Internet Marketing 101
October 16, 1996
Philadelphia Chapter of the American Marketing Association
Internet Marketing 101:
Increasing Your Company's Marketing Power Through The World Wide Web
Twelve Caesars, Philadelphia,
October 16, 1996
Copyright © 1996–2024 by Laura Fillmore; written permission required to reprint.
laura@obs.com
I. Internet: What Is It?
- Internet: What It Is Not
- Not a phone company
- Not a hardware or software company
- Not a country
- Internet: What It Is
- A distributed system of internetworked computers
- An interoperable, nonproprietary system
- A largely unregulated, global communications system
- A multimedia, recorded, and basically infinite environment
- An information space increasing exponentially in size and complexity
- Updateable constantly by site "authors" and users
- Getting cheaper and more ubiquitous all the time
- Web-ready TVs in 1997
- Internet services being provided by phone companies, ISPs, utility companies such as General Electric
- Inexpensive video cameras make whole world life online
- Global Marketplace is just beginning to open its doors: OBS Store sales increasing. According to "Wall Street Journal", Online retailers sold $ 350 million in 1995; Forrester Research predicts that computer product sales alone will grow to $ 2.1 billion by 2000, followed by travel (predicted to be at $ 1.5 billion by 2000.
II. When to Use It?
- Now. Be there and be ready.
- Surf yourself; You can't hire someone to learn the Web for you
- Use the Web at home and at work.
- It's an open, imitative world; use it.
- Supplement wide area networking with "Intranetting"
- Synergy is key: Build a web site onto existing marketing programs
- Offer incentives to visit the web site
- Add value to the Web by adding content in its context
- Market effectively today, and you may discover your company's business of tomorrow.
III. Where's the Value ?
- Show rather than Tell about your products and services
- Mirror Tricks: Use the Web's front door to vast global markets
- Publish in multiple languages like BASF and Ciba Geigy to expand your market
- Your company never closes
- Offer multimedia, custom access to your company's products and services
- "Web-ify" current marketing projects
- Customers leave a recorded "thoughtpath" behind them; use it.
- Intranets make all offices into the Home Office
IV. Who Will Do the Work ?
- Use the Web to find contractors and to develop internal skills.
- Concept / Design planning : The hardest part. No one knows your company better than you.
- Implementation: HTML coding, CGI scripting, Java!, database coding. Find what works on the net and imitate it.
- Maintenance of site: editor, writer, graphics, designer, production person, computer programmers, Webmaster
- Suppliers should train you: Effective Web sites do not come in a box
- Build Templates
- Multi-tiered production sites you can control and update
- Build for function and use rather than "reading"
- Siting a Server:
- Buy your own server versus web hosting.
- BBN
- UUNet
- Advantages of ISPs: they offer reliability 24 hours a day
- Repurpose current human resources: In other words, YOU do the work ;-).
- Incremental model
- You know your business best
- Involve in-house people
- Cultivate your Intranet; All use the same software
- Construct the server into tiers with priviledges for posting
V. What's the Cost ?
- Barrier of entry very low; people can control sites through dialups
- $ 20 per month per person
- Dedicated ISPs Internet costs dropping all the time
- Server hosting ranges from $ 10/month for a site to $ 3000/month
- Reckon with the ongoing costs
- People costs
- Maintaining info updates
- Developing and monitoring users on site with forums, chats, feedback or learning loops
VI.Tips for Leveraging Marketing Campaigns with Web Opportunities:
Make the Competition Work for You on the Web
VII. Setting Attainable Goals in an Infinite Medium
- Set up self-perpetuating systems and record results
- Internet project management systems to share responsibility
- Annotated Link editing system
- Use the server as a work space
- Tie in current marketing efforts with web efforts
- direct mail and advertising
- corporate information and history pieces
- mailing lists: using email as a way to tie people to the site
- Build for interactivity: example
- Show rather than tell about your company: www.rodalepress.com
as example of a problem- and user-oriented site. Their least emphasis is on
selling the hard copies of books!
- www.Ravensburger.de:
Their site makes a game out of their home page.
- www.Lilly.com: tests and games teach us about drugs.
- www.eat.com, the Web-site of Ragu Inc. teaches us about Italy
- Sandoz gives users an introduction into the vast universe of molecules
- Publish a subject area, not just a product line. Expand; Don't retrofit. For example, Roxane Pharma posts lectures and slide shows on paine management of The Roxane Paine Institute
- Build your traffic and mailing lists
- Think modular and build for scalability and change:
- Focus on issues of navigation and organization, rather than how *much* information to post
- Design for short attention spans and custom delivery
- Successful Web Marketing: "Keep moving with an open mind."
Copyright © 1996–2024 by Laura Fillmore; written permission required to reprint.
laura@obs.com
