Introduction to Internet Marketing
Internet Marketing is a phrase with broad meaning. This is true because internet marketing activities consist all aspect planning, building and managing a website to sell. To give a definitive meaning to this phrase, Weidman Consulting Inc. define ‘internet marketing’ as follows
Internet Marketing is a set of activities that enable the acquisition of targeted Web traffic and the conversion of Web visitors.
So, by looking at this definition, it is can be said that internet marketing activities are everything that enable of attracting web/internet users to come to our website and converting them to a buyer that generate income or profit. This activities including all aspect from planning, organizing, building, launching, promoting, managing and customer supporting.
How significant is Internet Marketing to business?
Although this question is quite common, usually it does not come from a person that start marketing using internet and does not have involving physical/normal marketing method (hard sell). Mostly this question come from many of our businessman fellow who wonder about the internet market opportunities.
Today, the answer to this question varies dramatically according to who is answering. For companies such as electronics company Cisco, the answer is ‘very significant’. For example, Cisco sell $9 million worth of hardware using the Internet each day. For fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies such as Unilever the answer is ‘insignificant’ – the majority of their consumer sales will occur through traditional retail channels in response to promotional campaigns in traditional media. Interesting fact though, in 1998 advertising expenditure for Internet placed adverts was estimated at £8m, compared to £3 billion for TV and radio adverts (Internet marketing:Strategy, implementation and practice, Dave Chaffey et al).
Looking in the Unilevel case, does that imply that internet marketing only significant and practical for certain industry only? No matter how we look at it, it does seem ridiculous to but a soap through internet. But what is more important to quest is “how significant is internet marketing to business in 5 or 10 years from now?”.
Many companies start to ask themselves about this. They start to study the this new phenomenal market. Although shopping in internet in 2009 it is not quite new anymore.
Unilever is starting to use the Internet as part of brand building for its new products. In 1998 it launched its Mentadent toothpaste in the United States using traditional media campaigns and also offered samples in response to users clicking on an advert placed on health-related web sites. It received more than 40,000 requests for samples, far exceeding its expectations for this new medium. If businesses do not understand and start to apply the new marketing techniques and technology in this way, then they may not only miss an opportunity, but may even cease to exist.
Media portrayal of of the internet often suggest that this medium that it is a merely an alternative to the traditional method of marketing. In fact, internet can be the primary backbone that can support the whole marketing process. As we move into the new millenium, organisations will use Internet technology in the form of intranets and extranets to support the operation of the internal and external value chains.
