E-Business

1. E-Business Promoting Our Site Improving and Analyzing Our Site

2. Overview • Promoting our site • the target audience • promotional and advertising opportunities online • internet search engines • Improving and analyzing our site • pre-grand opening check list • soliciting comments and feedback from visitors • keeping the content fresh

3. Promoting our site • Web-page design is a crucial part of the online business. However, if potential customers cannot find us, or do not know our business exists, chances of success are not high. • As the online online business is not different for a traditional business, marketing, advertising, and public relations play major roles in the overall success.

4. The target audience • As we are developing the website, we can start thinking about our marketing strategy, and focus on determining who our target audience is and the ways we can effectively reach that audience. • For example, if we are selling designer handbags for women online, attracting teenage boys who have no credit card or interest in our product would be pointless.

5. Defining the target • A target audience can be any group of people with a specific need or desire to have our product or service. For example, the audience may consist primarily of: • Males • Females • Adults (ages 18-49) • Teens (ages 14-17) • Married couples • Singles • Seniors

6. Defining the target • People with specific interest or hobby • High-income professionals • Homemakers • Home-office workers • People with a specific career • People with some type of physical disability • Any other group of people we can define and reach through a targeted marketing, advertising, or public relations effort

7. Defining the target • Once we have determined who our target audience is, we need to decide exactly what message we are hoping to get across to them. • Are we solving a problem? Offering a benefit? Will our target audience save time or money using our product? • We need to know what feature of our product our audience will be most interested in, and then develop a marketing message which will catch their attention. • Next, we need to discover the best ways to reach them and communicate the message. We can consider whether our audience tend to visit specific web sites, read certain magazines, attend particular events, or have well-defined habits.

8. Reaching our target • In addition, we need to be familiar with the basics of how various media outlets work and the benefits of advertising on them. These include: online advertising, e-mail, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, public relations. • Using search engines and Web directories, such as Google and Yahoo, as a marketing tool is critical. We will later discuss the ways to use these powerful tools to reach our target audience inexpensively.

9. Promotional and advertising opportunities online • The Internet provides a variety of promotional opportunities which we can use to target groups of very specific demographic audiences, depending on our needs. • Advertising Age is a top magazine in the advertising industry. It offers an online edition featuring news and articles of interest to anyone involved with online advertising. The online edition can be accessed at www.adage.com

10. Promotional and advertising opportunities online • The online promotional and advertising opportunities available include: • Search engines • Search marketing/keyword advertising • Purchasing banner-ad space • Internet newsgroups • Internet mailing lists • Electronic press-release distribution • Publishing an online newsletter • Blogging • Sending e-mail to an opt-in list • Distributing online coupons • Creating “viral marketing” (creative Flash cartoon can be sent from person to person via e-mail, and work well. Ex. www.jibjab.com)

11. Internet newsgroups • Newsgroups are popular forums for computer users to communicate on the Internet. • Newsgroups can provide promotional opportunities for our online business. An Internet newsgroup is very similar to a public bulletin board or discussion group that focuses on a specific topic or a caters to a particular audience. • Because of that, becoming an active participant in newsgroups will allow us to reach potential customers with specific interests.

12. Internet newsgroups • To effectively use newsgroups, it is important to consider netiquette and avoid posting messages in the interactive discussion that are blatant ads for our product or service. Instead, by becoming active in the conversation, we can mention our online business as a resource and answer questions from others. • To obtain a complete listing of Internet newsgroups, we can visit www.cyberfiber.com or use the newsreader software provided by our ISP.

13. Internet mailing lists • Internet mailing lists are similar to newsgroups, except that messages posted to a mailing list are automatically sent to an e-mail inbox. Internet mailing lists involve groups of people discussing one of their favorite topics via e-mail. • If we are interested in establishing an Internet mailing list to communicate with clients, there are several free or inexpensive services for that. For example, Yahoo Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com) hosts alumni groups, support groups, plus groups for sports fans, small-business operators, and thousands of other organizations and interests.

14. Internet mailing lists • For a monthly fee starting at $19.95 Microsoft offers its List Builder service to small-business operators (www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/online/email-marketing/list-builder/detail.mspx). Using this service, we can establish and manage an “opt-in” Internet mailing list. Many ISPs and website-hosting companies offer similar, but more economical, e-mail lists to online business operators. • An opt-in e-mail list is different from sending spam, because the people on that list have requested to be on it (e.g. have an interest in the particular product/industry).

15. Internet mailing lists • Many websites allow visitors to sign up, or subscribe, to a free newsletter or to receive online promotions via e-mail. When someone provides their e-mail address in order to be included (opt-in), they are requesting the information to be e-mailed to them. When the user no longer wishes to receive the information , they can opt-out, or unsubscribe from the list. • Spam is when unsolicited e-mail is sent to hundreds or thousands of people.

16. Internet mailing lists • As an online business operator, we can communicate with our customers, or anyone else using a one-way Internet mailing list. It will allow us to broadcast newsletters, online fliers, or other information the receivers are interested in. • Creating an online mailing list and communicating with customers or potential customers via e-mail can be powerful way of generating business, provided that the people we are distributing our information to have requested it, and we are offering them something they would consider to be of value or of interest.

17. Internet mailing lists • There are several ways online businesses can distribute information to a large group of people on the Internet. These include: • E-mailing a company newsletter to our customer base • Sending new product announcements or online coupons to existing customers • Distributing press releases to important media contacts • Building a mailing list of visitors to our site and e-mailing them special offers • Providing additional product information to our customers via e-mail.

18. Internet mailing lists • The concept of instantly sending thousands or millions of promotional e-mail messages to people on the Internet is very appealing because the cost associated with this mailing is very low. • However, we should avoid using spam, as it will annoy the receivers. It will also cause them to associate our company with offensive content, pyramid schemes, or scams. This will hurt our brand, and ultimately our sales.

19. More on banner advertising • Banner ads are display ads, often animated, which are placed on other Web pages and can act as links to our site. Banner advertising can be used to enhance name, product, or brand recognition, or to lead potential customers to our site. • Online advertising is different from other forms of advertising, such as billboards and ads on TV, in print, or on the radio, as the people seeing the ad can respond instantly. • Another distinct advantage to online advertising is that it works 24 hours a day, and ad campaigns can be launched, modified or stopped almost instantly. This gives the advertiser total control over when and where the public sees the ad.

20. More on banner advertising • The first step to using banner advertising is to develop our advertising message and determine the specific audience we would like to target. • For a banner ad to help us generate business, it has to be catchy. Its job, just like a traditional print ad, is to capture the attention of the readers and in our case encourage them to click on the ad in order to visit our site. • Although from a creative standpoint it is easy to develop a flashy in-your-face banner ad, research has shown that the simplest banner-ad messages often have the greatest impact on viewers.

21. More on banner advertising • Next, only a small portion of the viewers who actually see the ad are going to use it as a link to access our site. Research shows that on average, only about 2.5 to 3.5% of the people who see a banner ad will respond by clicking on it. • Therefore, many online business operators are spending their advertising budget on other advertising and marketing techniques or use banner advertising as just a small piece of their overall advertising campaign and marketing plan.

22. More on banner advertising • Ad placement is another key issue. The position on the page and the size of the ad definitely have an impact on response rates. • As soon as our ad goes online, we can begin measuring how many exposures our ad receives and how many people visit our site as a result of seeing our banner ad (click-through-rate). Based on this information, we can fine-tune our ad message or alter the placement of our banner ads to reach a more targeted audience. This strategy also holds true for search-marketing techniques (we will discuss later). • The cost of banner advertising varies from a few cents per day to thousands of dollars per day, depending on the popularity of the sites where we are advertising. Rates are usually based on the number of impressions our banner ad receives, or the length of time it is displayed on a website.

23. Banner ad trades • Another way to take advantage of banner advertisement is to trade banner-ad spacewith other commercial or noncommercial websites. This means that we offer another company website banner-ad space on our site in exchange for ad space on their site. • Some banner-exchange services are: 123banner.com, click4click.com, exchange-it.com, linkshare.com.

24. Press-release distribution • A press release is a document about our company which is designed to make a newsworthy announcement to the media. • A press release is a key tool for public relations professionals. This type of document has a highly defined style and format, and answers the basic questions on the minds of reporters who might be interested in reporting on the topic of our press release. • We can also hire a traditional public relations firm, an online-based press release (such as pressflash.com), or a public relations consultant to write and distribute our press releases for a fee.

25. Press-release distribution • The press releases can be distributed to the media (such as newspapers, magazines, radio news outlets, television news outlets, other webmasters, and online publications) via U.S. mail, fax or e-mail. Once we have a press release announcing our business (or some other newsworthy event relating to our business), our goal is to get it into the hands of the editors, reporters, and journalists responsible for covering our industry or type of business. We can do this by manually gathering our own media contact list by reading bylines in newspapers and magazines, or by purchasing a media directory. • Whenever we distribute a press release we can also post the release on our website, for ex. under “Corporate Information” or “Company Background”.

26. Press-release distribution • Broadcast Interview Source (expertclick.com) publishes a variety of media directories that list contact information of writers, reporters, producers, editors and radio/television hosts. • The gebbie Press’s All-In-One Directory (gebbieinc.com) lists contact information for more than 25,000 media people from TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, African-American and Hispanic media, news syndicates, networks, etc. • Media outlets to send our press releases to include:

27. Press-release distribution • Television shows (especially the ones which cover our industry) • Talk radio and news stations • Newspapers • Magazines • Trade journals • Newsletters • Online publications (including blogs) • The webmasters at sites which cater to our target market’s area of interest • Special-interest groups or clubs • Clearly, we need to list the URL for our online business in our press release.

28. Traditional advertising • Millions of everyday people are Web users. So it makes perfect sense to promote our website using traditional advertising. • Traditional advertising vehicles also include newspapers, magazines, radio, network television, cable television, syndicated television, billboards,in-theater advertising, direct mail, trade shows, etc. • One inexpensive way to tap the power of traditional print advertising is to run an ad in a special-interest magazine or newsletter which caters specifically to the target audience we need to reach.

29. Traditional advertising • For example, * NOTE: slides to be added before the class