From targeted banner ads that pop up when they recognise your customers, to personalised email and newsletters, to direct mail inserts aimed at online buyers, the Internet puts you instantly in touch.
For the National Football League, establishing an email newsletter wasn't about selling more products; it was about building a better relationship with fans. The NFL went with email marketing specialist e-Dialog, which every week creates a different newsletter for every team. If the recipient is a Broncos fan, for example, the newsletter is branded with Broncos graphics and leads with information about that team. The service analyses the click-through behaviour of each recipient, then modifies future content accordingly.
Since the newsletter launched in 1999 the subscription rate has quadrupled to nearly 1 million readers. "You can sit around an office and think you know what people want, but unless you talk to them you can't know," says Evan Kamer, the NFL's new media director of business development. "We've got 900,000 people who give us information about themselves."
As the NFL discovered, Web marketing lets you reach out to customers in new waysâ€"and it also helps businesses save time and money. Consider that a traditional one-time direct mail campaign costs tens of thousands of dollars for the creative materials, labour, and mailing. Plus, it takes several months to pull together. Web marketingâ€" including email, newsletters, sweepstakes, and other campaignsâ€"can be done in a few days or weeks.
While a large-scale Web marketing venture can easily cost US$10,000 a month, a smaller business can get into e-marketing for as little as $500. Purchase services or software to handle these chores in-house, outsource it all, or do a little of both.
Why outsource the job instead of having your marketing team handle it in-house? Two reasons. First, the cost of setting up your own dedicated server, T1 line, and support staff could easily run from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Second, experience is critical. There's a lot more to Internet marketing than compiling or purchasing a mailing list and sending out email. Internet marketing companies have the expertise to make sure you are sending the right messages to the right people at the right time.
"Consumers have a love-hate relationship with advertising," says Ann Marshman, a GartnerGroup analyst. "They always have. On the positive side consumers want information about products, services, and companies, but they want only the information they are interested in and only when they need it." That wariness is understandable, considering the number of marketing messages sent over the Internet last year: 17 billion, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.
One key thing to keep in mind when working on the Web is the growing importance of marketing only to customers who have actively requested information. A customer who has opted in is much more receptive to your message. "Permission-based marketing is now a given. You won't be around in a year if you don't practice it," says Jeff Schline, director of corporate communications for @Once, a Web marketing service provider.
Walter Janowski, research director at GartnerGroup, points out that the trend brings with it new obligations. "Any responsible company needs to keep track of its database and the permissions that have been granted," he says, especially because a growing number of restrictions regulate e-marketing.
And the responsibilities don't end there. Internet marketing is not merely about sending information to your customers; it's about building a relationship with them. Tracking their behaviour to see if they opened your message, clicked on a link inside it, or made a purchase as a result of it are essential to a successful e-marketing campaign.
