Marketing communication and the world wide web - opportunities of internet marketing described

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1996 by Pierre Berthon

Thus, Web sites can be used to move customers and prospects through successive phases of the buying process. This is done by first attracting net surfers, making contact with the interested ones, qualifying or converting a portion of them into interactive customers, and keeping the latter interactive. Different tactical variables, both directly related to the Web site and other elements of the marketing communication mix, will have a particular impact at different phases of this conversion process. For example, hot links (electronic links that connect a particular site to and from other relevant and related sites) may be critical for attracting surfers. However, once attracted, it may be the level of interactivity on the site that will be crucial to making these surfers interactive.

A Model Of Marketing Communication On The Web

Using the hierarchy of effects processes as a conceptual framework, the flow of surfer activity on a Web site can be modeled as a six-stage process, shown in Figure 2. A more mathematically technical presentation of this model can be found in Berthon, Pitt, and Watson 1996.

The attractiveness of a Web site depends on the number of potentially interested surfers on the Net. The first stage of the model represents the flow of surfers to land on the firm's Web site. In this stage the awareness efficiency of the site is measured to determine how effectively the company is able to make surfers aware of its presence. Advertisers and marketers can employ reasonably common and well-known awareness generating techniques that include placing the Web site address in all advertising and publicity, on product packaging, and on other corporate communication materials, such as letterheads, business cards, and brochures. We summarize the awareness efficiency index as:

  Aware surfers
   Awareness efficiency -      _____________
                               Surfers

This capability of turning visitors into purchasers we term conversion efficiency, summarized as follows:

  Number of Purchases
 Conversion Efficiency =     ________________________
                             Number of Active Visitors

(*) NOTE: Due to the speed of growth and changes on the Web, some of the sites listed in this article may no longer be available, or the addresses may have been changed, by the time you read this.

References

"The Accidental Superhighway," Economist, July 1, 1995, special supplement.

J. Anthes, "Roadwork: Building The Infobahn," Computerworld, December 26, 1994, pp. 20-21.

R.W. Belk, J.F. Sherry, and M.A Wallendorf, "Naturalistic Inquiry Into Buyer And Seller Behavior At A Swap Meet," Journal of Consumer Research, March 1988, pp. 449-470.

P. Berthon, L.F. Pitt, and R.T. Watson, "The World Wide Web As Advertising Medium," Journal of Advertising Research, January-February 1996, pp. 43-54.

R.C. Blattberg and J. Deighton, "Interactive Marketing: Exploiting The Age Of Addressability," Sloan Management Review Fall 1991, pp. 5-14.

"Clipping E-Coupons In Cyberspace," USA Today, November 2, 1995, p. 61).