Marketing Opportunity

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Introduction

The greatest invention of mankind is language;

an invention in which all kinds of people have

contributed over a long time and that enables

them to communicate their feelings and

thoughts. I f that is the case, the second greatest

invention is coming of age; that is the Interna-

tional communication network, whose last mani-

festation is the World Wide Web (WWW). Lan-

guage gives human beings the possibility of com-

munication and the Web is removing its biggest

physical barrier, that is distance. This second

invention which is the result of thousands of

inventions and discoveries is a continuous grow-

ing and developing phenomenon, as language is.More and more businesses are discovering

the WWW as a fundamental communication

tool used to conduct daily business. Large and

small companies are embracing the Web to

communicate with current and potential cus-

tomers abroad through the Internet with the

same cost and ease as in their countries (e.g.

The Project 2000 Group[1]; Armstrong and

Hagel, 1996; Cyber Atlas, 1996; Hagel and

Lansing, 1994; Hamill and Gregory, 1997;

Hoffman and Novak, 1996; Rayport and

Sviokla, 1994; 1995; Quelch and Klein, 1996;Schwartz, 1997). Businesses can create and

transmit advertisements on the Web that can be

accessed by anybody with a computer equipped

with appropriate software. Such a convenience

and marketing efficiency, both for the advertiser

and the potential customer, is making the Web

popular for marketing practices all over the

world. According to Rayport and Sviokla

(1995), “Every business today competes in two

worlds: a physical world of resources that man-

agers can see and touch and a virtual world

made of information. T he latter has given rise to

the world of electronic commerce.”

The Internet and the Web, the fastest grow-

ing and most innovative components of that

particularly, have some unique and powerful

characteristics that make them central to a

paradigm shift in marketing (e.g. Armstrong

and Hagel, 1996; Blattberget al., 1994; Glazer,

1991; 1993; Hoffman and Novak, 1996;

K ierzkowski et al., 1996; M artin, 1996; Pine,

1992; Rayport and Sviokla, 1995; Schwartz,

1997). T he shift from “one-way” to “two-way”information flows between producers and

18 5

M arket ing opportunit ies

in t he digital w orld

G. Reza K iani

The author

G. Reza Kiani is Research Associate at Henley M anagement

College, Greenlands, Henley-on Thames, Oxfordshire, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

With t he birth of the World W ide Web, the current decade has

w itnessed tremendous evolution in the media environment,

and indicates that electronic comm erce, defined as the

electronic exchange of inform ation, g oods, services, and

payments, has finally come of age. Despite the fast-grow ing

popularity o f electronic commerce and presence of m any

companies on the virtual market, the opport unities offered by

this new environment are sti l l unknow n. Man y marketers sti l l

approach the Web based on the tradit ional mass comm unica-

tion m odel. The paper addresses the opportun ities offered by

the W eb to marketers. Its approach considers the Web as a

tw o-way communicat ion model in which four d i f ferent

comm unication states can take place. The paper also sug-

gests the necessity of n ew concepts and models for m arketers

to m anage their Web sites, and then presents the opportuni-

ties supportin g the m arketers’ objectives in the new environ-

ment .

Internet Research: Electronic Netw orking Applications and Policy

Volume 8 · Number 2 · 1998 · pp. 185–194 © M CB Un iversi ty Press · ISSN 10 66 -2 24 3



consumers (Blattberget al., 1994), from the

conventional “One-to-Many” communication

model to the “Many-to-Many” model (Hoff-

man and Novak, 1996), from “supply-side” to“demand-side” thinking (Rayport and Sviokla,

1995), and the shift to the “fifth phase” of

marketing evaluation, characterised by “differ-

entiated products in decentralised markets”

(Blattberget al. , 1994). Figure 1 shows this

paradigm shift in different aspects.

A model to approach the ma rket ing

opportunit ies

The appearance of the new marketing environ-

ment is aligned with the evolutionary progress

of the marketing functions from a mass-market

model, One-to-Many using the word of Hoff-

man and Novak (1996), to more interactive

individualisation of goods, services and interac-

tions. According to Blattberget al. (1994, p.

27), in the new environment, marketers are able

to consider consumers individually, customise

their services and products, and “establish

dialogues with consumers” rather than talk “at”

them. T his is due to the unique and powerful

characteristics of the WWW.

The opportunities which the Web, as a two-way

communication channel, provides can be dis-

cussed in four logical situations: company-to-

consumer; consumer-to-company; consumer-to-consumer; company-to-company.

Figure 2 illustrates the logical pattern of the

communications among companies and con-

sumers through the WWW.

In an interactive media, a marketing activity

can employ one or a combination of the above

communication patterns. T he important point

here is that what causes the powerful opportuni-

ty in an interactive medium, relative to one-way

medium, is the ability to provide a mutual com-

munication. Given this, the above categorisation

attempts to clarify all possible communicationpatterns. I follow this categorisation to see how

marketing can benefit from the new opportuni-

ties provided by the WWW, from these four

angles. F igure 3 illustrates the logic of these

communication patterns by emphasising the

mutuality behind them.

M arket ing opportunit ies on the Web

Company-to-consumers

This side of the communication on the Web

views the content delivery. According to

Morgan (1996), marketers can use interactive

media to provide higher services and lower cost

by delivering up-dated product- and non-prod-

uct-related information. Comparing the WWW

with traditional marketing communication

channels, according to Ellsworth and Ellsworth

(1997), the Web is a faster, less expensive,

highly immediate communication, round the

18 6

Marketing oppor tunit ies in the d ig i ta l wor ld

G. Reza Kiani

Internet Research: Electronic Netw orking A pplications and Policy

Volume 8 · Number 2 · 1998 · 185–194

One-To-M anycommunication

model

Many-To-Manycommunicationmodel

Hoffman, and Novak(1996)

From To Sources

Mass marketing Individualisedmarketing

M artin (1996)

M onologue Dialogue Blattberg and

Deighton (1996)

Branding Communication M art in (1996)

Supply-sidethinking

Demand-sidethinking

Rayport and Sviokla(1995)

M egabrand Diversity M art in (1996)

Cent ralis ed m arket Dec ent ralis ed m arket Blattberg, et al.

(1994)

Customer as atarget

Customer as a partner M cKenna (1995)

Segm entat ions Com munit iesArmst rong and HagelIII (1996)

Source: Kiani (1997)

Figure 1 The new m arketing paradigm shift in diff erent directions: from

marketplace to m arketspace

Consumers Company

Consumers

Company

ConsumersTo

Consumers

CompanyTo

Consumers

ConsumersTo

Company

CompanyTo

Company

Source : the author

Figure 2 Various possible solutions in a tw o-w ay communication m edium



clock and global. It offers wider and deeper

material and richer advertisement content.

To deliver an advertising content to con-

sumers, the Web can do the things that the

traditional mass media advertising cannot. The

basic advantages to businesses using the Web

are described within the following sections.

Addressabil it y

Hammondet al. (1995) suggest that “One of the

benefits of Internet advertising is that each time

a user connects to a Web site, the site provider

has a record of the user’s electronic address, so

companies can build lists of early adopters who

‘browse’ the Internet”. T he Web is able to con-

tact the customer uniquely in time and space.

The new interactive communication system,

“the fifth medium” (newspapers, magazines,

radio, and television are the other four), has one

important advantage which is “memory”.

According to Stewart and Ward (1993), what an

individual has acquired, in terms of informa-

tion, products or services, can be captured for

future use by the marketer.

Blattberg and Deighton (1991) argue that

addressable marketing is not new; the mail and

telephone have been also the addressable tools

in marketing for many years. What is new is

low-cost and high-speed electronic manage-

ment of the dialogue. T he cost of holding aconsumer’s name, address, and purchase

history on-line has fallen by a factor of 1,000

since 1970 and is continuing to fall at this rate.

Electronic marketers can do what a salesforce

can with much more flexibility and bettermemory.

According to Blattberg and Deighton (1991),

addressability of the Web provides the opportu-

nity for marketing to create individual relation-

ships, managing markets of one, and addressing

each in terms of its stage of development. In

essence, it represents the opportunity to cus-

tomise and tailor either the product or the

marketing effort to one consumer at a time. On

seeing an advertisement, a consumer would be

able to press an icon to request more informa-

tion or to order the product or service. There-

fore, marketers could monitor all such activities

to assess which kinds of advertising, in which

kinds of venues, work best with which kinds of

subscribers (Hagel and Lansing, 1994).

According to K ierzkowski et al. (1996),

addressable communication gives the marketer

two important opportunities, which are to: learn

about an individual consumer in the course of

continued interaction; and deliver either a

personalised service or product, or a communi-

cation about the availability of such a person-alised service or product.

They point out one of the on-line publica-

tions, as an example, which delivers a person-

alised on-line newspaper compiled on the basis

of a user’s specified interests, “published for a

circulation of one”.

Blattberg and Deighton (1991) identify the

fundamental impacts of this strong ability of the

Web on the marketing rules:

• A database of transaction histories will be the

primary marketing resource of many firms,

determining what kind of product they can

deliver and what market they can serve. Far

more directly than the traditional media,

customers will shape the firms that serve

them.

• Marketing will be more accountable. The unit

of measure will be the lifetime value of each

customer to the firm. M arketing efficiency

will be measured by changes in the asset value

of the firm’s customer base over time.

• Distributors’ steady erosion of manufacturer

power will slow and may even reverse, asmanufacturers take back functions from

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Consumers

Company

Source : the author

Consumers

Othercompanies

Figure 3 Il lustration of different comm unication patt erns in interactive

environment





consumer. Consumers can actively choose

whether to approach firms through their Web

sites (Benjamin and Wigand, 1995; Blattberget

al. , 1994; Hoffman and Novak, 1996;K ierzkowski et al., 1996). According to Blattberg

et al. (1994), the customer is now an active

participant, and a partner in the production.

Therefore, motivation of consumers to response

and interact is a key point of virtual marketing in

such a marketing environment. According to

Benjamin and Wigand (1995, p. 62), “Con-

sumers’ full access to the market will also be an

issue that policy makers need to explore”. In

other words, “in an interactive, two-way,

addressable world, it is the consumer – and not

the marketer – who decides with whom to inter-act, what to interact about, and how to interact

at all. M arketers have to earn the right to the

digital relationship, and they have to do so by

continuously enhancing the value they offer

consumers” (K ierzkowskiet al., 1996, p. 20).

Marketing today has learned that the proba-

bility of purchase by a repeat buyer is much

greater than that by a randomly mailed house-

hold who has never been a customer. Once an

individual or firm becomes a customer, the

marketer begins to collect information to

manage the relationship. For example, identify-

ing the products already being bought and

determining the customer’s response to a specif-

ic promotion. “Profiling” allows firms to learn

more about the consumers’ interests and prod-

ucts or services desired (Blattberget al., 1994).

As such, the opportunity for customer inter-

action, as Hoffman and Novak (1996) suggest,

is unprecedented. T he opportunity can be

utilised in numerous ways, for example: the

design of new products; the development of

product and marketing strategy; and the innova-

tion of content.

According to Blattberget al. (1994), for

many firms participation of customers in the

process of production is impossible, because the

ability to identify the customer and tailor the

product or service does not exist. Companies

have to create the ability now if they want to

have repeat buyers. To date, the customer

repeats purchases due to the product or service

offers good value, not because it meets his or her

specific needs.

To meet individualised user needs efficiently,Blattberg et al. (1994) argue that the firm must

be able to create modular products or services

which allow the user to then participate in the

development of the specific product using a

menu of options. For instance, when purchasinga washing machine, consumers want numerous

options: capacity, placement of door, style,

colour and so on. T he company should be able

to assemble these components quickly and at

low cost so that the customer can have the

product or service desired at a reasonable price.

In this respect, Blattberg and Deighton (1991)

suggest that production skills of firms are

needed to tailor product to specific customers.

As the product or service becomes

customised, the consumer faces serious prob-

lems to identify the product or service s/hedesires. To deal with this difficulty Blattberg et

al. (1994) suggest that it will be necessary for

the firm to develop integrative information-

processing systems to simplify the consumer’s

decision process. T he system should allow the

customer to enter specific desired characteris-

tics and trade-offs and then design the product.

If the product costs too much, the consumer

can look at the related options to reduce it. In

this respect, questioning the consumer must be

done in simple terms and the expert system

must convert the information into a product

(e.g. insurance policy) desired for the consumer.

Consumers-to-consumers

According to K ierzkowskiet al. (1996), many

consumer marketers approach interactive media

in the same way that they might approach tradi-

tional media involving one-way communication

from the marketer to the consumer, while inter-

active media allows marketers to establish a

dialogue and benefit from many possibilities

which this media can provide.

Although almost all pre-eminent marketing

authors (e.g. Blattberg and Deigton, 1991;

K ierzkowski et al., 1996; M cKenna, 1995)

believe that in the new marketing approach, the

customer is seen as an individual market not as

part of a segment from many authors’ view

points we can see a new form of segmentation in

the market. T his is not to say that the new mar-

keting paradigm has not focused on individual

customers, but it is to say that the segmentation

approach is not perishing at all. What is happen-

ing is a replacement with a new form of segmen-tation. Armstrong and Hagel (1996) suggest

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that commercial success in the on-line market

will belong to those firms that organise electron-

ic communities to meet multiple social and

commercial needs. According to K ierzkowskiet al. (1996, p. 17), “The more consumers invest

time and develop familiarity in interacting with

others, the less likely they are to start building

these virtual relationships again elsewhere. This

explains the growing emphasis among digital

marketing application developers on communi-

ties of interest”. Armstrong and Hagel (1996)

categorised the various types of electronic com-

munities into four distinct categories: commu-

nities of transaction facilitate buying and selling

of services and products and deliver the relevant

information (e.g. car caring); communities of interest bring together participants who interact

with one another on specific topics (e.g. garden-

ing); communities of fantasy where they create

new environments, personalities, or stories; and

communities of relationship around certain life

experiences that often are very intense and can

lead to the information of deep personal con-

nections (e.g. cancer forums).

Usually marketers focus narrowly on con-

sumers’ needs within the parameters of their

product category; at best, a marketer may

analyse a few related categories. But what

should be done is to analyse the business of

companies in unrelated industries that are

targeting the same customers.

The concept of interactivity can be clarified

better by the notion of the on-line communities.

Armstrong and Hagel (1996) noted the exam-

ples showing the interactivity of consumers in

on-line communities. I n an Internet-based

community for parents, for instance, parents

can turn to the community for advice on such

matters as whether an infant should be put on a

schedule for meals and sleep. T his “Parents’

place”, which is linked with some other relevant

and exciting sites, also has a shopping mall

equipped with catalogues, stores, and services

such as on-line diaper ordering. Price and selec-

tion being equal, it is more likely that parents

will shop at “Parents’ place” than at a compet-

ing site that allows only for transactions.

However, in marketing, electronic communi-

ties will slowly emerge as a dominant paradigm

in the near future. In this respect, one that is well

routed in physical shopping is the notion of clubs. People come together in clubs to purchase

items where the transaction costs make individ-

ual purchase prohibitive (e.g. some stocks and

bonds), or to learn more about products and

have options to purchase unusual or attractivelypriced selections (e.g. car or antique clubs).

Such clubs can naturally find a home on the

Web. M anufacturers could develop such clubs as

a way of getting closer to consumers, or sponsor

existing clubs (Armstrong and Hagel, 1996).

Company-to-company

The rule of the game in the interactive media is

changed and it is expected more co-operation

will take place among companies in the future.

The new environment will bring some forms of

interdependency among companies which canbe matched better with virtual circumstances.

According to K ierzkowski et al. (1996), the

most significant challenge for digital marketers

will be to manage the interdependencies

between their digital marketing efforts and the

rest of the organisation and existing outside

partners, such as distributors and retailers.

In such this complex environment a key

success factor in corporations is having the set

of core competencies needed for excellence.

That set of competencies is often too much forone firm, therefore companies need partners.

The WWW facilitates partnering. In such cir-

cumstances, a small company can be part of a

group that gives it access to more customers or

new markets. T he company appears to have

larger size or greater capability and hence be

more likely to gain a sale (M artin, 1996).

At the present time the main purpose of

companies in communicating on the Web is to

increase traffic to their sites. T here are three

different ways to make traffic in a Web site: link

“from” other sites; link “to” other sites: andgoing under one roof.

L ink “ from” other sites

Businesses in physical shopping malls benefit

from the traffic flow of multitudes window

shopping. T he same can be true on-line. To be

most effective, a Web site should be used in

conjunction with several active forms of market-

ing which it will be examined briefly below:

• To advertise the web site to Web search

engines that index the Web, such as

Yahoo[4], Lycos[5], Altavista[6], and InfoSeek[7]. T here are some services providing a

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way to submit information to many of the

indexes (e.g. “Submit it”[8] provides the

service to submit information to about 15 of

the most important indexes).• To advertise to the industry-wide linking

Web pages and any industry-related pages.

For example, the members’ lists of the trade

association. Several on-line craft centres, for

example, offer free links to other crafters,

such as “Virtual Trade Show”[9].

• To become active in the many Internet news

groups and mailing lists; the groups that are

most likely to be frequented by the potential

customers groups.

L ink “ to” other sitesUnlike direct and traditional mass marketing,

digital marketing requires consumers to voluntar-

ily visit a WWW site. Hence, marketers in this

environment need actively to attract users.

According to K ierzkowskiet al . (1996), linking to

other sites typically is one of the ways to make the

site more interesting and to attract more potential

consumers. It can be done by linking to sites

giving more relevant information to the products

or services like the type of information or news

which may be of consumers’ interest such as

“What is New”, weather reports, TV programs,

or entertainments services like “What’s Cool”.

A number of well-financed corporate Web

sites offer an entertaining fare which changes

constantly. While most small business Web mar-

keters cannot afford to compete; they have the

chance to provide up-to-date information about

the industry, and keep their sites fresh by linking

to some other sites (K ierzkowskiet al ., 1996).

Going under one roof

The emergence of virtual malls and bazaars can

be seen as an opportunity for companies to be

gathered virtually under one roof to benefit

from the traffic flow of mall and bazaar visitors

(Hoffmanet al., 1995; O’K eefe, 1995).

Malls and bazaars take the business that fits

their particular policy. Some admit particular

industries and some have a wider policy to

admit businesses. T he “Internet Mall”[10], as

an example, has located about 3,000 businesses

under one roof.

There is no published report to prove signifi-

cantly the effects of the above methods in effi-ciency of a site to date.

How to advert ise in the “market space”:the rules of the gam e

One of the earliest and still most commercial

activities on the Internet is advertising. Until the

early 1990s, applications on the Internet were

essentially non-graphical, and all Internet-based

marketing activities were performed by sending

plain text messages on the Internet. T he birth of

the WWW in 1993 offers opportunities which

were unimaginable during the text-based era of

the Internet. T he WWW allows hypertext navi-

gation (so-called point-and-click) as well as

graphical displays. Marketing activities on the

Internet are no longer limited to plain text

messages (Poon and Jevons, 1997). Despite all

the exciting marketing potential offered by the

Web, according to K ierzkowski et al. (1996),

many marketers approach interactive media in

the same way they might approach traditional

media like television, magazines, or even direct

marketing channels. There are fundamental

differences between these two media. The

traditional media involves one-way communica-

tion from the marketer to customers, which is

highly unfocused, while interactive media allows

marketers to establish a dialogue with individual

consumers.

Thus, marketers must carefully consider the

ways in which advertising and communication

models can be adapted and reconstructed for the

interactive medium (Hoffman and Novak, 1996).

Models for advertising on the Web

The abilities of the new marketing medium

implies the necessity of new models for market-

ing in the new environment. The new marketing

models should consider all opportunities which

the interactive media can provide for marketers

and be well-matched with the new marketingparadigms. Some authors responded this neces-

sity and provided new conceptual frameworks

for marketing communication on the Web (e.g.

Berthon et al. , 1996a; 1996b; K ierzkowski et al. ,

1996; Pittet al ., 1996).

K ierzkowski et al . (1996) present a model

around five recommendations which they

believe are essential factors for success in digital

marketing. These are:

(1) Attract users . T he policy of “build it and

they will come” might work in the market-

place but it does not in the marketspace. The consumers should be attracted to the

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site. T his needs some considerations such

as having a mnemonic “address” for the

site, and linking from other sites.

(2) Engage users’ interest and par ti cipation .Having attracted users, marketers should

engage users’ interest and participation to

achieve an interaction or a transaction. T his

can happen by providing customers with

convenience-oriented content, communities

of interest, links to other sites, and so on.

(3) Retain users and ensure they return to an appli -

cation. Once the consumers have been drawn

to the site and they have been engaged with

suitably interactive and valued content, the

marketer must make sure that they keep

returning to the site. T his can take place bykeeping the site “fresh” through continuous-

ly renewing content and/or providing content

that is inherently changeable on an ongoing

basis, such as weather reports.

(4) Learn about their preferences. This is the stage

at which marketers should learn about

consumer demographics, attitudes, and

behaviours. Demographic and attitudinal

information may come in the form of e-mail

communications to marketers, opinions

volunteered on bulletin boards or informa-

tion gathered in surveys, questionnaires, orregistration processes. Behavioural infor-

mation can be gathered from transaction

records or “click-stream” which track how

users behave in a site.

(5) Relate back to them to provide the sort of cus-

tomised interacti ons. This represents the

opportunity to customise the interaction

and tailor either the product or the market-

ing effort to one consumer at a time. As a

two-way and addressable communication

channel, interactive media provides an

unprecedented opportunity for marketers to

“relate” to a consumer. This may take place

by gathering the necessary information from

an individual consumer and delivering either

a personalised service or product, or a com-

munication about the availability of such a

personalised service or product.

Berthonet al. (1996a; 1996b) developed a new

concept, named “Conversion efficiency”, to

assess the efficiency of a commercial site. T he

concept is based on an implicit model whichrecommends some considerations necessary for

commercial advertising on the Web. The model

presents five sequential stages/phases suggesting

the flow of surfer activity on a Web site. T hese

stages are: awareness, attraction, visit/contact,

purchase and re-purchase (Figure 4).

Discussion

The advertising objective is to say the right

things to the right people and have them per-ceive what is said. Three main dimensions are

involved in this definition, as can be seen in

Figure 5. These are: message, the meaning that

the advertiser intends to transmit to the audi-

ences; format, those advertising attributes that

attract the consumer’s attention; and context, or

media which gives some specific opportunities

to advertisers in attracting the audiences and

transmitting the message to them (Figure 5).An

advertisement, in order to be successful, needs

to be considered strongly in all dimensions. In

other words, the message should be supported

by an appropriate format and a right use of

opportunities offered by the medium (Figure 6).

Every medium has its own ability and needs

its own requirements. The literature strongly

supports the view that the rules of the game in

virtual marketing are quite different from those

of the traditional mass communication systems

(K iani, 1997). Despite that, many advertisers

still approach the Web based on the traditional

mass communication model (the pattern shown

in Figure 7).Considering the opportunities provided by

the Web, marketers should use them rightly to

achieve their objective. Thus, understanding and

supporting each objective is an essential require-

ment for advertising on the WWW. Some exam-

ples, in this respect, are provided in Table I.

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Source: adapted from Berthon et al. (1996a and 1996b)

Aw areness At tract ion Visit /contact Purchase Re-purchase

Figure 4 Five-phase model of m arketing on t he Web



Summa ry a nd conclusions

Never before has it been so easy to access infor-

mation on a worldwide basis, and never before

have so many people been exposed to and used

a single information-sharing system. The

increasing popularity of the Web has generated

significant interest in the development of elec-

tronic commerce.

This new marketing environment can be

viewed from four different angles to undergo the

opportunities provided for marketers. T hese are:

company-to-consumer, consumer-to-company,

consumer-to-consumer and company-to-com-

pany. T he opportunities offered by the Web ineach communication situation were discussed.

The objective of marketers in establishing a Web

site differs from one organisation to another.

Some marketers might want their Web site to

make the audience aware of or interested in, their

products or brands while some others might wish

to sell and resell their product through the Web

sites (Pitt, 1996). Hence, it is vital that business

leaders and marketers understand the potentials

of the virtual market and the opportunities

offered by this new environment and use them

effectively to support their objective.

Notes

1 Undertaking several researches in Internet m arket ing the

Project 2000 Group m akes a particularly importan t

contributio n to the l i teratu re in the area. The Project’s

homepage is hosted at t he URL: [http:/ /ww w 2000.

ogsm.vanderbi l t.edu]

2 ” BMG’s Classical M usic’ is hosted on the Web at theURL: [http://classicalmus.com]

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Context

MessageFormat

Figure 5 Three main dimensions of advertising

Context

MessageFormat

Figure 7 Traditional approach of advertising in a new medium

Context

MessageFormat

Figure 6 The pattern of successful advertising

Table I M arketing objectives on the Web and examples of supportive features

O bje ct iv es Exa m ple s o f su pp or tiv e fe at ure s

Awareness Anno uncement : throu gh lett erheads, business cards,brochures, packages, new spapers, m agazines and TV

M nemon ic-ness of address: its similarit y to the

company name

Attraction Hyperlinks from other sites: search engi nes addressing

the site, searchable in dexes addressing t he site and

hotl inks from ot her si tes

Content length of document: the high er content ( texts,

images, backgrounds, animat ions, frames, sounds and

video) the less speed to be dow nloaded by visitors

Bandwidth of the connect ion speed

Visit/engage Information: about products and company

Facilit ies: Java, search engin es, sound, vid eo andanimation

Purchase Order facilit ies: ordering form , mail, fax, call phon e and

e-mail

Payment facilit ies: cash/cheque, credit card and direct

account

Delivery/booking facilit ies: mail, fax, call phone and

e-mail

Re-purchase Freshness: communities/clubs/user-to-user

communicat ion, “ What ’s New ” and “ FAQs” ( f requent ly

asked questions)

Hyperlink to ot her sites

Custom isation: collecting user’s inform ation ,demographic information, customer needs, opt ional

menu and diag nostic requiring user input



3 “Amazon Booksto re” i s hosted on the Web a t the URL:[http:/ /www.amazon.com]

4 Yahoo is available at the URL: [http:/ /ww w.yahoo.com]

5 Lycos is avai lable at the URL: [http:/ /ww w.lycos.com]6 Al tavista is available at the URL: [http:/ /ww w.al tavista.

com]

7 InfoSeek is available at the URL: [http:/ /ww w.infoseek.

com]

8 “ Submi t i t ” p rovides the serv ice to submi t i n fo rmat ion to

about 15 of t he most impo rtant ind exes. It is hosted on

the Web at t he URL: [http:/ /ww w.submit i t .com]

9 “ Vi rtual Trade Show” is hosted on the Web at the URL:[http:/ /www.vts.com]

10 The “ In ternet M a l l” i s hosted on the Web a t the URL:

[http:/ /www.iw.com/imal l ]

References and further reading

Arm strong, A. and Hagel, J. III (1996), “ The real value of

onl ine communi t ies” , Harvard Business Review , May-

June, pp. 134-41.

Benjamin, R. and Wigand, R. (1995), “ Electronic markets andvi r tual value chains on t he information superhighway” ,

Sloan M anagement Review , Wint er, pp. 62-72.

Berthon, P., Pitt, L. and Wat son, R.T. (1996a), “ M arketingcommunicat ion and the World Wide Web” , Business

Horizons , September/October, pp. 24-31.

Bertho n, P., Pitt, L. and Wat son, R.T. (1996 b), “ The Worl d

Wide Web as an advertising medium: to ward anunderstanding of conversion efficiency” , Journal of

Advertising Research , January/ February, pp. 43-5 4.

Blattberg, R.C. and Deighton, J. (1991), “ Interactive market-ing: exploiting the age of addressabil i ty” , Sloan

Management Review , Fall, pp. 5-1 4.

Blattberg, R.C. and Deighton, J. (1996), “ M anage marketing

by the customer equi ty test” , Harvard Business Review ,July-August, p p. 136-44.

Blatt berg, R.C., Glazer, R. and Litt le, J.D.C. (1994), “ Intr oduc-

t i on ” , The Marketing Information Revolution , HarvardBusiness School Press, Cambri dge, M A, p. 1.

Cyber Atlas (1996), “ Demographics and market size” , is

hosted on the Web at the URL: [htt p://w w w.cyberat-las.com]

Ellswort h, J.H. and Ellswort h, M .V. (1997), M arket ing on the

Internet , Wiley, New York, N Y.

Glazer, R. (1991), “ M arketing in an informat ion-intensiveenvironment : strategic implications of know ledge as

an asset” , Journal of Marketing , No. 55, pp. 1-19.

Glazer, R. (1993), “ M easuring the value of inform ation: theinformation- intensive information” , IBM Systems

Journal , No. 32, pp. 99-110.

Hagel, J. III and Lansing, W.J. (1994), “ Who ow ns the cus-

tomer?” , The M cKinsey Quarterly , No. 4, pp. 63-75.

Hagel, J. III and Rayport, J.F. (1997), “ The comi ng bat tle fo r

customer information” , Harvard Business Review ,Januar y-February, pp. 53-6 5.

Hamil l , J. and Gregory, K. (1997), “ Internet m arketing in th einternation alisation of UK SM Es” , Journal of Marketing Research , No. 13, pp. 9-28.

Hamm ond, K., Pluim, D. and Eynde, K.V. (1995), “ Interactivemass media a review of evidence and expert opinionfrom the USA and UK” , working paper No. 95-801,Centre for M arketing, London Business School, Novem-ber, p. 28.

Harrington, D. and Reed, G. (1996), “ Electronic comm erce(final ly) comes of age” , The M cKinsey Quarterly , No. 2,pp. 68-77.

Hoffm an, D.L., and No vak, T.P. (1996), “ M arketing in h yper-media comput er-mediated environm ents: conceptualfoundations” , Journal of Marketing , July, pp. 50-68 .

Hoff ma n, D.L., Novak , T.P. and Chat terjee, P. (1995), “ Com-mercial scenarios for the Web: oppo rtunit ies andchallenges” , Journal of Computer-Mediated Communi-

cation , Special Issue on Electronic Com merce, Vol. 1,December, is hosted on the Web at t he URL: [htt p://shum.huji .ac.i l / jcmc/voll /issues3/vollno3.html]

Kiani, G.R. (1997), “ New g ame, new rules: w il l traditionalmental i ty work in the m arketspace?” , Management Research News , forth coming issue.

Kierzkow ski, A., M cQuade, S., Waitm an, R. and Zeisser, M .(1996), “ M arket ing to the d ig i ta l consumer” , The M cKinsey Quarterly , No. 3, pp. 5-21.

M cKenna, R. (1995), “ Real -t ime m arket ing” , Harvard Business Review , July-August, pp. 87-95 .

M artin, J. (1996), Cybercorp: The New Business Revolution ,Amacom, American M anagement Associat ion.

M organ, R.F. (1996), “An Internet m arketing framew ork forWorld Wide Web (WWW)” , Journal of Marketing Management , Vol. 12, pp. 757-75.

O’Keefe, B. (199 5), M arket ing and Retai l on the World Wide Web: The New Gold Rush is hosted on the Web at th eURL: [http://www.rpi.edu/~okeefe/nikkei.html]

Pine, B.J. (1992), M ass Custom isation , Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Boston, M A.

Pitt, L., Bertho n, P. and Wat son, R.T. (1996), “ From surfer tobuyer on the WWW: w hat m arket ing managers mightw a n t t o k no w ” , Journal of General M anagement ,Vol. 22 No. 1, Autum n, pp. 1-13.

Poon, S. and Jevons, C. (1997), “ Internet-enabled int er-

national m arketing: a small business netw ork perspec-t i ve” , Journal of M arket ing M anagement , No. 13,pp. 29-41.

Quelch, J.A. and Klein, L.R. (1996), “ The Internet and int erna-t ional market ing” , Sloan M anagement Review , Spring ,pp. 60-75.

Rayport, J.F. and Sviokla, J.J. (1994 ), “ M anagi ng in t hemarketspace” , Harvard Business Review , November-December, pp. 141-9.

Rayport, J.F. and Sviokla, J.J. (1995), “ Exploiti ng t he virt ualvalue chain” , Harvard Business Review , November-December, pp. 75-85.

Schwartz, E.I. (1997), Webeconomics , Broadw ay.

Stewart, D.W. and Ward, S. (1993), M edia Effects on Advertis- in g , Lawren ce Erlbau m A ssociates, Hillsdale, NJ.

19 4


G. Reza Kiani


Volume 8 · Number 2 · 1998 · 185–194

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