We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Samuel Johnson

Many people spend as much time online as they do watching TV. As a medium for advertisement, there is no comparison between the two though. A MSN research in UK this year has the ad agencies to blame. Only a few mainstream advertising agencies can claim to have expertise in the online media & even fewer can boast of a memorable campaign online. Even those with expertise may not be willing to take up marketing on the Internet because of the low volumes & margins. While larger firms may find this a hurdle, SMEs market heavily on the net, some depending completely on it.

The Internet has grown up now. It is no more selling only toys, books & gift items. We are talking of houses & cars here. Advertising on the Internet is a different ball game altogether. There are no set rules in this relatively unexplored medium. From targeting the right customers to getting the message across & providing after sales support needs radical changes in existing processes. As far as measurement is concerned, the Internet offers a lot to the statistically inclined. It is not uncommon for large companies to measure twenty or more metrics. Apart from ROIs, there are metrics that measure effectiveness of various online tools, sales mix, customer satisfaction, etc.

There are quite a few organizations that do not believe in mixing online advertising with online sales. Their advertisements could lead to informative content on their websites. Selling online requires a different set of processes which have to be benchmarked against best practices across industry boundaries.

Email marketing

A tool used by both large organizations & SMEs, emails are a lucrative marketing tool as the most used application on the net. The mode of operation differs though. Large corporation build an opt in database of users interested in their content (newsletters, periodic updates) & rely on pull marketing. SMEs are more aggressive in their approach, mass mailing advertisements to emails obtained from 'partner networks'.

The deluge of spam mails, some harvested email addresses from the Internet & even worse, generated by alphanumeric permutations & the viruses that find an easy way to user's systems have not dampened the unique open rates for emails

Unique Open Rates by Industry :

Source: Research by IMN

Overall E-mail Performance :

Source: DoubleClick

Search Engines

Over 85% of Internet users use search engines. Search engines have ever changing algorithms. They keep on experimenting to provide the most relevant search results to their users. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts try & keep up with these algorithms to provide an edge to their (clients') websites. Pay Per Click (PPC) search engines have made the long lead times a memory of the past. They brought instant pull marketing to the Internet. A website could start generating revenues from day one. SEO has its own advantages though, with continuing returns even after investments in SEO is discontinued.

Larger organizations are seen to be active mostly in the PPC engines. Search engines appeal mostly to SMEs, where guerrilla marketing techniques like SEO provide good returns. Consolidations in the search engine industry are fast & furious. Yahoo is acquiring Overture (July 2003), Google acquired Kaltix, a search technology start-up (September 30, 2003) & MSN is developing its own search (September 29, 2003). It is currently using Inktomi's engine, which was acquired by Yahoo. This is news from just the top three websites on the Internet. There are others like Amazon gunning for a position in the top three with its e-commerce search engine A9 (September 26, 2003). SEO is made even more difficult by the fact that many search engines provide paid listings from PPCs before the actual search results (these are larger organizations with bigger advertising budgets).

Affiliate programs

This is one tool where the modus operandi is identical for both SMEs & large organizations. The only difference is that large organizations do not send unsolicited emails promoting their affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are ideally suited for the net & are based on the offline MLM model. Large corporations like Wal Mart, American Express, Dell, AT&T apart from all major & minor e-commerce sites use affiliate programs. There is no investment to be made except for setting up the program, providing assured returns to SMEs. Marketing affiliate programs is a good idea at least in the initial stages. Affiliate programs are most likely to be done inhouse, where you acquire a software, set it up & start the affiliate program. Many organizations (especially the larger ones) outsource this function though & firms managing affiliate programs are some of the fastest growing ones in the online world.

That internet marketing is effective for any size of business is no more a point of contention. There are two problems why it is not taking off the way it should:
1) It is being used as a push medium rather than a pull medium
2) It is being used in isolation

There have been a few memorable campaigns on the net, but things are set to improve as more & more large budget players target the medium to reach out to potential customers.

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