Summary:

AN INTEGRATED MODEL FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERNET MARKETING

Figure 2-1 to provide a useful step-by-step guide to establishing and maintaining a successful Internet site.

TABLE 2-1 Elements of Web Site Development

i. Strategies and objectives must be formulated and formalised in a marketing or business plan.

ii. The target audience must be identified and the site must meet the needs of market segments.

iii. The design of the site must include features that facilitate interaction between the user and the organisation. (eg. e-mail, forms, hyperlinks)

iv. The site should have a hierarchical structure, which is supported by navigation aids that create a sense of place and allow users to move around in the context of the site (eg: menus, icons, site maps and search engines)

v. Other essential features that add functionality and aesthetic appeal must also be included (eg: multimedia, multilingual support, timely information, corporate identity)

vi. The textual content on the site must be readable.

vii. The site must have integrity in terms of the credibility, relevance and accuracy of the information presented.

viii. The site should make use of value-added content to encourage users to explore further and to return to the site.

ix. Evidence of the marketing mix variables should be present as a framework for developing site content.

x. The site needs regular maintenance to add, revise or remove content.

xi. Promotion of the site must take place using online resources and an integrated approach that incorporates traditional media.

xii. The financial, human and physical resources required for the Internet marketing effort must be considered.

While few would doubt that these steps are important, the question must be asked, how do these differ on the internet? The answer being that many of these steps are universal for effective and efficient marketing efforts.

A web site plan should try to answer the following questions:

• Who? Who is the intended audience? List the audience background, their interests, skills,

values and knowledge.

One weakness of this report is the fact it focuses far too much on segmenting by demographic factors, and barely mentions psychographic and other segmentation techniques.

• What? What's the purpose of the site? To educate, entertain, sell, inform, or a combination of these.

• When? When should the site be launched? How often will the site be updated - daily, weekly, twice a month, or monthly?

• Where? Where is the site going to be hosted?

• Why? Why is the site being developed? To create a Web presence for the attraction, etc.?

• How? How do you plan to research material for the Website?

Designing the Web-Site.

The design of the site plays an important role in determining whether visitors explore the site beyond the homepage and whether they leave the site satisfied (Apple, 1996). The model presented in Figure 2-1 identifies three key elements of site design: interactivity, navigation and functionality.

Interactivity:

* Listing a phone number, fax or address

* E-mail

* Forms (Eg: online information requests, online comments forms, online guest books, and online surveys).

* Hyperlinks

* Contests (Eg: the concept of a treasure hunt).

* Online reservations

While these suggestions are in fact very helpful, it is important that the individual companies assess the validity of each of these before including them, especially the contests and on-line reservations.

Navigation

One of the most important issues facing the Internet at present is overcoming the problem of the user being ‘lost’ in the virtual information space provided by the WWW.

* Navigational aids, such as icons, hyperlinks and menus.

* Consistent menu or collection of icons on all pages.

* For complex sites a site map or site index

* Structure of most websites can be classified into four categories: flat, bookmark, single layer and multi-layer nested. The focus of web-sites should be more hierarchically, with information flowing from general to more specific.

Functionality

* Multimedia (however due to current problems with low bandwidth multimedia should be used sparingly.)

* Cross-cultural support

* Corporate identity (so the user knows they are still in your site).

* Currency of information

* Download facilities

Site content elements:

* Readability

* Integrity

* Value-Added Features (Eg: Virtual postcards Give-aways Links to other sites)

4P'S + people, packaging, programming and partnership.

Packaging involves the assembly of various services into one product that meets the needs of a target market.

Programming is concerned with presenting special activities and events that give added appeal to a package or travel service. eg: consolidation of some of a region’s services into a single product that can be offered to visitors.

Partnership involves cooperative promotions and other cooperative marketing efforts with other organisations.

Specifically the Internet can be used to gather market intelligence by:

• obtaining customer feedback through electronic means,

• analysing the online marketing efforts of competitors, and

• using online resources.

The first point that is discussed here, while it constitutes a very important aspect of the www, the article fails to highlight the problems with people actually giving feedback, not to mention those that do give feedback are non-representative of the entire market.

* All text in red indicates quotes taken from the full text article.