|
It may seem surprising but many
companies, big and small, have yet to develop a rational
Internet marketing strategy. Considering the Internet
has now been used effectively by marketers since 1994,
any organization without a strategy to utilize the
Internet for marketing is probably making a big mistake.
For any organization that still does not have a meaningful
Internet marketing effort we offer 10 Reasons why
you should.
1. The Go-To Place for Information
Possibly the most important reason why companies need
to have an active Internet marketing strategy is because
of the transformation that has occurred in how customers
seek information. While customers still visit stores,
talk to sales representatives, look through magazines,
and talk to friends to gather product information,
an ever-increasing number of customers turn to the
Internet as their primary knowledge source. In particular,
they use search engines as their principle portal
of knowledge as search sites have become the leading
destination sites for most Internet users. Marketers
must recognize that the Internet is where customers
are heading and, if the marketer wants to stay visible
and viable, they must follow.
2. What Customers Expect
The Internet is not only becoming the resource of
choice for finding information, in the next few years
it is also likely to be the expected location where
customers can learn about products and make purchases.
This is especially the case for customers below the
age of 25. In many countries, nearly all children
and young adults have been raised knowing how to use
the Internet. Once members of this group dominate
home and business purchases they will clearly expect
companies to have a strong Internet presence.
3. Captures a Wide Range of
Customer Information
As a data collection tool the
Internet is unmatched when it comes to providing information
on customer activity.
Each time a visitor accesses a website they leave an
information trail that includes how they got to the
site, how they navigated through the site, what they
clicked on, what was purchased, and loads of other information.
When matched to a method for customer identification,
such as login information, the marketer has the ability
to track a customer’s activity over repeated visits
to the site. Knowing a customer’s behavior and
preferences opens up tremendous opportunities to cater
to customer’s needs and, if done correctly, the
customer will respond with a long-lasting loyalty.
4. Extreme Target Marketing
The most efficient way for
marketers to spend money is to direct spending to
those who are most likely
to be interested in what the marketer is offering.
Unfortunately, efforts to target only customers who
have the highest probably of buying has not been easy.
For instance, consider how much money is wasted on
television advertisements to people who probably will
not buy. Yet the Internet’s unrivaled ability
to identify and track customers has greatly improved
marketer’s ability to target customers who exhibit
the highest potential for purchasing products.
5. Stimulate Impulse Purchases
Whether customers like it or
not, the Internet is proving to be the ultimate venue
for inducing impulse
purchases. Much of this can be attributed to marketers
taking advantage of improvements in technologies that:
1) allow a website to offer product suggestions based
on customer’s online buying behavior, and 2)
streamline the online purchasing process. But online
impulse purchasing also takes advantage of the “purchase
now, pay later” attitude common in an overspending
credit card society. How this plays out over time
as many customers become overwhelmed with debt will
need to be watched and could impact online marketer’s
activities.
6. Customized Product and Service
Offerings
Companies know they can develop
loyal customers when product and service offerings are
designed to satisfy
individual needs. This has led many online marketers
to implement a mass customization strategy offering
customers online options for configuring products or
services. The interactive nature of the Internet makes “build-your-own” a
relatively easy to implement purchasing option. An empowered
customer base that feels a company will deliver exactly
what they want is primed to remain loyal for long period
of time.
7. Takes Prospects Right to
the Sale
No other form of communication comes close to turning
exposure to promotion into immediate customer action
as the Internet, which allows customers to make purchases
immediately after experiencing a promotion. Prior to
the Internet, the most productive call-to-action was
through television informercials that encourage viewers
to call toll-free phone numbers. However, moving customers
from a non-active state (i.e., watching television)
to an active state (i.e., picking up the phone to call
the number) is not nearly as effective as getting people
to click on an Internet ad while they are actively using
the Internet.
8. Conveys Perception of Being
a Full-Service Provider
For distributors and retailers
the Internet makes it easy to be a comprehensive supplier.
Unlike brick-and-mortar
suppliers who are often judged by the inventory that
is actually on hand or services provided at a store,
e-commerce sites can give the illusion of having depth
and breadth of inventory and service offerings. This
can be accomplished by placing product and service information
on the company’s website but behind the scenes
having certain orders fulfilled by outside suppliers
via shipping and service agreements. With such arrangements
customers may feel they are dealing with providers that
offer full-service when in reality a certain percentage
of the products and service are obtained from other
sources.
9. Lower Overhead, Lower Costs,
Better Service
Internet technologies are replacing
more expensive methods for delivering products and services,
and for handling
customer information needs. Cost savings can certainly
be seen with products and services deliverable in digital
form (e.g., music, publications, graphic design, etc.)
where production and shipping expenses are essentially
removed from the cost equation. Cost savings may also
be seen in other marketing areas including customer
service where the volume of customer phone calls may
be reduced as companies provide online access to product
information through such services as Knowledge Bases
and answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Field salespeople
may also see benefits by encouraging prospects to obtain
product information online prior to a face-to-face meeting.
This may help reduce the time devoted to explaining
basic company and product information and leave more
time for understanding and offering solutions to customer’s
problems. As these examples suggest, the Internet may
lower administrative and operational costs while offering
greater value to customers.
10. Create Worldwide Presence
The Internet is a communication
and distribution channel that offers global accessibility
to a company’s
product and service offerings. Through a website a
local marketer can quickly become a global marketer
and, by doing so, expand their potential target market
to many times it current size. Unlike the days before
e-commerce when marketing internationally was a time-consuming
and expensive undertaking, the uploading of files
to establish a website is all that is needed to create
a worldwide presence. While establishing a website
does not guarantee international sales (there is a
lot more marketing work needed for the site to be
viable internationally), the Internet provides a gigantic
leap into global business compared to pre-Internet
days.
Article found on KnowThis.com.
by Paul Christ, KnowThis.com
|
