Semester In Summary

When I signed up for Marketing on the Internet I thought to myself, what can they teach me that I don't already know about how marketing works online? I have grown-up at roughly the same rate as e-markting has evolved. Marketing online is intuitive, and in many ways easier, than traditional marketing. What might be foreign to others is something that our generation doesn't even take a second thought to. Of course I should eb able to go online and purchase just about anything I want to, and vice versa. I should be able to sell anything I want to online.

Now that the end of the semester is here, I can say that I while I was not completely wrong, I did learn some new things and many of my pre-existing notions about online marketing were reinforced. Here were some of my biggest take-aways from this course:

1. Search engine optimization is essential to the success of any online business.
2. Tracking data and gathering metrics is made super easy, so take full advantage of all the free tools that allow you to do this.
3. Customer relationship management is extremely important online because there is never any face-to-face interaction.
4. You can't just send messages to your target audience, you must actively engage them
5. Wallet-share is often more important than audience share
6. Micro-marketing and niche marketing are more effective than mass marketing online
7. Personalize, personalize, personalize
8. A website's customer service often defines their reputation online

Thanks for a great semester!

The Future of Online Marketing

In under 20 years online marketing has gone from something that was not even considered by marketers to being so important that ignoring it is not an option for most businesses. Not only has online marketing changed the face of the marketing industry, the marketing tactics used have evolved much more rapidly than traditional marketing techniques. Where will we be 20 years from now? What great marketing innovations are in store for us? Below are some things we might have to look forward to.

•  Digital content marketing: Companies are starting to understand that often traditional ads just aren't as effective in the online world. Instead, companies will begin to offer more free, branded content that users can download, share, and interact with while still getting their message across. 
• Social Commerce: Imaging this, you open up your web browser and are brought to your Facebook page as your homepage. After checking your notifications, you decide you need to order a new pair of shoes. You search shoes in the search bar, and a list of retailers who are on Facebook who sell shoes appear. You click on one. On their page you can see all their information, products  and reviews, including reviews that your Facebook friends have posted. You can also see what your friends have purchased from this vendor. After scrolling through their products you find a pair of shoes you like. You click on them and are brought to the store's checkout page and order your shoes all without leaving Facebook. Some companies are already experimenting with retailing directly from their social media platforms.
• Location Based Advertising: As smartphones become more and more prevalent, marketers will be able to tailor ads depending on were people are at any given moment. If someone is walking down the street surfing the web on their smartphone, ads for local businesses within a 2 block radius might appear based on what you are surfing. Looking up the latest movie reviews? Ads for the movie theater around the corner may be displayed. 

Why online businesses fail

It is estimated between 90-99% of online businesses fail. If doing businesses online is supposed to be so great, then why do so many businesses fail?

1. Poor segmentation and targeting: This is what makes the Internet so useful for business. If you don't take advantage of the ability to micro-target and segment your audience, there is a very small chance you will succeed. The Internet is simply too large to try and jump start a business purely by attempting to reach as many people as possible. Niche marketing is made very easy in the online world, so take advantage of it!

2. No differentiation: You want to start a store that sells customized jewelry online. Great idea! The only problem is there are already dozens and dozens of stores offering the same thing. What will make your business stand out? If you don't offer a benefit that sets you apart from the other customized jewelry stores, you are bound to fail. See what these other stores are doing to make themselves stand out from the pack. Think about why you would choose your store over these stores.

3. Falling behind market trends: Stay up to date with online marketing, business, and technology trends. The Internt is constantly evolving, and new best practices and standards are being set all the time. In addition, people online expect things to be up to date and current. If you are not staying on par or ahead of online trends, you are going to have problems.

4. No market testing: Test, test, test! On the flip side, don't be over zealous in fully implementing changes to your online business without testing them first. Don't drop a new webpage design out of nowhere with completely new interface unless you have tested it already with your target market. Sudden changes without any warning often cause problems for online businesses. People don't like it when they are forced to relearn how to do something, especially without warning. Similarly take advantage of A/B testing when running a new ad campaign, or sending emails intended to spur action on the receivers part. This is a great way to see what messages your audience is receptive to.

5. Loan Shark Mentality: Trying to succeeded independently in the online world can be very hard. Look for potentially symbiotic partnerships with other, noncompeting, better established companies or websites. Cross promoting can help drive more traffic to your site, while also giving it credibility before you have gained a substantial customer base. Credibility is especially important in the online world where consumers mainly rely on social proof when choosing where to do their business.

What the Dwolla?

Everyone is talking about it, but what is it? 

Essentially Dwolla is a financial network that allows the transfer of funds directly from one bank account to another.

So how is Dwolla different from the other online payment options already available?

Dwolla's main competitive differentiation is in their pricing and business model. Other online payment processing companies, like Paypal, charge varying percentages of the amount being transfered. Dwolla charges $0.25 per transaction on all transactions over $10. Any transaction under $10 is FREE. This could greatly increase profit margins of  the many online retailers that operate on shoestring budgets, especially in a difficult economic environment.

Dwolla also differentiate themselves by being completely credit/debit card free. In fact, one of Dwolla's objectives is to eventually overtake MasterCard, Visa, and the other major credit card companies.

How can they overtake these powerful credit card companies if Dwolla doesn't issue credit cards?

The idea is that because of the low transaction cost, businesses will begin to adopt it as a preferred way of payment. Other Dwolla users who want to buy something from a vendor that accepts Dwolla will be able to pay in real time from a smartphone application. No more carrying around credit cards and worrying about leaving them somewhere, or having them get stolen. No more wasting time entering and re-entering your credit card information on websites.

So why isn't everyone using it yet?

Until very recently Dwolla could only legally operate in Iowa, where the company is based. Dwolla believes they have found a legal way to operate nationally, and has opened up registration to all 50 states.

Awesome! Where can I sign up?
https://www.dwolla.com/

Why CRM Fails

After doing some quick research on CRM, I was surprised to see that roughly 50% of CRM systems fail to live up to their promises. Why is this? Some further research revealed some of the top reasons why CRM systems fail to produce the results expected of them. I have summarized a number of them below.

• Failure to clearly define goals and objective in measurable terms
• Failure to test new CRM software customizations in controlled environments
• Poor employee training and support
• Incomplete or improper data entry
• Not understanding that CRM technologies are only useful if they mesh with a businesses' preexisting processes
• Inability of current IT infrastructure to handle CRM technology 
• Failure to contract with an independent CRM consultant
• IT has complete control of CRM service 
• Failure to integrated existing data into CRM service
• Choosing a CRM service that does not fit the needs of the organization
• Expectations that the CRM service will be fully automated
• Failing to integrate all departments into the CRM service
• Failure to regularly evaluate CRM service
• Failure to take into account customer's experience interacting with CRM service
• Exclusively trying CRM success to ROI
• Focusing on short-term success vs. long-term sustainability
• Data overload resulting in inability to effectively analyze data and find new insights
• Upper management is not supportive of CRM system
• Over customization of CRM service

For more details on each check out these sources:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4846.shtml

http://www.realmarket.com/required/lghcons1.pdf

http://www.crmsolution.com/top10failure.html

http://www.salesforcetimes.com/why-do-crm-implementations-fail/

http://www.crmblogguy.com/crmfailure.htm

http://www.crmodyssey.com/Documentation/Documentation_PDF/Why_CRM_Implementations_Fail.pdf

http://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/orders/fulfillment_big_app/

Filter Bubbles and SEM

Last year I was perusing TED Talks and came across one entitled The Online Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. Essentially Pariser's insight was that online personalization through the systematic filtering of information is having the unintended negative side effect of isolating individual users in information bubbles, or as Pariser calls them "filter bubbles". The bubbles are created as algorithms decide what information we can and can't see when surfing the Internet. Since they are based on an individual's use history, they select information based on what they algorithm thinks you want to see, not necessarily what you should be exposed to. Pariser lists several negative implications that these filter bubbles could potentially have on society, however I started to think about the implications these bubbles have for marketers.

For example, how can marketers penetrate these filter bubbles and reach potential new customers? If online consumers are stuck in their own online information bubbles, how will they be exposed to new products? Marketers need to look for ways to break into the bubbles by looking for things that are already included in individuals' online bubbles and find ways to make their product relevant enough that it isn't discarded by the filtering algorithm as being irrelevant information. One way to do this would be to purchase keywords that may be related to something to else that is relevant to your target audiences' information bubbles. For example, if you are trying to market a new brand of soda to people who like Coke, in addition to purchasing keywords directly related to your product you might also want to buy keywords related to Coke. This way if someone who has a history of interacting with Coke online is searching for Coke, your soda's ad may come up where it may not have otherwise.

Check out Pariser's TED Talk here: http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk