Online Marketing

By Jennifer Davies
Com 538
Instructor: Kathy Gill
History of the project
• Started as online merchandising
• Realized that didn’t really exist
• Online merchandising is part of marketing
(in the eyes of the research world)
• Merchandising in the academic world
seems to be exclusive to retail/clothing
industries where merchandising concerns
in-store displays and pricing new lines.
• My conclusion? The history of online
merchandising is marketing.
Ancient History of Marketing
• Started with the Greeks
• In order to need marketing you have to
have a surplus and a market.
• Selling when everyone has the same items
doesn’t require marketing.
• The Greeks were the first to segment their
customers, providing lower quality goods
to those customers who wouldn’t notice
the difference – those further away who
didn’t have the same goods.
• Long distance trade was one of the
primary motivators of marketing
• Too expensive to move goods over long
distances for most merchants, marketing
rudimentary
Late 1800s forward
• Industrial Revolution opened new markets, lowered cost
of accessing them.
• Dispersed markets and increased competition created a
need for a way to communicate a value proposition to
customers.
• The idea that “advertising is salesmanship-on-paper,
and its theory and technique, began to be studied”
around 1900.
• At the same time, marketing as a business tool gained
acceptance and definition, initially in agriculture, as part
of distribution.
• Companies first turned to marketing/advertising as a
way to remove the middle-man and keep more of the
profits for themselves.
Moving to Present Day
• However, increasing consumer awareness of
advertisements meant ads were less trusted as a
means of obtaining product information.
• Around the 1920s, PR is “created”. With Edward
Bernays (self-described Father of Public
Relations) PR becomes one more tool in a
company’s repertoire to persuade customers
without them realizing.
• Store-front displays became common as
companies looked for economical ways in which
to entice customers
• From the 1920s on, marketing theories proliferate.
Academics are teaching marketing at business
schools and marketing is respected as a full-
fledged section of business knowledge.
Present Day
• Marketing strategies proliferated
between the 1930s and today.
– Radio/TV program sponsorship
– Miss “Wonder Bread”-type programs
– Teaser advertisements
• With the advent of the internet comes
the advent of online marketing
• Easy way to monetize online sites is
marketing, whether for a product on
the site or for other sites looking to
drive users to them.
Online marketing strategies
•Box & Banner Ads (etc)
–Low success metrics
–Unproven
–As we discussed in class, users often tune them out.
–Moving to more intrusive format, more interesting content, teaser
or just entertaining.
•Online Sponsorship
–Many more things to “sponsor” in the online space
–Easy was for sites to monetize content – MSN Lexus Luxury
page, etc
–More positive spin (paying money towards the common good)
Strategies continued…
• Discounts and Coupons
– Function much the same as in the offline space only much
more segmentable
– Can choose which customers receive coupon or use discount
– Catch customers when they are on the edge about buying or
leaving the site via pop-unders or cross-sell efforts
• Affiliate Programs & Search Engine Placement
– Affiliate programs benefit non-commerce-focused sites by
allowing them to gain a profit for their customer referrals. They
benefit the selling company by giving them access to very
specific, targeted groups of customers.
– Search Engine Placement does almost the exact opposite. The
seller comes to the search engine company and pays up front
for a top spot.
– These two techniques can dovetail when an aggregator of
referrals buys placement at the same time as the seller – the
seller suddenly has 2 of the top spots instead of just one.
Strategies continued…
• Marketing as Content
– Viral marketing, where users of a product
knowingly or unknowingly become company
spokespersons by talking to friends about the
product.
• Gmail – exclusive access means users talk about it
and willingly spread it to friends
• Revlon ad Tina pointed out.
– Selling content, where content is created for
the sole purpose of selling a product.
• Amazon Theater
• Travel content on travel websites
• In-depth product content on furniture/clothing
websites where you can design your own pieces to
buy.
Strategies continued…
• Offline marketing
– I know, I know, a little counter-intuitive
– To drive users to major sites, some of
the best online marketing techniques
include offline portions like catalogs,
billboards, teaser magazine ads, etc.
– For an online-only company, offline
presence can be key to accessing new
users and new sources of growth.
– Content sites with a strong offline or
online presence can use one to drive the
other, for example, CNN during the
elections required advertisers to buy on
both the website and the television.
Where is marketing going?
• Future opportunities for online
marketing include:
– Online communities
– Chat support
– Virtual viewers
– Increased content, planning tools
– Intrusive ads, Salon.com advertising
model
– Stronger affiliate program models where
any website can make incremental
amounts of money referring users to
commercial sites