The Advent of the Internet - Term Paper Example

E-MARKETIMNG HOW TO ADVERTISE IN THE INTERNET by Presented to (Due Contents Introduction 3 Credibility is the keyword in internet advertising 4 Advertising dog food 5 How to tap the unlimited market reach of internet 7 How should an ideal internet advertisement look like 8 Conclusion 9 References 11 Introduction The advent of internet has opened a new vista in marketing world as now we can communicate anything anywhere almost instantaneously. This will categorize the entire audience into subgroups having specific interests and preferences thus making it ever so easy to target each audience in a way that works best for that sub-group. Thus before any large investment is to be made in any advertising campaign; detailed research, threadbare planning and extensive pilot projects need to be run and re-run to ensure that the targeted audience is hit with the exact content that has the highest possibility of successful conversion of an enquiry or expression of interest into a sale. Now audiences will not be defined or described by geographical boundaries but increasingly by content requirement, with of course due adjustments that are absolutely necessary to take care of deep seated religious and regional sensitivities (Toffler, 1980). In e-business the consumer cannot touch or feel the product and neither can he look into the eyes of the salesman while making a purchase and the only medium of interaction between the seller and the buyer is the seller’s website. So, the seller must be very particular about creating an attractive website – one that does not dazzle the visitor but generates trust and speaks a language that the visitor can easily comprehend – and ensure that it is hosted in servers that provide easy and immediate connectivity as it has been found by an elaborate study (Szymanski & Hise, 2000) that convenience and site design are the two major factors that determine customer satisfaction and loyalty. Credibility is the keyword in internet advertising Internet is a quicksand where many businesses have died even before they could spread their wings. The basic reason for high rates of business mortality is the virtual nature of the entire medium. Here, the buyer never comes face to face with the seller and has to depend only on what the latter claims and there is always a lurking doubt whether the seller would be around in case of some future product related complaints or after sales service. Hence, the first and foremost criterion in setting up a worthwhile e-business is to generate credibility and respect in this virtual marketplace that spreads seamlessly across the entire globe. The name and logo of one’s company must be inextricable intertwined with authority and value. This is absolutely vital for any type of product that one might wish to advertise since mere placement of advertisement in one’s website does not in any generate sale. A visitor will be inclined to seriously consider browsing through the advertisements or clicking on any one or all of them only when the website has some semblance of respectability or authority and the visitor also thinks it to have those attributes. So, for this, the website should have some intrinsic value that will prompt the visitor to come to that location. This is almost similar to any brick and mortar business. Suppose one has the best of commodities lined in one’s shop and it has one of the best window displays in town. Still, prospective customers might not line up at the store to make their purchases if they feel that the shop owner is not a reliable person. In such situations, even a discount or some other attractive offer might boomerang as prospective customers might consider it as some sort of a trap to ensnare them rather than an incentive to make a purchase. So, in the final analysis, it is the credibility that counts heavily in the success or otherwise of a trading enterprise. What is true in real world is invariably true in virtual world also. In fact, it has an even greater significance in virtual world as the only interface among the buyer and the seller is the website and the medium of interactivity the internet where true identities and locations can never be identified unless the transacting parties wish to do so. There also the issue of credibility persists as there is no iron clad assurance that information regarding identity and location exchanged between the buyer and the seller are genuine and authentic. Therefore, the website a seller puts up must contain genuine, authentic and relevant information that a visitor might be interested in because it is the relevance of information that initially prompts a visitor to step into the website. Advertising dog food Let us consider a specific product, say, dog food. Now the question arises as to how an advertiser will make the advertisement visible to prospective customers that browse the internet. Moreover, the marketer must also have in place a proper marketing plan that achieves complete customer satisfaction that not only generates brand loyalty but also ensures increasing consumer base and numerous repeat purchases. Such a marketing plan consists of what is popularly referred to as 4P’s: Product It deals with actual specifications of the product and ensures that the final output satisfies certain specific needs of prospective customers. Warranties, guarantees and after sales service are usually considered inseparable from the actual product. Pricing It should be such that the prospective customers are able to buy optimum quantities that satisfy their demand while the manufacturer is able to earn sufficient revenue necessary to maintain a decent rate of growth. The price discussed here is the ultimate revenue per unit sold that reaches the producer. In case of internet marketing, easy to access methods of secure payment should be in-built in the design of sellers’ websites. Place This refers to the channel of distribution that the producer opts for placing his products at point of sale. It includes the geographic spread and the specific market segment that is targeted and also the environment in which the sale is actually taking place. In case of internet, there is no limit to the geographic spread and through intelligent placement of advertisements; focus can be firmly fixed on the intended group of customers. Promotion This includes various forms of promotion and obviously includes advertising, sales promotion and all other tools of marketing right up to personal selling that aim at building up the brand. In case of internet, it is the website that substitutes human salesmen in the real world. Thus the website needs to be very appropriate with ample scope of interaction between prospective buyers and sellers. So, marketing essentially begins by identifying the needs of the consumer, preparing a product that satisfies it and ensuring that the product is delivered to the customer at a convenient location and at an affordable price. If a company can continue doing this consistently over a reasonable period of time, the brand becomes a mainstay of the reputation of the manufacturer (Olins, 2001). How to tap the unlimited market reach of internet In real world, a seller can affect a sale only when a prospective customer steps inside their shop but an internet seller has the benefit of approaching even those customers that have not visited the seller’s website. This is possible through the unique concept of “adsense” promoted by Google. This enables a seller to advertise their product all over the internet at a negligible cost. Let us continue with our example of dog food. The first thing, of course, is to set up a content rich and attractive website that deals in dog food. Google wants to tie up with websites that attract traffic by virtue of their rich content and high levels of credibility. In order to be a part of this team you need to sign up with adsense and put up your website for review by Google. The signing up is absolutely free. At this stage one should be informed that Google takes note of how many sites that deal with dog food or dog care products or anything that is connected with keeping a dog as a pet are linked to you and the larger the number of such linkages, the greater is the possibility of Google considering your site as an important one for all those that are searching for dog food or dog related products and services on the web. Hence, it would like to offer your site to all those that are searching for dog food and dog related products and you start rising steadily in Google page rankings that automatically generate lots of traffic in your website. Thus the hardest task of letting surfers know that your website exists and contains a lot of relevant information can be overcome in this way and you start getting noticed by more and more net surfers. But how do you get those all important linkages? Well, one simple option would be to offer exchange linkages to other related websites. However, no amount of linkages would help in advertising your product if the advertisement itself is drab and dull and visitors are loath to click on it (Comm, 2006). How should an ideal internet advertisement look like The ground rule is that an advertisement should not be apparent as an advertisement. This statement might sound like a contradiction in terms since how could an advertisement be anything other than an advertisement. Well, there is no doubt that an advertisement should be an advertisement but the keyword in this instance is that it should not ‘look’ like an advertisement. People have a natural tendency to avoid advertisements as they feel those to be ploys of marketers to try to sell something to unwary customers. So, your advertisements should not look like advertisements either in the form of screeching banners or irritating pop-ups and should never be placed in remote corners or at the bottom of the webpage since only a few visitors actually do reach the bottom of a webpage, especially if it happens to be long one. If one places their advertisements at these locations, most certainly they would rather be ignored than clicked upon. At the top of the webpage, a leader board might work perfectly rather than a banner or a half banner, especially, a half banner as it leaves gawking space on either side making it apparent that the space has been earmarked for advertisement thus prompting many visitors to intentionally overlook it. That of course does not mean that banners should never be used. They can and should very well be used but they should have no borders that make them apparent as advertisements and instead be surrounded by text thus making them look like an integral part of the text on the webpage. This should lend the much needed credibility to an advertisement and encourage visitors to click on those (Li & Leckenby, 2007). Google also offers other different sizes of advertisements like buttons, skyscrapers, rectangles and squares of different sizes (Google AdSense, 2010). But whatever may be the size that is chosen the keyword is credibility. However, at times, depending on the text and tenor of the website (which in this case happens to be dog food), aggressive placement of advertisements regarding other dog products and accessories or services of a veterinary doctor or hospital right at the top of the page that forces the visitor to look at those before they can scroll down to the real content, might also work as the potential customer of dog food will quite naturally also be interested in these products and services. The marketer should try out everything that is available and could after a few hits and misses settle for a combination that results in maximum number of clicks. Conclusion Internet surely is a universe without boundary and possibly without much policing and monitoring too. This creates a unique scenario where a marketer has unlimited freedom in hawking his wares in this gargantuan marketplace but also has contend with no holds barred competition from all sorts of rivals some of whom might not be squeaking clean or completely ethical. As it is nearly impossible to weed out such nefarious elements while competing tooth and nail with other legitimate competitors, it becomes extremely important that advertisements are effectively placed in the internet so that they provide a constant stream of potential customers. Advertisements cannot stand alone and must be surrounded by relevant context that will initially attract potential customers to relevant websites. So, the content of websites must be informative and the site should also have sufficient backlinks that will ensure flow of traffic that have originally to gone to some other website. Placement and format of advertisements are also crucial as any screeching advertisement would repel customers rather than attracting them and any advertisement placed in an obscure corner of the webpage will, in all probabilities, fail to attract attention of potential customers. Hence, it is a virtual tightrope walking by all those marketers that opt for internet as one of their primary advertising mediums. References Comm, Joel. (2006). The Adsense Code: What Google never told you about making money with Adsense. Garden City, New York: Morgan James Publishing, LLC. Google AdSense (2010). "Google AdSense Ad Formats." Google AdSense. 2010. https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/AdFormats.html?sourceid=asos&subid=ww-ww-et-HC_entry&medium=link (accessed November 14, 2010). Li, Hairong, & Leckenby, J.D. (2007).. "Examining the Effectiveness of Internet Advertising Formats." In Internet Advertising: Theory and Research, by David W. Schumann and Esther Thorson (Eds.), 203-224. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2007. Olins, W. (2001). "How Brands are Taking over the Corporation." In The Expressive Organisation, by M Schultz, M Hatch and M Larsen. Oxford University Press, 2001. Szymanski, D. & Hise, R. (2000). "e-Satisfaction: An Initial Examination." Journal of Retailing, 76(3), 2000: 309-323. Toffler, A. (1980). The Thord Wave. New York: Morrow, 1980. Read More