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Web General
A Prehistoric History of Marketing
What Is the Internet?
Who Made the Internet?
Marketing on the Internet
What Is the WWW?
What Is Effective Marketing Communication?
Current Internet Statistics— Who's Out There?
A Note on Statistics
Results of the CommerceNet/Nielsen Survey
Consider the Source
Locations of Internet and Online Usage
Hours of Usage
Duration of Usage
Gender Differences
Uses of the Internet
WWW Usage and Demographics
Business Uses
Key Conclusions of the Study
Thirteen Reasons to Put a Business on the World Wide Web
Summary
– 1 –
Marketing on the WWW: A Little Background
Before we leap into developing a Web site, it's important that we look into the different issues that have created the current marketing situation on the Internet. As with many things, in order to look forward, we must first look back.
A Prehistoric History of Marketing
Marketing goes back a very long way—in fact, it probably goes back to the days of the caveman. Here's a little story to illustrate how it might have worked back then.
Zog, a cavewoman, lived in a cave on a particularly bumpy section of a particularly bad pass through some particularly difficult terrain.
As it happens, this pass was a trade route between two budding civilizations. Because this section of the pass was so bumpy, the carts the traders used to carry their wares and produce often lost wheels and broke down right in front of Zog's cave. Zog would watch as the traders made new wheels of stone or wood, but she didn't think much of it.
One day, a cart came by and one of its stone wheels crumbled into dust just in front of Zog's cave. This time, though, the cart's owners obviously had no idea what they were doing. Zog applied the skills she'd learned from watching others, and before long, had made a serviceable wheel, which she traded with the cart's owners for some food.
Zog got an idea. Making wheels was much easier than digging up roots and grubs, and it paid better. Zog began making wheels and storing them in her cave. She knew there was a market for wheels, and every time someone broke down in front of her cave, she'd roll out another wheel and arrange a trade. Zog was in business.
Zog grew wealthy, but she found that running out to tell people she could help them got tiring, so she decided to advertise. Zog carved an enormous stone wheel and placed it in front of her cave so that everyone coming through the pass could see it. It worked, and Zog profited.
Zog identified a market (she saw the need for wheels), developed a plan for meeting the needs of that market (she made the wheels), set up a pricing structure (she traded wheels), and developed a method for communicating to that market through availability advertising (the giant wheel). Our friend Zog has addressed the four Ps of marketing—Place, Product, Price, and Promotion—and has established an effective basic marketing structure.
Of course, nothing is that simple. It wasn't long before another caveman set up shop just across the path from Zog. In Zog's case, she probably would have simply beaten her competition to death (and most business people would like to do the same when confronted by competition), but to make a point, let's say she had to use other means. Zog's competitor also built a giant wheel, and Zog had to paint her wheel red so that it would stand out. Zog began marking her wheels with an X, made little toy wheels with little Xs on them, and did everything she could to make people know "Zog wheel best wheel." She offered guarantees and coupons, set up distributorships, hired salespeople, and on and on.
The point of all this is that while the tools have evolved, and the markets and lines of communication have become more complex, the basics of marketing haven't changed much since Zog. Whether it's via print, radio, direct mail, television, multimedia CD-ROM, or the World Wide Web, "Zog Make Wheel" and "Zog Wheel Best Wheel" are the basic messages of most promotional marketing campaigns.
What Is the Internet?
The Internet (or Net) is a network of computers that share a common communications protocol (TCP/IP), which enables computers of different types to exchange information. It is this cross-platform compatibility that makes the Net so powerful and has caused it to grow at such an exponential rate.
So, what is a network? It's more than just linking things together; it's the way they're linked together. In the case of the Internet, it's the way thousands of computers are linked together. This seems very basic, and people use the term "network" every day, but few people understand the concept.
Imagine you had four computers and that each computer had a line running to each other computer, as in Figure 1.1. Each computer could transfer information to any other computer, but the cables get messy and expensive. It's similar to having a separate telephone for each person you call, rather than having one telephone by which you could call any other.
In Figure 1.2, each computer only connects to one line. This is a network (were there more computers, the "net" aspect would become more apparent). In a network, each computer has access to the information on the line. In order to keep things straight, each computer must be given a name or address.
Imagine that Computer C wants some information from Computer A. Computer C sends a message like "Computer A, send me file xxx12." Although the other computers have access to the request, they ignore it because it's addressed to A. This addressing scheme is called a protocol. The Internet Protocol (the IP in TCP/IP) uses a series of numbers to designate an address. This is called the IP address, and each computer connected to the Net has an IP address.
Who Made the Internet?
Many believe the Internet is a new concept, but it actually originated in the 1960s as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPAnet), funded by the Department of Defense. ARPAnet enabled a global network of government personnel, scientists, and researchers to collaborate and exchange critical information with each other.
The idea was that by sharing research, scientists from different disciplines could avoid reinventing the wheel (no offense to Zog). This is to say that a group working on a new type of rocket engine could, rather than requesting literature via mail or conducting research themselves, simply connect to a different computer and download the information they wanted on, say, ignition switches.
In the 1980s, the National Science Foundation (NSF) gave the ARPAnet a complete upgrade by implementing a more modern, higher-speed network. This upgraded architecture was given the name Internet, which linked government supercomputers, educational institutions, and research facilities. As a whole, the Internet functioned as a broad-based educational and research network.
There were originally four basic functions on the Internet: e-mail, Usenet, Telnet, and file transfer. E-mail is, obviously, electronic mail— direct communication. Usenet is an electronic bulletin board, a public forum where people can post and view messages. Telnet enables a person to actually use another computer (the TCP part of TCP/IP stands for Transfer Command Protocol) for such things as accessing databases. File transfer enables people to send computer files from one system to another.
As it stands now, the Internet is an international network connecting tens of millions of people around the world. Governments, universities, private citizens and, of course, businesses use the Net every day for communication, education, entertainment, and commerce. You'd think that the people originally involved with the Net would have been happy to see it grow so quickly; many weren't.
Note
Loosely defined, a geek is someone who knows about computers— especially if he or she knows more about computers than you do.
You see, up until a few years ago, the environment on the Internet was very elitist. Even after universities began providing students with access, there was an air of separatism amongst the Netters. Of course, nearly everyone involved in the community was a hard-core UNIX geek, and user-friendly was a laughable term, so the Net community remained rather private. However, the Internet was set up as an open, public network. The plan was that by creating an open-ended network, the resources could continue to grow exponentially. This caused some big problems.
You see, the geeks who made use of the Net felt they owned it. They not only used it for professional and educational purposes, but as a social forum. The best example of this is on the Usenet, where thousands of bulletin boards (newsgroups) existed that not only discussed scientific matters, but things like Star Trek and dirty jokes. For many people, the Net was their main form of social interaction, and they were very threatened by the idea that more and more people were joining their private club without any invitation.
Note
Just as a historical note: While the Internet was being built, another global network, known as Fidonet, had also been developed to allow amateurs to network. The framework of this relied upon BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) and private, long distance phone calls to keep information current and available. Everyone involved pretty much saw Fidonet as the bastard child of the Internet, and as the Internet has become available to the masses, Fidonet has faded.
Marketing on the Internet
There is not a long history of using the Internet for marketing purposes— about two years. There were a few enterprising minds who began posting the equivalent of chain letters and "make money fast" pyramid schemes on the Usenet, but it wasn't until 1994 that many people tried to exploit the power of the Net for financial gain.
In April of 1994, a husband and wife legal team posted an advertisement on nearly every one of the 8,000+ Usenet groups that were active at that time. As mentioned earlier, the Net was very much an elitist community at that time, and the action of these two lawyers shook that community to the core.
Again, the Net was seen by many users as a "private club." They didn't want to see cyberspace soiled by the filth of commercialism. In reaction to the posting, the lawyers received death threats, their server was repeatedly sabotaged by hackers, and they were portrayed online and in computer magazines as greedy, slimy parasites (even more so than other lawyers). They also brought in more than $100,000 in business within a few weeks—and suddenly, the business world was looking at the Internet with great interest.
One of the funniest things about the whole question of commercialism on the Internet is that the main argument against what the lawyers did was that they were "wasting bandwidth." Bandwidth is the term used to signify the amount of computer and telecommunications resources available on the Internet. While the lawyer's little advertisement was a rather long sales pitch, it certainly took fewer resources than an ongoing discussion on whether Captain Kirk is cooler than Captain Picard.
By the way, what the lawyers did— posting the same message to many newsgroups—is now called spamming (as in to spam, he spams, she spammed), and it is not something to practice. It's somewhat like putting flyers on every car windshield in a giant parking lot— it's a nuisance. While spamming will certainly get you a lot of attention, it is likely to make you more infamous than famous, and will put you in the crosshairs of some very angry electronic terrorists. Luckily, April of 1994 was also about the time that the World Wide Web became a viable commercial reality.
What Is the WWW?
The core of the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) is a special language and set of protocols for receiving, sending, and displaying information via the Internet. This is called HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol. Contrary to what many people imagine, the Web is not a physical entity. A good analogy might be to think of the Internet as the telephone system, and the WWW as the way in which you use the telephone (dial seven digits, wait for the person to answer, speak, and so on). The Internet is the physical network, and the WWW is one of the ways it is used.
The term "Web" stems from the way in which HTML (HyperText Markup Language, the language of the WWW) works. Hypertext is a system that enables a programmer to make simple text interactive by allowing it to directly refer to something else. For instance, a line of text in an encyclopedia might define the Chesapeake Bay Retriever as "a breed of dog originally from the Chesapeake Bay region of the Eastern United States." The same definition in hypertext might look this way: "a breed of dog originally from the Chesapeake Bay region of the Eastern United States." (See Figure 1.3.)
.
By selecting one of the underlined words, the reader is requesting more information on that subject. Exactly what additional information is given depends on how the hypertext document was designed. A CD-ROM encyclopedia might simply link the underlined text to the definition of the word (Dog: a carnivorous, domesticated animal bred from wolves), or it may link to the complete history of dogs.
Basically, hypertext is a way of presenting information in a simple, interactive, and intuitive manner. It enables people to get the information in their own way, and in the level of detail they require. In doing this, hypertext provides a way to organize large amounts of information and to communicate this information effectively.
The original idea behind the WWW was to take the huge resources of the Internet and provide ways to access as little or as much of it as someone might want. It required the people designing the hypertext "pages" (the files that contained the information) to seek out and provide links to other "pages" for cross-reference. Because of the vastness of the Internet, this is no small task.
To use the same example, the dog part of the previous definition might link out to a computer system at the American Kennel Club, or to a page on the same system as the original page that contains a poem about dogs. Where the link takes the user is up to the author—which is you, dear reader—and this is an issue we address throughout the book. The fact that it can link elsewhere, that you or I or anyone with a computer and a phone line can be reading about a type of dog on a page stored at one computer, click on a word, and suddenly be reading a completely different file from a completely different machine thousands of miles away—that is little short of a miracle.
Now, imagine that you had a page with several links to pages on several different computer systems. If you tried to draw a diagram of the page links on a map, you might draw lines from the computer with the first page, to the computers holding the other pages it is linked to, to the computers holding the other pages they each link to, and on and on. Pretty soon your map would begin to look like a tangled mess of lines coming from one central point (the original page). It looks a little like a spider's web, thus the name World Wide Web.
At first, the Web simply connected text. Although this is itself an incredible feat, it wasn't really enough to make Mr. and Ms. Average American run out and buy a computer, and only the high-tech firms made much use of it for communications. What made the World Wide Web feasible for business communications, and what made it the incredible communications tool that everyone is talking about, is what cave dwellers learned thousands of years before the written word. The giant leap that brought the Internet out of the computer room and into the offices and boardrooms and kitchens of the world was the development of the technology to a point that it could also show graphics (as in Figure 1.4). As any good caveman (or cavewoman) could tell you, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Unlike spamming the Usenet, where your message is copied over and over again and sent to every system on the Net, the WWW works by request. People only receive the information they ask for. While there are still some hard core fanatics who hate the fact that the Internet is now commercialized, there is little they can say when the commercial applications of the Internet take place on a by-request-only basis.
What Is Effective Marketing Communication?
Again, the basic components of marketing are the four Ps: Product (design and development of the product), Price (determining the price), Place (selection and design of distribution channels to reach a market), and Promotion (all aspects of generating or enhancing demand for the product, including, but not limited to, advertising). For the most part, the marketing communications (marcom) we are discussing in relation to the WWW focuses on the fourth P, promotion. However, by use of the WWW, design, development, pricing, and distribution can all be addressed.
Many people think of marketing as simply advertising, and although advertising is a crucial part of marketing, it is only one aspect. We prefer an overall approach. When we speak of marcom, short for marketing communications, we are addressing advertising, publicity, customer service, interoffice communications, and a whole variety of other ways in which information is transferred.
For the purpose of this book, marcom can be defined as "any and all communications that lead to the presentation of goods or services for commercial sale." Putting an ad in the paper is advertising; writing a press release is publicity; visibly contributing to the local zoo is public relations, and keeping in touch with clients is customer relations. All of these things fall under the umbrella of marketing.
Current Internet Statistics— Who's Out There?
Any good marketing campaign needs to address the issue of demographics. Demographics use statistical information to help define a market. These statistics are generally collected via surveys, which are then extrapolated to paint a picture of the entire audience. Before we look into the Internet itself, let's discuss how statistics work in general.
A Note on Statistics
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."—Benjamin Disraeli
We begin this section with our favorite quote on statistics. Our point is not that all statistics are useless; on the contrary, they can contain data that can lead to valuable insights. However, they can be (and have been) skewed in order to promote a certain ideal. Organizations can "put a spin" on statistics in order to paint a picture that is beneficial to them while seemingly keeping the factual integrity of the statistics intact.
"Four out of five dentists use Brand-X!" Wow, Brand-X must be really good, right? Or maybe Brand-X is sent free to dentists, and when asked if they had used the sample, 80 percent of the dentists said yes, they had tried it. The statistic is still "true," but it just doesn't have the same impact if you say "Four out of five dentists used our free sample!" Or how about: "Studies show, no aspirin is stronger than Bitter Aspirin"? Well, the studies show that no aspirin is weaker, either; aspirin is aspirin.
In surveys and tests, the actual data and the way in which that data is presented (the extrapolation) can vary wildly. There is a science to statistics that is based on the idea that by collecting enough data, you can apply that data to the entire population. However, the science and protocols used in statistical studies are open enough to allow for erroneous information.
Imagine you performed a telephone survey in which you asked people whether they put their toilet paper on the roller overhand or underhand. When you were finished, say you had 10,000 responses from across the United States (which is a statistically significant number). Of the 10,000, say 75 percent of the respondents hung their toilet paper overhand. Does this mean that 75 percent of the people in the United States hang their toilet paper that way? No, it doesn't.
What this survey would show is that 75 percent of the type of people who would have taken the time to answer the survey hang their toilet paper that way. See the difference? So there is a big issue concerning the way in which data is collected, as CommerceNet/Nielsen found out.
Results of the CommerceNet/Nielsen Survey
Know your audience—this is the first step in any successful marketing campaign. The results of the CommerceNet/Nielsen Internet Demographics Survey provide the most definitive answers to date about the Internet; it is arguably the most widely used and accepted company for Internet statistics. But before we delve in to those figures, here are a few words of caution.
Consider the Source
One goal of the CommerceNet/Nielsen Internet Demographics Study was to test the validity of results collected via Internet-based questionnaires. CommerceNet and Nielsen hypothesized that there would be a fundamental differences in the results of a survey conducted online versus results collected via telephoning a nationally representative sample. The company also speculated that the results from the Internet-based questionnaire would be skewed by heavy users. The graphs in Figures 1.5-1.7 illustrate a few key comparisons of the results from the two surveys that support these hypotheses.
As these results appear to indicate, studies based on data collected from the Internet alone cannot be used to project to the population as a whole. These examples show that projections from WWW site surveys differ from the results of surveys of the broader users. The WWW site studies, for instance, overstate Internet usage, overestimate the skill level of the Internet users, and downplay the size of the female market for Internet services. The use of such inaccurate information could result in miscalculations in businesses' current use of the Internet and ongoing Internet plans. This is not to say that these WWW-based surveys have no value. It is, however, extremely important to understand the limitations of information gathered from WWW site questionnaires.
So, it is important to keep these issues in mind when viewing statistical information in books and magazines, as well as statistics that are available on the Internet itself. We should also note the obvious question of these statistics' timeliness, which is why we list URLs in the back of this book, in addition to posting updated links to statistical information at our Web site (www.hampton.org). Now, the results.
Locations of Internet and Online Usage
Respondents who had used the Internet in the three months prior to the survey were asked when they had last used it. Those who had used the Internet within the previous 24 hours were then asked to identify the access location.
Sixty-six percent indicated that they had last used the Internet at work.
Forty-four percent had most recently accessed it from home.
Eight percent had most recently used the Internet at school.
Persons who used the Internet in the 24-hour period used an average of 1.2 access locations. Even though a higher percentage of people have access in the home, people use the Internet more frequently and for greater durations at work than at home. (Note that the survey period was in August when presumably most students would be out of class and therefore not using the Internet in the same manner they would during the normal school year.)
Hours of Usage
Overall usage of both the Internet and online services was significant. On average, all persons 16 and older in the United States and Canada who had used the Internet in the previous three months had used it for 5 hours and 28 minutes per week. The average person with online service access (who had ever used it) used the service for an average of 2 hours and 29 minutes per week. To provide a common base for a more direct comparison, the average minutes per week among all persons (in United States and Canada, 16 and older) was calculated. The average for the Internet was 35 minutes per week per person in the United States and Canada and for online services, 24 minutes per week per person. In total, the Internet is receiving 46 percent more usage than online services.
To obtain a better understanding of Internet usage, these results were compared to the viewing of rented videotapes. Although on the surface it appears small, the 35 minutes of Internet usage per week per is similar to the time spent in total viewing rented videotapes.
Duration of Usage
Although persons 16 and older with a direct Internet connection made up only 44 percent of those with access, they accounted for 60 percent of persons who had used the Internet in the three-month period and 73 percent of those who had used it in the 24-hour period. The differences in usage between the Internet and online services may be much more a function of having the meter running on online services than it is content or other issues. (Note that, in this survey, direct Internet access is a connection through an Internet service provider, or via an employer's direct access to the Internet; indirect access is an entry to the Internet via commercial online services.)
Gender Differences
Users of both the Internet and online services are primarily male. Males comprise 66 percent of users of the Internet (see Figure 1.8). In addition, males tend to use the Internet with both greater frequency and duration than females, accounting for approximately 77 percent of the total usage. Males comprise 59 percent of the users of online services and are responsible for 63 percent of the total usage. There is less of a gender skew on online services than there currently is with the Internet.
Uses of the Internet
Those persons who used the Internet in the 24 hours before the survey used it more often to access the WWW than to send e-mail. The percent of Internet users who indicated frequent use of Internet applications other than e-mail during the three-month period studied was also considerable, as shown in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1. Use of Internet applications in 24-hour period.
Use of Internet
Percentage of Users
To access the WWW
72 percent
To send e-mail
65 percent
To download software
31 percent
To participate in an interactive discussion
21 percent
To partake in an non-interactive discussion
36 percent
To use another computer
31 percent
To utilize real-time audio or video
19 percent
WWW Usage and Demographics
Of those individuals 16 years of age or older in United States and Canada who had used the Internet during the three months preceding the survey, 76 percent had at some time used the World Wide Web. This is equivalent to more than 8 percent of total 16+ populations in the United States and Canada having used the WWW.
WWW users are clearly upscale compared with the population as a whole. For example
Twenty-five percent of WWW users earn household incomes of more than $80,000, whereas only 10 percent of the total U.S. and Canadian population has that level of income.
Fifty percent of WWW users consider themselves to be in professional or managerial occupations. In contrast, 27 percent of the total U.S. and Canadian population categorize themselves to have such positions.
Sixty-four percent of WWW users have at least college degrees, while the U.S. and Canadian national level is 29 percent.
Table 1.2 outlines some of these statistics.
Table 1.2. Comparing WWW users to the population of the United States and Canada.
Age
WWW Users
Total Population
16–24
22 percent
18 percent
25–34
30 percent
21 percent
35–44
26 percent
22 percent
45–54
17 percent
16 percent
55 or older
5 percent
21 percent
Education
WWW Users
Total Population
Less than High School
4 percent
11 percent
High School
8 percent
33 percent
Technical School
1 percent
3 percent
Some College
24 percent
24 percent
Completed College
29 percent
17 percent
Some Post Grad
9 percent
3 percent
Post Grad
26 percent
8 percent
Occupation
WWW Users
Total Population
Professional
37 percent
18 percent
Technical
12 percent
6 percent
Admin/Managerial
14 percent
9 percent
Clerical
3 percent
6 percent
Sales
5 percent
5 percent
Service Worker
2 percent
4 percent
Laborer
2 percent
7 percent
Craftsperson
1 percent
3 percent
Homemaker
1 percent
11 percent
Military
2 percent
1 percent
Full-time Student
16 percent
8 percent
Retired/Not Working
2 percent
17 percent
Household Income
WWW Users
Total Population
Under $10K
1 percent
7 percent
$10–19.9K
4 percent
9 percent
$20–29.9K
7 percent
12 percent
$30–39.9K
10 percent
14 percent
$40–49.9K
10 percent
11 percent
$50–59.9K
11 percent
9 percent
$60–69.9K
9 percent
6 percent
$70–79.9K
10 percent
4 percent
$80–89.9K
7 percent
3 percent
$90–99.9K
4 percent
2 percent
$100K or over
14 percent
5 percent
Don't Know/Refuse
14 percent
17 percent
Survey participants were then asked if they had ever used the Web to search for various kinds of information, purchase products, or browse, as Table 1.3 illustrates.
Table 1.3. Percentage of Web users who use the Web in various ways.
Use of Web
Percentage
Search for information on products/services
55 percent
Search for information on companies/organizations
60 percent
Search for other information
73 percent
Purchase products or services
14 percent
Browse or explore
90 percent
Business Uses
Approximately half of all persons 16 and older in the United States and Canada who have used the WWW have done so for business purposes. Table 1.4 presents a breakdown of those business functions.
Table 1.4. Percentage of users who have utilized the Internet for various business functions.
Business Function
WWW Users
Collaborating with others
54 percent
Publishing information
33 percent
Gathering information
77 percent
Researching competitors
46 percent
Selling products or services
13 percent
Purchasing products or services
23 percent
Providing customer service and support
38 percent
Communicating internally
44 percent
Providing vendor support and communications
50 percent
Key Conclusions of the Study
Seventeen percent (37 million) of total persons aged 16 and over in the United States and Canada have access to the Internet.
There is a sizable base of Internet users in the United States and Canada.
24 million Internet users (16 years of age or older)
18 million WWW users (16 years of age or older)
WWW users are a key target for business applications.
They are upscale, professional, and well educated.
Approximately 2.5 million people have made purchases using the WWW.
The Internet is skewed male in terms of both usage and users.
Access through work is an important factor for both the Internet and online services.
Internet users average 5 hours and 28 minutes per week on the Internet.
Total Internet usage exceeds usage of online services and is approximately equivalent to the playback time per person of rented videotapes.
The use of the Internet differs from that of commercial online services.
Internet-based surveys do not represent the population as a whole.
Now you have the most reliable information available about the Internet. This is enough data to convince most businesses that the WWW and Internet represent a viable, high-quality market. Of course, this is only one of many reasons a company may wish to develop an Internet presence. In the following sections, we address a few more.
Thirteen Reasons to Put a Business on the World Wide Web
Having worked on many, many marketing campaigns, we have come to abhor the business evangelists who claim to have narrowed down the entire art and science of conducting business into something like the "Seven Keys to Success." We don't want you to think for a second that this list is anything like that.
What this list represents are some of the very good reasons we've found for doing business on the Internet. However, we loathe the idea that anyone might try to limit themselves and their campaigns to these few items. Simply think of these as a starting-off point.
To establish a presence.
Globally, approximately 50 million people have access to the World Wide Web. Quite simply, there are few businesses that can ignore a market of this size. In the near future, having an e-mail address and Web site will be like having a phone number and business card—crucial to even small companies.
To network.
By linking your pages with those of your networked contacts, you are referring clients back and forth. If, for instance, your product complements, is used within, or uses a product from another manufacturer, a potential client can get a complete package of information with just a few clicks of a mouse.
To provide availability advertising.
There's little doubt that the most used resource directory is the Yellow Pages. Imagine a book of Yellow Pages that covers the globe—all a client would need to do is tell it what he or she was looking for, and it would automatically open to your listing. That's exactly how the WWW works.
Not only can you list basic information (your business expertise, location, hours, how to contact you, methods of payment, and so on), but you can update this information instantly (time-sensitive specials, current interest rates, announcements, and press releases). You can even have an entire catalog, including full-color photographs and graphics, available for instant viewing and ordering.
To augment traditional advertising.
Imagine including a brochure with every business card, piece of letterhead, print or broadcast ad, and even in your telephone's on-hold messages. By including your WWW address, that's exactly what you can do. A WWW address, such as www.hampton.org, is small enough to fit anywhere, yet it provides instant access to your entire sales argument. Furthermore, an instant e-mail response can be built into Web pages to get and give feedback while the questions are still fresh in your customer's mind, without the cost and lack of response of business reply mail.
If you read any of the nation's largest magazines and newspapers, you'll notice more and more WWW addresses printed within advertisements. The reason for this is simple: The WWW allows a much higher degree of communication for the advertising investment—"more bang for the buck."
Customer service.
People wiser than we have often said that it's easier to keep an old customer than to get a new one. Keeping an open line of communication is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. Via the WWW, you can post information, troubleshooting tips, request forms and the like that will enable you to "keep your finger on the pulse" of your customers.
Publicity.
The media is perhaps the most advanced profession today in regard to electronic communication, since their main product is information, and they can get it more quickly, cheaply, and easily online. Because of this, online press kits are becoming more and more common. Most pressrooms have gone digital in the past decade, so it is much easier for them to simply take a press release and photos from a Web site than it would be for them to strip-in hardcopy. The easier you make it for the press, the more likely you are to have your press releases turn to articles in a timely fashion.
To open international markets.
We were recently confronted by an issue where a foreign customs official held a package of print proofs for ransom. If these proofs had been made available on the WWW, this could not have happened. As the United States is discovering, digital information has little respect for international boundary lines. Because of this, markets that may have once been too difficult to approach can now be very profitable.
With a Web site, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company across the street. We'll go so far as to say that you should decide how you want to handle the international business that will come your way before you start a Web site, because it is a good possibility that your online marketing will bring international opportunities—whether it is part of your plan or not. We once posted an ad for an old Jeep on a local Usenet group (not even the Web) and were contacted by people as far away as the Netherlands.
Another added benefit: If your company has offices overseas, it can access (and even add to) the home office's information for the price of a local phone call. So the Internet and Web make possible easier international communications within a company as well.
To test market new services and products.
The advertising costs of rolling out a new service or product can be enormous. Many times, because of the cost of printing and mailing, companies hold off releasing new products until the next generation of their catalog. On the Web, new products and services can be released globally and instantly; updating a Web page to include a new item costs a fraction of what it would to print a new catalog. The Internet's two-way communication also enables you to receive immediate feedback from your markets.
To reach a highly desirable demographic market.
The demographic of the WWW user is probably the highest mass-market demographic available. College educated, high income, credit card holders (most ISPs require credit card deposits)—it's no wonder that magazines that deal with the Internet and WWW are easily able to get high-revenue ads on a regular basis.
To reach the specialized market.
Thinking of selling nude photos of George Bush? With millions of Internet users, even the most narrowly defined interest group will be represented. And, because of the search capabilities of the WWW, your potential customers will be able to find you.
To provide 24-hour, 7-day accessibility.
A FAX may come in from Tokyo at 2:00 in the morning. By the time someone comes in to open the office, the sale is lost. By accessing your WWW system, however, the same potential client could have surveyed your brochure and placed an order—for less than it cost to send the FAX.
To save money.
Say your company prints 10,000 copies of a brochure. You send 2,000 out via the mail, give 2,000 to the sales staff, and put 6,000 in a warehouse for later use. Over the next few months, you add new products/services, or you move offices, or you add partners. You now have thousands of outdated brochures.
One of the main reasons that so many of the largest corporations in the world have rushed to the WWW is to try to contain print and print-storage costs.
To sell.
Obviously, sales is the most important part of any business—so why didn't we make this the first item on the list? Because a good businessperson will have seen that all of the other points listed add up to increased sales. The WWW is perhaps the most powerful marketing tool ever devised, but it is only a tool. Even the most perfect promotional system can't make up for a poor product or service, inept staff, or any of the hundreds of intangible stumbling blocks that lie in the way of successful sales. However, with the powerful communication tools and enormous market available in Internet marketing, there's far less of a gamble.
The fact is that clients can find you; review your information in text, pictures, and even sound and video; contact your sales staff; and place an order from their own desks within a matter of minutes, 24-hours a day. No other form of business communication provides this degree of sales support.
SkippingAhead
OK, Mr. or Ms. Smartypants, so you think you're above all this basic stuff? Well, you may be right. While we have designed this book with the idea that it will be useful to everyone, we understand that you may be at a different stage of the game.
The best advice we can give on this point is to read what you have time for. If you're already staring down the throat of a deadline, for example, you may not have time to read anything but the Quick and Dirty Guides. If, on the other hand, you're trying to get a solid understanding of this medium, and you've got the time, you'll want to cover every chapter.
What we're trying to say is that you should feel free to skip ahead, but understand that you'll be missing quite a bit more than just some basic overview if you decide to do so.
Quick and Dirty Guide: The Quick and Easy Way to Get You Up and Running
First of all, we should admit that the nature of this book suffers a kind of identity crisis. On the one hand, there are no quick and easy ways to set up effective marketing campaigns. On the other hand, we know there are times when the priority is not the best campaign but any campaign. So, this book is designed to help overcome the same crisis we often face as marketing professionals—you want it good, or you want it fast?
By following the Quick and Dirty Guides in each chapter, you can meet your deadline. You can then come back to read the full chapter, taking the time to ponder every detail when you're not sweating bullets at 3 a.m. Unfortunately, there are not always easy options, many steps have no quick fix substitutes; in these cases we offer guides to efficiency.
Summary
In this chapter, we've scratched the surface of marketing and discussed the evolution of the Internet as a medium for marketing communications. We've also discussed some of the key points that make the World Wide Web such an excellent marketing tool. Now that we have a general idea of how marketing can be applied to the Net, we can begin narrowing things down. In the following chapter, we explore some of the possibilities of WWW communications begin planning a Web site.
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