Internet Marketing - 8.34MB
Introduction
The Internet – opportunity and threatThe Internet represents a tremendous opportunity. For customers, it gives a much wider choice of products, services and prices from different suppliers and the means to select and purchase items more readily. For organisations marketing these products and services it gives the opportunity to expand into new markets, offer new services and compete on a more equal footing with larger businesses. For those working within these organisations it gives the opportunity to develop new skills and to use the Internet to improve the competitiveness of the company. At the same time, the Internet gives rise to many threats to organisations. For example, start-up companies such as Amazon (books) (www.amazon.com), Expedia (travel) (www.expedia.com), AutoByTel (cars) (www.autobytel.com) and CDWOW (CDs)(www.cdwow.com) have captured a significant part of their market and struck fear into the existing players. Indeed the phrase ‘amazoning a market sector’ has become an often-used expression among marketers.
The Internet – management issues
With the success stories of companies capturing market share together with the rapidly increasing adoption of the Internet by consumers and business buyers has come a fastgrowing
realisation that all organisations must have an effective Internet presence to prosper, or possibly even survive! Michael Porter has said:
The key question is not whether to deploy Internet technology – companies have no choice if they want to stay competitive – but how to deploy it. What are these challenges of deploying Internet and digital technology? Figure 1 gives an indication of the marketing activities that need to be managed effectively which are covered in this book.
The figure shows the range of different marketing activities or operating processes needed to support acquiring new customers through communicating with them on third-party web sites, attracting them to a company web site, converting them to sale and then using online media to encourage further sales. Applying the Internet as part of multi-channel marketing to support customer journeys through different media is also a major theme throughout this text. Management processes related to Internet marketing include planning how Internet marketing can be best resourced to contribute to the organisation and integrate with other marketing activities. The increased adoption of Internet marketing also implies a significant programme of change that needs to be managed. New forms of objectives need to be set, new communications strategies developed and staff developed through new responsibilities and skills.
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