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E-mail
The costs of sending a batch of e-mails depend on the tariff
applied by the telecommunication company and the Internet
Service Provider, both of which can be very small. There are the
costs of maintaining the e-mail database and the costs of the
software to send e-mails. All in all, a relatively inexpensive
exercise – ideal if your customers are happy with this form of
communication.
Text messaging
The typical cost of a six-month trial using 5,000 users sending five
messages a week is likely to be around £50,000. On this basis, text
messaging is some three times cheaper per conversion compared
with a mailshot or 15 times cheaper than a flyer or the Internet.
However, as this book is written, there are plenty of offers now of
£5,000 for 2,500 users for two months with design and other costs
waived. Now is the time to test this market.
Code of practice and the law
The DMA Code of Practice covers the Use of Data within direct
marketing. See Chapter 4. The 1998 Data Protection Act applies to
passing on e-mail addresses to third parties. Permission is required
to pass on an e-mail address.
A useful example of a privacy statement is given on the CIM
Web site at http://www.cim.co.uk.
THE INTERNET/WEB SITES
The Internet is a global general public intercommunications
network. For a business or organization, a Web site is an Internet
site published publicly under an organization’s own name. When
a select audience only is allowed access through password protec-
tion it is called an Extranet. An Intranet is where the access is
limited to employees only of the organization’s Web site – such a
site may be operated entirely internally.
There are estimated to be some 300 million users worldwide.
Marketingnet, a leading UK company in Web site consultancy,
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describes Web sites as achieving one of three types of strategy for
business use:
■ presentation – where people can look to gain information;
■ interaction – where people can communicate;
■ representation – where people can transact business (not just
financial) without requiring personal intervention.
Marketingnet then looks at three ways to offer that marketing
strategy:
■ generally available (Internet);
■ available in-house only (Intranet);
■ available to a select and targeted exclusive group of people
(Extranet).
The way you follow the matrix of alternatives is your strategy – the
resulting implementations are your marketing activities.
What makes a good Web site: effectiveness assessment
Arecent report entitled E-Strategy Insights (summer 2001) by the
Henley Centre and National Opinion Polls (NOP) for the Royal
Mail has surveyed how to make Web sites effective. The report
heralds the arrival of the second Internet age. It learns from the
misperceptions and mistakes of the first age:
■ Eighty-five per cent of the top companies or organizations do
not have an e-strategy, as at February 2001, though they recog-
nize the future importance of the Internet. This importance is
justified as over 50 per cent of the population of the UK will be
online by Christmas 2001.
■ The poor take up by companies of an e-strategy in the light of
that is a sad reflection of UK marketers. Annual UK Internet
spend is £2.737 billion (£661 per person) as at March 2001,
mainly buying CDs, books, holidays and computer software,
yet companies do little to take up the opportunity.
■ Ease of use, convenience and quick delivery are the benefits to
customers of using the Internet says the research. The down-
side is lengthy registration, time taken to load Web sites and
perceived insecurity of online payments.
E-mail and Text Messaging, the Internet and Web Sites
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The report offers a way ahead, from a marketing view, for a
company or organization as follows:
■ decide an e-strategy for the future;
■ integrate marketing activities with the Web site;
■ integrate the brand – it must be consistent in its online and
offline forms;
■ match the way buyers buy – probably the most significant
matter – often ignored in the initial phase of the Internet;
■ treat the customer as an individual person who is specifically
seeking information when they go on the Internet;
■ influence or drive that person from offline activity first, to get
them specifically to visit your site. Once on a site:
– educate, when people go through a learning process to build
up confidence then;
– nurture the relationship as both a guide and enabler;
– build up time spent by the customer on site and motivate
them, offering a clear direct advantage and building trust in
the brand.
The rewards are substantial. Once a site is a favourite, as much as
15 minutes per visit will be recorded. Many sites that fail to attract
return visits by customers are unlikely ever to do business with
them. The report says that attracting repeat visits will be the major
challenge of the second Internet age. An example of good practice
is The Sun newspaper Web site, which uses the same formula as the
paper to retain customers as visitors. A failure to have Web-
enabled customer service centres cost the first Internet age some £1
billion in 1999 the report estimates. That is, no one responded to
requests for further information e-mailed by customers – mainly
because no one was there, only sales order fulfilment. The total
brand experience must be integrated from drive-to-Web adver-
tising to fulfilment and personalized support.
Eighty-one per cent of all users go online with a specific
purpose, and 52 per cent have decided on the site they are going to
visit and the concept they want to buy before going online. That is,
they ‘search’ the Net, not ‘surf’ the Net. However, 50 per cent of
those who find out about concepts online go offline to buy them.
What people want from Web sites is:
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■ simplicity/clarity;
■ intuitive structure;
■ low grade graphics (which do not take hours to download);
■ up-to-date contents;
■ FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions);
■ contact us facility (including telephone numbers);
■ integration with business and customer history;
■ site and concept – product and service – should be recom-
mended by magazines.
Informatica research findings are that a Web site must be:
■ optimized for easy navigation;
■ attractive to customers;
■ intuitive to use;
■ be quickly changeable;
■ easy to find;
■ responsive to change.
Informatica has client Web sites with 1.8 million visitors per day.
Strategic purpose of a Web site
Getting the strategic thinking correct is the business purpose of
Marketingnet, which has produced textbooks on the subject that
are recommended by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
The process applied is to define the business case, using research
to assist if necessary – to find out customer needs from your Web [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]