Although e-marketing is similar to traditional marketing, it is helpful to understand the basic characteristics that distinguish this environment from the traditional marketing environment. These characteristics include addressability, interactivity, memory, control, accessibility, and digitalization. Addressability. The technology of the Internet makes it possible for visitors to a website to identify themselves and provide information about their product needs and wants before making a purchase. The ability of a marketer to identify customers before they make a purchase is called
addressability.
addressability.
Many websites encourage visitors to register to maximize their use of the site or to gain access to premium areas; some even require it. Registration forms typically ask for basic information, such as name, e-mail address, age, and occupation, from which marketers can build user profiles to enhance their marketing efforts. CDNow (owned by Amazon.com), for example, asks music lovers to supply information about their listening tastes so that the company can recommend new releases. Some websites even offer contests and prizes to encourage users to register. Marketers also can conduct surveys to learn more about the people who access their websites, offeringprizes as motivation for participation
Addressability represents the ultimate expression of the marketing concept. With the knowledge about individual customers garnered through the Web, marketers can tailor marketing mixes more precisely to target customers with narrow interests, such as recorded blues music or golf. Addressability also facilitates tracking website visits and online buying activity, which makes it easier for marketers to accumulate data about individual customers to enhance future marketing efforts. Amazon.com, for example, stores data about customers’ purchases and uses that information to make recommendationsthe next time they visit the site.
Some website software can store a cookie, an identifying string of text, on a visitor’s computer. Marketers use cookies to track how often a particular user visits the website, what he or she may look at while there, and in what sequence. Cookies also permit website visitors to customize services, such as virtual shopping carts, as well as the particular content they see when they log onto a webpage. CNN, for example, allows visitors to its website to create a custom news page tailored to their particularinterests. The use of cookies to store customer information can be an ethical issue, however, depending on how the data are used. If a website owner can use cookies to link a visitor’s interests to a name and address, that information could be sold to advertisers and other parties without the visitor’s consent or even knowledge. The potential for misuse of cookies has made many consumers wary of this technology .
Some website software can store a cookie, an identifying string of text, on a visitor’s computer. Marketers use cookies to track how often a particular user visits the website, what he or she may look at while there, and in what sequence. Cookies also permit website visitors to customize services, such as virtual shopping carts, as well as the particular content they see when they log onto a webpage. CNN, for example, allows visitors to its website to create a custom news page tailored to their particularinterests. The use of cookies to store customer information can be an ethical issue, however, depending on how the data are used. If a website owner can use cookies to link a visitor’s interests to a name and address, that information could be sold to advertisers and other parties without the visitor’s consent or even knowledge. The potential for misuse of cookies has made many consumers wary of this technology .
Interactivity
Another distinguishing characteristic of e-marketing is interactivity, which allows customers to express their needs and wants directly to a firm in response to its marketing communications. At BlueNile.com, for example, engagement ring shoppers can click on a link at any time during a search to generate a pop-up window where they can comment about their search efforts. The comments are immediatelysent to the appropriate internal department to address the live feedback.9 This characteristic means that marketers can interact with prospective customers in real time (or at least a close approximation of it). Of course, salespeople have always been able to do this, but at a much greater cost. The Web provides the advantages of a virtualsales representative with broader market coverage and at lower cost.
One implication of interactivity is that a firm’s customers also can communicate withother customers (and noncustomers). For this reason, differences in the amount and type of information possessed by marketers and their customers are not as pronounced as inthe past. One result is that the new- and used-car businesses have become considerably more competitive because buyers are coming into dealerships armed with more complete product and cost information obtained through comparison shopping on the Net. By providing information, ideas, and a context for interacting with other customers, emarketers can enhance customers’ interest and involvement with their products.
Interactivity enables marketers to capitalize on the concept of community to help customers derive value from the firm’s products and website. Community refers to a sense of group membership or feeling of belonging by individual members of a group.10 One such community is MySpace, a website where users can post and share their own personal profiles, blogs, photos, videos, and music and chat or exchange messages about topics ranging from cars and computers to health and careers. Such sites encourage visitors to “hang out” and contribute to the community (and see the website’s advertising) instead of clicking elsewhere. Because such communities have well-defined demographics and common interests, they represent a valuable audience for advertisers, which typically generate the funds to maintain such sites.11 Indeed, a few companies have created private communities where carefully recruited members interact not only with each other but also with advertisers who pay for accessto the groups. Such private groups helped Kraft’s Nabisco develop 100 Calorie Packs after asking the online participants of a diet group about their diet food choices
Memory
Interactivity enables marketers to capitalize on the concept of community to help customers derive value from the firm’s products and website. Community refers to a sense of group membership or feeling of belonging by individual members of a group.10 One such community is MySpace, a website where users can post and share their own personal profiles, blogs, photos, videos, and music and chat or exchange messages about topics ranging from cars and computers to health and careers. Such sites encourage visitors to “hang out” and contribute to the community (and see the website’s advertising) instead of clicking elsewhere. Because such communities have well-defined demographics and common interests, they represent a valuable audience for advertisers, which typically generate the funds to maintain such sites.11 Indeed, a few companies have created private communities where carefully recruited members interact not only with each other but also with advertisers who pay for accessto the groups. Such private groups helped Kraft’s Nabisco develop 100 Calorie Packs after asking the online participants of a diet group about their diet food choices
Memory
Memory refers to a firm’s ability to access databases or data warehouses containing individual customer profiles and past purchase histories and to use these data in real time to customize its marketing offer to a specific customer. A database is a collection of information arranged for easy access and retrieval. Although companies have had database systems for many years, the information these systems contain did not become available on a real-time basis until fairly recently. Current software technology allows a marketer to identify a specific visitor to its website instantaneously, locate that customer’s profile in its database, and then display the customer’s past purchases or suggest new products based on past purchases while he or she is still visiting the site. For example, Bluefly, an online clothing retailer, asks visitors to provide their e-mail addresses, clothing preferences, brand preferences, and sizes so that it can create a customized online catalog (“My Catalog”) of clothing that matches the customer’s specified preferences. The firm uses customer purchaseprofiles to manage its merchandise buying. Whenever it adds new clothing items to its inventory, it checks them against its database of customer preferences and, if it finds a match, alerts the individual in an e-mail message. Applying memory to large numbers of customers represents a significant advantage when a firm uses it to learn more about individual customers each time they visit the firm’s website.
Control
Control
In the context of e-marketing, control refers to customers’ ability to regulate the information they view as well as the rate and sequence of their exposure to that information. The Web is sometimes referred to as a pull medium because users determine what they view at websites; website operators’ ability to control the content users look at and in what sequence is limited. In contrast, television can be characterized as a push medium because the broadcaster determines what the viewer sees once he or she has selected a particular channel. Both television and radio provide limited exposure control (you see or hear whatever is broadcastuntil you change the station).
For e-marketers, the primary implication of control is that attracting—and retaining—customers’ attention is more difficult. Marketers have to work harder and more creatively to communicate the value of their websites clearly and quickly, or viewers will lose interest and click to other sites. With literally hundreds of millions of unique pages of content available to any Web surfer, simply putting a website on the Internet does not guarantee that anyone will visit it or make a purchase. Publicizing the website may require innovative promotional activities. For this reason, many firms pay millions of dollars to advertise their products or websites on high-traffic sites such as Yahoo!. Because of Yahoo!’s growing status as a portal (a multiservice website that serves as a gateway to other websites), firms are eager to link to it and other such sites to help draw attention to their own sites. Indeed,consumers spend most of their time online on portal sites such as MSN and Yahoo!, checking e-mail; tracking stocks; and perusing news, sports, and weather.
Accessibility
For e-marketers, the primary implication of control is that attracting—and retaining—customers’ attention is more difficult. Marketers have to work harder and more creatively to communicate the value of their websites clearly and quickly, or viewers will lose interest and click to other sites. With literally hundreds of millions of unique pages of content available to any Web surfer, simply putting a website on the Internet does not guarantee that anyone will visit it or make a purchase. Publicizing the website may require innovative promotional activities. For this reason, many firms pay millions of dollars to advertise their products or websites on high-traffic sites such as Yahoo!. Because of Yahoo!’s growing status as a portal (a multiservice website that serves as a gateway to other websites), firms are eager to link to it and other such sites to help draw attention to their own sites. Indeed,consumers spend most of their time online on portal sites such as MSN and Yahoo!, checking e-mail; tracking stocks; and perusing news, sports, and weather.
Accessibility
An extraordinary amount of information is available on the Internet. The ability to obtain it is referred to as accessibility. Because customers can access indepth information about competing products, prices, reviews, blog opinions, and so forth, they are much better informed about a firm’s products and their relative value than ever before. Someone looking to buy a new pickup truck, for example, can go to the websites of Ford, General Motors, and Toyota to compare the features of the Ford Ranger, the GMC Canyon, and the Toyota Tacoma. The truck buyer also can access online magazines, pricing guides, and consumer review sites to get more specific information about product features, performance, and prices. Accessibility also dramatically increases the competition for Internet users’ attention. Without significant promotion, such as advertising on portals like AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, and other high-traffic sites, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract a visitor’s attention to a particular website. Consequently, e-marketers are having to become more creative and innovative to attract visitors to their sites.
Digitalization.
Digitalization.
Digitalization is the ability to represent a product, or at least some of its benefits, as digital bits of information. Digitalization allows marketers to use the Internet to distribute, promote, and sell those features apart from the physical item itself. FedEx, for example, has developed Web-based software that allows consumers and business customers to track their own packages from starting point to destination. Distributed over the Web at very low cost, the online tracking system adds value to FedEx’s delivery services. Digitalization can be enhanced for users who have broadband access to the Internet because broadband’s faster connections allow streaming audio and video and other new technologies.
In addition to providing distribution efficiencies, digitizing part of a product’s features allows new combinations of features and services to be created quickly and inexpensively. For example, a service station that keeps a customer’s history of automotive oil changes in a database can e-mail that customer when the next oil change is due and at the same time suggest other types of preventive maintenance, such as tire rotations or a tune-up. Digital features are easy to mix and match to meet the demands of individual customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment