customer perception towards internet marketing
TRANSCRIPT
I
A Major Project Report on
CUSTOMER PERCEPTION TOWARDS
INTERNET MARKETING
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of
the degree of Bachelor of Business Administration (B&I) programme
of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.
Submitted To: Submitted by:
Mr. Barun Kumar Jha Chitra Dwivedy
05812201810
Delhi College of Advanced Studies
B-7, Shanker Garden, Vikaspuri
New Delhi – 110018
Batch (2010-2013)
II
DECLARATION
I, hereby declare that this Major Project Report, entitled “Customer Perception
Towards Internet Marketing”, is an authentic work carried out by me. It has not been
submitted earlier for award of any degree or diploma to any institute or university.
Place: New Delhi Candidate’s signature
Date: Name: Chitra Dwivedy
Enroll. No.: 05812201810
Countersigned
Name: Mr. Barun Kumar Jha
Supervisor
Delhi College of Advanced Studies
III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is my pleasure to be indebted to various people, who directly or indirectly
contributed in the development of this work and who influenced my thinking,
behavior and acts during the course of study.
I express my sincere gratitude to Prof. (Dr.) M.S. Chaudhary the worthy Director of
Delhi College of Advanced Studies, for providing me an opportunity to undergo
summer training of doing this project under his leadership.
I also extend my sincere indebtedness to Mr. Barun Kumar Jha who provided his
valuable suggestion and precious time in accomplishing my project.
I also take the opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to each and every person,
who directly or indirectly helped me throughout the project and without anyone of
them this project would not have been possible.
The immense learning from this project would be indelible forever.
Chitra Dwivedy
IV
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Internet and Information technology have made tremendous contributions for business
transformation witnessed nowadays all over the world. This has given birth to E
commerce which encompasses several pre-purchase and post-purchase activities
leading to exchange of products or service or information over electronic systems
such as the internet and the other Telecommunication networks. Analyzing the
competitive advantage of E-Commerce it is observed that E-Commerce enables
simpler, faster and efficient business transactions. For developing country like India,
E-Commerce offer considerable opportunity for growth. E-commerce leads to a boon
for the current economic downturn. As India‘s e-commerce market is worth about Rs
50,000 crores in 2012. About 80% of this is travel related (airline tickets, railway
tickets, hotel bookings, online mobile recharge etc.).Online retailing comprises about
15%. India has close to 10 million online shoppers and is growing at an estimated 40-
45% per annum. The rapid growth of e-commerce in India is being driven by greater
customer choice and improved convenience.
The project will first study the perception of customers towards internet marketing,
also determining the factors which influence the consumer to purchase goods and
service. The second half of the project will depict the attributes of online shopping
influencing the purchase decision by the respondent. It will also determine the issues
regarding the online shopping which includes the various limitations of the project.
The third part of the project determines the purchase decision with respect to grocery.
It will determine the place preference of grocery shopping with respect to price,
quality, variety, proximity and offers/ discounts.
V
Internet is changing the way consumers shop and buy goods and services, and has
rapidly evolved into a global phenomenon. Many companies have started using the
Internet with the aim of cutting marketing costs, thereby reducing the price of their
products and services in order to stay ahead in highly competitive markets.
Companies also use the Internet to convey communicates and disseminate
information, to sell the product, to take feedback and also to conduct satisfaction
surveys with customers. Customers use the Internet not only to buy the product
online, but also to compare prices, product features and after sale service facilities the
will receive if they purchase the product from a particular store. Many experts are
optimistic about the prospect of online business.
The Indian economy is slated to grow by upward of 6 % annually in the next few
years which is among the highest rates of any big emerging economy. And quite a lot
of this growth would be on the back of domestic consumption of goods and services.
VI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.no. Topic Page No
1 Declaration I
2 Acknowledgement Ii
3 Executive Summary Iii-Iv
4 List of Tables Vii
5 List of Figures Viii
6 Chapter-1: Introduction
Overview of Industry as a whole
Objectives of the study
Scope of the study
Methodology
1-15
1
6
7
8
7 Chapter-2: Conceptual Framework
Internet marketing
Objectives of internet advertising
Features of internet advertising
Types of internet advertising
The key benefits of internet marketing
Benefits of internet marketing for the
customers
10-45
10
19
20
22
26
29
VII
Benefits of internet marketing for the
business
Top 10 internet marketing strategies
7P’s of internet marketing
Understanding the internet customers
Using the 7 P’s in your internet marketing
plan
Internet marketing VS Traditional
marketing
Critical success factors in e-marketing
31
33
34
37
38
41
43
8 Chapter-3: Data Analysis and interpretation
44-57
9 Chapter-4: Summary and Conclusion
Results of the study
Limitations
Suggestions and Recommendations
58-66
58
61
62
10 Bibliography -
11 Appendix -
VIII
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure No Title Page No.
1 Figure 1: Shows The perception of customer to purchase a product in future
45
2 Figure 2: depicting the quality of products available
over the internet
46
3 Figure 3: depicting how much people surf over the internet 47
4 Figure 4 : depicting the source of medium for the awareness about products other than internet
48
5 Figure 5: depicting the satisfaction of information provided over the internet 49
6 Figure 6: Depicting the features which attract the
customers over online advertisement
50
7 Figure 7: depicting the type of products searched 51
IX
over internet
8 Figure 8: depicting adequate information provided
about the products by the company
52
9 Figure 9: depicting what all internet marketing
constitutes off
53
10 Figure 10 : Depicting whether internet marketing is
more effective tool then traditional marketing
54
11 Figure 11: Depicts internet marketing's reliability 55
12 Figure 12: depicts about the success factors of
internet marketing
56
CHAPTER –I:
INTRODUCTION
Overview of Industry as a whole
Internet and Information technology have made tremendous contributions for business
transformation witnessed nowadays all over the world. This has given birth to E
commerce which encompasses several pre-purchase and post-purchase activities
leading to exchange of products or service or information over electronic systems
such as the internet and the other Telecommunication networks. Analyzing the
competitive advantage of E-Commerce it is observed that E-Commerce enables
simpler, faster and efficient business transactions. For developing country like India,
X
E-Commerce offer considerable opportunity for growth. E-commerce leads to a boon
for the current economic downturn. As India‘s e-commerce market is worth about Rs
50,000 crores in 2012. About 80% of this is travel related (airline tickets, railway
tickets, hotel bookings, online mobile recharge etc.).Online retailing comprises about
15%. India has close to 10 million online shoppers and is growing at an estimated 40-
45% per annum. The rapid growth of e-commerce in India is being driven by greater
customer choice and improved convenience. The project will first study the
perception of customers towards internet marketing, also determining the factors
which influence the consumer to purchase goods and service. The second half of the
project will depict the attributes of online shopping influencing the purchase decision
by the respondent. It will also determine the issues regarding the online shopping
which includes the various limitations of the project. The third part of the project
determines the purchase decision with respect to grocery. It will determine the place
preference of grocery shopping with respect to price, quality, variety, proximity and
offers/ discounts. Internet is changing the way consumers shop and buy goods and
services, and has rapidly evolved into a global phenomenon. Many companies have
started using the Internet with the aim of cutting marketing costs, thereby reducing the
price of their products and services in order to stay ahead in highly competitive
markets. Companies also use the Internet to convey communicates and disseminate
information, to sell the product, to take feedback and also to conduct satisfaction
surveys with customers. Customers use the Internet not only to buy the product
online, but also to compare prices, product features and after sale service facilities the
will receive if they purchase the product from a particular store. Many experts are
optimistic about the prospect of online business. Internet is changing the way
consumers shop and buy goods and services, and has rapidly evolved into a global
XI
phenomenon. Many companies have started using the Internet with the aim of cutting
marketing costs, thereby reducing the price of their products and services in order to
stay ahead in highly competitive markets. Companies also use the Internet to convey
communicates and disseminate information, to sell the product, to take feedback and
also to conduct satisfaction surveys with customers. Customers use the Internet not
only to buy the product online, but also to compare prices, product features and after
sale service facilities the will receive if they purchase the product from a particular
store. Many experts are optimistic about the prospect of online business. In addition to
the tremendous potential of the E-commerce market, the Internet provides a unique
opportunity for companies to more efficiently reach existing and potential customers.
Although most of the revenue of online transactions comes from business-to-business
commerce, the practitioners of business-to-consumer commerce should not lose
confidence. It has been more than a decade since business-to-consumer E-commerce
first evolved. Scholars and practitioners of electronic commerce constantly strive to
gain an improved insight into consumer behavior in cyberspace. Along with the
development of E-retailing, researchers continue to explain E-consumers behavior
from different perspectives. Many of their studies have posited new emergent factors
or assumptions which are based on the traditional models of consumer behavior, and
then examine their validity in the Internet context.
The Indian economy is slated to grow by upward of 6 % annually in the next few
years which is among the highest rates of any big emerging economy. And quite a lot
of this growth would be on the back of domestic consumption of goods and services.
E-commerce is emerging as a great level given that organized retail is still not
ubiquitous across the length and breadth of the country with large retail chains
making up less than 10%of the market. E-commerce is helping people in smaller
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towns in India access quality products and services similar to what people in the
larger cities have access to. It‘s being forecast that close to 60%of online shoppers
would come from beyond the top eight large cities by end of this year. Increasing
internet penetration has helped to expand the potential customer pool. Internet
penetration is only about 10% (or about 121 million users) as against about 81% in
the US and 36% in China. However this number continues to rise at a consistent pace
because of falling prices for broadband connections. Indians are also increasingly
taking to mobile devices for not only search but shopping as well. The number of
smart phone users is rapidly increasing in India and with 4G services about to take off
it‘s expected to get even more people going online. There are currently about 900
million mobile subscribers and this number is expected to touch 1.2 billion by2015.
Of these about 27 million are estimated to be active mobile internet users. More
importantly, 20% users indicated intent to buy products through their mobile phones
as against the current 4% and this number is expected to only increase in the next two
to three years. Innovation is helping e-commerce companies break the inertia for
online shopping by offering benefits to customers not traditionally available in a brick
and mortar store. Business models include no question asked return policies ranging
from 7 days to 30 days, 15
16. Free product deliveries and the industry dynamics changing ―cash on delivery‖
model. The last innovation has really help unlock the potential as people can now
order products and pay when they get physical delivery of the product. This has been
a tremendous success because Indians are still reluctant to give their credit/debit card
details online and want to have the psychological comfort that they would actually get
the product once payment has been made. These innovations have led to further
innovations downstream as ancillary businesses are developing to support these
XIII
initiatives. Some companies have begun to develop support mechanisms for the entire
cash on delivery model and are trying to reach the far flung corners of India,
including in the interiors where traditional logistics companies are still not completely
present. The logistics companies are also shoring up their act and have started to build
specific verticals and expertise to address the requirements of e-commerce companies.
Divyan Gupta is the Founder and CEO of Keshiha Services Pvt. Ltd, a company with
interests in the internet, telecom, healthcare, education and advanced technology
businesses has stated that, acceptance of online shopping as a secure shopping mode
is has also helped to increase e-commerce uptake. Currently only about 10 million
people do online transactions out of an approximate population of 200 million credit
and debit card holders. However the latest industry report by First Data Corporation
and ICICI Merchant Services indicate that there are about 150million users that are
‗ready‘for e-commerce. More importantly the report indicates that urban Indian
consumers are now confident enough to make online purchases of up to US$500 as
against US$40-100 in the recent past. So not only are the numbers of online shoppers
projected to increase but there has been areal increase in the total value being spent
online.
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Objectives of the study
To determine whether internet marketing will be beneficial and on what
factors.
To determine the parameters for choosing the particular seller for purchase of
any product
To identify the issues faced by the user while marketing through internet.
To study the attitude of customers towards internet marketing
To find out the preferences of the customers regarding the attributes of
shopping over the internet.
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Scope of the Study
To determine which factor influences the consumer to go for online
shopping.
To find out which feature of the website attracts the user to purchase the
product from the online shopping website.
To find out the whether grocery online shopping is beneficial for the user.
To analyze which factors influence the user to buy online grocery
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Research Methodology
The sources of data used in this project report are both primary and secondary data.
Primary data Primary data consists of original information gathered from
sample size of 200 respondents residing in Mumbai, India. 2.
Secondary data Secondary data consists of information that already exists
and that was collected in the past for some other purposes.
Sample Design:
Size of Sample: The sample size selected for the research is 50 in the area of Delhi
Parameters of Interests: The major parameter of interest is the subgroup of people
who are working professional as well as students and web savvy having an experience
in online shopping.
The two other subsidiary parameters of interest are:
o The respondent should also have an experience shopping.
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o The female respondent who have an online shopping experience.
Sampling Technique:
Random sampling : is the purest form of probability sampling. Each member of the
population has an equal and known chance of being selected. When there are very
large populations, it is often difficult or impossible to identify every member of the
population, so the pool of available subjects becomes biased.
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CHAPTER –II:
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Internet marketing
E-marketing refers to the use of the Internet and digital media capabilities to help sell
your products or services. These digital technologies are a valuable addition to
traditional marketing approaches regardless of the size and type of your business. E-
marketing is also referred to as Internet marketing (I-marketing), online marketing or
web-marketing. As with conventional marketing, e-marketing is creating a strategy
that helps businesses deliver the right messages and product/services to the right
audience. It consists of all activities and processes with the purpose of finding,
attracting, winning and retaining customers. What has changed is its wider scope and
options compared to conventional marketing methods.
E-marketing is deemed to be broad in scope, because it not only refers to marketing
and promotions over the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and
wireless media. E-marketing also embraces the management of digital customer data
and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) and several other business
management functions.
E-marketing joins creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design,
development, advertising and sales. It includes the use of a website in combination
with online promotional techniques such as search engine marketing (SEM), social
medial marketing, interactive online ads, online directories, e-mail marketing, affiliate
marketing, viral marketing and so on. The digital technologies used as delivery and
communication mediums within the scope of e-marketing include:
Internet media such as websites and e-mail
Digital media such as wireless, mobile, cable and satellite.
XIX
Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing efforts
that use the Web and e-mail to drive direct sales via e-commerce as well as sales leads
from Web sites or emails. Internet marketing and online advertising efforts are
typically used in conjunction with traditional types of advertising like radio,
television, newspapers and magazines. Marketing efforts done solely over the
internet. This type of marketing uses various online advertisements
to drive traffic toan advertiser's website. Banner advertisements, pay per click (PPC),
and targeted email lists are often methods used in Internet marketing to bring the
most value to the advertiser. Internet marketing is a growing business mainly because
more and more people use the internet every day. Popular search engines such as
Google and Yahoo have been able to capitalize on this new wave of advertising.
Online Marketing is the art and science of selling products and/or services over digital
networks, such as the Internet and cellular phone networks.
The art of online marketing involves finding the right online marketing mix of
strategies that appeals to your target market and will actually translate into sales.
The science of online marketing is the research and analysis that goes into both
choosing the online marketing strategies to use and measuring the success of those
online marketing strategies.
Types of online marketing include:
Ecommerce
Online Advertising
Search Engine Marketing
Email Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Article Marketing
And that's definitely just to name a few; more online marketing strategies are being
invented all the time.
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Online marketing is becoming increasingly important to small businesses of all types.
In the past, marketing online was something that local bricks-and-mortar businesses
could justifiably ignore. It didn't make sense to waste time and money on online
marketing when all your business was local. Now with increasing local search and
people's new habit of searching on the Internet first, it matters. I would go so far as to
say that all businesses should include some online marketing in their marketing mix.
Internet Marketing is an all-inclusive term for marketing products and/or services
online – and like many all-inclusive terms, Internet marketing means different things
to different people.
Essentially, though, Internet marketing refers to the strategies that are used to market
a product or service online, marketing strategies that include search engine
optimization and search engine submission, copywriting that encourages site visitors
to take action, web site design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal linking, and
email marketing – and that’s just hitting the highlights.
Online marketers are constantly devising new Internet marketing strategies in the
hopes of driving more traffic to their Web sites and making more sales; witness the
increasing use of blogs as marketing tools for business, for instance.
If you’re new to Internet marketing, I recommend focusing on web design and search
engine optimization as a starting point; for most sites, the most traffic still comes from
search engines and directories. When it comes to Internet Marketing, a lot of people
get really confused about it. In short, Internet Marketing means the ability to market
your services on the Internet. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of
Internet Marketing that will set you thinking. Internet might be a catchy
advertising medium. But, there are quite a few issues that need to be sorted out.
Advertising on the Net is slowly catching on. In developed economies, advertising on
the Net accounts for anything between seven and 7.5 per cent of the total advertising
cake. Fine, how large is online advertising in India?
XXI
Various estimates put the size of online advertising in India between Rs 24 crore and
Rs 29 crore, which is much less than one per cent of the total advertising cake. Why is
online advertising so small in India? Why aren't the advertisers putting their money
on Net advertising? For instance, Hindustan Lever’s advertising budget is upwards of
Rs 700 crore and out of this; the company spends not more than Rs 25 lakh on online
advertising. Is this because Net penetration in India is not deeper? Yes, to an extent.
Slow motion
However, this might not be the case for long. For, initiatives are on to increase the
number of Internet users. It is estimated that Internet subscribers will increase to
around 35 million by 2008 from the current figure of one million. Not only that, a
drive is on to make Internet more affordable. For instance, the Reliance group is
planning to set up 7,800 cyber kiosks in Madhya Pradesh and BSES is planning to put
up 1,000 cyber kiosks in Bombay. And the UK-based WorldTel, in partnership with
the Reliance group, is working at building 1,000 community Internet centres in Tamil
Nadu.
There is a question here, however. If numbers are the only factor, then how is that Net
advertising has picked up in Hong Kong, which boasts of 1.8 million Net users
compared to some 3.5 million in India. So, there are other reasons why online
advertising is going through a slow motion in India. One such reason is this: there is
no official organization in India that monitors and regulates the online advertising
industry. And there is no mechanism available for tracking viewership of
advertisements. Says Apurva Purohit, media director with the Mumbai-based FCB-
Ulka Advertising: "While television has two people meter services, Tam (IMRB) and
Intam (ORG-MARG), there is no possible mechanism to enable working out
optimized schedules on the basis of ad viewer ship rather than programme
viewership." True. Only such a mechanism can help to track ad viewership patterns
much more accurately and monitor television advertisements effectively. The very
reason that ad viewerships in online advertising are not monitored and audited is
making quite a few corporate advertisers go slow in latching on to the Internet
medium. Says B Venkataramanan, group media manager of the Mumbai-based
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Hindustan Lever: "I am skeptical about the kind of figures most dot-coms come up
with. So, we will be going about online advertising in a planned way."
All these might become things of the past with quite a few studies on online
advertising in the pipeline. For instance, AC Nielsen is looking at rating Net
advertisers and ORG-MARG is planning to kick off its research on Net advertising.
The cost factor
Absence of a monitoring mechanism apart, online advertising has to live with another
hurdle. Many advertisers are not aware of the benefits online advertising can offer
over the traditional media. What needs to be done? The advertising industry should
take efforts to educate potential Net advertisers about the advantages of advertising on
the Net. Some steps have already been taken in this direction. For instance,
advertising networks such as Media2Net, Rightserve and Mediaturf are doing their
bid to fuel online advertising in India. Rightserve of Hughes Software is said to be
spending nearly Rs two crore on seminars, advertisements and road shows for
creating awareness about the online advertising concept. There is another reason why
advertising on the Net has not really picked up. And that is the perception that
advertising on the Net is expensive. Is this perception right? Compare the cost of a
banner advertisement on the Net with a television commercial. Though the cost of an
advertising campaign on the Net could be anywhere between Rs 15,000 and Rs 1.5
lakh, advertising in the press or television will cost upwards of Rs 50 lakh. Does this
not make advertising on the Net cheap? No. For, whether advertising on the Net is
cost-effective or not depends on the value per advertising Rupee.
That means, it is essential to express advertising costs on the Net in terms of cost per
thousand (CPT). Here is what Amardeep Singh, a Mumbai-based media consultant
with Mediaturf.com, has to say: "A thirty- second television commercial will cost
between Rs 250 and Rs 300 per thousand, while a ten-second banner on a reputed site
such as Rediff.com will cost as much as Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per thousand." The
implication: value per Rupee spent on advertising is higher in the case of television.
That is efficiency is higher in the case of television advertising, while in absolute
terms advertising costs are lower as far as the Net is concerned. Fine, but how are
XXIII
rates fixed for advertising on the Net? It is a difficult poser considering the fact that
rates for advertising on the Net have no rationale behind them. For instance,
Rediff.com just adopted the international rate charged by Yahoo.com. Other websites
in India just took the Rediff.com's rate as a benchmark and adjusted their rates
accordingly. But, the issue here is this: since the number of Net users in India is
limited now, these Indian rates are not justified.
What are the emerging trends as far as cost of online advertising is concerned?
Currently, rates for a simple banner advertisement on the Net need to come down.
Already, Mediaturf is working in this direction. It wants to bring down the cost of Net
advertising at least by 50 per cent. Mediaturf believes that when the rates come down,
volumes should go up.
And that has been the international experience. In the USA, when the rate for a full
banner advertisement fell from US $33.22 to US $30.52 per thousand impressions,
online advertising outlays too rose during the same period.
The wastage factor
There are other reasons why advertising on the Net is not currently seen by
advertisers as cost-effective. One of them is the quality of desired responses. In many
cases, sums spent on advertising on the Net have not been deployed properly. There
are instances where advertisements have just been lifted and put on the banner.
Though there are many early adapters in India, there is a big gap between these
adapters and the mainstream users. And most advertisers have too small budgets for
advertising on the Net to be bothered about wastages.
There could be wastages in online advertising, but one should not forget that
interactivity is the hallmark of online advertising and here it is possible to target the
audience by demography, psychography and technography. So, advertising agencies
need to take into account these factors while developing strategies.
But, wastages can be eliminated and online advertising can be made more effective
through various strategies. Some of them are: strategic tie-ups, sponsorships and
XXIV
banner exchanges. For instance, the FMCG major Colgate-Palmolive has entered into
a strategic tie-up with the Calcutta-based FirstNet Solutions' portal Yantram.com for
promoting its Fresh Energy Gel toothpaste on the portal. And Coca-Cola has
appointed Hungama.com, an Indian portal for promotions and contests, as its e-
marketing partner. Coca-Cola has gone ahead and launched a new Web promotion
dubbed Maaza Puzzle to promote its popular brand Maaza and has also kicked off a
series of e-promotions for the Hindi film "Hum To Mohabbat Karega".
Meanwhile, tie-ups for banner exchanges are also taking place. For instance,
Bidorbuy.com has tied up with Indiacar.com and Intel has sponsored a festival section
on Satyam Online.
Targeting imperatives
Accurate targeting is another strategy to eliminate wastages in online advertising.
Currently, such targeting based on parameters such as geographic location and search
keywords is possible.
Yes, Satyam Online is offering customised solutions here and portals such as
Indiainfo.com and Rediff.com offer keyword targeting. It is possible now to measure
campaign performances on a real-time basis and make necessary changes. Ad
networks such as Rightserve are offering such services based on their continuous
online reports. Moreover, targeted advertisements based on the profile of users are
also possible. To make this possible, it is essential to have lists such as registered e-
mail users and such lists can offer profiles of users.
But the question is how many sites in India have a large base of registered users?
Perhaps Rediff.com has a base of eight lakh registered users and Jobsahead.com has a
base of about 1.50 lakh users.
Another way wastages can be eliminated is by having advertisements based on the
content of the site. Consider the example of an advertisement from Toyota Motor
Sales on the weather site Intellicast.com. This website for outdoor recreation
enthusiasts has been running a campaign for Toyota Motor Sales and this campaign
XXV
depends on the weather. If the weather is sunny, the solara is shown with the top
down, and if it is cloudy or raining, the top is shown up. How many such ads are
visible on Indian websites?
Profiling tools too should help in cutting down wastages in online advertising.
Mediaturf has gone a step further by beta-testing an advertisement in a bid to gauge
an user's behaviour, the number of times he views an advertisement and his
preferences in terms of content when he is surfing on a site. Other waste-eliminating
strategies for online advertising are: contextual selling using demographic and
psychographic data to match ads with content that fits and dynamic customization or
click stream analysis that helps to modify advertisements in real-time.
Online Constraints
As efforts to eliminate wastages in online advertising take off; efforts are also needed
to eliminate the attendant constraints. In online advertising, one can stream audio and
video technologies together with faster bandwidths and delivery channels in a bid to
present the same idea with the use of sound, music and visual imagery and make
interactions with the banner possible.
But, this is not possible in India, thanks to the existing bandwidth problems. However,
soon bandwidth will cease to be an issue.
Despite the bandwidth constraint, the Coco-Cola television commercial is being aired
in Zeenext.com. This initiative has been taken by Mediaturf and a Bangalore-based
software programmer, who have found a way to use the Net to air commercials with
the dial-up mode and thus overcoming the bandwidth constraint. Anyway, with
massive investments coming in bandwidth, there could be a glut soon. Sure, India has
an advantage in online advertising, thanks to the fact that online advertising depends
so much on technology and software programming. So, the days of innovative
banners and convergence of real-time advertising are not far. But, effective online
advertising calls for skills in consumer and relationship management. The prospects
are of course bright for online advertising. E-commerce will only help the spread of
online advertising. Estimates are that in a couple of years online advertising could
XXVI
touch Rs 300 crore, two per cent of the total adspend in the country. And Nasscom's
estimates are that online advertising could touch Rs 750 crore by 2002.
Objectives of Internet Advertising
Advertising:
XXVII
As far as advertising on the Internet goes, all advertisements will serve toattract the
user's attention and draw him to the company, which is advertising.
Build brand awareness:
Direct or indirect methods can be used on the websites to buildbrand awareness of the
different brands of a company. This is where the Internet scorestraditional media and
methods as explained below.
Stimulate direct action:
Visitors to a company's web site should get involved with theofferings on the site.
Valuable customer information can also be captured and tracked forfuture marketing
initiatives.
Promote its brands:
Promotional give - away or contests generate excitement whilesimultaneously
promoting your brands online, aiding off - line sale.
Building a culture around its brands:
This goes along with that company's traditionaladvertising.
Surrogate advertising:
This is another means of surrogate advertising of the company,where all forms of
traditional advertising fail. Surrogate advertising can be proved to bepositive in case
of advertising on the Internet.
Features of Internet Advertising
Advertising on the Internet has certain unique features that differentiate it from other
forms ofadvertising. They are as follows:
Member registration:
XXVIII
Member registration is an efficient tool that is used by firms to createtheir database.
Such a database may be used to design promotional campaigns. Allowingregistered
users to participate in various events can follow systems of free registration.
Online opinion polls:
Opinion polls are conducted to obtain the responses from usersregarding the firms'
products and services besides including topics of general interest.
Newsletters:
Regular newsletters are sent especially to registered users. These containinformation
about current updations on the site and activities being performed by thecompany.
Contests and sweepstakes:
Contests are useful in attracting new users to websites. Theymay be for simple things
depending on the product or service being advertised. The prizesoffered are in a wide
range and usually have the logo of the company and the homepageaddress displayed
prominently.
Content:
The content of the advertisement can be regularly updated with news regardingthe
activities of the firm. A fact-based section showing the manufacturing processes of
acompany may also be included. The use of multimedia tools can make this more
interactive.
E-cards:
Users send free cards via e-mail from the site of the company advertising theproduct.
The card prominently displays the logo or the baseline of the brand. The cards maybe
for different occasions such as birthdays, festivals, birthdays, etc. These cards are
usedto reinforce brand identity. Star endorsers of the brand may also be included in
the picturepostcard themes.
Downloads:
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Downloads may include various utilities for the computer such as icons,desktop
patterns, screensavers, themes, etc. Registered users get the opportunity
ofdownloading software. Charts and other informative articles may also be included.
Coupons:
Coupons are used to promote sales off-line. Sending discount coupons for theproducts
and services of the company on special occasions can do this
Types of Internet Advertising
E-mail advertising:
Legitimate Email advertising or E-mail marketing is often known as "opt-in e-mail
advertising" to distinguish it from spam.
Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising where advertisersplace campaigns
with a potentially large number of small (and large) publishers, whom areonly paid
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media fees when traffic to the advertiser is garnered, and usually upon a
specificmeasurable campaign result (a form, a sale, a sign-up, etc). Today, this is
usuallyaccomplished through contracting with an affiliate network.The online retailer
used its program to generate low cost brand exposure and provided at thesame time
small websites a way to earn some supplemental income.
Contextual advertising:
Many advertising networks display graphical or text-only ads thatcorrespond to the
keywords of an Internet search or to the content of the page on which thead is shown.
These ads are believed to have a greater chance of attracting a user, because they tend
to share a similar context as the user's search query. For example, a search queryfor
"flowers" might return an advertisement for a florist's website. Another newer
technique isembedding keyword hyperlinks in an article which are sponsored by an
advertiser. When auser follows the link, they are sent to a sponsor's website.
Behavioral targeting:
In addition to contextual targeting, online advertising can be targetedbased on a user's
past click stream. For example, if a user is known to have recently visiteda number of
automotive shopping / comparison sites based on click stream analysis enabledby
cookies stored on the user's computer, that user can then be served auto-related
adswhen they visit other, non-automotive sites.
Pay per Click:
Search engines place your website on their front page and you pay a setamount per
click-through. Sites like Overture also run bids for certain keywords - the moreyou
bid, the higher your site appears on the first page of the search results. Properly
run,these campaigns can bring a lot of extra traffic to your website.
Search Engine Optimization:
This is an online advertising service provided by many webmedia companies. They
will look at your target audience, your competitors and the keywordsfor your business
and optimize your website content so that it has a much better chance ofappearing on
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the first page of the search results. You will pay a fee to the consultants for
thisservice. Studies have shown that many searchers prefer to use the "natural"
listingsprovided by the search engines, rather than the paid-for listings.
Sponsorships:
Website sponsorship can come in two formats; regular sponsorship wherethe
advertiser has a space to place the logo and company message, and
contentsponsorship where the advertiser has limited control and submits their own
content to thesite as well as having an advert on the page. These sponsorships will be
for fixed periods,and need to be on targeted websites to reach the right audience.
Online Directories:
The online equivalent of Yellow Pages, or Industry Directories, thesegive you basic
or enhanced listings on the website. Your details will come up if your sector,location
or company name is searched for. Enhanced listings will allow users to click-
throughto your site. Online directory listings are often offered in conjunction with an
entry in theprinted version of the directory.
Banner Ads:
Banner advertising was the first kind of advertising ever done on the net. Abanner can
highlight your product/service/offer and by clicking on it the user will be taken toyour
website, where you can create a suitable landing page to provide his further
information. Banner spaces are usually sold by impressions, or banner views, but it
issometimes sold by click-thru, when you pay only when the user clicks on the
banner. Usuallyhorizontal bars across the top of a web page, they offer colour,
graphics and oftenanimation, together with the ability to click through to the
advertiser's own website.
Pop-up Ads:
These are the small windows that appear when you first get onto a website.Pop-ups
appear on your screen in full, pop-downs appear on the bar at the bottom of
yourscreen and you have to open them to get rid of them.
Interstitial Adverts:
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These adverts sometimes referred to as Bridge Adverts, pop up as youmove between
pages on a site. You have no choice as to whether you view them or not,although you
can close them down.
Floating Ads:
These ads appear when you first go to a webpage, and they "float" over thepage for
five to 30 seconds. While they are on the screen, they obscure your view of thepage
you are trying to read, and they often block mouse input as well. These ads
appeareach time that page is refreshed. Floating ads are popular for several reasons:
They grab the viewer's attention and cannot be ignored
They are animated
They have audio/video content like TV ads
They can take up the entire screen, therefore from a branding standpoint, they
are muchmore powerful than a banner ad or a sidebar ad
They have a high click-through rate of about 3 percentHowever, many users
get highly irritated because of these ads.
Unicast Ads:
A unicast ad is basically a TV commercial that runs in the browser window. Ithas
enriched audio/video content. The ads can last anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds.
Theseads have similar branding power as a TV commercial. However, a unicast ad
offerssomething that TV ads cannot -- the ability to click on the ad for more
information. These adsare getting very effective, as the average click-through rate is
5%.
Takeover Ads:
Viewers visiting the website will see a large ad when they first come, andthen the
continuity is maintained by reiterating the same message throughout the site in
theform of banners, side bars or buttons. The approach works very well for branding
becausethe brand is visible to viewers throughout the visit to the site. Click-through
rates are alsohigh.
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The Key Benefits of Internet Marketing
Internet marketing is a buzz word that’s gaining steady popularity in the recent times,
and has emerged as a cost-effective way of promoting a small to medium sized
business. It does not require the time and the resources that are needed in traditional
marketing strategies and is indeed a revolution in the field of business promotion and
advertisements. Here is a list of some of the key benefits of internet marketing:
Cost Effectiveness
Internet marketing is a very cost effective option of promoting your business. Your
business website can only take you to a certain level if you do not make the effort to
increase its visibility. Internet marketing will make your business promotion dynamic
and lively at a very nominal cost.
You can optimize your website for the search engines, avail the pay per click
programs, use the option of list building and even send promotional newsletters to
your prospective clients to drum up some publicity for your offerings. All these
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options can be availed for free or can be subscribed at a very nominal cost. To take
advantage of internet marketing, you do not even have to own a business and can
participate in the affiliate programs and promote other people’s business to make
huge money. So, investment wise, it is a better option than the traditional print
advertisements and marketing strategies.
Very Wide Reach
One of the major online advertisement benefits is that it has global reach. Internet is a
medium, which will enable a potential client from the other end of the world to reach
you without any trouble. So, you can conveniently eradicate the traditional
geographical boundaries and access a wide of pool of client base easily accessed with
the help of properly implemented internet marketing strategies. You can even contact
the overseas market and increase your business prospects to a great extent by using
this marketing method.
Easy to Manage
You can easily manage your internet marketing programmers. Any change in the
strategy can be brought about even when you are travelling or commuting for your
business. What’s more, even while on a vacation, you can make changes on the fly
and save precious time that would have otherwise been wasted on an endless wait.
The benefits that your business is making with the use of such strategies can be easily
gauged and monitored as the process is not very complicated and even a layman can
follow the procedure with some prior research. You can also hire a professional
agency for internet marketing tips and help.
Track real-time results and Display of full information
The advantages of internet marketing can be translated in palpable terms. In other
words, you can statistically measure whether your PPC campaigns are generating
results or how much of the traffic is being converted into your customer base. One of
the major benefits of marketing online is that it can help you to display as much
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information as you want about your product or service on the web. The print medium
will give you only a limited space and your scope might be restricted in many cases.
Availability of 24 Hours
Your online advertisements will be available 24/7 for your customers through internet
marketing. One of the major online advertisement benefits is that you have to put in a
lot of effort initially, but once you develop a system, it becomes much easier to draw
the profit. So, if you have a proper and functional strategy in place, internet marketing
can ensure a round the clock and never ending advertisement for your business.
Increasing the Returns on Investment on a Website
If you have spent a lot of money on developing a competent business website, you
must also expect a good return from it. Internet marketing can ensure a good ROI as
your website will be promoted to have a formidable online presence. Internet
marketing is developing by leaps and bounds, and is including new strategies within
its folds. You can promote your website through article submission in various
directories and even through the social networking sites. So, it is likely to increase the
effectiveness of your business website to a great extent.
Discover New Markets
The primary target of any marketing strategy is to discover new markets for the
business. Internet marketing can help you do that very effectively. It can help you
draw a lot of vacillating traffic to your website, and can realistically help you to
convert them into your clients. Internet marketing has various advantages and if you
can carefully implement the strategies, you can reap the benefits and promote your
business in a cost effective and a hassle free way.
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Benefits of internet marketing for the customer
Customers have gained immensely from the use of the internet. As the number of
users of the internet increase more and more will shop online. Listed below are some
of the benefits of the internet for the customer.
Customers stay updated Customers are kept updated with product information either
via the website or emails. With the internet now becoming mobile, through 3G
technology and Wi-Fi, customers can be kept updated almost in real time.
Customers can compare online One of the greatest advantages for the customer is
that they can compare products or services they wish to purchase from the comfort of
their own homes. Instead of visiting a number of different retail outlets, the user
simply has to open different window tabs to compare prices or features of the
product/service they wish to purchase. Many retailing websites offer the facility
where different products they sell can now be easily compared. There is also price
comparison websites that customers can use to get the best possible price for their
products.
Clear product information for the customer Websites offer clear product
information on the product or service. There is little chance of misinterpretation or
mishearing what the sales person said.
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Transparent pricing Pricing online is very clear and transparent for the customer.
Customers can take advantages of pricing that may change regularly or take
advantages of special offers that last for a limited period.
Track your purchase Consumers have to pay for their product /service before they
receive it. It is important that consumers feel reassured when this happens. Many
websites allow consumers to track their purchase from order, dispatch to
transportation before delivery to their home address. Again this reassures the
consumer and makes them feel that they are obtaining a good service online.
Reductions in personal carbon footprint: as consumer spend more time shopping
online and use their cars less. Their personal carbon footprint is reduced.
24/7 Shopping There is no time restriction on when a consumer can shop online.
Many online sales now start at midnight on a particular day encouraging customers to
shop all hours of the day.
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Benefits of internet marketing for the business
Whilst there are many benefits for consumers shopping online, business that start their
operations or transfer their operations online greatly benefit from doing so. Some of
these benefits will be briefly discussed.
Data collection Every time a customer transacts with the company online, that
transaction is captured. The firm can use this dBata in a number of ways. Firstly
information can be analyzed to find out most popular products/services sold.
Secondly the data can be used to assist in segmenting their customers, profiling them
and sending customers promotional material based on past buying habits.
There has been much controversy over the amount of information that is being
collected online by various companies’ in particular social networking sites and
whether customers should be able to opt out of that information being shared to third
party users.
Personalization of web experience When customers log into their accounts
businesses can make their web experience almost unique. From offering special offers
to that particular customer, offering add on to their recent purchase, much like
Amazon.com does, or by allowing the customer to personalize their own products,
like Nike does with their trainers . Personalization allows the firm to form stronger
bonds online with customers and form long term online relationships ensuring
customers come back regularly.
Competitor analysis The internet allows businesses to analyze their competitor’s
online strategy. A firm can keep abreast of new products that are released, react to
price changes, or use the internet to discover secondary data on their competitors. The
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internet allows a firm to react quickly to a change in their competitor’s strategy, and
try to provide a service that allows them to match or beat their competitors.
Cost reduction One of the major benefits of setting up or moving a business online is
the cost advantages of doing so. A firm can save a number of costs. These include:
1. Staffing costs: Fewer staff are needed online then in the high street thus reducing
costs.
2. Premises: The Company will not need retail outlet just a centralized office and
possibly warehouse space, saving on potential retail costs.
3. Disintermediation: The channel of distribution is shorter online as the consumer
has the opportunity to buy directly like with Dell. As one of the intermediaries is cut
out this process is known as disintermediation.
4.Financial management: As consumers pay for the product before it is dispatched,
this improves the cash flow for the company, making sure for the firm that they can
pay their suppliers and other costs on time.
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Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies
Internet marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for
your business, and enhance branding of your company and products. If you are just
beginning your online marketing strategy the top 10 list below will get you started on
a plan that has worked for many.
1. Start with a web promotion plan and an effective web design and development
strategy.
2. Get ranked at the top in major search engines, and practice good Search
Optimization Techniques.
3. Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively.
4. Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller, and associate
programs.
5. Request an analysis from an Internet marketing coach or Internet marketing
consultant.
6. Build a responsive opt-in email list.
7. Publish articles or get listed in news stories.
8. Write and publish online press releases.
9. Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your web site.
10. Blog and interact with your visitors.By following the above tips you'll be on
your way to creating a concrete internet marketing strategy that could boost your
business substantially.
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7 P'S of Internet Marketing
The four P's - Product, Price, Place and Promotion have long been associated
withmarketing, but things have changed on the Internet. So along with a change in the
nature ofthe four P’s there are three new P’s which are relevant to the internet
marketer:Presentation, Processes and Personalization.
1. Product
Product on the Internet usually changes form online, and the user experiences
itelectronically, in the form of text, images and multimedia. Physical goods are
usuallypresented in the form of a detailed online catalogue that the customer can
browsethrough. Technology allows the user to virtually touch and feel the product on
theInternet - rotate it, zoom in or zoom out and even visualize the product in
differentconfigurations and combination.Content andsoftware are two avatars of
digitizedproducts that can be even distributed over the Internet. On the Internet, E-
marketing willbe based more on theproduct qualities rather than on theprice . Every
company will beable to bring down the cost of its products and hence competition
will not be on price. Itwill rather be on the uniqueness of the product. To be able to
attract the customers andretain them, the company will have to provide nouvelle and
distinct products that forcesthe net users to purchase and come back for more.
2. Price
Price has been drastically changed over the Internet. It lets the buyer decides the
price.Also it gives the buyers information about multiple sellers selling the same
product. Itleads to best possible deal for the buyers in terms of price. Pricing is
dynamic over theInternet.
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3. Place
Place revolves around setting up of a marketing channel to reach the customer.
Internetserves as adirect marketing channel that allows the producer to reach the
customerdirectly. The elimination of the intermediate channel allows the producer to
pass thereduced distribution cost to the customer in the form of discounts
4. Promotion
Promotion is extremely necessary to entice the customer to its website, as there
arecurrently more than one billion web pages. Promoting a website includes
both online andoffline strategies. Online strategies include search engine
optimization, banner ads,multiple points of entry, viral marketing, strategic
partnership andaffiliate marketing .Presently, the cyberspace is already cluttered with
thousands of sites probably sellingsimilar products. For the customers to know of the
Company’s existence and to garnerinformation on the kind of products or services
that the company is offering, promotionhas to be carried out. There can be traded
links or banner advertisements for the same.Also the traditional mediums like print,
outdoor advertising and television can be used tospread awareness.
5. Presentation
The presentation of the online business needs to have an easy to use navigation.
Thelook and the feel of the web site should be based on corporate logos and
standards.About 80% of the people read only 20% of the web page. Therefore, the
web pageshould not be cluttered with a lot of information. Also, simple but powerful
navigationalaids on all web pages like search engines make it easy for customer to find their
wayaround.
6. Processes
Customer supports needs to be integrated into the online web site. A sales service
thatwill be able to answer the questions of their customers fast and in a reliable
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manner isnecessary. To further enhance after sales service, customers must be able to
find outabout their order status after the sale has been made.
7. Personalization
Using the latest software it is possible to customize the entire web site for every
singleuser, without any additional costs. The mass customization allows the company
to createweb pages products and services that suit the requirement of the user. A
customizedweb page does not only include the preferred layout of the customer but
also a preselection of goods the customer may be interested in.
Understanding the Internet Customers
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Now to be able to use the seven P’s effectively in order to achieve the predefined
goals ofany organization it is imperative to understand the customers. Customization
will only betruly effective if we understand our customers and their true needs.Before
adapting marketing practices to the Internet, the marketer needs to understandthe
characteristics of the online customers. The Net users can be classified into
fivecategories depending upon their intention of using the Internet.
The five categories of users are:
Directed Information Seekers:
They require specific, timely and relevant informationabout the products and services
being offered.
Undirected Information Seekers:
These users require something interesting anduseful. Something that can give them an
edge, advantage, insight or even a pleasantsurprise.
Bargain Hunters:
They are of two kinds: One who look for free items on the internet andother who are
seeking better deals, higher discounts etc
Entertainment Seekers:
They see the Web as an entertainment medium of vast breathand potential and want to
explore the medium before the mass gets there.
Directed Buyers:
They want to buy something - now. They are sure what they requireand just log on to
the Web to purchase the item.
Using the 7 Ps in Your Internet Marketing Plan
The 7 P’s are very important in Internet marketing and can make a big difference in
a successful online business.
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1. PRODUCT: You need to be able to assess the market and the customers’ mood
to understand if the product you are selling online is really in demand or not? A
good product sold at the wrong time or in the wrong place might not sell as much,
so you need to be educated in how someone surfing on the Internet will be attracted
to buy your product. Appropriate research should be done ahead of time, at our
company, Karma Snack, we can conduct marketing research for you through our
business intelligence services. We help clients find the right market, demographic,
and best time of year for promotion your products, and then help deploy the
campaign.
2. PRICE: By assessing what people can spend for some products, analyzing the
buying patterns, and knowing the trends you must intelligently set a price that will
be attractive enough to the customer and yet bring you profits. If a product is in
demand and the current price is not justifying the cost, you can raise it to ensure
that the overall sales will bring you profit even if you lost some customers. At
Karma Snack, we help clients find the sweet spot for your product’s pricing by
testing pricing, discounts, and doing in-depth research on your competition’s
bottom-line. The end goal of every campaign is to increase your profitability, which
reducing costs, while increasing your market share.
3. PROMOTION: When you are promoting your product on the Internet you need
to question whether you are addressing the right target audience. Even if you are
getting the target audience to your website, you need to be sure that you speaking
the language they understand. This way you can communicate the benefits in a way
that they will understand. An effective promotional campaign will mean your
advertisements and the campaign tries to reach out as many potential customers as
possible. Karma Snack’s team takes care of analyzing the traffic to your website,
the sources of the traffic, and the average stay. We then utilizes advanced
behavioral analytics and predictive analysis to get more profitable customers to
your business.
4. PEOPLE: When you are doing Internet marketing you have to be able to
outsource the work and hire the people to do things like write effective content.
You’ll want the people who can provide answers to visitors’ questions and provide
them with the information they are looking for. It will also be necessary to
effectively pass it back to the management. Lastly it is very important to ask if you
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have the people to share information on the product, service, or company on blogs,
forums etc. by posting about it. Karma Snack helps clients with all of this by
utilizing their in-house team of copywriters, without additional charges to your
campaign.
5. PLACE: Obviously in the world of Internet marketing, your website is the place
where all transactions happen. How interactive is your website? How user-friendly
is it? How easy is it to navigate for the customer? These questions are very
important to attract and retain customers. Karma Snack utilizes A/B Split Testing,
and Multi-variate testing on an ongoing basis, to constantly improve your website’s
performance, increase the amount of traffic which converts into a sales/lead/ or a
content. We test color schemes, buttons sizes, images, photos, layouts, and are
always improving your website. Your website has to constantly evolve, there are
times where your website will not look like it did a week ago, a month from now,
or a year from now. We are data centric, so all changes and improvements have to
be justified by increased ROI for you.
6. PROCESS: is very important for Internet marketing too. You need to ask if you
have resiliency in your site, the ability to handle large number of customers, the
proper support at all times, and a system to answer FAQs. Karma Snack scales
campaigns according to each clients needs. There are times clients tell us to scale
back the efforts since they cannot handle the volume, and have to expand resources,
and we adjust campaigns accordingly.
7. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE: Online, it is difficult for the customer to know how
the product is going to benefit them. So it will be necessary to communicate in a
way that the customer will be able to feel confident in purchasing a product or
service. You can do reports and articles that will excite the customers about the
product and the service. Video and images also help the customer feel comfortable.
If you talk to a Karma Snack representative, you can learn about how we take care
of Video, images, content, reviews, articles, and sync all of your offline and other
online marketing campaigns for accountability.
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INTERNET Marketing VS TRADITIONAL marketing
Traditional Marketing Internet Marketing
TV Commercials
TV commercials on a local cable channel
can cost thousands of dollars for just a
couple airings! That’s not including the
cost to product the commercial.
In addition to cost, TV ads aren’t
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not
“free internet marketing.” But unlike
PPC/SEM, you don’t have to pay for
individual ads.
Instead, SEO involves optimizing your
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targeted.The ads can be set during certain
time slots and TV shows, but the chances
of grabbing the attention of the exact
target audience is unlikely.Finally,
measuring the effectiveness of the ad and
how it affects the bottom line is difficult.
website and your overall online presence,
so that more people can find you on
Google, Yahoo and other search
engines.By focusing on specific
keywords that people are already
searching, SEO drives highly targeted
traffic to your business. Plus, you can
easily track every click, visit, sale, lead,
and the overall ROI of your efforts.
Radio Ads
If you’ve got a massive ad budget, then a
radio ad might generate some response.
Play the same ad over and over again and
people are bound to hear it. But at what
cost?
Radio advertising is incredibly expensive,
not targeted, and ineffective for most
types of businesses.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Imagine only paying when you know
someone has seen and responded to your
ad. That’s exactly how SEM works.
SEM is one of the hottest forms of
internet marketing, because it’s
guaranteed to get your website on the
front-page of Google and drive traffic to
your website.It’s targeted exactly to the
people who are already looking for your
business. And, you can track results
down to the penny.
Print (Newspaper, Magazines, Etc…)
Newspapers, phonebooks, magazines –
they just don’t have the readership or
impact they used to. And yet, it still costs
hundreds or even thousands of dollars to
fill that ad space. Why?
A print ad can be a good way to focus on
brand development. But if you’re looking
for measurable ROI or the ability to track
results, forget it. Precise targeting and
Social Media Marketing
If you’re not taking advantage of social
networks like Facebook and Twitter, then
you’re losing a lot of potential business.
Social media can be a highly targeted
form of internet marketing that lets you
reach new customers, build loyalty, and
attract tons of repeat business.
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analytics is virtually impossible
Critical Success factors in E-Marketing
Having observed the evolving paradigms of business in the Internet era, there are five
critical success factors that the E-Marketer has to keep in mind.
Attracting the Right Customer is the first crucial step. Rising digital
penetration would mean that the number of customer visiting particular sites
would inevitably go up. While the number of eyeballs or page views has so far
been conveniently used as a satisfactory measure by most web sites, it would
be foolish to cater to the whole spectrum of digital visitors. Content has to be
very target specific. The digital company has to select its target segment by
finding out which section of customers are the most profitable in terms of
revenue transactions and who are the customers who generate the maximum
number of referrals. Here again it is important to note that the majority of
online customers are not seeking the lowest price. Rather they are seeking
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convenience above everything else. The power of customer referrals has never
been so enormous, since word of the mouse spreads faster than word of the
mouth. E-Bay attracts more than half of its customers through referrals. Not
only do referred customers cost less to acquire than those brought in by
advertising or other marketing tools, they also cost less to support since they
use their friends who referred them for advice rather than using the
companies’ own technical desk.
Delivering Content Value to engage the user’s interest is the critical
importance in retaining customer participation. This is because content serves
as a powerful differentiator. Content would include Product enhancements
(Software patches for glitches), personalized interactions (through customized
navigation paths as seen on the web sites of GM and Toyota) and Problem
Resolution (updates of delivery schedules and e-mail responses). Integral to
the concept of delivering proper content value is innovation. The retail
financial services industry, for example, is changing rapidly with multiple
players jockeying for position. Product innovation serves as a key tool to
attract new customers.
Priceline.com, for example, has revolutionized the travel and related services
business by letting in a form of “buyer driven commerce”----Customers specify
their desired prices and competing companies then bid for customer requirements.
Delivering proper content to make existing customers in the traditional “brick”
business switch to Web-enabled transactions makes a lot of sense because in
every conceivable case, the cost of Web-Based transactions is an order of
magnitude less than the traditional ways and is decreasing at a faster rate. The cost
of an Internet based banking transaction is less than one-tenth the cost of a human
teller transaction. It is keeping this aspect in mind that Indian Banks have started
toying with the idea of setting up Internet kiosks to let their low-value customers
settle their banking transactions at the kiosk nearest to their place.
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Ensuring E-Loyalty is vital to the success of any online venture. This is
because acquiring customers on the Internet is enormously expensive and
unless those customers stick round and make lots of repeat purchases over the
years, profits will remain elusive. Contrary to the general view that Web
customers are notoriously fickle, they in fact follow the old rules of customer
loyalty. Web customers stick to sites that they trust and with time consolidate
their purchases with one primary supplier to the extent that purchasing from
the supplier’s site becomes part of their daily routine. The issue of trust is
integral to the issues of privacy and security. Companies like Amazon.com,
which command amazing levels of consumer trust, have used a variety of
encryption tools ad simple ethical decisions like not accepting money for
publishers for independent book reviews to maintain the trust of its customers.
E-Learning to facilitate personalized interactions with customers has been
the biggest contribution of the Web to the marketing strategists. Customers in
traditional bricks-and-mortar stores leave no record of their behavior unless
they buy something—and even then the date might be sketchy. In the digital
marketplace, however technology has made the entire shopping experience a
transparent process. For example, if the customer exits the web-site when the
price screen appears, he is a price sensitive consumer. Such minute tracking of
customer behavior has major implications for the world of advertising. The
Internet may soon be used as a test bed for testing prototypes of marketing and
advertising campaigns. By monitoring pages selected, click throughs, responses
generated, and other indicators, the company would be able to discover which
parts of a prospective campaign would work, thus reducing the risk of a potential
flop. This would make it possible for the company to modify its product offerings
much earlier than usual in the product life cycle.
Providing Digital value to the evolving consumer through his life cycle has
become possible because of customized interactions and emerging business
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models. These models have often disturbed the traditional status quo and
created new rules of business. The sectors where new business models will
emerge or have emerged are the music industry, the financial services
industry, the travel industry, the relating segment and the publishing segment.
Digital value is delivered to the consumer by promising him convenience,
allowing the customer to feel his ownership of the Web experience, and giving
the customer a sense of belonging that traverses the physical boundaries.
CHAPTER –III:
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Q1. Do you plan to purchase any product in future?
Responses No. of
respondent
% of
Respondent
Yes 39 78%
No 11 22%
Total 50 100%
78%
22%
Product to be purchased in future.
a yes
b no
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Figure 1: Shows The perception of customer to purchase a product in future
The consumers have a perception of purchasing products over the internet in future.
Wherein 78% said yes to purchase of products in future. 22% resisted over it.
Q2. Overall, how would you rate the quality of products available over the internet?
Figure 2: depicting the quality of products available over the internet
Responses No. of
respondent
% of Respondent
Very good 4 8%
Good 32 64%
Average 13 26%
Poor 1 2%
Very Poor 0 0%
Total 50 100%
8%
64%
26%
2%0%
very good
good
average
poor
very poor
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When asked from the consumer about the quality of products available over the
internet, they had all together different opinion. Where 8% said it’s very good, 64%
said its good, 26% meant its average there were 2% saying its poor. But no one felt
it’s very poor.
Q3 How often you surf the internet?
Responses No. of
respondent
% of
Responedent
Regularly 33 66%
Once in a week 7 14%
Once in a month 4 8%
Occasionally 6 12%
Total 50 100%
Figure 3: depicting how much people surf over the internet
The response regarding the usage of internet among customers was remarkable. There
were 66% who surf internet daily. Wherein 14% once a week, 8% once a month and
12% on occasional basis.This has led to slow but penetration of internet marketing.
66%
14%
8%12%
Usage of internet by customers
regularly
once in week
once in month
occasionally
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Q4. What was the source of medium other than internet that made you aware
about the products?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Newspaper 10 20%
T.V. 32 64%
Radio 2 4%
Banners 3 6%
Others 3 6%
Total 50 100%
Figure 4 : depicting the source of medium for the awareness about products other than
Internet
When asked about the medium of awareness about the various products other than
internet.64% got it from T.V., wherein 20% from newspaper, 4% radio, 6% from
banners or other to impulsive buying of products.
20%
64%
4%6%
6%
Medium of awareness about the product other than internet
Newspaper
T.V.
Radio
Banners
Others
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Q5. Does the information provided over the internet that made you aware about the
products?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Yes 19 38%
No 12 24%
Can’t Say 19 38%
Total 50 100%
Figure 5: depicting the satisfaction of information provided over the internet
Customer purchasing products by the medium of internet are satisfied. With 38%
saying yes, there are somewhat 24% saying no and 38% aren’t sure. With the
increment of satisfaction the roots of internet marketing can slowly capture the markets
especially of India.
38%
24%
38%
Satisfaction of information provided over the internet
Yes
No
Can't Say
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Q6. What features in online advertisement attracts you?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Design 9 18%
Color 9 18%
Offers 16 32%
Variety 12 24%
Details 4 8%
Total 50 100%
Figure 6: Depicting the features which attract the customers over online advertisement
The customers of internet marketing are highly attracted by the offers available
on the online advertisement. With 32% with offers, 24% variety of
products,18% with design of the website and with the color combinations and
8% with the details of the products.
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
18%
18%
32%
24%
8%
Features which attract customers over online
advertisement
Design
Color
Offers
Variety
Details
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Q7. Internet
marketing is used
for which type of
products?
Apparels 9 18%
Books 10 20%
Electronics 13 26%
Food 1 2%
Games 4 8%
Music 7 14%
Others 6 12%
Total 50 100%
Figure 7: depicting the type of products searched over internet
Types of products available over the internet are huge. But when asked about the
sort of products searched by the customers. It was seen that 18% go in for apparels,
20% for books, 26% for electronics, 2% for food, 8% games, 14% for music and
12% for other products.
Q8. Do you think companies provide adequate information about products while
marketing on internet?
Responses No. of
respondent
% of
Responedent
Yes 19 38%
No 14 28%
18%
20%
26%
2%
8%
14%
12%
Types of products searched over internet
Apparels
Books
Electronics
Food
Games
Music
Others
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Can’t Say 17 34%
Total 50 100%
Figure 8: depicting adequate information provided about the products by the
Company
Regarding the kind of information provided about the products by the company 38%
felt they were adequate, 28% felt they weren’t and 34% weren’t sure.
Responses No. of
respondent
% of
Responedent
Online Shopping 8 16%
Online
Advertisement
12 24%
Online Promotion 2 4%
All The Above 25 50%
None Of Above 3 6%
38%
28%
34%
Adequate information provided by company
Yes
No
Can't Say
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Q9. What all you think constitutes
internet marketing?
Total 50 100%
Figure 9: depicting what all internet marketing constitutes off
The customers were asked whether they know what all internet marketing constituted
off. Nearly 50% said it includes all the above, 16% knew its only online shopping, 24%
knew its only online advertisement , 4% felt its online promotion and 6% felt its none
of above.
Q10. Do you think internet marketing is more effective tool than traditional way of
markting?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Yes 24 48%
No 14 28%
Can’t Say 12 24%
Total 50 100%
16%
24%
4%
50%
6%
Internet marketing constitutes of
Online Shopping
Online Advertisement
Online Promotion
All The Above
None Of Above
48%
24%
Internet marketing effective tool than traditional marketing
Yes
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Figure 10 : Depicting whether internet marketing is more effective tool then traditional
marketing
The customers of internet marketing were of the opinion that it’s a more effective tool
than traditional marketing by 48%. Wherein 28% said no and 24% didn’t have an idea
over this.
Q11. Do you think internet marketing is reliable as a tool of marketing?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Yes 24 48%
No 16 32%
Can’t Say 10 20%
Total 50 100%
48%
32%
20%
Reliability of internet marketing
Yes
No
Can't Say
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Figure 11: Depicts internet marketing's reliability
The customers were asked whether internet marketing is reliable; there were 48%
who said yes, 32% who said no and 20% who didn’t have an idea over it.
Q12. What are the success factors of internet marketing?
Responses No. of respondent % of Responedent
Strong Branding 13 26%
Unique merchandise 8 16%
Good Customer Service 11 22%
CRM 5 10%
Distribution efficiency 10 20%
Others 3 6%
Total 50 100%
26%
16%
22%
10%
20%6%
Success factors of internet marketing
Strong Branding
Unique Merchandise
Good Customer Service
CRM
Distribution Efficiency
Others
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Figure 12: depicts about the success factors of internet marketing
Internet marketing have various success factors, 26% felt the strong branding is the
reason. 16% were of the opinion that unique products sold over the internet. 22% for
good customer service , 10% for CRM, 20% for distribution efficiency and 6% for other
reasons.
CHAPTER-IV
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Result of the study
Internet Marketing is a hot topic especially in these days of instant results. The reason
why i-marketing has become so popular is because they provide three major benefits
to potential buyers:
1. Convenience: Customers can order products 24 hours a day wherever they are.
They don’t have to sit in traffic, and a parking space, and walk through countless
shops to find and examine goods.
2. Information: Customers can find reams of comparative information about
companies, products, competitors, and prices without leaving their office or
home.
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3. Fewer hassles: Customers don’t have to face salespeople or open themselves
up to persuasion and emotional factors; they also don’t have to wait in line.
Internet Marketing also provides a number of benefits to marketers:
1. Quick adjustments to market conditions: Companies can quickly add
products to their offering and change prices and descriptions.
2. Lower costs: On-line marketers avoid the expense of maintaining a store and
the costs of rent, insurance, and utilities. They can produce digital catalogs for
much less than the cost of printing and mailing paper catalogs.
3. Relationship building: On-line marketers can dialogue with consumers and
learn from them.
4. Audience sizing: Marketers can learn how many people visited their on-line
site and how many stopped at particular places on the site. This information can
help improve offers and ads.
Clearly, marketers are adding on-line channels to find, reach, communicate, and sell.
I-marketing has at least five great advantages. First, both small and large firms can
afford it. Second, there is no real limit on advertising space, in contrast to print and
broadcast media. Third, information access and retrieval are fast, compared to
overnight mail and even fax. Fourth, the site can be visited by anyone from any place
in the world. Fifth, shopping can be done privately and swiftly.
The Internet is a powerful tool for strengthening relationships. By offering customers
content and time value, E-Marketing has opened new vistas for marketers. The
greatest feature of the digital economy is that it enables the E-Marketer to eradicate
man traditional barriers before entering new markets. These barriers include
economies of scale and geographic positioning. The innate strength of an E-Market
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comes not from the seamless flows of goods and services from the producer to the
customer but in the geometrically increasing returns from converging ideas and
technological change the strength of online communities has never been so great, and
companies have used them to develop new markets. Notice how Linux distributed
free on the Net has been able to build up a faithful customer base. Ultimately here
also the marketer has to realize that nothing sells as well as a good product. But the
beauty of the Internet is that it offers constant opportunities for product enhancement
based on continuous customer feedback. Companies who have tuned their business
processes to incorporate these customer responses have been able to leverage the
power of the Web to gain competitive advantage.
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Limitations
High Cost: Collecting data using primary research is a costly proposition as
marketer has to be involved throughout and has to design everything.
Time Consuming: Because of exhaustive nature of the exercise, the time
required to do research accurately is very long as compared to secondary data,
which can be collected in much lesser time duration.
Inaccurate Feed-backs: In case the research involves taking feedbacks from
the targeted audience, there are high chances that feedback given is not
correct. Feedbacks by their basic nature are usually biased or given just for the
sake of it.
More number of resources are required: Leaving aside cost and time, other
resources like human resources and materials too are needed in larger quantity
to do surveys and data collection.
Quality of Research: There are some disadvantages to using secondary
research. The originators of the primary research are largely self-governed and
controlled by the marketer. Therefore, the secondary research used must be
scrutinized closely since the origins of the information may be questionable.
Moreover, the researcher needs to take sufficient steps to critically evaluate
the validity and reliability of the information provided.
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Not Specific to Researcher’s Needs :In many cases, secondary data is not
presented in a form that exactly meets the researcher’s needs. Therefore, the
researcher needs to rely on secondary data that is presented and classified in a
way that is similar to their needs.
Suggestions and Recommendations
The following are a few things an internet marketer can do to maximize the potential
of his website: -
-→ Domain Fault Repair –
This function directs the web visitor to the right site after she/he potentially may have
typed in the wrong Internet address.
→ Site Customization: -
One of the web-based CRM most important advantages is the volume of information
available to the browsing customer. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of information
can be one of the weaknesses of web-based CRM design. Sites that offer
customization features allow user to filter the content they see. The future of truly
web-based CRM will be the completely “one-to-one” web sites. When properly
customizable on the first visit, the customer on a next entry can choose to see only
his/her own preferences. (Example: yahoo.com; my yahoo)
→ Alternative Channels –
Different ways to contact the company are offered, for instance, Email, Fax toll-free
numbers, Postal Address, Call back button and Voice over IP.
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→ Local Search Engine –
Allows the visitor to search on key words to quickly locate specific answers on the
website.
→ Membership –
The visitor can request a password. With this password he can continue surfing on
password protected web pages within the website.
→ Mailing List –
To receive more information, the visitor can add his/her email address to a list to
receive automated emails.
→ Site tour –
The visitor can follow a tour through the website.
→ Site Map –
This is a hierarchical diagram of the pages on the website, also called a site overview,
site index, or site map.
→ Introduction for First-Time Users –
Visitors, who enter the site for the first time, can surf to an introduction page. This
page contains information about “How to use the site most efficiently”
→ Chat –
A main advantage of the Internet is its self-generating advantage. By allowing visitors
to interact with each other and with the site, they create content for the site.
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All this will help build a relationship with the customer and it will ultimately help
themarketer to achieve his objectives. Internet has opened up new avenues for
reaching the consumer. It is true thatthere is never a fixed way or strategy that a
marketer can use to market its products andservices on the internet but it is still very
much an arena where creative thinking can takethe company reach new heights. Thus
we can say that marketing has not changed itsshape. It is the same, unpredictable,
unusual and creative field that needs constant changeand open inputs that can work
wonders for the company.
The following are the main points to be kept in mind for betterment of internet
marketing:
1. Website
• Share your website via social sites
• Bookmark your related links and pages example shareaholic
• Social site like digg, reddit and stumble upon.
2. BLOG
• Write above 250 word sin content
• need to create Blog roll
• Need to have privacy policy and about page of your blog
• Add appropriate widget to your blog like search widget
• Add follow us to link with social media
•Link up previous blog in your new blog post
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• Add labels to every blog post
3. DISPLAY Ads
• Add some attractive information for your blog
• Display ads should have some impressive image
• Insert your link on display ad.
4. Affiliated Marketing
•Is promoting business through using an network of associates.
•They are rewarded for grab visitors or customers to the site.
•Not apply to our blog as we are not using them, on behalf we using PPC, Display Ad
sand other.
5. Personnel Relation Marketing
• Have to make a pitch for your blog
• Enter interesting heading to grab market
• Add blog related picture to enhance your pitch
6. Email Marketing
• Email is based on your blog post
•Your First content paragraph should be impressive
• Add some related pictures to get attention by the customer
• Based on upcoming event and some special offer
LXXI
7. Mobile Marketing
• Add pages to your mobile apps
•Mandatory for marketing
•Need to develop different apps for different OS
•Make it more interactive