page.
There are, however, two organized ways to find information on the
WWW—general-purpose search tools such as browsers and search engines, and
specially designed tools, such as shopping bots:
(1)
The uniform resource locator (URL) is
the Website address or domain name, which identifies a particular
location [Web server and file on that server of the site where the information
you need is located. You can enter the
URL for that site in the search window (by clicking “File- Open Window”) of
your Web browser, which takes you
directly to that site’s home page (start
page, landing page) (the
introductory page or opening screen of a Website). (The original six top-level domains [TLDs] (suffixes)
widely used in the U.S were: .com [commercial or “dot.com”], .edu [education],
.net [network operations], .gov [U.S. government], .mil [U.S. military], and
.org [organization. In 2001 to these
were added .biz [commercial or business], .info [unrestricted by organizational
type], .name [for individuals], .pro [for accountants, lawyers, and other
professionals], .aero [for the air transport industry], .museum [for museums],
and .coop [for cooperatives]). Since 2009,
almost any word can be used as a TLD—companies, brands countries, cities
etc. can apply for their own domains as
well as use words (e.g., .life insurance).
The Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) was set up in the late ‘90s by the internet community
and the U.S. government to coordinate the domain name registration
process. It manages the technical
underpinnings of the Web, including registration, and it will throw out a
registration if it conflicts with a trademark (Pepsi), is too similar to an
existing domain (.kom), is a geopolitical term claimed by a government or other
group ((.china), or is a threat to morality or public order. Companies called registrars sell domain
names, such as GoDaddy.com and Network Solutions. Names aren’t as important anymore since
people usually just go to a search engine
to type in an organization’s name.
(2)
Use a search engine—a computerized
directory that allows users to search the WWW for information in a systematic
way. The user types in keywords. The big four sites are Google, Yahoo!, MSN,
and America Online. Others include Alta
Vista, Excite, HotBot (gives you a choice among three other search engines
too), Infoseek, and Lycos, among others.
Each search engine contains collections of links to documents throughout
the world, and each uses its own indexing system to help you locate the
information you are looking for. Some
search for titles or headers of documents, while others search words in the
documents, and still others search other indexes or directories.
All search engines allow you to enter
one or more key words or search terms into the text box. They then return listings of hyperlinks or links (electronic connections from one Website to another Website). Alternatively, you can click on a list of
broad topics (art, business, entertainment, etc.) to go to subdirectories or
else home pages. Most search engines use
a best match search process and present search output in order ranked by relevance,
based on: how many of the search items were found in the document, how often
the search items were found in the document, where in the document the search
items were found (e.g., URL< meta tags, etc.), and proximity of the terms to
one another.
It
is not uncommon to find a large number of hits; if this is the case, the rule
of thumb is to scan the first 50 hits, and if these don’t provide useful
information, to consider redesigning the search strategy. The outcome of a search (“retrieval set”)
usually takes the form of a list of Web pages representing the records
retrieved, ranked in order of their potential relevance to the query and
presenting a certain number (say, ten) at a time. Each of these incorporates a hypertext link
to the source document.
There
are five types of search engines:
(a)
Hierarchical search engines or directories add value through human
intervention in the assignment of subject headings to records in
databases. In a hierarchical search
engine, all sits fit into categories. In
addition, all sites are evaluated prior to inclusion. Such sites only contain submissions from
users—they don’t perform a search of the Web—hence, they are not comprehensive,
omitting a large portion of the information on the Web. Website creators may their page for inclusion
in the evaluation process. The
maintenance of such directories is a labor-intensive process—therefore such
search services are selective in the sites that are included. However, such selection reduces the amount of
garbage one often encounters in an Internet search.
<Exhibit 17.6>. Yahoo! is an example
of a directory built on a hierarchical, subject-oriented guide. Others include Ask Jeeves, Excite, LookSmart,
and Lycos. All sites have to fit into a
certain category/subject heading and subcategories (e.g., Stolichnaya vodka is
indexed as Business and Economy/Companies/Drinks/Alcoholic/Vodka). Going to Business and
Economy/Companies/Sports/Snowboarding/Board Manufacturers gives almost 60
companies that sell snowboards on the Web. <Exhibit 17.7> Searching is
via menus of these subject headings and/or through keyword searching.
(b)
Collection search engines. <Exhibit 17.8> Alta Vista is an example of a
search engine that uses a spider—an
automated program that crawls around the Web and collects information. The advantage of these is that they tend
to be very comprehensive. Because there
are so many sites, they rank the best matches first. <Exhibit 17.9>
(c)
Concept search engines. Alta Vista, Fast, Google, and Northern Light are
examples of
concept search engine—they
use a concept, rather than a word or a phrase, as the basis for the search.
<Exhibit 17.10> To narrow the original search, one clicks on one of the
sites found in that search to do another search. The percentage key gives the user an idea of
how close a particular site is to his or her concepts. For example, Ask Jeeves <Exhibit 17.11>
is a natural language search engine—it
allows users to type in natural-language questions. Concept search engines can be a relatively
efficient and focused way of searching.
The disadvantage is that they aren’t as comprehensive as collection
search engines.
(d)
Meta-engines/meta search engines/mega-search engines search multiple search engines simultaneously for
words and phrases. They then combine
results, remove duplicate entries, and /present a single listing. Examples include MetaCrawler, Dogpile, and
Debriefing (the latter is maintained by librarians who are constantly refining
and upgrading the site). Some of these
can be found in the list of search engines when you click on the “search”
button of your browser, and others are found by typing
“www.searchenginename.com (e.g., www.dogpile.com;
www.debriefing.com). They are a quick way of searching across
several search tools, although they might not support some of the more
sophisticated search facilities. There
are also specialty search engines that limit searches to specific topic areas
such as law, business, and medicine, as well as Web community sites such as
www.theglobe.com.
(e)
Robot search engines/search bots. This newest type of search engine acts like meta
search tools and searches
many Internet search engines in parallel.
They differ from meta search tools in that they are loaded at the local
workstation rather than operating in client server mode. Also, they use robots (“Bots”) or intelligent agents
to roam the Internet in search of information.
Once a search has been performed, the user needs to assign relevance
rankings to the items retrieved. The
intelligent agent uses this information in the next iteration to modify its
search operation. <Exhibit 17.12> For example, Travelocity.com finds the best
deals for your traveling needs, while BargainFinder (www.BargainFinder.com) does so for
your music needs. Some Web retailers
have designed their sites to either refuse the robot admission or to confuse
the robot, as they wish to avoid a “cheap” image.
(f) Search
engines for specific sites.
E-tailers with large catalogs of products, such as Amazon.com, need a
search engine to support users in navigating their way through the
cyber-store.
Some search engines (e.g., Yahoo! and
Lycos) serve as portals
(entry/starting points) for Internet exploration, and they typically offer
e-mail, news, search, and games.
<Exhibit 17.14> America Online is a well-organized Web portal from
which a Web surfer can link/jump to many locations highlighted by AOL. Commercial Websites pay AOL to be featured in
this way. Such portals can be vertical—serving one industry or market
(such as an ethnic market) or horizontal—serving
multiple industries and markets.
Which search engine should you use? The best search engines cover about 30
percent of the estimated pages out there.
A 1999 study found that Northern Light, Snap, and Alta Vista index
significantly more (16%) of the Web than the other popular search engines. The most up-to-date search engines were Alta
Vista, Excite, and Hotbot. However, by
2002, Google had become so dominant that to “Google” something or someone—that
is, to search the Web for that thing or person—had become considered a verb.
It is also a good idea to use multiple search
engines since there is surprisingly little overlap between the major search
engines. Meta-engines search multiple
search engines simultaneously, e.g., MetaCrawler, Dogpile, and Debriefing (the
latter is maintained by librarians who are constantly refining and upgrading
the site). Some of these can be found in
the list of search engines when you click on the “search’ button of your
browser, and others are found by typing “www.searchenginename.com (e.g., www.dogpile.com; www.debriefing.com). There are also specialty search engines that
limit searches to specific topic areas such as law, business, and medicine as
well as Web community sites such as www.theglobe.com. These niche or “vertical” search engines only
search within a narrow band of interest.
They are sometimes called vortals
(a contraction of “vertical” and “portal”), and they might also offer expert
reviewers and provide the “best” recommended sites in a given area.
(g) Blog search engines such as
Technorati, Blogdigger, BlogPulse, blog.iderocket.com, or Google Blog Search. If you’re looking for very current
information (such as today’s buzz), these are useful.
(3) Shopping
bots are specialized search bots designed to locate and compare
products.
They take a query, visit
shops that might have the sought product, bring the user the results, and
present them in a consolidated, compact format that facilitates comparison
shopping. Many also provide access to an
order form.
Searching is on the basis of full text
and/or product categories. Some
shopping bots are comprehensive in coverage (e.g., MySimon, NetMarket, and
Planet Retail) while others focus on a specific product range (e.g., BargainBot
for books, Bargain Finder Agent for Music and CDs, Gift finder for gifts, and
Price Scan for computer software and hardware).
Most shopping bots claim to eliminate the
searching necessary to identify the right product at the best price.
The
procedure for searching is:
·
Use a plus sign (+) in front of a word to
indicate that it must appear in each Web page of the query results (e.g.,
hotels+San+Fransisco). Without the plus
sign the word isn’t considered mandatory.
·
Use a minus sign (-) in front of any word that shouldn’t be included in any Web page in
the search results (e.g., Cars-Ford)
·
Enclose a
multiword phrase in quotation marks
to tell the search engine to list only sites that contain those words in that
exact order (e.g., “Seattle Preparatory School”).
·
AND works
like the plus sign, indicating that all the words joined by AND must appear in
the document (e.g., to find documents that contain the words wizard, oz, and movie, enter: wizard AND Oz AND movie).
·
OR joins
words, at least one of which must appear in the document (e.g., to find
documents that contain the word dog or puppy, type: dog OR puppy). OR is often used to broaden a search (e.g.:
(travel OR tourism OR cruises OR cruising OR vacations OR vacationing OR
vacationers) AND (Caribbean OR Bermuda OR Jamaica OR Virgin Islands))
·
AND NOT or OR NOT is similar to the minus sign and
is used to exclude words in the document, words that are likely to match your
search requirements but have nothing to do with the search topic. (E.g., to
find documents that contain the word pets
but not the word dogs, enter: pets
AND NOT dogs; e.g.: Dolphins NOT NFL).
·
NEAR should
be used when words should be near each other (e.g., Moon NEAR River).
·
() Parentheses are
used to group portions of Boolean queries together (e.g., to find documents
containing the word fruit and either banana or apple type “fruit AND (banana OR apple”).
·
Title search allows
you to search for titles of web documents (e.g., “title: Mars” or “t: Mars”
will retrieve all documents with the word “Mars”).
·
* Wild card
(e.g., eco* will return economy, economics, ecology, etc.)
+ Some Hints for Searching:
·
Be specific. Tying in “DVD Players Reviews” will give you
a better set of results than the more general “DVD Players.”
·
Add quotation marks. Keep exact phrases and proper
names intact by enclosing them in quotation marks. Use words most likely to be used (e.g., try
“John F. Kennedy” and “born” rather than “John F. Kennedy” and “birth date”).
·
Use the “advanced
Search” feature tool. For example, you
can scour only certain kinds of documents by excluding pages with certain
words.
3. After typing the search request, click on the search
button. (The search engine then searches
the entire Web or a subset of the Web to locate sites meeting your search
parameters.)
Websites are also discovered via
word-of-mouth communication as well as checking favorite Websites on others’
home pages.
Also, much information, like airline
on-time records, is buried in databases and not in Web pages scoured by search
engines. Access such hidden information
through www.invisible-web.net.
D. Internet
Advertising Media
Like
broadcast or print, the Internet is an advertising medium. Today, there are two strategies for Internet
advertising. A pull strategy relies on the consumer requesting the
advertising. With pull strategies, consumers remain in control of their advertising
exposure, seeking it at their own convenience.
Pull is the most common type of Internet advertising, and the key is
customization and one-to-one selling.
Amazon.com, for example, knows each of its customer’s preferences, so it
can offer books to suit each individual’s interests. A push
advertising strategy is akin to traditional advertising—the advertiser delivers
the message to the consumer, retaining control over when, where, and how the
advertising message is delivered. Most
common here is advertising delivered via e-mail, listservs, and Usenet,
all of which are intrusive and can lead to consumer backlash if done
improperly.
The
Internet’s virtual ad world is a broad net, ranging from websites to search
advertising. The Internet can be divided
into the following media:
1. Electronic
mail. E-mail is now the number one most-used Internet application (search
is number two)—the Internet’s “killer app.”
As you might have noticed, the volume of e-mail messages has been
growing exponentially over the past several years, with the average consumer
with an electronic mailbox receiving about five messages a day in 2002. Until
about 2000, e-mail advertising wasn’t widespread because consumers resented it
as being too intrusive. However, with
better targeting and permission-based
e-mail (e-mails are sent only to customers who request them), plus advanced
features like personalized audio messages, color photos, and streaming video,
e-mail advertising grew rapidly. In the
wake of the anthrax threat that surfaced in September and October 2001, this
usage among direct marketers was given a further jolt. E-mail ads are commonly used to follow up
previous customer searches, alert consumers to new promotions, or attract new
customers. Companies like the DM Group
maintain a list of e-mail groups, each of which has a list of e-mail addresses.
In fact, permission e-mail marketing is the fastest, most flexible direct
marketing medium. Sending e-mail is
virtually free and much quicker than sending something through the U.S. postal
service. However, in general, e-mail
marketing is not replacing direct mail; rather, it is being used to alert
customers and prospects that a direct mail package is coming through the postal
service to ease concerns over mail from an unknown source.
E-mail’s strong advantage is that for just
pennies per contact, companies can send targeted messages to people who
actually want to receive them. Due to its low cost, profits can be made on very
low response rates (.001 percent, i.e., 1 out of 100 responding, vs. 2 per cent
or better on “snail mail”). Also, e-mail
ads allow companies to track how many people open the e-missives and who clicks
through to the Website. . It is a very rapid way to send communications
and receive back direct responses, about half the time it would take to print
and distribute traditional messages.
And, response rates typically are higher than when using traditional,
offline direct marketing methods—5 to 7% versus 1 to 3%. A major problem is that, with the growing
volume of Spam, legitimate e-mails and even order confirmations are being
deleted.
You can hire an email firm such as
Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or contact to create professional-looking
emails with color, images, and tracking tools to see who actually read your message. They provide you with templates to design
your email message. You upload your
email list and set a date for the campaign to begin. Rates start at about $10/month to send up to
500 emails, with most customers spending around $600 per month.
The
best way to get an e-mail list is to use a
house list—internally generated by collecting e-mail addresses from
customers, prospects, and Website visitors.
Companies develop profiles of characteristics of their best
customers. List rental based on these profilers is another option, although it
brings higher opt-out rates. Companies
like the DM Group maintain a list of e-mail groups, each of which has a list of
e-mail addresses. Other e-mail marketers
get names from e-maul addresses posted in chat rooms, news groups, and on
personal Web pages.
The best way to use the list is as opt-in-e-mail, which targets users who
have voluntarily signed up receive commercial e-mail about topics of
interest. This is especially important
when prospecting for new customers as, without your permission to send a
message, it might be perceived as spam(bulk
email)—unsolicited commercial
or bulk e-mail for things like Viagra, pornography, get-rich quick schemes,
mail-order brides, mortgages, and loans.
(Spam is named after the Monty Python sketch in which a couple in a
restaurant attempt to order breakfast, but discover, to their dismay, that
every item in the menu contains Spam.
Worse, each time he waitress recites names of dishes, such as “Spam,
egg, Spam, Spam, bacon and Spam,” a group of Vikings at the next table loudly
sing, “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, drowning out other conversations in the same
manner e-mail spam disrupts online communication.) The quickest way to get flamed and damage
your brand name is to start sending out bulk e-mails to people who do not wish
to hear from you. Although Internet
service providers and hosts such as companies and universities install spam
filters, spammers are nonetheless sometimes able to work around these. It is estimated that 80 to 95 percent of all
email sent is now spam.
There are even firms that provide large
lists of consumers who have agreed to receive commercial e-mails (e.g.,
infousa.com, dblink.com). Double
opt-in lists are even better because they require subscribers to confirm
their sign-up via e-mail.
Opt-out
lists—those where people must state
that they don’t wish to receive e-mail solicitations—should be avoided. Marketers can easily find out about who wants
to receive e-mail by using registration forms on their Websites which include
these “opt-in” or “opt-out” checkboxes.
They can also collect e-mail addresses via direct mail response devices
like business-reply cards as well as third-party sources (such as list broker
yesmail.com). For example, if you
permit, The New York Times will e-mail you information about specific
promotions, articles that will appear books on sale, etc. It is always a good idea to give consumers
the opportunity to “unsubscribe’ or opt out of receiving further e-mail messages. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault
of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) legislation requires that consumers
be able to opt out of email marketing communications simply by entering their
email addresses. Sometimes customers can
also opt down—reduce the frequency
with which they receive messages.
. There are three formats you can use:
plain text, HTML, and rich media—enhanced
video, audio, and animation in online advertising—based on software
technologies, like Macromedia’s Flash animation, which is now built into
browsers so plug-ins aren’t needed, or on Shockwave, Java, Acrobat, and Enliven
—audio plug-ins, media streaming, or some other enhancement. Generally, text-based messages work best with
b-to-b audiences who, even though they have broadband, don’t want to wait for
messages to download. HTML (graphics)
works better with consumer audiences.
HTML appeals to the heart, while text appeals to the head.
A trend is to use rich e-mail—e-mail messages that use streaming audio and video and
allow recipients to place orders within the e-mail message. If you have compelling audio or video
content, or if your product requires demonstration, consider rich media. Companies have begun using video e-mail--e-mailing commercials to
consumers. For example, prior to the
launch of “Survivor,” CBS e-mailed a miniature version of a TV commercial, and
the band ‘N Sync sent a video commercial to many of their fans. E-commercials can track who watches, for how
long, and to whom (if anyone) they forward it.
They are fairly popular with consumers, with 46% claiming to like
streaming adds online as much as TV ads, while only 25% of consumers like
Internet advertising in general.
Unfortunately, the streaming ads only fill a small portion of the TV
screen, no more than a few inches high and wide, to reduce loading time.
Another
trend that has bitten advertisers is viral
marketing. One way to attract customers to your Website or otherwise get
more customers involved with your e-commerce efforts is via viral marketing—creating an ad that is
so informative or entertaining (i.e., infectious) that consumers will want to
pass it along to others like it was news of the second coming. Often, attaching film clips and games does
this. Viral marketing entails getting
customers to pass your marketing message so that it spreads like the flu,
passed by word of mouth from one friend to several more, each of whom spreads
the message to several of their friends, etc., until there’s a full-blown epidemic
and products are flying off of the shelves.
It involves creating an e-mail or online ad so compelling—either
graphically or by using an incentive—that customers want to pass it along. The beauty is that when an e-mail comes from
a friend, the recipient is much more likely to open and read it, and it has
more credibility. For example, viral
marketing has become a popular and potent force for distributing spoof TV
commercials and real ads that are banned by the TV networks. For instance, Budweiser posted spoof spots on
its Website billed as ads that were “rejected” and offered to have consumers
e-mail the ads to their friends. Many
viral ads are posted on YouTube.
For
example, one of the early users of viral marketing was Hotmail—at the bottom of
each of their e-mails was a message that said, “GET YOUR FREE E-MAIL AT
HOTMAIL.COM.” Hewlett Packard featured a
button allowing readers to forward an informational newsletter to friends or
colleagues. Customers can be invited to
visit the marketer’s Website for more details, in which case viral success is
measured by click-throughs (typically 5 to 15 per cent of those receiving viral
messages click through to the links).
Careerbuilder.com created Monk-e-Mail for its 2006 SuperBowl spots,
whereby consumers could e-mail talking-chimp greetings to their friends. For the 2007 SuperBowl, they created
Age-O-Matic, whereby users upload photos of themselves or friends (or enemies!)
to see what the photos would look like 50 years hence. Users can then e-mail the altered photo to
whomever they wish. OfficeMax’s
Elfyourself seasonal viral website lets visitors paste images of their own
faces onto dancing elves, along with a personal message.
Customers
can be offered incentives to forward your message, such as discounts
(e.g., IKEA offered customers discount coupons for forwarding e-mail
postcards), free merchandise (e.g., refer 10 friends to Procter & Gamble’s Website
for Physique shampoo, and you’ll get a free travel-sized styling spray and be
entered in a sweepstakes to win a year’s supply of the shampoo), and
sweepstakes (e.g., “Like this site?
Click to recommend it and you can win $10,000). However, like a virus,
viral marketing can be dangerous, because consumers might feel like they are
being exploited or are themselves taking advantage of others. To curtail spamming, limit the number of
pass-alongs you reward customers, and reassure customers that you won’t keep
their e-mail addresses without their permission.
Another
variation of viral marketing entails encouraging Web visitors (often via a
traditional ad) to create and pass along their own ads, known as user-generated advertising—content of a
commercial nature that is created or posted on the pages of users in social
media (part of Web 2.0, that second-generation of Web services that let people
create content and exchange information online (user-generated content”). However, this is a risky strategy as control
is in the consumer’s hands. As an early
example from the mid-00s, a website promoting Chevrolet’s new Tahoe SUV led to
consumer-created “ads” passed around the Web that ridiculed its gas use.
Viral
marketing can be very cost effective, especially to reach hard-to-find younger
consumers. Effectiveness can be measured
by e-mail pass-along rates. User-generated content also increases consumer
“engagement” or involvement with the ad (stickiness).
By 2004 a
cousin of e-mail marketing and spam had arrived—instant messenger marketing and
spim—instant messenger spam. Spimmers pose as IM users with the help of
automated programs that send messages to randomly-generated screen names and to
names illegally collected from the Internet.
A few hints on copywriting
for e-mail:
·
Short, digestible
copy blocks and bulleted lists work well, because most people scan their e-mail
before reading it, and the average person’s attention span is much shorter
online than when reading offline direct marketing media.
·
In the subject
line mention your offer (vs. teasing) and, if it is well known, your brand
name. This will improve your open rate
in a world of cluttered e-mail boxes. Shorter
is better than longer. A good subject
line can double the preview rate, or a bad one can cause your e-mail to be
filtered by spam-blocking tools.
·
Most e-mail
advertisers drive campaign responders to a Website via a link in the e-mail
message. It is a good idea to provide
multiple links—at least one toward the top and another at the bottom of the
message.
·
It is good
practice to give recipients the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time. In fact, legally companies must enable
consumers to remove themselves from any e-mail marketing list by either
entering the e-mail address within the e-mail and hitting “send” or clicking a
link contained within the e-mail, connecting online, and then changing
preferences.
·
Test, test,
test. Via testing responses to different
variables, you can optimize them. Such
variables include the offer (e.g., $10 off vs. 10% off), subject line, message
format (text, HTML, or rich media) and incentives (such as sweepstakes and
contests).
Second is conversion—the percent on the site who
buy or otherwise respond.
Unfortunately, some consumers are cutting back on the commercial e-mails
they read and on opening attachments because they no longer trust in
e-mail. This is due to:
Measurement metrics for email marketing include:
·
Delivery rate:
The percent of emails delivered to intended mailboxes.
·
Open rate:
The percent of emails opened up
·
Read rate:
The percent of emails read.
·
Unsubscribe rate: The percent of recipients who unsubscibe from your list.
·
Forward rate:
The percent of recipients who forward your message.
·
Goal conversion rates: The percent of recipients who do things such as
download your brochure, contact a customer rep, etc.
2. Listservs. A listserv,
electronic mailing list, or just list, is an electronic mailing list on the Internet that permits
people to share information on specific topics by sending a message to the
list’s e-mail address, (e.g., ELMAR and AdForum for marketing professors). <Exhibit 17.5> Listserv members send a message to the
Listserv’s manager, who then resends it to all the members (perhaps in edited
form). Here too advertisers need to
exercise caution, since it is considered a violation of netiquette (Internet
etiquette) to sell products via listservs, especially if the product is
unrelated to the Listserv topic.
Informational announcements are more acceptable than blatantly
commercial messages. Relevant listservs
can also be informed about your corporate Website. Information shared among listserv members is
akin to word-of-mouth communication.
3.
Usenet. Short for “user network,”
this is a now somewhat archaic system, having declined since the rise of the
web in the mid-90s, although it still exists.
Usenet is a collection of
electronic bulletin-board discussion
groups in cyberspace. The bulletin
boards are known as “newsgroups.” People
in a Usenet group can read messages on a given topic, post new messages, and
respond to existing messages. A
moderator receives and reviews the postings for subject appropriateness and to
filter spam, and decides which ones to post on the newsgroup. Other, “unmoderated” newsgroups add postings
automatically. For advertisers, a Usenet
group can be a highly targeted audience for advertising messages. The quickest and most effective way to
promote a site is via publicity: notify relevant Usenet groups. Marketing researchers can also use Usenet
as a form of unobtrusive observational research. By visiting a Usenet group, you can get the
latest opinions on products, services, stores, etc.
In using e-mail, listervs, and Usenet
groups, marketers must be careful to avoid sending spam—the electronic equivalent of junk mail—uninvited commercial
e-mail messages (unsolicited bulk e-mail
messages) which have received much criticism from consumers as annoying and an
invasion of their privacy, and which are against the law in many states. Advertisers must make sure that they are at
least wanted guests, rather than despised intruders, in these virtual
communities. The best way to do this is
to make sure in advance that there will be audience interest in your
products. Another safeguard is to stick
to permission-based e-mail, using “opt-in” lists, meaning customers give
permission for the marketer or a related third party to send them e-mail
messages. It is good practice to remind
consumers that they opted in (even when and where, if possible). Relevant Usenet groups can also be informed
about your corporate Website.
4. The World Wide Web. Of all the options available to Internet
advertisers, the WWW holds the greatest potential. It is like no other communication medium
because of its ability to combine several of the unique qualities of the other
media (i.e., print, sound, and visual) into one, while allowing for two-way
communication between advertiser and customer.
It allows for detailed and full-color graphics, audio transmission,
delivery of in-depth messages, 24-hour availability, and two-way information
exchanges between the advertiser and the customer. A Web page can provide corporate and product
information as well as allow the consumer to make a purchase. The primary difference between the Web and
the other three cyberadvertising media is that while they are push media and might therefore be
resented by consumers, the Web is a pull
medium—the consumer actively searches for the advertiser’s home page. Consumer benefits for browsing using the
Internet include: convenience, saving time, saving money, breadth of
information, and comparison shopping.
The exception is push technology or Webcasting,
which automatically dispatches Web pages and news updates directly to the user
and might have sound and video geared to specific audiences and even
individuals. Companies like Pointcast
provide screen savers that automatically “hook” the viewer to their sites for
sports, news, weather reports, and/or other information that the viewer has
specified. Using personalization, users can personalize their sites to request the
specific information they are most interested in viewing. Advertisers who flash their messages on the
screen pay for the services, i.e., the services are free for users.
Specific types of WWW advertising will be
discussed in II. B below.
II. Advertising
and Marketing on the Internet
A. Overview
1. Web audiences. As in offline
marketing there are two broad markets: consumers and businesses. The consumer
market (business-to consumer or “b-to-c”) is upscale and leads an active
lifestyle; they use the Internet largely to save time and for convenience. Although the Internet consumer market grew
rapidly in the late 90s, growth has slowed due to the “digital divide” between
those who can and can’t afford PCs and online access, the existence of some
adults who feel no need for the Internet, and ex-users who feel the Internet
doesn’t meet their needs. The trend in
target marketing on is toward niche marketing.
Consumers are more likely to spend time on a site if there is
information of specific interest them.
For instance, profitable pet supplier Waggin’ Tails specializes in
high-margin products, unlike the defunct Pets.com, which tried to do it
all.
The business-to-business (“b-to-b”) market is much larger, with over
90% of all businesses having a Website.
Businesses use the Web to acquire product information efficiently
without having to make a phone call or wait for a salesperson to visit. A marketer can reach thousands of prospects
it wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach, and at a significantly reduced
cost.
2. Web
objectives. At first, corporations put up Websites primarily to disseminate
information. The sites resembled
online catalogs. Although in b-to-b
markets providing information is still a key objective, in consumer markets the
role of Websites quickly changed, as sites became more creative, offered
promotions, chat rooms, and products for sale.
Unlike other media, the Internet is a
hybrid of media. In part it is a communications
medium, allowing companies to create awareness, provide information, form and
change attitudes, and create a brand or organizational image, all communications objectives. But the Internet is also a direct response
medium, allowing users to both purchase and sell products via e-commerce (e-business)—the direct
selling of goods and services on the Internet (or, from the consumer’s
perspective, we guess you could call it, uh, Windows shopping). Thus, firms can have both communications objectives and sales objectives.
a.
Communications
objectives.
·
Create
awareness. Web advertising can create awareness about both the
company and its products and brands.
·
Disseminate
information. We’ve seen that early use of the Internet for
commercial purposes was to provide in-depth information about a company’s
products and services. In b-to-b
marketing, this is virtually mandatory as most buyers now expect a firm to have
a site providing detailed information about its offerings. In the government sector contracts are often
put out to bid on the Internet. Many
consumer marketers use the Internet to communicate more product information,
with ads often referring consumers to the Website <Exhibit 15-3 –
Cheerios>. A surrogate for amount of
information gathered is amount of time users spending on a site—stickiness.
·
Create and
change attitudes toward the
organization and its offerings via persuasion and preselling.
·
Create an
image. Many Websites are designed to reflect the
image a company wishes to portray.
<Exhibit 15-4 Xerox>
However, banner ads tend to be poor at this.
·
Encourage
dialogue between the firm and its
customers as well as between customers and customers and prospects.
c. Miscellaneous
objectives.
·
Improving
customer service. Companies can improve customer service and
build customer relationships by providing information, answering inquiries, and
offering an opportunity to register complaints via e-mail and instant messaging
on retail sites.
·
Increasing
distribution. Websites can be used as
an exclusive Website or in addition to bricks-and-mortar sites for product
distribution. Most successful are
businesses that operate in both the physical and virtual worlds, allowing
consumers to toggle back and forth between the two. Any company can spend $25,000 to put up a website,
but then the must spend $150 million building distribution outlets and customer
service centers, plus launching a marketing campaign; traditional marketers
already have they in place. For
instance, Merck-Medco clobbered Net upstart drugstore.com and PlanetRx. And., consumers are increasingly ordering
big-ticket items like digital cameras, computers, and appliances online, then
picking them up in nearby stores like Sears and Circuit City. This helps consumers get the goods faster and
be able to inspect them before taking them.
Websites can also be used to
distribute coupons and samples. Through affiliations—relationships among Websites
in which companies cross-promote one another’s products and each is credited
for sales that accrue to its own site—companies have increased their exposure
base by linking to other sites for purposes of creating awareness as well as
distributing their product. For example,
some sites sell products for other companies without ever taking physical possession
of the goods.
·
Creating
customer experiences. This is the total experience the customer has
with the brand on the Internet—including how customers enter and navigate what
type of visuals and movement they get, how they get a response and in what form
or format, and simply how the online brand experience “feels.”
·
Developing a
relationship with the customer (relationship marketing) by encouraging
frequent interaction with the site.
<Exhibit 15-2> The Huggies homepage
goes well beyond providing information.
It has additional objectives such as Q. developing a relationship
with parents (relationship marketing)
by offering a free sample to anyone sending his or her name, address, and
e-mail address (allowing the firm to build an enormous database for future
marketing efforts); establishing a brand image for the products; and supporting
sales.
·
Build a
database by having consumers register with the site, i.e., fill out
an electronic form requesting additional information (e.g., name, e-mail
address, mailing address or zip code, and basic demographic information).
·
Gather
research information. Companies can learn more about their target
markets – demographics as well as buying behavior, a practice known as profiling and yielding profile information. However, a privacy issue has arisen regarding the quantity and nature of
information collected about consumers.
Information is sometimes collected with the consumer’s agreement, as
when they fill out surveys or registration forms in return for receiving sales
promotions like samples and electronic coupons.
However, data is often also collected involuntarily without their
awareness due to the use of cookies (discussed
later). Privacy is also violated when consumers’ data
is sold to other marketers without the customers’ permission. Closely related, security concerns cyber
crime such as credit card theft and hacking into corporate Websites to get
things such as customer lists or customer credit card numbers. Therefore, marketers must put in place
appropriate encryption systems to protect the consumer’s data.
B. Types of Web Advertising <Types of Advertising on Websites>
<Creating
online Marketing (2) > There are many
types (channels) of online advertising.
Establishing a presence on the Internet is relatively inexpensive when
compared to the entry costs of most mass media, but it isn’t cheap. Even a small site with, say, 25 pages can
cost more than $200,000 for the whole package if a well-known design firm does
the wok. Larger sites with hundreds of
pages can easily exceed a total of $1 million.
Also, updating and servicing a site are critical to its value and demand
a continuing investment of time and money (about $500,000 to over $one million
per year for a major site). Site
maintenance costs can be thousands of dollars per month just for a moderate
size site.
Despite all of the hype about the Internet
revolution <Exhibit 17.15> it is doubtful that the Internet will displace
other advertising media and traditional distribution channels, although it will
realize gains at least partially at their expense. Nonetheless, most large ad agencies have
purchased an Internet ad agency and include interactive advertising as part of
their media mix, with some having a separate department to handle interactive advertising. There are even some advertising agencies that
only do Internet advertising <Exhibit 17.20> <Top 100 Ad Age>. Such
agencies design online campaigns, provide advertisers the technology to measure
precisely the impact of any given ad, and follow up with customers who have
responded to an ad. And, most
advertisers feel the need to get on the Net lest they be left behind.
<Interactive Media> There are several formats for delivering
interactive Web ads, the most common being corporate Web/home pages, search
engine advertising, and e-mail advertising (we’ve already discussed e-mail,
along with Listservs and Usenet, as separate interactive advertising media).
1. Corporate home pages/Websites. The most
basic mode of Internet advertising is to establish a corporate home page and a number of linked subsequent pages
providing further information which serve as a Website. Here, a marketer
makes available detailed information about the firm and its products. <Exhibit 15.1 Hot Hot Hot> <Exhibit
17.23> These range from being
reminiscent of product brochures to full-fledged showrooms with a searchable
library of stories and data about the firm, its brands, etc. Domain names (URLs) should be intuitive or
easily guessed (e.g., WWW.companyname.com) and descriptive to increase chances
that visitors who don’t know the domain name can find your site. Domain names should also be unique and
memorable. Firms such as VeriSign, idNames,
and Godaddy Software, Inc. assist companies in identifying, registering, and
managing domain names. Others, like 1
& 1, offer hosting that includes maintenance of domain names, website
connectivity, e-mail accounts, and some limited applications for as little as
about $10 per month.
The home page (welcome page, start page,
landing page) represents the
consumer’s “first look’ at the website.
Therefore, it plays a pivotal role in gaining and maintaining consumers’
attention, either driving them further into the We site or away from it. Home page “essentials include information
clearly identifying the company and its brands, what is inside the Website, and
how to contact the company. Including much more than these “essentials,” such
as complex graphics, might make the home page too complex and slow to
download. The home page can be one to
several pages long, but short is usually better, with hyperlinks offering
routes to additional information. It can
be thought of as an alternative “storefront”—a location where people can come
to find out more about the company and its products.
The nature
of these sites varies—some companies treat them as a brochure to promote
their products; others try to create a “cool” information and entertainment
environment that people will often visit; and still others treat it as an
online catalog store or virtual storefront where merchandise can
be purchased (e-commerce).
There are
two types of websites. Corporate (brand) websites are not
designed to directly sell merchandise but rather to build customer goodwill,
collect customer feedback, and inform customers. For example, you can’t buy anything at
P&G’s Tide to Go brand site, but you can learn how to use this stain
remover stick, watch recent ads, and share “Tide to Go” saves the day!” stories
with others. Another example is Unilever's
campaignforrealbeauty.com, where consumers can share thoughts, view ads and
viral videos, and download self-esteem assessment tools and workbooks. Marketing
websites engage consumers in an interaction that will move them closer to a
direct purchase or other marketing outcome.
Thus, websites can be hard sell
(designed to stimulate an immediate purchase) or soft sell (indirectly promote the product via informational or
lifestyle presentations). The Saturn
site is more hard sell, providing information on the product line, prices, and
closest dealers. It is interactive in
that consumers can request brochures, communicate their comments and questions
to the Saturn Corp., and locate a dealer when ready to buy. Pampers.com, one of the most-trafficked consumer
goods websites, has an archive of parenting advice heavily indexed by search
engines. The Absolut vodka site
<Exhibit 17.24> is more soft sell, providing entertainment by letting
surfers create music mixes enhanced with flashing, moving images. Crayola’s FamilyPlay site <Exhibit
17.25> is also soft sell, being lifestyle oriented. Visitors can read bedtime stories, search for
local childcare providers, and find hints on how to get kids to help with housework,
while kids can color with computerized crayons.
Q. How does all of this help Crayola? The company name is prominently displayed and
it creates a positive brand image.
If the
hard-sell approach is used, it is important to make the information useful. For
example, P&G places tips about treating stains and using Tide detergent on
its site. But Tide also has a Candystand
game site where users can soil a shirt and then wash it. We’ll discuss Websites more in Part III
below.
Some
companies also set up channels on YouTube that include information, videos, and
video sharing.
2. Banner ads. Banner
ads (display banners), the most basic and common form of Web advertising,
are paid placements of pictorial banners and videos that appear on corporate,
entertainment, or media Websites that have high traffic. They resemble billboards, spread across the
top, bottom, right, left, or center of a Web page, and contain text, images,
and sometimes animation. Although some
banner ads are strictly display ads, most want to get the viewer to click on
them to go to the advertiser’s website, including a link (or hot link) to the advertiser’s own home
page. Thus, the ad must not only catch attention amidst
clutter with just a few words and vivid graphics but also entice visitors to
click on the ad to jump to the advertiser’s home page (therefore more and more
of them are animated). This can be done
via offering a deal or having a sales promotion (e.g., a contest). Through hyperlinking, to the advertiser’s
home page, the customer can learn more about the particular product. <Exhibit 17.26> shows a banner ad for
Talk City on the National Enquirer Website.
). Banner ads sometimes contain
electronic commerce capability, i.e., products can be ordered directly from the
banner ad. A variation on the banner ad
is the skyscraper—a tall, skinny
banner ad running down the left or right side of a website. Their response rate can be ten times higher
than banner ads’ response rates.
Many
high-traffic sites that provide information content (e.g., Yahoo! Finance and MSN
Money) contain banner ads, allowing the advertiser to get a high level of
exposure. Other sites have lower
exposure but are more targeted (e.g., a running shoe brand could advertise on a
site devoted to information on running).
Cost ranges from a few hundred dollars a month to about $500,000 per day
(about the same as a :30 on a very popular TV show) on leading portals like
&Yahoo and MSN, depending on the number of visitors and how targeted they
are. Thee spots are so hot that the portals,
like the TV networks, sell them long in advance.
Banners have evolved. In 1999,
they were like print ads, containing simple graphics and text. By 2001 banner ads could alternate images, by
2003 some contained animation, and by 2006 rich-media technology let viewers
select from a rotating wheel of embedded videos and use pull-down menus without
leaving the Web page.
A cousin
of the banner ad is the button ad
(a.k.a. tiles)—an ad smaller than a
tradition. And, as a condition for prime
real estate, portals demand that advertisers buy inventory on their less
popular pages. Buttons resemble
icons—they are usually square (sometimes rectangular) in shape usually located
at the bottom left or side of a Web page, and they contain only a corporate or
brand name or a logo. Since buttons take
up less space than banners, they also cost less. Also, ads larger than traditional banner ads
are gaining popularity among online advertisers.
<Practical Tips #2 Creating Effective Banner Ads>
Attention-getting elements include copy, color, and graphics, in that
order. Some tips for creating effective
banner ads include:
·
Include action
words, e.g., “press,” “enter,” and “click here.”
·
Use animation—it
can increase response rates by 30 to 40%.
·
Use bright,
contrasting colors rather than nondescript dull colors such as beige and
gray. Best are yellow, orange, blue, and
green, rather than reds and blacks.
·
Relevance of the banner ad to the Website on which it appears is
important. Both its content and
design/style should relate to the Website.
·
Interactivity is important—users expect this. With lower click-through rates today (less
than .1% today, vs. .25 to .5 percent in 2000 and 10 to 40 percent when banner
ads were first introduced), banners must display their interactivity even
before they are clicked on.
·
Size is important—as in print ads, larger sizes are
generally more effective at attracting attention and interest, but they also
cost more.
·
Pretesting should be done for all elements of the banner
ad. It often takes lots of trial and
error to determine what works best by running ads for predetermined periods to
see what kinds of responses occur.
·
Updating the banner ad constantly is important since the life
of a banner ad is very short.
<Designing
Banners> Some additional tips:
·
Yellow, orange,
blue, and green are the best bright colors.
·
Animation gives you more value since it allows increased space
by rotating copy.
·
Download times for 28.8 modems shouldn’t be too slow. This requires judicious use of enhancements
such as graphics, animation, and sound.
·
Location of the ad in the lower corner of the Web page
next to the scroll bar increases the number of ad clicks (the number of times users click on an ad banner) and click-throughs (or click rate)—the percentage of ad views that result in an ad click;
how often a viewer responds to a banner ad by clicking on it to go to the
advertiser’s home page.
·
Incentive
banners increase click-throughs.
·
Company and/or
brand name should be included to generate
awareness.
·
The click-through
block (??) is very helpful.
Unfortunately, the percentage of consumers who click on banner ads has
rapidly declined because consumers realize that they take them away from the Website
they are visiting, as their novelty has worn off, and as their static nature
has made them boring and even invisible (“banner blindness”) compared with
newer technologies. Today about .1% of
consumers click on them, vs. 10 to 40 percent when banner ads were first
introduced , although banners closely tied to a website can get up to a 7%
response rate. Also, banner ads are
considered to be intrusive and annoying by many consumers. Plus, they increase page load times due to
their complex graphics and animation. In
fact, there are now ad blocker
programs (e.g., AdWipe) that allow consumers to load pages sans banner
ads. Consequently, some advertisers are
ditching banner ads totally, instead using old-fashioned TV spots to drive
traffic directly to their websites, rather than through intermediaries like
portals.
<Web Advertising> The ideal is to make Internet advertising
have the visual impact
of TV and the
interactivity available on the Internet.
The trend is to make ads more involving and interactive. Thus, increasingly advertisers are using enhanced banner ads—banner ads with
complete information already in them, as opposed to having to click for
additional information. Some also
include rich media based on software
technologies, like Shockwave, Java, Acrobat, and Enliven —audio plug-ins, media
streaming, or some other enhancement.
Generally, these ads with full motion, animation, and sound perform
better than traditional banner ads because they allow interactivity. Consequently,
click-through rates are 2%-plus, whereas click-through rates for typical
display ads hover between .1-.2%. However,
their complex graphics and animation increase Web page load times. Creative agencies usually work with rich-media
companies, like Eyewonder, DoubleClick, PointRoll, and Unicast, to develop the
ad.
Also, the
trend is to replace small banner-size ads with larger display ads that mimic traditional newspaper and magazine ad
types.
The trend
is moving away from banner ads and experimenting with games (e.g., the Bounty
Match Game in which the consumer identifies and matches spills), pop-up ads (open a separate window
containing an ad and an invitation to link to another related site)
<14-4>.
Also
increasingly popular are keyword-activated banner ads or smart banners, which pop up when users input keywords in a major
search engine. For instance,
auto-by-tel.com could buy a smart banner that is prompted only when users type
the keyword “auto.” Interactive banner ads, which came into being in the mid-2000s,
spring to life when the Web surfer crosses them with the cursor (no click
necessary). Performance ads are display ads that allow advertisers to use data
analysis and user-tracking technologies to match ads more closely with
prospects and measure mouse clicks and other actions so advertisers pay only
when ads deliver.
3. Electronic
mail (e-mail) marketing. E-mail is
now the number one most-used Internet application (search is number two). As you might have noticed, the volume of
e-mail messages has been growing exponentially over the past several years,
with the average consumer with an electronic mailbox receiving about five
messages a day in 2002. Until about
2000, e-mail advertising wasn’t widespread because consumers resented it as
being too intrusive. However, with better
targeting and permission-based e-mail
marketing (e-mails are sent only to
customers who request them), plus advanced features like personalized audio
messages, color photos, and streaming video, e-mail advertising grew rapidly in
the first few years of the new Millennium.
In the wake of the anthrax threat that surfaced in September and October
2001, this usage among direct marketers was given a further jolt.
E-mail ads are commonly used to follow up
previous customer searches, alert consumers to new promotions and cross-sell
them, or attract new customers (by buying contacts from a lead-generation
company). In fact, permission e-mail
marketing is the fastest, most flexible direct marketing medium. Sending e-mail is virtually free and much quicker
than sending something through the U.S. postal service. However, in general, e-mail marketing is not
replacing direct mail; rather, it is being used to alert customers and
prospects that a direct mail package is coming through the postal service to ease
concerns over mail from an unknown source.
The best way to get an e-mail list is to
use a house list—internally generated
by collecting e-mail addresses from customers, prospects, and Website
visitors. Companies develop profiles of
characteristics of their best customers.
List rental based on these
profilers is another option, although it brings higher opt-out rates. Companies like the DM Group maintain a list
of e-mail groups, each of which has a list of e-mail addresses. <e-mail
marketing list solicitation>
List
hygiene entails ensuring that an e-mail list is ‘clean”—of top
quality. Always find out how names and
addresses were acquired. Also, ask how
often the recipients’ interest and their e-mail addresses are verified—ideally
twice a year or more often. List
providers should, at a minimum, supply information on list members’ age, sex,
and zip code.
To avoid wasting time and money sending
e-mail to non-prospects, who will treat it as spam, it is best to use opt-in-e-mail, which targets users who
have voluntarily signed up receive commercial e-mail about topics of
interest. This is especially important
when prospecting for new customers as, without your permission to send a
message, it might be perceived as spam—unsolicited
commercial e-mail for things like Viagra, pornography, get-rich quick schemes,
mail-order brides, mortgages, and loans.
(Spam is named after the Monty Python sketch in which a couple in a
restaurant attempt to order breakfast, but discover, to their dismay, that
every item in the menu contains Spam.
Worse, each time he waitress recites names of dishes, such as “Spam,
egg, Spam, Spam, bacon and Spam,” a group of Vikings at the next table loudly
sing, “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, drowning out other conversations in the same
manner e-mail spam disrupts online communication.) Double
opt-in lists are even better because they require subscribers to confirm
their sign-up via e-mail. You can build a prospect list by enticing consumers
to visit your website, providing special offers to those who opt in to your
list.
Marketers can easily find out about who
wants to receive e-mail by using registration forms on their Websites which
include these “opt-in” or “opt-out” checkboxes.
They can also collect e-mail addresses via direct mail response devices
like business-reply cards as well as third-party sources (such as list broker
yesmail.com). For example, if you
permit, The New York Times will e-mail you information about specific
promotions, articles that will appear, books on sale, etc. It is always a good idea to give consumers
the opportunity to “unsubscribe’ or opt out of receiving further e-mail
messages.
E-mail’s strong advantage is its
efficiency: for just pennies per contact typically $30 per thousand for basic
consumer lists to $150 CPM for highly targeted consumer lists, and $100 to $300
for business lists), companies can send targeted messages to people who
actually want to receive them. Also,
e-mail ads allow companies to track how many people open the e-missives and who
clicks through to the Website. And, it
is a very rapid way to send communications and receive back direct
responses.
A major disadvantage is commercial
clutter—these days our in-boxes are filled with e-mails from hundreds of
companies—so-called spam. Thus, many Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
block mass e-mailings and many consumers download e-mail filters or ignore some
of their email messages. Therefore,
it’s important for marketers to negotiate with ISPs over how many messages may
be sent at once. . Delivered messages should clearly define why the recipient
is receiving the message (“You are receiving this message because you
subscribed to…”).
Opt-out information should always be
provided at the bottom of the message for any recipient who wishes to
unsubscribe. In fact, the Controlling
the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (the
CAN-SPAM Act), the first federal law regulating unsolicited junk e-mail. makes
illegal misleading subject lines (regarding the contents or subject matter of
the e-mail) in bulk commercial e-mails; mandates that an e-mail’s “From” and
“To” and routing information (including the original domain name and e-mail
address) be accurate and identify the sender; requires unsolicited e-mail to
include a means for recipients to “opt out” to a return e-mail address or other
Internet-based response mechanism; that a sender’s message contain a clear and
conspicuous notice that a message is an advertisement or solicitation and that
the recipient can opt out; and the sender’s valid physical postal address. In short, while the law doesn’t ban spam, it
does require that unsolicited commercial e-mail be accurate and honest and that
consumers be able to opt out of receiving it.
. There are three formats you can use:
plain text, HTML, and rich media.
Generally, text-based messages work best with b-to-b audiences who, even
though they have broadband, don’t want to wait for messages to download. HTML (graphics) works better with consumer
audiences. HTML appeals to the heart,
while text appeals to the head.
A trend is to use rich e-mail—e-mail messages that use streaming audio and video and
allow recipients to place orders within the e-mail message. If you have compelling audio or video
content, or if your product requires demonstration, consider rich media. Companies have begun using video e-mail--e-mailing commercials to
consumers. For example, prior to the
launch of “Survivor,” CBS e-mailed a miniature version of a TV commercial, and
the band ‘N Sync sent a video commercial to many of their fans. E-commercials can track who watches, for how
long, and to whom (if anyone) they forward it. They are fairly popular with consumers,
with 46% claiming to like streaming adds online as much as TV ads, while only
25% of consumers like Internet advertising in general. Unfortunately, the streaming ads only fill a
small portion of the TV screen, no more than a few inches high and wide, to
reduce loading time.
Another
trend is viral marketing. One way to attract customers to your Website or
otherwise get more customers involved with your e-commerce efforts is via viral marketing— creating an ad that is
so informative or entertaining that consumers will want to pass it along to
others. Viral marketing entails getting
customers to pass your marketing message so that it spreads like the flu,
passed by word of mouth from one friend to several more, each of whom spreads
the message to several of their friends, etc., until there’s a full-blown
epidemic and products are flying off of the shelves. It involves creating an e-mail so
compelling—either graphically or by using an incentive—that customers want to
pass it along. The beauty is that when
an e-mail comes from a friend, the recipient is much more likely to open and
read it.
For
example, one of the early users of viral marketing was Hotmail—at the bottom of
each of their e-mails was a message that said, “GET YOUR FREE E-MAIL AT
HOTMAIL.COM.” Hewlett Packard featured a
button allowing readers to forward an informational newsletter to friends or
colleagues. Customers can be invited to
visit the marketer’s Website for more details, in which case viral success is
measured by click-throughs (typically 5 to 15 per cent of those receiving viral
messages click through to the links).
Customers can be offered incentives to
forward your message, such as discounts (e.g., IKEA offered customers discount
coupons for forwarding e-mail postcards), free merchandise (e.g., refer 10
friends to Procter & Gamble’s Website for Physique shampoo, and you’ll get
a free travel-sized styling spray and be entered in a sweepstakes to win a
year’s supply of the shampoo), and sweepstakes (e.g., “Like this site? Click to recommend it and you can win
$10,000). To curtail spamming, limit the
number of pass-alongs you reward customers, and reassure customers that you
won’t keep their e-mail addresses without their permission.
A few hints on copywriting for e-mail:
·
Short, digestible
copy blocks and bulleted lists work well, because most people scan their e-mail
before reading it, and the average person’s attention span is much shorter
online than when reading offline direct marketing media.
·
In the subject
line mention your offer and, if it is well known, your brand name. This will improve your open rate in a world
of cluttered e-mail boxes.
·
Most e-mail
advertisers drive campaign responders to a Website via a link in the e-mail
message. It is a good idea to provide
multiple links—at least one toward the top and another at the bottom of the
message.
·
It is good
practice to give recipients the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time.
·
Test, test,
test. Via testing responses to different
variables, you can optimize them. Such
variables include the offer (e.g., $10 off vs. 10% off), subject line, message
format (text, HTML, or rich media) and incentives (such as sweepstakes and
contests).
Response in e-mail marketing is a two-step
process. First is click-through or response
rate, which is the percentage of viewers who click on an active link in the
message and are delivered to your Website.
Second is conversion—the
percent on the site who buy or otherwise respond.
A variation
on this sporadic campaign e-mail marketing is regularly scheduled, recurring
e-mail campaigns, such as an e-newsletter or a weekly sale announcement. This becomes anticipated, valued
communication with recipients.
Unfortunately, some consumers are cutting back on the commercial e-mails
they read and on opening attachments because they no longer trust in
e-mail. Consequently, open rates—how often recipients click
“open” for e-mail marketing messages—are declining. This is due to:
However, the response rate for an unsolicited email
campaign is many times higher than for a banner ad.
4. Sponsorships.
After banner ads and corporate web pages, next most common (although becoming
less popular) are –sponsorships—one
company paying to sponsor or support another advertiser’s content, usually a Website—either
a publisher’s special content Web pages (e.g., news, financial information) or
of special event pages (e.g., the Super Bowl site) or an e-mail newsletter for
a limited time (usually for one or several months), and they are the second
most common form of Internet advertising.
For example, Scotts, the lawn-and-garden products firm, sponsors the
Local Forecast section on Weather.com. In
exchange for sponsorship support, companies are given extensive recognition on
the site, such as through integrating the sponsor’s brand with the publisher’s
content (as a sort of advertorial, e.g., providing tips and tricks on product
use) or with banners and buttons on the page.
Because of their high cost, sponsorships are most common on sites with
high traffic, where the opportunity for exposure is greatest.
In exchange
for sponsorship support, companies are given extensive recognition on the site,
such as through integrating the sponsor’s brand with the publisher’s content
(as a sort of advertorial, or
advertising containing editorial material, e.g., providing tips and tricks on
product use) or with banners and buttons on the page. Because of their high cost, sponsorships are
most common on sites with high traffic, where the opportunity for exposure is
greatest. The big three portals are
Yahoo! (where the Movies and Marketplace sections are almost always “sponsored
by” a major movie studio and brokerage, respectively), MSN< and AOL. Home page placement on these is getting
harder to secure, and orders must be placed months to a year in advance.
There are
two types of sponsorships. In regular sponsorships a company pays to
sponsor a section of a site, e.g., Clairol sponsors a page on Girls.com; Turbo
Tax sponsors a page of Netscape’s financial section. Second is content
sponsorship, in which the sponsor not only provides money to associate with
a Website but also participates in providing the content.
5. Pop-Ups. These are windows that literally pop up in
front of when you in front of a certain site when you access that site or in a
new window in front of the site’s window (either while you wait for the page to
load or after it has loaded). Their cousins, designed to elude pop-up blockers,
are pop-under (pop-behind) ads—ads that appear in a separate window
when someone visits a Website and underneath that Website, becoming visible
only when a browser is closed. They are
usually larger than a banner ad but smaller than a full screen. Sometimes they contain an invitation to visit
another related site, in which case the advertiser pays a cost per click
(CPC)–the price advertisers pay based on the number of clicks an online ad
generates Click-through rates are about
2%, twice as high as that of banner ads.
Unfortunately, pop-ups eat up valuable bandwidth, slowing downloads from
the Internet. Also, they are quite
obtrusive and hence are considered hated by people even more than banner
ads—pop-up ads make Web viewing like swatting flies. Consumers now often use
pop-up blockers, and all the major Internet service providers offer pop-up
filters, either for a charge or for free.
Federal and state legislation now limits such windows when they are
triggered by adware and spyware.
Consequently,
in late 2002 America Online announced that they were phasing out pop-up ads,
they have fallen out of favor, and their future is highly uncertain.
One
improvement on traditional pop-up ads are those based on behavioral targeting—a technology that via cookies cookies—small
text files that Web servers and ad networks place on users’ hard drives that
recognize when Website visitors are seeking a particular product or service and
then serves an ad relevant to their search at a later date on another
page. For example, a Web surfer could be
looking art real estate listings on their daily newspaper site on Monday, and
then on Thursday while reading the sports section, would be served an ad from a
real-estate agent. Most cookies do not
contain personally identifiable data and instead rely on randomly assigned
numbers to label Internet users. Advantages are that consumers see more
relevant messages, and advertisers get their messages to the right
consumers.
6. Interstitials. Meaning “in between,” interstitials (or intermercials,
splash pages, splash screens, or supersstitials)
are a subset of pop-up ads, and they are animated ads that appear on your
screen as full-page ads or as large pop-up boxes for about 20 seconds while you
are waiting for the content of a Websites that you have clicked on to download. They create a TV-commercial-like experience,
and they often contain an invitation to link to another related site. Although some people find them annoying
because they interrupt the search process and can slow down access time to the
destination page, many people like them, and they tend to generate higher
recall than banner ads.
7. Links. While not everyone considers them a type of
advertising, links involve an opportunity to link to an advertiser’s Website
from another Website. E.g., by clicking
on the Nike.com link on ESPN.com, someone can visit the Nike site to get
information on sports-related products.
8. Classified ad Websites. Search engines or local newspapers around the
country sponsor many classified advertising Websites. Like newspaper classified sections, they are
organized by category, so you can search for homes, cars, jobs, computer
equipment, etc. The search can be
narrowed to your hometown or expanded nationwide. Many offer free ads because ad banners or
other advertisers support them.
Links to
corporate Websites then appear when one types in keywords into search
engines. If you build a Website without
consideration of how it will rank in the major search engines, you have
basically built a billboard in the woods.
On search engines corporate Website owners can select the terms that are
relevant to their site and determine what to pay on a per-click basis for
each. The higher they bid, the higher in
the search sites their site appears.
Firms such as iProspect.com can help you achieve better search engine
rankings.
Search-related advertising was pioneered
by Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing), although Google’s dominance as an
Internet search engine popularized the technique. Search is now the second-most-used Internet
application, with over 40% of consumers using search engines as their No. 1
resource when researching a purchase online.
The fast-growing search engine industry (led by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft’s
MSN) employs spiders—digital robots
that crawl through cyberspace, scouring the billions of pages in the Worldwide
Web. They catalog all the words in the
pages using criteria like how many times they’re viewed, and what other pages
they link to.
Given that
there are so many Websites out there, attracting
visitors to a site is a
challenge. When a typical search turns
up thousands of results, it makes sense for marketers to make sure that their
company’s name pops up near the top of the list because research shows that
consumers seldom go beyond the first couple of pages of search results. Smart marketers track their search-engine
placement or the percentage of visitors who come to their company’s website
from a portal or search engine.
There are three types of search. One is natural
search (pure search)—search
engines build an index ranking links by relevance on various criteria without
accepting payment to be influenced by marketers. Results are ranked by the highest scores against
the criteria, with the results fluctuating daily. Marketers do not pay the search engine to try
to influence results.
However,
marketers can use search engine optimization—manipulating
Website content so that search engines display the site in their search results:
(1) The
most important criterion for getting to the top of search engine results on
Google is collecting links—those
little clickable, underlined mentions on websites that take you from one web
page to the next. The key is to get
other Websites and blogs to link back to yours.
Many sites offer “link exchanges” or even links for sale. However, Google weights more heavily more
heavily trafficked Websites such as the MySpace online community and Yahoo’s
Flickr photo-sharing site. Also, sites
with a blog, which gets comments from users, also help you rise to the
top. Also, most local chambers of
commerce and trade associations have websites and will link to member websites.
(2) A clear website
title helps, as does descriptive copy that includes the keywords (search terms). The
homepage should have descriptive text about the company and products that
gently incorporates the one or two keyword phrases you are concentrating
on. (Google offers a free toll for keyword
tips at www.adwords.google.com/select/keywordToolExternal
Search
engine rankings also can be improved by actions such as changing metatags—hidden descriptive wording in
the coding of Web pages that help search engines categorize and index
them. Changing title tags—HTML tags used o define the text in the top line a Web
browser—the words that appear visibly at the very top of the browser that
describe the page you’re viewing, I.e., the title of the document or page at
hand—can help too. The value of these
tags lies in how descriptive they are.
Search engines give the words in title tags a lot of weight in their
relevancy ranking formulas.
Website
developers design their Web pages with the hope of increasing their sites’
visibility on search engines, a process known as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO involves tapping into the
free (unpaid) listings every search engine has, as opposed to sung search
marketing to get sponsored links. There are consultants and internet advertising
companies such as Weblinx (Weblinx.biz) who help businesses with SEO. For example, a tag for a site on bananas
might include such keywords as “banana,” “fruit,’ and potassium” so the site
will be listed in search results should someone look up those terms. Specific keywords (e.g., “men’s pants,” not
just ‘pants”) work best. Changing page
titles, good design (easy to navigate without a lot of fancy things like
animation and pull-down menus and frames), adding inner links (linking one page
on the site to another page on the site), reciprocal linking to popular sites,
descriptive “tags” (Web page titles), and clean URLs (no gibberish, like
.com/%20=30.html)can also improve search engine rankings. Consultants can help a marketer to get better
search results. Also, marketers can
register with various search engines, including Google.com, Yahoo.com,
AltaVista.com, and MSN.com to appear as part of their organic listings—free listings.
A second
general option is search engine
marketing (paid search, sponsored search, search advertising,
search marketing, contextual ads)—marketers pay search
engines and portals to be included in search index so that their name and a
link or a little text ad pops up first or on the top of or to the right side of
search results. All major search engines
offer ways for Website creators to submit sites for free, but most encourage
payments to ensure that an advertiser’s site be listed high in a search
engine’s search results. Therefore, to
attract customers to her Website, an advertiser (or its online ad buyer such as
Doubleclick, aQuantive, 24/7 Real Media, or AdTech) can also purchase from a
search engine keywords--words so
that the advertiser’s banner, known as a keyword ad, appears whenever users select that keyword for a search. This is known as keyword search advertising or search-based
keyword ads. It is also considered contextual
advertising—a system through which ads get served up online to an
individual viewer of a Web page based on the content the viewer is
reading.
Placing ads
near search results offers the appeal of all directional advertising—where the consumer is actively searching
(e.g., yellow Pages directories, classified newspaper ads, and point-of purchase
displays). This is done since most consumers and businesspeople look only at
the first few pages of search results.
Specialized companies like HighRankings.com can help marketers with
their SEO efforts.
There are
two methods of sponsored search: paid
placement (about 80%) and paid inclusion. Most search engines offer paid placement—advertisers bid against each other (as with eBay) or
just pay to be displayed for a key phrase like “sleeping bag.” For example, Google’s advertising program, AdWords,
allows companies to buy or bid on keywords such as “blinds” or
“wallpaper.” .” Advertisers pay Google only when a user
clicks on an ad (from a penny to over a dollar a click). Advertisers can do geo-targeting by zip code
and run their ads only during certain time slots. Some crafty companies also buy terms related
to rivals.
Auction-based search entails bidding on
keywords for prime spots on search engines, with highest-bidding marketers
paying to top the list of results for users who search for, say, “banking” on
Google’s AdWords or on Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions (a keyword advertising
unit of Yahoo that sells key word advertising appearing on Yahoo and
Microsoft’s MSN). The more popular the
keywords, the higher the price. Therefore,
instead of bidding on generic keywords like Caribbean cruse” and cell phone,”
smart advertisers bid on more specific terms like “Bahamas cruise” or “wireless
plan,” both to save money and to attract the most interested prospects.
For
example, when a user searched using the keywords “diapers” or “infant care” on
portals Lycos or Excite, she was greeted with a Huggies banner ad. This linked to the Huggies Website, which
provided tips on baby care, chat with other parents, access to other baby
links, and additional information about Huggies products. Many e-tailers customize their landing
page—where the searcher is first directed—to a specific keyword.
Google and
Yahoo base positioning not just on the highest dollar bids but also on the
effectiveness of the ad based on how often the ad is clicked on. Thus, an advertiser who bids less but whose
ad is clicked on ore often can get to the top of the search results.
Paid
results appear near the unpaid search results.
These search-related ads are featured as and marked as “sponsored listings” at the top or side
of the search results and are often shaded a different color. Thus, if you type “bird watching” into
Google, you find not only the usual motley array of sites but also ads for binoculars,
birdhouses, and guidebooks. Most
search engines use cost-per-click (CPC) pricing
(pay-per-click, per-impression
pricing)—for every click on a paid placement listing, the advertiser pays
the search engine a fee (from 5 cents to $100 per click, averaging around 50
cents). Others let advertisers pay a
flat monthly fee. . For example, Yahoo
and America Online charge up to $300,000 for 24 hours. AOL also offers pay-per-call pricing, whereby
advertisers pay when prospects call them in responding to their online
ads. Ads show up based on both the price
an advertiser is willing to pay and the quality of the advertiser’s ad, as
determined by an algorithm that considers such things as an ad’s click history
and landing page. The higher the
quality, the lower the price the advertiser must pay.
To use
Google’s search, sign up at adwords.com and set a budget (e.g., $1 a day, $100
a day). Most advertisers find that for
every $1 they spend on clicks, they get back at least $5 in revenues. Then, figure out the keywords you want to
use—more targeted keywords cost less and are more efficient. Then, bid on a price—the higher you pay, the
higher your ranking. Google shows you
during the bidding process where you’re likely to land. Finally, write your Google ad. They give you only 25 characters for the
headline, which should contain a clear customer benefit (e.g., for water
heaters, “Save money and water at home”).
The second line of text is for qualifications (e.g., “energy efficient”
for the water heater), followed by a call to action (e.g., “25% off through the
end of January”).
A
second form of sponsored search is paid
inclusion—many search engines (including MSN and Lycos but not Google and
AOL) accept a fixed fee to guarantee buyers’ sites will appear in search
results. However, unlike the clearly
marked advertised links of paid placement, these paid inclusions are virtually
invisible, simply being mixed in with the unadvertised results. That is, they appear among the search results,
looking like any of the other Web links that appear. These camouflaged ads attract far more
interest than regular scattershot Internet ads since they give people what they
are already looking for.
The ethical
issue of deception arises in that purchasing keywords on search engines can
compromise the accuracy, objectivity, and relevance of searches. However, defenders of the practice say it
provides users with better information and that search results are still
displayed in order of relevance, i.e., paid ads get no preferential treatment
(an assumption open to dispute). The
sponsored links aren’t labeled as such because presumably that would scare away
the public from relevant sites.
Purchasing keywords on search engines is
crucial, for a Jupiter Research 2001 research study showed that the places
consumers go to decide where to shop online were; search engines (72%), online
retailer URLs (68%), price comparison sites (25%), product rating sites (16%),
merchant rating sites (11%), and other (11%).
Such
keyword banner ad sponsorship on major search engines cost $50 to $90+ CPM in
2000 but is now often in the single digits.
Search engines charge either a flat monthly fee or a per-impression fee
(based on how many people see the ad, or at least have the opportunity to see
it). Now, most search engines charge
based on click-throughs or cost per-click-when
a user actually clicks on an ad banner to visit the advertiser’s home
page. Click-through rates are typically
2 to 3 percent. Thus, popular words
(more likely to be searched) command higher prices.
When submitting paid inclusion data,
companies typically fill out a spreadsheet with information on product details,
along with the search words and phrases for which they’d like to appear.
Contacting the numerous sites and
negotiating advertising contracts on each one for 2 through 7 would be a nearly
impossible task. Thus, most advertisers
work through advertising networks or
search-advertising providers such as Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions ,DoubleClick,
ValueClick, and Advertising.com that act as brokers for Websites and
advertisers or ad agencies, much like independent media buying services,
connecting sites wanting to sell ad space with advertisers and agencies. Ad networks pool hundreds or even thousands
of pages together from small websites as well as from the less visited pages of
large sites that would otherwise go unsold, and they facilitate advertising
across these pages. This allows
advertisers to gain wide exposure, including on the smaller sites, and it
results in lower CPMs.
Advertising
exchanges are ad networks that run auction-style
exchanges to facilitate transactions between advertisers and media buyers. DoubleClick, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others run
the exchanges, allowing websites to put up ad space for auction. They auction every ad in real-time to the
highest bidder. Online ad networks participate in the exchange by putting their
publishers' remnant inventory up for sale, and by buying relevant inventory on
behalf of their advertisers.
Some marketers appoint
in-house search managers to monitor the ad networks and their own agencies
since many networks won’t tell advertisers where their ads are appearing since
the websites they work with don’t want to drag down the rates of their main
pages. Some hire search ad agencies that are dedicated to the complicated and
somewhat dry field of search-based advertising, like iProspect in Watertown MA.
Some ad networks sell things like text ads, display ads, and video ads.
The problem is monitoring each site for
content and traffic. A few Web masters
have tried to cheat the system by artificially increasing the number of page
requests. Click fraud is also a problem, and it takes three forms (1)—some competitors
click on ads just to drive up their rival’s advertising bills, (2) website
owners click on ads on their own sites to drive up their advertising revenue,
and (3) fraudsters arrange for people to click o ads recycled from Yahoo and
Google appearing on small websites. Regarding
(3), Google and Yahoo claim they filter out most questionable clicks and either
don’t charge for them or reimburse advertisers that have been wrongly
billed. However, there are parked websites—sites with little or no
content except for lists of Internet ads, often supplied by Google or Yahoo,
many of which are the source of click fraud.
There also are paid-to-read sites
that pay members small payments to visit other websites, often to generate fake
clicks on parked websites.
Some unethical webmasters have set up
automated clicking models (robotized software) called “Hitbots” or “Clickbots,”
which click away all day and cost the advertiser. Web publishers get their friends or pay
people to click ads so they can make more money. Academics and consultants estimate that
10-20% of ad clicks are fake. Search
engine giants like Yahoo and Google say that’s an exaggeration and that they
catch most bad clicks before advertisers are charged and give refunds for
illicit clicks.
Search advertising is relatively inexpensive. As noted, the advertiser usually pays on a
cost per click basis, which averages about 35 cents per click (vs. $1-per-lead
average for yellow pages). Click-through rates are typically 2 to 3
percent. The money is split between the
portal that generates the traffic (e.g., Yahoo, MSN, and America Online) and
the search-adverting provider (e.g., Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions, with the
search engine pocket about two-thirds and the search-advertising provider
getting one-third.
One advantage of paid search is that
advertisers can easily collect information on consumer online behavior—it is measurable. Another advantage of paid search is that the
ads are targeted to people who are actively looking to buy solutions to
problems. Therefore, readers don’t
consider it intrusive. Consequently,
Google click-through rates are a bit over 5%, compared with rates of .2% for
online ads in general. And, advertisers
can easily collect information on consumer online behavior.
Most search engines now also offer free
e-mail services, such as Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google’s Gmail. All of these serve up ads. Google’s computers automatically scan the
body of messages for keywords used to tailor the ads. Then sponsored ads and (unpaid) related links
are displayed in the right-hand margin of the screen (just as they are on
Google’s search pages).
Google also has a program, originally
created as a bonus program for advertisers who use Google AdWords (which puts
sponsored ads at the top of search results at Google’s own site), but now
available to anyone with a website or blog, called AdSense. Through AdSense, Google clients get to tout
their wares beyond Google’s home page on thousands of partner websites and
blogs maintained by small businesses and bloggers representing 80% of the Web. To participate, site owners sign up at Google.com/adsense,
which reviews the site. Once a small
piece of computer code language is implanted on an accepted site, Google
matches ad links from its warehouse of clients to appropriate sites. Each site contains Ads by Google links. Publishers split revenue with Google. Google has two places for publishers to create
sites for free: pages.google.com and Blogger.com. During the site creation process, Google asks
if the publisher would like to add Google ads (AdSense) to the site and offers
a form to fill out.
Around 2010 services such as Google and Microsoft
started offering real-time search—incorporating
the likes of Facebook updates and tweets in search results. Here, there is practically
no delay between composition of material and publishing.
10.
Affiliate marketing programs. Affiliate marketing is a
partnership in which one company drives business to another company. It is a web-based marketing practice in which
a business (e.g., Amazon.com, whose affiliates post amazon.com banners on their
websites) rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor, subscriber,
customer, and/or sale brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. These
are strategic relationships by etailers such as Amazon and other sites boost
site visitors and e-commerce sales. In
an affiliate relationship or “linking agreement,” one site (e.g., Amazon) asks
another site to help send traffic via a promotional link designed by the
marketer for the affiliates—usually a banner ad, button, or part of the
text. A pay-for-performance (performance-based)
system of compensation is used—payments to affiliates are usually made per site
visitor, qualified lead, or e-commerce sales (5 to 10 percent commissions) that
the affiliate delivers; consequently, there are no up-front advertising
costs. Affiliate management services can
help marketers with many such affiliations manage their affiliate marketing
systems. Each affiliate’s site should be
checked periodically to make sure its content is still appropriate.
11.
Web video(streaming audio and video).
Web video (online video, streaming online audio and video, netcasting), entails placing
TV- and radio-like commercials into video and music clips sent to surfers as
they visit content networks. Advertisers
can have their commercials inserted by firms such as RealNetworks, NetRadio,
and MusicVision. Firms such as NBC Universal,
News Corp., YouTube, Joost, and Hulu.com have websites that stream mostly free
video of popular TV shows and movies, news/current events, and music videos
supported by advertising. Many videos
run for 10 minutes or less (e.g., LonelyGirl
15, KateModern, and Prom Queen. LonelyGirl
15, a pioneer, featured a young female diarist narrating her life in a
series of YouTube videos on her own YouTube channel, causing legions of fans to
ask: “Is she real or scripted? She was
scripted. LonelyGirl 15 attracted product placements and sponsorship deals.). Such videos often begin with pre-roll advertising—short
(typically 15-second) video ads that run prior to streaming
content. These
short advertising spots are immune to fast-forwarding, although viewers can
click away from the commercials. The
videos can also contain overlays—clickable graphics that appear over a video
and allow people to opt into some sort of advertising. Advertisers pay for such clicks.
12. Webisodes. Webisodes
(video webcasting) are original animated mini-video episodes for the
Internet similar to TV shows with recurring episodes. These are short films (such as by BMW
featuring its car involved in chases and plot twists and Ikea’s “Easy to
Assemble”) use streaming audio and video.
They were all the rage online before the Internet bubble burst in
2001. In 2005 they returned, this time
as advertising vehicles.
Video webcasts can also
include news announcement, product demos, and informational and training videos
for channel partners and employees. .
Using webcasting tools, you can track who is viewing your webcast.
13.
Mobile marketing. Mobile marketing (mobile commerce,
m-commerce) entails marketing and advertising over wireless networks so
consumers can use their Internet-enabled smartphones, e-readers, portable
entertainment players, and other wireless devices to get product/price and
store information, find store locations, obtain coupons and make purchases. . The
Mobile Marketing Association defines mobile marketing
as the use of wireless media, primarily cellular phones, to deliver content and
encourage direct response within a cross-media communication program. Mobile marketing includes instant messaging,
video messages and downloads, and banner ads on mobile websites. Cell phones, MP3 players, wireless e-mail
devices like Blackberry, pagers, and other wireless devices—the third screen (tiny screen, in addition
to TV and PC/Internet)—are exploding as new media. Best practice is to get consumers’ permission
prior to contact them to sending messages.
Wireless
advertising messages (WAM) consist of commercial messages sent directly to
consumers’ wireless services.
Wireless websites are different from Internet websites: They are
typically accessed from a device’s menu of sports, news, stock market quotes,
and other headings. The sites use a
similar network as the Internet, but it has different addresses and sites
streamed for the small screen. These
sites are lacing sports scores and news digests with banner ads. Carriers and content providers split
revenues. Specialty agencies, such as
Third Screen Media, design third-screen ads.
Forms:
a. Text messages and
instant messaging. Text messaging (Short Message Service [SMS]) allows users to keyboard
brief messages into a cell phone to be received by a computer or mobile
device. Instant messaging entails two people chatting with each other from
their computers, and it’s more of a dialogue than is text messaging. IM/TM
advertising, primarily in the form of text
alerts/product notices, lets
marketers engage customers interactively. Unfortunately, most people in the U.S. view
it as an invasion of privacy. Therefore,
advertisers must offer relevant information and letting customers opt in.
Customers typically do this by typing in a four-to-six-digit “short code” to, say, enter a
sweepstakes, play a game, or download a ring tone or screen saver. They can also opt in to receive promotional
offers, news updates, sports scores, movie listings, and other value-added
items.
b. Wireless Web ads. These appear on someone else’s mobile
website. Typically, a mobile Web page
has one at each at the top and bottom so as not to clutter tiny screens. Users can click on links to get further
information or buy (3 to 5% typically do, versus .2% for Internet ads). Companies should build special mobile sites,
because regular ones don’t translate well to super small screens.
c. Video ads. Companies are creating 10-second to
several-minute video ads for mobile phones. Cell phone video services can be
used to access video ads, known as mobisodes
mobile episodes).
d. Mobile social
networking communities. There are
social networking platforms where mobile users can interact with other mobile
users (e.g., Sprint Nextel’s Hookt, Sprint Nextel’s The Lounges, Amp’d
Mobile’sAmp’d Lounge, and Cool Talk on Cingular).
Here, marketers can:
·
Speak: Target messages to segmented community members in an
interactive way
·
Listen: Do research to get customer insights
·
Spread
word-of-mouth: This is done by
targeting passionate consumers and giving them info and entertainment worth
spreading
·
Support: Set up social networking sites to help customers
support each other
·
Partnering: Join with customers to help run your business, such
as though joint product ideation and design.
e.
Mobile-device applications. These
applications, or apps, make mobile shopping easier. Branded apps are mostly free, although some
charge a nominal fee. They include
games, information (e.g., a documentary), and utility (e.g., Sherwin-Williams’
paint-color selection, Kraft’s 99-cent iFoo Assistant with 7,000 recipes, a
dish of the day, and a grocery store locater).
f.
Mobile shopping sites. These are
offered by retailers (e.g., Amazon, EBay, Toys R Us, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Best
Buy) and others (e.g., Google). They
typically offer fewer features than regular websites but are sized for small
screens and easier to navigate. Some
allow consumers to check out, while others direct users back to their regular
websites for the final purchase.
Mobile Marketing
Advantages:
·
highly targeted
(especially teens and young adults), but increasingly can be used for direct
mass reach
·
informative: give
users current, relevant information
·
interactivity:
users can respond instantly to offers , answer the following questions about
this new product
·
personal and
intimate
·
always on 24/7
·
relatively low
cost (e.g., 2 cents to send a text message, $35 to $50 for wireless Web adds)
·
contact people
wherever they go, including points of purchase.
Location-based services (LBS)
can be used to locate people or objects using GPS, Wi-Fi, or triangulation,
which calculates location based on cell-tower signals. Marketers can use LBS to serve
location-relevant promotions, such as latte coupons for consumers on their way
to a particular coffee shop.
·
Use to distribute
branded apps—services and utilities
consumers can download on their carrier networks or via some sort of handset
storefront.
Mobile Marketing Disadvantages
·
Unwanted ads
generate badwill since most users pay for the minutes of data usage. Subscribers prefer useful ads, such as those
aimed at subscribers on the go who are searching for restaurants, gas stations,
movies, or stock prices, or those offering coupons or free services. Such sites have sponsors.
·
The challenge of
achieving immediacy—content should be very frequently updated since this is
what consumers expect.
14.
In-text advertising. In-text
advertising involves attaching ads to selected words on newspaper and other
media websites. The ads pop up in small
windows when a reader moves a cursor over highlighted, double-underlined words
in a story. Pausing over a link produces
a bubble containing text, voiceover, or even video. Publishers are paid based on how many times
readers scroll over a word. In-text ads
draw a higher response than banner ads (about 3%-105% vs. .2%).
15.
Widgets. A web widget
is a small, self-contained software application yielding professional-looking
content that can run on a desktop or website when plugged into a web
application like a browser, desktop, blog, home page, social networking page,
or mobile phone. Technically, widgets
are portable chunks of code that can be installed and executed within any
separate HTML-based web page by an end user. Other terms are used to describe a
web widget including: gadget, badge, module, application, capsule, snippet,
mini and flake. Some common widgets include weather guides, clock
faces, news updates, scoreboards, stock
lists, calculators, calendars, and stock tickers, all displayed in little
floating boxes on screen. Marketers use widgets two ways: (1) creating
branded widgets in hope that some consumers will find them compelling enough to
add to their social networking profiles and personal blogs, and (2) advertising
within existing widgets with wide distribution.
The cost of creating a widget is very low, as is the cost of
distributing one compared with media advertising, although markets can be
socked with fees every time someone embeds a widget on, say, their MySpace
page.
Web 2.0:
A.k.a. the “real-time Web,” Web technologies that encourage the collaboration
and open sharing of information. This is
user (consumer)-generated content on
which advertisers can advertise. It
includes social media: weblogs
(blogs), video-based blogs (vlogs), podcasts, social networking sites,
video-sharing sites, wikis, virtual worlds, widgets, consumer reviews, and any
other formats where the individuals who use it create or distribute the
majority of the content.
16.
Blogs and Vlogs. Blogs (short for Web logs) (sometimes called conversational
media) are essentially frequently updated (typically daily), self-published
Web diaries/online journals or informal, usually interactive Websites/online
discussion sites. They consist of
personal observations and excerpts on a topic of interest to a particular
target audience, usually from other sources, typically hosted by a single
person who serves as discussion facilitator (a blogger, sometimes called the chief blogger), written in an informal style. Many blogs enable readers to post comments,
usually anonymously, making them more interactive than regular websites. They usually contain links to other websites
and blogs that the bloggers consider relevant.
Anyone can set one up for free by visiting
a site such as blogger.com, TypePad, WordPress, or SixApart to set up an
account. Technical support costs about
$2,500 to $5,000 a year.
In the early 2000s blogs began being used
as marketing communications tools—commercial bogs. They first gained widespread attention in
2004 when Howard Dean fans blogged to promote his campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination. Today the blogosphere—the blogging world—is
rapidly growing.
Many companies let employees keep blogs
related to the corporation for a particular product, thereby making the firm
more transparent. For example, at
General Motor’s Fastlane Chairman Bob Lutz gives an inside look at the company
(fastlane.gmblogs.com), and at Microsoft’s Scobleizer employee Robert Scoble
keeps a blog (scobleizer.word-press.com).
Often the goal is to get consumers or the
media excited about a good or service. Also,
companies permit or even encourage employees to create blogs because they can
help to personalize what is often perceived as a faceless corporation,
answering the question: “Who are the guys in the cubes?” Company websites link to such blogs. A corporate blog can also serve as a forum
for a CEO or senior manager to convey to their publics information about what
they are doing and why.
To attract readers, the employees must be
honest, providing insider “dirt,” rather than serving as propaganda mouthpieces
for the company. For example, at the GM
Smallblock Engine Blog, employees and customers rhapsodize about Corvettes and
other GM cars. Stonyfield Farm has
several blogs about yogurt. The power of
talking or blogging (from the verb “to blog”) is that it appears in a personal,
natural, conversational tone of voice rather than in marketing-speak or
corporatese, thereby giving the company or brand a personality. Stripped of the typical style of advertising,
marketing blogs in their soft-sell style almost appear as an unbiased source,
although the target knows it originates from a marketer. Thereby, blogs can build trust and a
relationship with customers who ordinarily tune out marketing messages. For example, General Motors’ new-car czar
Robert Lutz and other GM executives keep a blog at http://fastlane.gmblogs.com , where they
encourage consumer feedback. Starbucks
sponsors www.MyStarbucksidea.com
Marketers also pay consumers with money or
free products to blog about their products.
The FTC requires that bloggers disclose such relationships, and both the
blogger and the advertiser are liable for any misleading or unsubstantiated
claims.
Blogs are much less expensive to build and
maintain than are websites. Marketers
can sign up for a blog on one of the provider Websites like Google’s
Blogger.com, Spaces.MSN.com; Blogline.com, and Feedster.com. If you’re willing to pay for a more
professional look, go to TypePad.com, which charge around $15 per month to
maintain the blog. At one of these you
can peruse the templates and click on one you like. Then, write something interesting about your
firm or products. Bloggers can measure
the number of clicks from their blog to Websites and measure the number of
daily visits. However, you’ll need to
appoint or hire someone to write and monitor the blog posts and responses.
Blogs lure more traffic to a firm’s website
because it improves the chances the site will reach the top of search-engine
results. Also, they encourage customer
feedback about new products and services.
On
the downside, the blogosphere has become crowded and id difficult to
control.
A blog should be updated
at least two or three times a week (at a minimum once a month) since readers
are likely to return to a blog if they find fresh material, plus one of a
blog’s main functions is to add pages to a firm’s otherwise static website. Also, unlike many other forms of Internet
marketing, it is only one-way communication. And, blogs have become fertile ground for
spammers to create splogs—fake blogs
with ads.
Blog search engines such as Google Blog
Search, Technorati, Icerocket, bogsearch.google.com, PubSub Concepts, BlogPurse,
and Feedster are now indexing Blogs. For
those who want to go deeper, firms like Intelliseek and BuzzNetrics use web log monitoring—sophisticated
software analyzes the blogosphere for corporate clients. Companies use this information of constantly
updated consumer opinion for marketing and new product development ideas. You can also type into Google and blog search
engines the name of the company or brand, followed by a space and then relevant
keywords like “awesome” and “sucks” to see what customers are saying.
Another use of blogs is to advertise on others’
blogs. They are cheap and can generate
buzz. For instance, retailers are
creating blogs to promote brand awareness and generate sales. For example, Bliefly.com, an online retailer
of designer fashions, updates customers on fashion-related news through its
blog Flypaper (flypaper.bluefyl.com).
The blog must be informative (e.g., the Bluefly blog posts information
on styles, designs, and fashion faux pas)—the message gets dismissed if it’s no
more than an ad. However, the advertiser
lacks control over what is being said on an independent blog. Monitoring services like Cymfony, CyberAlert,
E-watch (www.ewatch.prnewswire.com),
and Intelliseek (www.nielsenbuzzmetirics.com)
monitor postings on blogs, Usenet discussion groups, and other Internet chat
areas.
Blogs are also a great tool to stay in
touch with customers allowing give-and-take between the author and
readers.
A variation is the vlog—video blog,
which began to take off in 2004. They
are similar to podcasts, except that videos, rather than songs or audio, are
downloaded to a computer or cell phone.
Business Week tracks the
blogosphere at blogspotting.net.
Micro-blogging (micromessaging) is a form of blogging that allows users(friends, family,
and more recently, businesses, employees, and consumers) to write brief text
updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be
viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.
These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text
messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web. The most popular service is called Twitter,
where you can sign up for a handle. Users,
called Twitterers (the A-listers are called the Twitterati), set up an account and use it to send tiny instant
messages (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” to everyone’s PC or cell
phone who chooses to receive their feeds, called “followers”. Posts, which answer the question, “What are
you doing?,” can be read in real time or on the Twitterer’s Web page. Marketers
monitor rants and raves about their products on Twitter and can respond to them.
Marketers can become Twitterers with a following that monitors their status
updates. For example, JetBlue ‘s Cheeps
are limited-time deals. Marketers can
also work through ad networks such as Ad.ly to hire celebrities to post
favorable tweets about their brand (i.e., brand endorsements). The marketing power of Twitter lies in the
posts’ brevity and voluntary audience. Marketers
can expand their following when their follower re-tweet (RT), i.e., repost,
their messages
17. Podcasting and Vodcasting. Podcasts
are digital files/recordings (and vodcasts
are video files/recordings) of a radio-style show (audio recordings) or
video clip that people create and post on the Web. (Any audio clip can be turned into a podcast
with software available for free on the Web.)
People can either listen online or download the shows from the Internet and
listen whenever they want on their computer’s or mobile device’ digital music
players (iTunes jukebox website is the leading destination for podcast
downloads.).
Both
startups and established firms use podcasting to connect with customers,
employees, and investors. They’re showing
up on firms’ websites. Some podcasts are straightforward marketing (less likely
to be listened to), while others are more entertainment, with only passing
reference to corporate creators. For
example, Whirlpool features interviews with real people –moms balancing work
and family, dads staying home to raise kid, and Nestle Purina published
podcasts on animal training and behavioral issues.
The key is to create engaging content—insightful,
educational, or entertaining. Depending
on inherent interest, podcasts typically run from 5 to 45 minutes. They are informal and often
conversational. There are no set rules
of frequency, but listeners should know when they can expect a new
podcast. Other marketing materials can
promote the podcast.
Most independent podcasters are mimicking
TV’s early model by signing up sponsors to pay for the content so listeners get
shows for free. Sponsorships usually
involve a 15- or 30-second audio ad at the beginning of the podcast. Monthly prices range from a few thousand
dollars to over $50,000. For instance,
Volvo sponsors podcasts on Autoblog.
As audience metrics improve, some
podcasters are moving to the radio model of charging a specific cost per
thousand.
Others are exploring consumer
subscriptions (typically a few dollars a month) and pay-to-play.
18.
Online social networks and Video-sharing Sites. Online
social networks (web communities) are online places where consumers
congregate, socialize, and exchange information and opinions, including social networking sites and virtual worlds. Social
networking sites are interactive cybercommunities in which consumers can
comment on or contribute to the medium’s content where people can interact. Users create their own pages, where they post
information on their interests, favorite games, movies, and even brands. Users can search for others with similar
interests. Marketers can either
participate in existing communities or else set up their own.
Marketers should spend time understanding
the dynamics, rules, and language of a social networking site before attempting
to establish a presence there. Marketers
generate buzz by posting status updates announcing sales promotions, special
events, and the like, and creating fun brand profiles (profile pages) on mass
social networking sites like MySpace.com, Facebook, LinkedIn (a business
professionals’ networking site where individuals and firms can post profiles of
themselves and job offers, sometimes called “My Space for grownups”), bebo, and
Ning. The brand profile pages allow
marketers to promote their brand with photos, customer reviews, etc., make
sales, provide information, and offer branded applications such as ringtones
that users can add to their own pages.
For example, Burger King’s mascot, The King, purports to be a 52-year
old from Miamui. American Eagle
Outfitter’s MySpace page is mostly an ad for the youth-oriented clothing chain,
but it also features discussion forums that cover topics from fashion to store
employment. Also, using data MySpace and
some other social networking sites provide on user profiles, advertisers can
target them with very specific ads, which raises privacy concerns. Brands can encourage interactions by
including pages where users can “poke” brands (interact with them) or write on
their walls. Advertising on social
networking sites like eook can be very targeted because of public information
users share on their profiles, such as their hometown, , college they attended,
hobbies and interests, and group affiliations.
. Firms also post videos on video-sharing
sites like YouTube.com (where they can establish channels) and Flickr, which
are viewed by thousands on the site and then sent to millions more virally as viral videos. A video forwarded by a trusted friend
instantly adds credibility to a marketer’s message. For instance, Hewlett-Packard sponsored a
contest for the best video featuring an HP calculator.
There are also more targeted social networking sites, i.e., vertical social networks, which cater to the specialized interests of their members, such as BabyCenter and Imeem, a music and media social networking site. They are less cluttered, and users tend to trust them and their ads more than the major social networking sites.
Marketers can establish their own brand websites or brand communities, promoting them in offline ads. Consumers can get information, ply games, get tools, read blogs, receive special insider offers, etc. using such sites for a hard-sell pitch is a no-no. For instance, at MyCoke.com you can “meet friends, make music, perform” with the help of music- and video-sharing software. Kellogg and Jenny Craig both offer online support groups for women trying to lose weight. Nike.com has a community” link offering links to Nike running clubs and a runner’s network where users can create personal profiles and interact with other community members.
Other brand communities are established by
consumers, such as NissanClub.com, established by Nike users. Here, members can post topics, communicate
privately with other members, respond to polls, etc.
Marketers can monitor these sites to see
what consumers are saying about their brands.
Metrics include time spent on the site, friend bases, and how many times
their brand is mentioned on a site.
Although negative and even ugly comments are at times posted, marketers
must accept this as part of the Web culture.
A very
popular social networking site is Linden Labs’ Second Life, an Internet-based 3-D virtual world(community)—a simulated fantasy world where avatars—3D cartoon representations of
players—live, interact with other avatars, love, plat, and try to get rich,
using Linden dollars, easily traded for U.S, dollars at an official currency
site.
Created in 1999, Second Life came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. A downloadable client program enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another. Residents can buy an “island” for an initial fee of $1,650, plus a monthly fee. For instance, Coldwell Banker opened a virtual office to sell virtual real estate in Second Life, visitors can visit Nissan Island, and IBM built a replica of its Almaden Research Center. Marketers can also pay real cash to occupy real estate in Second Life.
Social networking sites engage the power
of ongoing relationships (e.g., fans
on Facebook). As a result, network
members are more likely to respond to messages on the site, including ads, if
they blend in with the social context.
Disadvantages of advertising on social networking sites are that users
pay little attention to the ads since they are so engrossed with talking to
their friends and posting pictures, therefore response rates are low, users
feel the ads are an intrusion (especially notification of friends’ purchases), and
there is a risk in running ads beside user-generated content. Also, results are hard to measure, and Such
Web communities are largely user controlled.
19. Customer Review Sites
Consumers now prowl the Web in search of
recommendations or warnings by other consumers, found on customer review sites. Business-listing
sites by Google (maps.google.com is the most desired home for local businesses,
and local business owners can sign up for a listing at
maps.google.com/local/add to create a listing), Yahoo, and others such as Yelp,
Citysearch, and AOL Local let consumers rave about their favorite businesses or
complain about poor service, allowing consumers to get credible personal
opinions about local businesses and services.
The reviews can help dramatically raise a website’s visibility in search
engines, with reviews and star ratings often cited in search results. For example, a search for “Los Angeles
chiropractor” returns not only links to websites but also a 10-item list of
local chiropractors with their addresses, reviews, star ratings, and a local
map at the top of the page.
Local business marketers often try to game
the system by e-mailing customers with web addresses for review sites, asking
them to write a review. Unfortunately,
some unethical marketers write fake reviews or aggressively seek favorable reviews
by offering incentives like iPods and gift certificates.
There are many other recommendation sites,
like music-recommendation site iLike that steers customers to tunes they are
likely to enjoy.
20.
Chat rooms
In chat
rooms groups of people sharing special interests can contact one another
and exchange information and opinions. These can either be part of a marketer’s
website or independent.
C. Advantages and
Disadvantages of the Internet.
<Advertising on the Internet>
There are a number of advantages
of digital marketing (electronic
marketing, e-marketing)—advertising and marketing on the Internet.
·
Highly selective target marketing of a quality
audience. Internet ads can be highly targeted to
specific groups with minimal waste coverage.
In business-to-business marketing only the most interested prospects
will bother visiting. In consumer
marketing personalization and other targeting techniques help sites to become
more tailored to individual needs. By
purchasing keywords and using cookies, advertisers can reach potential
consumers when they are ready to buy.
The market is upscale in nature.
·
Enormous audience. The Internet is the only truly
global medium.
·
Message tailoring. Highly targeted markets help
here, as does the interactive nature of the medium.
·
Information intensive. Lots of information can be
presented if desired. A given site can
offer a wealth of information on a company, product specifications, costs,
purchase information, etc. Links will
direct users to even more information if they wish. This is consistent with a major use of the
Internet—to gather information.
·
Tracking –
There is the ability to monitor who is viewing ads and responding to them.
·
Interactive capabilities. More than any
other medium, the Internet allows consumers to directly interact with an
advertiser, increasing customer involvement and satisfaction, and building a
relationship between the advertiser and the customer. Marketers can speak with, not to,
customers. This virtual reality environment simulates a direct experience for
users, resulting in more confidently held and enduring attitudes.
·
Real-time information. The Net
allows for lots of flexibility as sites can be constantly updated.
·
Sales potential. As we’ll discuss, the Internet can be a great
direct response medium to generate sales, offering immediate response rivaled
only by personal selling.
·
Opportunities for creativity. The
multi-sensory nature of the Internet makes it one that offers lots of
opportunities for creativity (like TV).
This can enhance a company’s image and increase customer interest and
involvement, leading to repeat visits.
·
Widespread exposure. Especially small companies
with limited budgets can gain access to the world for a fraction of the cost of
traditional media.
The
Internet also has its disadvantages:
·
Costs. Internet ads are fairly inexpensive when
measured on a CPM basis for a banner ad (about $10 to $20 on top media sites; remnant inventory—leftover Web pages
that get sold through ad networks—gets sold for 50 cents to $1cper thousand;
rates are higher for home pages compared with subsequent pages). This compares to $5 for outdoor, $12 for TV,
and $35 for a 4-color ad in a major consumer magazine). However, the absolute cost is relatively
moderate, ranging from a few hundred dollars locally to $100,000 or more per
month for a major Website, although high upfront startup costs can be amortized
over a long time frame. <Exhibit
17.16>. The reason CPM is high on
certain sites is because Q. audiences are 1. highly targeted and
upscale, and 2. highly motivated to shop/seek information and to buy
<Exhibits 17.17/17.18>. As with
all media, CPM is for opportunities for exposures, not actual exposures, as
there’s no reliable way to know how many people who call up a Web page look at
its advertising. Absolute cost is
relatively low because Q. <back to Exhibit 17.16> the total
number of exposures is relatively low.
Also, the cost for producing banner ads and websites is comparatively
low. While it is possible to establish a
site inexpensively, establishing and maintaining a good site is becoming more
costly.
·
Integration. Web advertising fits well into an integrated
marketing communications program—it is easily integrated and coordinated with
other forms of promotion. Offline ads
can carry the Website’s URL. Web banner
ads, like outdoor billboards, can include images and slogans from broadcast and
print campaign ads. Sales promotions
such as contests and coupons can be featured on Websites.
From
the consumer’s perspective there are also several advantages:
·
Speed. The Internet offers the fastest way to access
information on a company and its products.
·
Convenience. Electronic marketing increases customer
convenience by breaking down many of the barriers caused by time and space,
thereby adding time and place utility.
Consumers can shop 24 hours a day without leaving the comfort of their
home or office.
·
Greater availability of information, including price
information.
·
Greater variety to choose from.
·
Not intrusive/interruptive (forced on consumers). Consumers
seek out Web advertising and are therefore highly engaged with it and view it
as credible. Marketers aren’t
interrupting content—they are delivering it!
From a managerial perspective
there are some downsides to Internet marketing:
·
Measurement problems. There is a big problem with accurately estimating exposures—we are
highly uncertain how many people see or notice Internet ads. Different research services report widely
different numbers. Also, numbers
reported become quickly outdated. These
problems are discussed more in D. below.
·
Privacy and security concerns. Some
consumers are leery of using the Internet because of security or privacy
concerns—the fear that data collection occurs without consumers’ knowledge or
permission or that marketers engage in unauthorized use of their personal
information. Consumers are therefore
reluctant to give out personal data that might be important to the
marketer. Cyber crime such as credit
card theft and hacking into corporate Websites to get things such as customer
lists or customer credit card numbers is another concern.
·
Declining impact. As the novelty of Web
advertising wears off and as the medium becomes increasingly cluttered, there seems to be less
tolerance for it. In 2001, there were
over 20 million Websites with the “.com” domain name. More people now claim to actively avoid Web
ads (through means such as software that blocks banner ads and e-mail
solicitations), and the number who say they notice Web ads is down (a reason
for the reported decline in banner ad effectiveness). Some consumers are tired of computers by the
time they get home from work and don’t wish to spend their leisure time
shopping online. And, browsing online
can be time-consuming since high-quality images take time to download,
especially if a lot of users are trying to download them at once, a phenomenon
known as Websnarl. Net net, the impact of Web advertising is uncertain.
·
Limited production quality. Although it
is improving, net advertising doesn’t offer the high-quality production of many
other media, although the gap is narrowing.
·
Limited reach. Only about half the population is connected
to the Net, due to the high cost of personal computers and technology
impediments for many people (especially the elderly and poorly educated). Also, only a small percentage of sites are
captured by any given search engine
·
Constant updating/site maintenance. Staffing is required to keep the site’s content up
to date 24/7.
·
Channel conflict. Traditional retailers might
dislike competing with the manufacturer’s Website, and consequently give less
support to or even discontinue carrying the producer’s products.
From a consumer
perspective, there are also some drawbacks to getting information and shopping
online:
· Consumer
privacy (“Leave me alone!”) can be
threatened by unwanted spam (unsolicited e-mail), pop-up ads, and the like.
· Buyers must wait for product delivery
rather than being able to immediately take the merchandise home.
III. Establishing
a Site on the World Wide Web
To Web-enable
your business for your customers, you need to establish and maintain a Website. Setting up a commercial Website is a lot more
expensive and challenging than setting up a personal site. Nonetheless, most organizations can create an
efficient website for under $3,000. In
addition, specialized designers (Web design firms, site developers and
Webmasters) are required to creatively develop and to constantly update and
monitor the site (it is very important to avoid broken or “dead” links and
search engines that mostly retrieve “page not found” messages). The basic monthly cost for a basic,
low-maintenance site ranges from $3 to $10, and for $20 to $25, you can get the
ability to expand your capacity, which makes possible forums, web logs, and
other interactive features. Software to run the site ranges from free to
several thousand dollars, depending on the number of extras needed. The site should be built with software
optimized for search engines, so that when Google, Yahoo!, et al. come across
it, they’ll index the right content in the right order. High-traffic locations require
higher-capacity connections and hence result in a bigger bill. Find an affordable host that can put up the
site. Register the site with standard search engines such as Google, Yahoo!,
and MSN as well as sites specific to your industry. Syndicate your content with an RSS (Really
Simple Syndication) news feed, such as Feedburner. Users subscribe to the feed, and any time you
publish new content on your site, those users are notified.
The trend
is for companies to rely less on banner ads on others’ Websites and more on
their own Websites.
<Website Design> The Web is a
multimedia environment, combining attributes of different media: sight (print),
sound (radio, TV, film), and motion (TV and film). In addition, it offers two-way
interactivity—the user can interact with the ad, requesting information and
offer opinions.
Domain names (URLs) can be bought for $8
a year at godaddy.com and similar vendors. The name should be easily guessed
and descriptive to increase chances that visitors who don’t know the domain
name can find your site, as well as easy to remember and easy to
pronounce.
Good sites
offer 1. substance, 2. entertainment value, 3. ease of use, and 4.
interactivity. Regarding substance,
the number one thing people seek online is—information! Content (news, data, entertainment) is
king. Thus, most Websites contain rich
product descriptions, mimicking brochures and posters. Information should be of interest to
readers. E.g., At Amazon.com, you get
reviews and detailed comparisons between models, whereas at Walmart you get two
sentences and a UPC code, plus useless information about how much the product
weighs. For example, Johnson &
Johnson’s BabyCenter is a repository of information about raising a newborn.
Information
on products as well as sales/promotional offers should be constantly updated to
keep people coming back for more and to keep them abreast of new products and
services, sales promotions, and other developments. The bottom of the home Web page should state
when the page was last designed or updated (like “freshness dating” on
perishables such as milk and beer).
Especially the opening screen should resemble a poster. Hyperlinks
or links should be used to allow customers who want more detailed information
to “drill down” to get it. This way,
users who don’t want too much information don’t feel overwhelmed. Give a brief overview of your product, and
then allow users to click into specific areas they wish to learn more
about. For example, the Huggies site
offers lots of informational links <Exhibit 15-2>. It is also useful to post a FAQ (frequently
asked questions) page.
Since
Internet shoppers can’t ask clerks for help, more Websites now also offer
advice. Godiva.com features a gift
selector that helps shoppers budget, and Discovery.com (the Discovery Channel)
launched a telescope-buying guide.
The Web is
all about KISS—“keep it short and sweet” (or, “Keep it simple, stupid,” as they
say in the army). Studies show that Web
surfers don’t read---they scan, so your site should be scanable. Studies show that Web surfers don’t
read---they scan, so your site should be scanable. Studies consistently reveal that content and headlines
grab the visitor before photographs and other design elements. Graphic design is the second-most important
skill needed to develop a Website. The
top-ranking skill? Writing! The shorter, quicker, and more to the point
sentences and paragraphs are, the better.
Bulleted items should be used where there is lots of information to
present. Also, use lots of
one-or-two-sentence paragraphs, listed items, and clear and consistent
identifiers marking important statements and the starting and ending of
sections. Registration forms should also
KISS.
Key visual elements include eye-catching
graphics but not so complex that they require long download times (one way to
achieve this is to provide small visuals and make them clickable to larger
versions). Text should be simple dark
(ideally black) type (one or at most two typefaces) on a contrasting
background. Type should be large enough
to read on small screens. List should be
short (the “rule of ten” says, like The Ten Commandments and David Letterman’s
lists, they should be ten or less.)
While hard sell
sites might attract surfers seeking product information, they are unlikely to
attract and capture the interest of more casual browsers. To get most people to visit to your site
requires 2. an entertaining soft
sell approach by using goodies such as games and downloadable ringtones and
podcasts. For example, the Cartoon
Network site <Exhibit 17.28> allows kids to direct the action in an
interactive cartoon. Videos and online
video games are growing in popularity. A
company called YaYa develops software for marketers it calls “avergaming,”
which integrates advertisements and product placements, with the marketer
inserting its product or logo throughout a game. For example, Honda’s game lets players choose
a Honda and then race around city streets that are plastered with Honda
logos. The “Chrysler Get Up and Go”
campaign gave Website visitors a test to determine their travel personality and
uncover which of the automaker’s vehicles suited their profile. The Suave Naturals personality test guides a
woman to reveal her “fragrance personality.”
Vanilla Coke’s Mystery game involves finding “the boss” by asking
animated suspects sitting in a nightclub and uncovering clues. The Vanilla Coke brand appears throughout the
game. Each week there is a different
puzzle, and if you solve that week’s puzzle you win a prize, such as a Vanilla
Coke T-shirt or CD. Burger King offered
a silly, interactive Subservient Chicken.
At subservientchicken.com, visitors could command the “chicken”—a man in
a tacky chicken suit in an equally tacky living room—to do any stunt they
wished. (It was an offbeat take on BK’s longtime message: “Have it your way.”)
Advertisers
can gather consumer data such as e-mail addresses and zip codes as a condition
of playing. A sticky site is one that is able to attract repeat visitors and have
them stay for extended time periods by providing useful information and
entertainment. This can increase impulse
purchases. Rational branding emphasizes the need for a Website to provide
unique information and entertainment to keep visitors returning for long
visits. For example, Proctor and
Gamble’s beinggirl.com promotes the Always and Tampax brands through this teen
advice site. The “ask Iris” section
answers questions like, “Are you more likely to be eaten by a shark f you’re on
your period?
One crucial
feature for both hard information seekers and casual browsers is 3. ease of
use, achieved through multiple navigational
tools—the more navigational tools available, the more likely a visitor
will like the site. Navigational tools
help guide visitors around the site easily, find the information they want, and
respond. Examples include hyperlinks,
home and section icons (“click here” blocks), a site-specific search engine, a
site map which is accessible from every page, a navigation bar (left side of
screen preferred), gift finders specific to gender or age, and a site
index. These should follow the K.I.S.S.
rule. To help KISS, Websites should be
designed to present a minimal amount of information on the top pages, with more
information readily available to those interested in more details by clicking
on links. The fewer clicks needed the
better, because people get lost or bored.
However, adding search and other personalization software tools can cost
about $300,000 to $450,000. Ease of use
is also achieved through having graphics and information that can be easily and
quickly downloaded. The trend is toward streaming media—which launches moving
images, video, or audio without the need for downloading. Americans are increasingly using faster
broadband connections (such as DSL and cable modems) that will allow richer and
higher quality sound and audio to come into their homes. Such streaming ads command much higher
click-through rates than traditional banner ads. Also, the checkout procedure should be
straightforward—two-thirds of shoppers abandon their carts, many because they
get lost here, due to factors such as failures with account setups, a checkout
process that is too long, checkout requiring too much personal information,
poor site navigation, long download times, confusing error messages, and
unexpected shipping costs added on (therefore shipping information and costs
should be included as early as possible in the checkout process. Some e-tailers email consumers to remind them
of searches they’ve made to help stimulate a purchase, while other sites remind
hem of earlier searches when they log back in.
To go
global with your Website, make it easy for foreign visitors to buy products online
by providing information in other languages, including a special section
dedicated to other countries, and accepting foreign currency.
Finally,
good sites take advantage of the WWW’s 4. Interactivity—users can get
involved with the ad. Interactive
elements make it possible for the user to contact the company with questions,
suggestions, comments, and complaints, thereby building a relationship between
the firm and the customer. This means
that Websites should always include information on how to contact the firm for
further information, through phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or mailing
addresses. There should obviously be
enough staffing to promptly answer the questions—Websites operate 24/7! This also allows the advertiser to obtain
valuable feedback—the Website can provide real-time marketing research.
Consumers
are often willing to share personal information about themselves (e.g., e-mail
and snail mail addresses and phone numbers, brand and product preferences,
etc.), believing companies can make better buying recommendations and fine-tune
their marketing pitches to the consumers’ personal interests, a practice known
as personalization, which allows
consumers to receive less spam and more relevant information. For instance, travel sites (e.g.,
Travelocity.com and Expedia.com) say they can help you find bargains on
airfares and hotels if you tell them where you like to vacation; CDNow.com will
suggest Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong if it knows you like jazz. Sites such as Amazon.com and CDNow offer
their customers recommendations via e-mail based on their past purchases.
As a
consequence of marketers’ personalization practices, increasingly consumers and
government regulators (e.g., the FTC) are concerned with issues of privacy.
While most firms have privacy
statements/policies—disclosures posted on their sites about how the firm
collects, uses, and shares consumer data with partners or advertisers and why
it does so (with some tacking on certification seals from non-government
organizations such as Trust-e, the Web Assurance Bureau, and the Better
Business Bureau’s BBBOnline program. These organizations review the sites’
written policies and regularly audit certified sites for compliance. In return, certified Websites can display the
organizations’ seals, which might be a deciding factor in whether or not a
consumer will order merchandise through a Website, The online branded seal
certifies members’ Websites as offering “clear and conspicuous” notice and
choice to opt-in [an affirmative choice to participate in sharing personally
identifiable information from the user.), there are problems: they are
often hard to find (buried deep inside the Website), cumbersome to read
(lengthy and written in legalese), and often violated by the companies who
wrote them. A privacy policy should be
easy to find by including a prominent link to it on the home page, and
especially on the pages where information is collected. Also, marketers should get third-party
certification for the privacy policy through organizations likeTRUSTe, the Web
Assurance Bureau, and the Better Business Bureau’s BBBOnline program. These organizations review the sites’ written
policies and regularly audit certified sites for compliance. In return, certified Websites can display the
organizations’ seals, which might be a deciding factor in whether or not a
consumer will order merchandise through a Website.
The most
ethical companies:
·
Give notice
– they state privacy policies prominently and clearly on their site, telling
consumers whether their information is being collected, who is actually
collecting the data (e.g., an outsourced company), how it is collected
(directly or though cookies and Web bugs), how it will used (e.g., if it will
be sold to other companies), which information is shared with whom, and what
kind of security measures will protect their data from prying eyes.
On a
related note, many privacy policies state at their sites they reserve the right
to modify their privacy policies at any time.
The best ones either e-mail customers, alerting them to such changes and
inviting them to link to their site to read the revised privacy policy, or they
suggest that users check the policy often for changes.
·
Either don’t
share information, limiting its use to fulfilling the customer’s
transaction (e.g., EBay will not “sell, rent, or loan any identifiable
information regarding our customers to any third party”), or let them know
if the information is shared and with whom and for what purpose, and if so, get
consent - making sure customers actively agree to sharing information,
giving them the opportunity to opt out of the information sharing (using “I
accept” or “I decline” buttons or boxes).
The best companies offer choice—allowing visitors to decide
whether, and how, personally identifiable information is used beyond the use
for which the user provided the information (such as providing a mailing
address for product shipment). There are
two basic methods to offer customers choice.
One, which offers the most likelihood of privacy, is the “opt-in” method, whereby users must take
affirmative steps to allow their information to be collected or used (data is
automatically not shared unless they give consent). Opt-in provisions (often in the form of an opt-in button or box)
mean that consumers have to grant permission before their personal data may be
collected, a practice called permission
marketing—the art of marketing to people who want to be marketed to, doing
it with anticipated, personal, and relevant messages (vs. traditional interruption
marketing, where unwelcome messages
assault the customer). Second, is the “opt out” method—which requires users to
take affirmative steps to prevent the information from being collected or
used. Parents should make these choice
decisions for their children. In fact,
the Children’s Online privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 2000 says that sites
which collect “individually identifiable information” (anything that would
allow a child to be identified or contacted, such as the user’s full name, home
address, e-mail address, or phone number) must comply with COPPA if their sites
are targeted toward children 13 or under or if they are a general audience site
which knows that children under 13 visit them.
COPPA requires marketers to obtain verifiable parental permission before
gathering information. The permission
can be obtained by letter, a credit card number in conjunction with a
transaction, an e-mail signed with a digital signature, or taking calls from
parents via a toll-free number.
·
Provide access
- customers are given constant and complete access to the information the firm
has on them, being able to review, change, and delete it if they wish.
·
Provide security
– they take reasonable steps to ensure that customer information is accurate
and secure from loss, misuse, or alteration, and that it is kept out of
unauthorized individuals’ hands via passwords and other security systems for
collecting, transmitting, and storing data.
This can be done either through a dedicated Website security expert or
via an outsourced Internet Service Provider.
·
Ensure enforcement
– meaningful action is taken if someone within the firm violates the security
policy. This might mean termination or
even reporting them to government authorities such as the FTC (consult your
corporate counsel in these matters).
<Exhibit
15-1> HotBot founders demonstrate
what makes a Website work.
(You can
play devil’s advocate here. According to
one article (“Elizabeth Weise, “Privacy Options Are a Blur,” USA Today, April 10, 2001, p. D3) most
people no longer seem to care much about their privacy online. Only seven out of every thousand users have
set their browsers to reject cookies. Although
dozens of companies make programs that block cookies (as well as filter spam
and porn plus protect our e-mail privacy), very few people bother to use them
(although many might not be aware of how to disable cookies or of such
programs). Even the easiest of all possible
protections—providing a fake name or e-mail address to get access to a Website
requiring registration—was used by just 24% of those surveyed. (You can ask the class whether they think
this is an ethical consumer behavior.
We’d say that since it entails lying and deception, it is not).
Another interactive element is the personal shopper (a.k.a. personal
consultant, sales associate and sales representative). These people are available to answer the
customer’s questions and make suggestions, either via an 8---number, e-mail, or
even live chat.
Other
popular interactive features include order tracking, guaranteed shipping, and
generous return policies.
Once a Website is built it must next
be promoted. The quickest and most
effective way to promote a site is to notify relevant Usenet groups. The other key promotional method is to register
the site with major search engines.
Also, you can register with appropriate listserv groups and the Yellow
Pages for the Internet (e.g., ww.bigyellow.com/). And, you can send out press releases
to Internet news sites and notify people via e-mail. Clicking on a banner ad on a portal
site can whisk viewers to your site.
Finally, offline ads (especially in print media) can contain your
URL, usually as part of the close <Exhibit 17.34> <T1-5> (although
you can emphasize the URL more, as in <Exhibit 17.33>). (Forbes gives you a <<scanner>>,
which you can order through their Website, which allows you to scan the barcode
in their ads and go right to the advertiser’s Website.) If a TV commercial is used, the site address
should be visible on the screen long enough for viewers to read and remember it
(usually 3 to 5 seconds). Packaging
can also contain the URL <Exhibit 15-3 Cheerios>
Integration of Web advertising with off-line advertising media is
important (integrated marketing
communication). However, just as,
say, radio advertising can’t simply be a transfer of the audio from a TV
commercial, neither can Internet advertising simply be a transfer of offline advertising. When designing an Internet ad, one must
consider the medium’s creative strengths and weaknesses, just as one does with
any other medium. The Internet’s
greatest strength is the detailed information that can be provided. Thus, in an IMC campaign, media such as TV
and print can be used to develop a brand image, and the URL can direct people
to the Website to provide detailed information and to help close the sale.
(Recall that the two major Internet advertising objectives are communicating
information and making a sale.)
When a
user connects with a Website the information that that site usually gets from
the user is the Internet protocol (IP)
address of the user’s computer (e.g., 204.17.123.5), what page or
information is requested, the time the request was made, and any referring link
address. The referring link address
allows the Website to discover what links are taking people to the site. Via tracking
advertisers can monitor how users interact with a Website
There are
a number of tracking effectiveness measures commonly used on the Internet. Internet audience/traffic measurement has its
own unique terminology:
Each
instance in which a server sends a file to a user’s browser is a hit or ad request—the number of
times that a specific page of a site is requested (number of mouse
clicks0—a measure of traffic on a site.
The Internet Advertising Bureau defines an ad request as “an opportunity
to deliver an advertising element to a Website visitor.” When a user loads a Web page with ads on it,
the browser pulls the ad from a host server and brings it up as a banner,
button, or interstitial. The number of
ad requests so received can then be translated into cost per thousand (CPM).
Hits represent the number of pages and
graphical elements requested from a website (page elements). However,
hits don’t differentiate between a lot of activity by a few visitors and a
kittle activity by many visitors and thus provide almost no indication of
audience size. For example, when a user
requests a page with four graphical images, it counts as four hits; 100 hits
could represent 100 people each making one request or one person making 100
requests. Thus, some sites try to
exaggerate their popularity by inflating the number of images. Also, only valid hits should be measured, i.e., the number of hits that
deliver desired information to the user, excluding error messages, redirects,
etc. Even here, a hit is no guarantee
that an ad was actually seen, i.e., actually made an impression; a person could
even click to another page before the ad is loaded onto the screen. The primary value of hits is to let the Website
owner know which part(s) of the site are most and least popular.
Click-throughs or clicks are the number of visitors to a site who click onto a
banner ad with their mouse to retrieve more information or who click on a Web
link to get to another page. They are a
measure of the number of page elements or hyperlinks
that have been actively requested, i.e., “clicked through” from the banner ad
to the link. Click-through rates (or click
rates) are the number of clicks
on an ad divided by the number of hits/ad requests, typically 1 to 2 percent of
the number of hits, and measure how often users try to obtain additional
information about a product by clicking on an ad. They are clearly a better measurement of
audience involvement than hits. However,
we still don’t know what percentage of click-throughs convert to
purchases. Some companies bill clients
based on the number of clicks their ad generates, claiming this is the most
useful measure of effectiveness, although companies like P&G claim that
clicks aren’t a very accurate measure and de-emphasize it. However, the trend is toward “pay for
performance,” sought by advertisers, where they pay for banner ads based on the
number of customers who click through to their sites and buy something (click
through rates are typically .3% or less).
Pages or page views are the number of times viewers view a page—single,
discrete clicks to load individual pages of a website, i.e., the number of
pages (technically, the number of HTML files) sent to a user upon the user’s
request. Page views are the number of
times a user requests a page containing a particular ad. A problem occurs if the downloaded page
occupies several screens, for each counts as a page, even though the requester
might not view all of them. Another
problem is that page views don’t tell the number of unique visitors—like GRPs,
they are gross impressions, i.e., they count duplication (e.g., 100,000 page
views in a week could be 1 person reading 100,000 pages, 100,000 people reading
one page each, or any variation in between, such as 10 people each reading
10,000 pages).
Visits are a sequence of requests made
by one user at one sight in a given time frame, i.e., the number of occasions
in which user X interacted with site Y after Z time has elapsed (Z is usually a
standard unit of time, such as 30 minutes).
F a visitor doesn’t request any new information for a period of time
(the “time-out” period, such as 30 minutes), and then the user’s next request
is considered a new visit. Viewers is the number of viewers to a
site. Users (a.k.a. unique visitors/unique
users) is a measure of net reach—it
is the number of different people visiting a site in a given time period. A new user is determined by the person’s site
registration, by their unique IP address, or by placing a cookie on each visitor’s
computer, writing the cookie to a database, and checking for the cookie on each
visitor’s computer every time they visit.
.
Increasingly,
an important measure is customer engagement,
and so website stickiness is measured
by time spent on the site, which
Nielsen began measuring in 2007. With video and applications like Ajax, which
delivers fresh content to Web pages without consumers needing to refresh,
stickiness has become more relevant.
A
measurement problem is that with some Internet service providers (ISPs) a dynamic IP number/address (rather than a
static IP number/address) is used,
i.e., it changes every time a given user logs in to the service. Thus, a given person might show up as 30
unique visitors after visiting a site daily for a month. And even if a requesting computer has a
permanent IP address, thus allowing a site to keep track of the visits of a
given computer, different people could be using the same computer. (One estimate is that the number of visitors
exceeds the number of IP addresses by 15 percent.) Thus it is difficult to track who is visiting
and how often they visit.
Log analysis software is measurement
software that provides information on hits, page views, visits, and users, plus
it lets a site track audience traffic through the site. Thus, a site can determine which pages are
most popular and expand on them as well as learn which information is most
important to people. While there are
plenty of companies providing such software (e.g., MaxInfo’s WebC, I/PRO,
NetCount, and Interse), there is still no industry standard for measuring the
effectiveness of one interactive ad placement over another. There is also no standard for comparing
Internet with traditional media placement (the general apples-vs.-oranges
problem of intermedia comparisons).
Also, because so many people balk at registration, demographic
information on users is severely limited.
All of these measurement limitations keep many advertisers from making
major use of the Web.
Many of the
companies that provide research information in traditional media (e.g., Nielsen
(Nielsen/NetRatings), Arbitron, MRI, SMRB, Audit Bureau of Circulation,
eMarkeer, Jupiter Research, and Ranking.com) also extend their measurements
into the Internet. Others (e.g.,
MediaMetrics, Jupiter, and Forrester are the three largest; Doubleclick sells
ad space on Websites as well as providing tracking data such as impressions for
advertisers) do exclusively Internet measurements. Internet ratings services, the largest of
which are ComScore Media Metrix and Nielsen//NetRatings, track visitors to
Websites. These two firms have global
panels of thousands of volunteers who agree to download tracking software. Other companies, such as HitWise, Alexia, and
Compete, eschew panels in favor of tagging web pages with small pieces of code
called cookies (although as many as 3 in 10 web users regularly delete the
cookies). A fairly new measurement
method is the Media Metrix reach index.
Media Metrix and its competitors (e.g., Net Ratings, owned by Nielsen) use
sampling through a “Nielsen family” model.
Tracking software is installed on the computers of a representative
sample of families (representative of the universe of Internet users), and the
collected data is then transmitted back to the research company. Reach
is then defined as the percentage of different users exposed to a particular site at least once during a
particular one-month time period. A
problem is Q. undercounting of workplace surfing. Another is that this measure favors sprawling
sites with vast numbers of largely unrelated pages (e.g., Geo-Cities) over
well-focused sites that collect specific groups of users with shared interests
who visit regularly (high frequency).
Another
measurement problem is the caching
complication. Caching is the use of a kind of active memory in a user’s PC or on
an online service used to conserve computer system resources. Once a page is downloaded, the computer’s
cache (literally “reserve”) saves the page so that it can be immediately
accessed. Commercial online services
(e.g., AOL) cache heavily trafficked sights so that users get quicker response
times when they request the page. While
caching conserves on bandwidth—a
measure of the computer resources used by a Website—this hurts the validity of
the measurement process because once a viewer has cached a page, the Website
has no idea whether the user revisited the page, and if so, how many
times. Thus, caching might understate
the number of page views a site receives.
For search marketing, search rankings are an
important metric.
Because interactive media are personal media venues, media planners
can’t think in mass media terms. With
them, we’re building customer relationships, one customer at a time.
Internet
advertisers can pay sites and search engines in several ways. In the Web’s beginning, advertisers paid
sites based on the number of people who saw the ads, determined by the number
of page requests —cost per thousand.
That left advertisers holding the bag if nobody bought the
products. When key words are purchased
on a search engine’s information categories and subcategories (finance, news,
travel, games, etc.), prices vary according to category and site
selectivity. Such costs are tied
according to thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of page
requests per month. <Practical Tips
#1 Some Internet Buzzwords>
Google and
Yahoo! began the trend is away from paying straight cost-pre-thousands toward a
performance-based advertising approach based on cost-per-click (CPC). Recall that a click-through occurs when the visitor sees or reads the ad and
clicks on it, taking him directly to the advertiser (overall click-through
rates average around 2%). Paying in click-throughs occurs when the
advertiser pays for each click-through. Cost per click (CPC) is the ad rate
charged if the surfer responds to a displayed ad—advertisers pay on the basis
of the number of clicks a specific ad banner gets. Cost usually runs in the range of $.10 to
$.20 per click. Sites can also charge in
terms of cost per action (CPA), such
as cost per lead (the rate charged
to advertisers if the viewer responds with personal information such as a phone
number, generating a sales lead for the firm) or cost per sale. Many
advertisers pay for impressions—the
number of times a Web page with your ad on it is viewed (approximately
equivalent to hits or opportunities to view); a flat fee is charged each time
the advertisement is viewed. Note that
impressions differ from hits, which
are the number of times each page or element is retrieved.
From the
advertiser’s perspective there is the problem that users can download their
text, images, and graphics, even though advertisers place trademark and
copyright disclaimers on their sites.
Nonetheless, trademarks and logos are copied without authorization. Currently there is no viable system for
policing this.
From the
consumer’s perspective there is the very important issue of consumer privacy. Consumers often want to be left alone and
don’t want marketers to know too much about their personal lives. The Coalition for Advertising Supported
Information & Entertainment (CASIE) has developed five goals for
advertisers <Exhibit 17.36>.
Currently, most Netizens are very wary about providing personal
information or registering with a Website because of concerns about security—their
information mike leak out to Big Brother, Orwellian marketers. <Internet Users Comfortable Giving Out
Personal Information> Registration allows advertisers to correlate user
profiles with their online consumer behavior.
Another way
to obtain visitor information is through cookies
(not the Mrs. Fields type!)—tiny files (information tags) placed on
(downloaded to) users’ hard drives by servers on Websites they visit (usually
without their knowing it) so that a Website can identify a particular person—or
at least a particular browser (preferences, login information, and so forth)—the
next time it visits a particular site.
Cookies collect clickstream
information (literally the sequence of pages and what on those pages buyers
click on and where when online) about your interaction, including where you
visit, how long you stay there, how frequently you return to certain pages,
where on a site you click, and even your electronic address. They allow Websites to give users different
information depending on whether they are first time vs. repeat visitors. Cookies came about because Websites needed to
recognize return visitors to offer them customized information and
service. However, cookies raise privacy
concerns for visitors, who are typically unaware of the cookies (unless they’ve
programmed their computer to warn them when a cookie is about to be
placed). But, cookies don’t personally
identify Web users. Names, addresses,
lists of favorite Websites, and other backend records of consumer activity
aren’t accessible via cookies; rather, cookies build marketer-specific
anonymous profiles of visitor activities.
Simply, users are tracked anonymously with encrypted identification
numbers.
Also used to
gather surfers’ personal data is spyware—programs
secretly downloaded without users’ consent and buried in a user’s computer to
monitor their online activities, resulting in delivery of pop-up ads. Once lodged in a hard drive, spyware can sap
a PC’s processing power, slow its functioning, and even cause it to crash. Another program is known as adware—software hat Internet
advertising firms download to PCs with user permission that tracks users’ Web
surfing and feeds the data to an advertiser.
The adware then hits surfers with pop-up ads based on their
interests.
Spyware
often comes bundled with other applications, such as music file-sharing
programs or free screensavers. Although
many tell users that by downloading the desired program, they are agreeing to
accept the spyware, this warning is sometimes buried in fine print. Thus, users’ information is given to third
parties without their knowledge. A
common ploy is for a “security alert” to pop up when a user visits a particular
site, offering a software download, often confusing people who believe they
need the software to view a particular site.
The advertisers claim that this gives
consumers ads that are of interest to them.
While
Critics claim this invades consumers’ privacy, the
advertisers respond that they keep no records or profiles of customers.
IV. E-Commerce:
Buying on the Web
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of
cybermarketing isn’t the advertising but how it has changed how consumers both
learn about and buy things. It allows
easier comparison shopping, greater contact among consumers (e.g.,
recommendations), and easier feedback from consumer to marketer. Nonetheless, currently neither Web sales nor
Web advertising exceed a 1% market share of total sales through all
distribution channels or total advertising in all media, respectively.
Direct marketing—especially catalog
marketing—provides the model for e-commerce—the
practice of selling goods and services (commerce) through electronic means,
mostly on the Internet. The goal is to
get consumers to put one or more items in their “shopping cart,” (keeps track
of purchases on a website) specify their payment method, and to hit the
“submit” button in order to “check out.”
Effective e-commerce sites prominently display the shopping cart icon on
every page, allowing consumers to readily check their orders, if they desire. Order forms should confirm items ordered,
provide shipping options and expected delivery times, calculate total costs,
and clearly state return policies. They
should also offer consumers the option to store their credit card and shipping
information to make future transactions easier. Back buttons should take
shoppers back to the product page to recheck an item if they wish, and the
number of pages and clicks needed to go through to complete a transaction
should be at a minimum.
E-commerce Players include firms who
conduct all their business online (e.g., Amazon.com, eBay.com, and E-Toys.com)
as well as retailers with “bricks-and-mortar” stores (e.g., Eddie Bauer, Gap,
and Barnes and Noble). Many of the latter,
such as car dealerships, allow customers to gather information online and then
visit the nearest participating dealer to get further information or to make a
purchase. Online marketing is more
similar to direct marketing than it is to the brand-building marketing of mass
media advertising, although, as we’ve seen, it can do this too. It permits one-to-one marketing whereby the marketer can personally
communicate with each customer. By
having customers register with the site and state their preferences for
information, the marketer enables them to personalize their shopping
experience. Customers can give feedback,
and consequently offers can be customized for each prospect. In fact, one promise for Internet marketing
was to reduce or eliminate mail order catalogs, which are expensive to produce
and mail. However, it turned out that
catalogs and the net are complimentary channels: catalogs offer sharp product
photos and can be viewed with more leisure, whereas the Web offers buying ease.
In fact, early prognosticators predicted
that the Internet would mean “the end of traditional media as we know them” and
“the death blow of advertisers.”
However, as Mark Twain once said, “Rumors of my demise have been greatly
exaggerated,” which describes the relationship between the Internet and
traditional media. Others suggested a
moratorium on building retail stores and shopping malls, predicting that
e-commerce would displace traditional retailing. However, rather than hurting other media and
traditional retail outlets, the Internet both complements and relies on them in
an IMC program.
Traditionally customers had to be careful
buying high-ticket items like jewelry, luggage, and apparel from e-commerce
sites. Tiny, low-resolution photos of
merchandise made it difficult to see the quality and workmanship of the
items. But now some sites are using visual
technologies called Zoom and 3-D rendering so that buyers don’t feel
like they’re buying site unseen. These
create virtual reality objects (VR objects)—Web images that show a product from all
angles. The surfer scoots a mouse over
the product photo to watch the item rotate or to se how it operates.
Zoom technology lets buyers zoom in on an item, carefully examining
in closer detail the richness of color, texture, and size of the object. For example, looking multiple times on a
photo of a leather suitcase lets you view ever-increasing levels of
detail. After one click you can see side
pockets and zippers, and after multiple clicks you’ve zoomed in far enough to
see even the most minute stitching detail and subtle fluctuations in the
leather’s grain. Visual 3-D rendering and walk-around
technology let you examine objects in 3D from all sides. The prospect can click on the graphic, hold
down the mouse button, and inspect an object from all sides, again zooming in
when desired.
Generally, consumers expect a wider
variety of merchandise in a virtual store than in a brick-and-mortar
store. However, whether they expect
higher or lower prices depends on the product category (e.g., airline travel
prices are expected to be lower and toy prices higher).
Also, sampling opportunities are
great on the Net (e.g., music clips, “trying on” clothes).
Consumers respond best to narrowly
targeted sales pitches and advice. With
wireless communication devices (e.g., phones) there will be increasing wireless
e-commerce, also called mobile commerce
or m-commerce.
V. Other
Types of Cybermarketing
There are several other types of cybermarketing in
addition to advertising:
A. Virtual malls. A virtual
mall or online mall is a gateway
to a group of Internet storefronts that provides access to mall sites by simply
clicking on a storefront or category of store.
These can be global in scope, such as Mall Internet <Exhibit
17.37> or CyberShop, or they can have a more local flavor, such as the
Virtual Mall from West Boston. <Exhibit 17.38> These sites can attract
browsers much as stores attract window shoppers. They are typically organized
by product category, with each category offering click-through to stores,
leading to corporate websites and home pages.
B. Sales promotions. Sampling, coupons, and sweepstakes and
contests are big on the Internet in order to encourage people to visit or
return to a Website. Internet coupons
can be printed out from distributor and manufacturer sites. Sites offer many things, like free e-mail,
instant messaging, telephone services and sample computer programs (e.g., AOL
disks, downloads of trial versions of software). <CBS Sportlsline> Some on-line merchants offer short-term sales
just like brick-and-mortar stores. For
instance, Eddie Bauer’s home page featured a two-day sweater sale, and
Macys.com offered a free DVD player with a $250 purchase.
Companies
such as Coupons Online (www.couponpages.com),
Catalina’s Valupage Website (www.valupage.com),
and www.hotcoupons.com distribute
coupons over the Internet, including the sites of other commercial online
services. Coupons Online and Catalina
both allow Netizens to print out coupons and then take them to the store for
redemption. The advertiser typically
pays per thousand coupons clipped, which costs about $3 to $15.
Sweepstakes
and contests are also popular for driving people to marketers’ Websites. For example, at BMW.com you can enter a
contest for a free BMW, or go to the Bria water site and get a chance to win
$500,000. ). Often, as a condition of
obtaining such goodies and to enter sweepstakes and contests, marketers require
consumers to divulge all-important personal data like address, phone number,
and income.
Incentive
programs are also popular.
C. Event marketing. Special events such as the Super Bowl and the
Oscars have set up Websites. The sites
are promoted during the program, sponsors get their logos on the sites with
links to their own home pages, and they have an opportunity to provide
editorial content for the event site.
D. Sales support. While the Internet has served
as an efficient substitute for salespeople for some firms, other companies have
used the Web to enhance and support their selling efforts. Home pages typically have an e-mail option
for those wishing to request further information. Thus, the Net can provide a great source for
leads for the sales force to follow up on, and these leads become part of a
prospect database. Also, through trial
demonstrations and/or samples offered online, customers can determine if an
offering is worth requesting a sales call for.
E. Public Relations. Many companies devote a
portion of their Website to public relations activities like providing
corporate information, developing positive e-mail relationships, and developing
a media relations Website (providing news stories, press kits, etc.). <Exhibit 15-10 Chrysler>
F. Managing
the Brand in an E-Community. The
Internet provides consumers an efficient way to communicate with one
another. Communities are formed via
Usenet groups, Listservs, instant messaging, and even Web pages or Websites
built around special interests, such as iVillage or MediaBistro, or sponsored
by corporations as a benefit to their customers (e.g., Microsoft Corp.’s free
computer game-geek community, www.zone.com,
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’ Inc.’s free online community of cooking and
gardening enthusiasts at www.marthastewart.com). Through these communities, participants
chat, exchange ideas, and ask and answer questions.
One trend
is for marketers to foster a sense of community on their Websites—a natural for
the Web considering its ability to pull millions of people together at
once. Relationships between customers
can be built through means such as moderated chat rooms (an expensive 24/7
proposition), bulletin boards, and incentives for people to bring in new
visitors.
Sometimes, online communities form around particular
brands. Members create detailed Web
pages devoted to the brand. They share
their experiences in using the brand: likes, dislikes, suggestions for buying
replacement parts or getting the brand serviced, etc. Marketers can thereby monitor word-of-mouth
communications.
Unfortunately, some of this word-of-mouth communication is negative, as
when a company has disgruntled customers or employees. Such people engage in cyberventing—griping
about companies on the Internet. Forums
for this catharsis range from message boards at sites like Yahoo! And Vault.com
to company-specific sites like Untied.com (a site for peeved United Airlines
customers and employees. Such gripe
sites (or “bitch boards” as their known in executive circles) can be monitored
to discover perceived and actual company and brand problems, as well as to
correct misinformation and false rumors.
Most
corporations sponsoring online community sites require new members to register,
and that’s when marketers should ask for permission to direct market, i.e., ask
members to opt in). Online communities
usually ask new members for permission to send them informative weekly or
monthly e-mail newsletters and explain that these newsletters will also contain
some targeted advertising, generally in the form of text-based advertising
messages placed between informational articles containing the corporate
sponsor’s products. These e-mail
newsletters’ primary goal is to enhance relationships with customers. For instance, Procter and Gamble’s free
monthly newsletter, HomeMadeSimple, offers all kinds of practical advice in
areas such as décor, cooking, and household cleaning. The NFL’s weekly newsletter, NFL.com
Newsletter, is customized by team, and then further tailored to the fan’s
specific interests in the team. Fans are
informed when they register that they will be monitored to allow for
better-customized information. When such
e-mails are sent to community members, they should always be given the option
to opt out of the list.
Another
trend is for consumer marketers to imitate their business-to-business brethren
and set up extranets, which allow
them to establish an alliance with their suppliers and business partners to
build a Website that is beneficial to all parties. For instance, an advertiser could create an
extranet with Wal-Mart as the sponsor and center it on parenting.
One more
trend learned from b-to-b marketers is to partner with another firm and create
a micro-site—a site within a site
where sponsors’ content is integrated into the look and feel of the host site,
often a media site.