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
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, the first appearing 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
The Internet is a digital interactive medium. 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]
widely used in the U.S were: .com [commercial or “dot.com”], .edu [education],
.net [network operations], .gov [
(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., “
·
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 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
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—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.
There are even firms that provide large lists of consumers who have
agreed to receive. 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.
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. 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.
. 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 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 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.
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. Userscan then e-mail the
altered photo to whomever they
wish.
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
content (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 I 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 and, if it is well known, your brand name. This will improve your open rate in a world of cluttered e-mail boxes. 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.
· 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 rate or response rate, which is the percentage
of viewers who click through from an active link in the message from a third
party (a web link, search engine, advertising banner, or e-mail campaign) and
are delivered to your Website. Mathematically,
CTR is the total number of clicks divided by the number of times a page was
downloaded or number of e-mails sent.
For example, if 100 e-mails were sent and 15 people clicked on th link
inside the e-mail, the CTR would be 15%.
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.
·
Unsubscibe rate: The percent of recipients
who unsubscibefrom your list.
·
Forward rate: The percent of recipients
who forward your message.
·
Goal conversion rates: The percent of recipients
who do thingssuch 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—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 m