B-to-C Online Customer Acquisition: Ten Steps to Success

The webinar on advertising and marketing on the internet called B-to-C Online Customer Acquisition: Ten Steps to Success from the American Marketing Association was recorded on January 30^th 2006. The presenters Mike Chapman outlines in his presentation ten critical steps for finding new consumers on the internet, establishing a strong relationship with them and satisfying their needs. These steps are necessary since the power shifted more and more towards the consumer due to technological advances and increasingly technology savvy customers.

The ten steps mentioned in the presentation are:

1. Recognize the challenge

Emarketers are facing the challenge that their messages sent in emails do not reach their target.

2. Get permission

Emarketers need to get permission from their customers to receive information, since customers are trying to control their personal and private information.

3. Cast many lines

Emarketers should not limit their ways to find customers, since the internet allows for multiple ways to find customers.

4. Relevance

Emarketers should personalize their messages, since customers see personalized messages as relevant messages and customers are more likely to respond to messages with relevant information.

5. Capture right amount of Information

Emarketers should get to know their targeted consumers and gather the right information from them. By gathering the right information, marketers have to be careful not to ask to many personal questions.

6. Pay attention to privacy concerns and trust

Emarketers should let their customers know in what ways the gathered information will be used.

7. Convert “Prospects” into “Customers”
8. Keep it clean

Emarketers should use and maintain an in-house list, since they include data of the company’s returning and potential customers.

9. Measure to measure

Emarketers should measure the effectiveness of their implemented strategies.

10. Don’t stop now

Emarketers should continue and even deepen the relationship with the customer.

Jere Doyle explained in his presentation the five factors for successful and effective customer acquisition on the internet.

The five factors include, selecting a reliable online marketing service provider, finding the right customers, gathering the right amount of data, cleansing data, and using multi-channel marketing to start a direct dialogue.

U.N. Enlists Internet Star for Antipoverty Pitch

LonelyGirl15

The article U.N. Enlists Internet Star for Antipoverty Pitch by Suzanne Vranica was published October 9, 2006 in the Wall Street Journal. The main focus of the article is on the growing use of online video-sharing sites as an important part of online advertising and the marketing mix. The article tackles this topic by talking about the launching of online videos as part of the United Nations’ ad campaign to promote an antipoverty event. The video ad features LonelyGirl15, an internet star created through the spread and increasing popularity of video-sharing sites such as YouTube. This campaign is one of many examples, demonstrating the increasing acceptance and importance of online video-sharing sites as a serious tool for online advertising. More and more marketers are beginning to discover this medium and starting to exploit it for their purposes. Marketing on such video-sharing sites can range from site sponsorship, banner ads or minivideos to advertising presented disguised in amateur videos or comments. Many companies launch competitions to produce ads with the goal to create awareness among the online video community and oftentimes to gain attention in other media, such as newspapers. The Wall Street Journal article is a great example to support this statement. The United Nations are gaining awareness for their cause through free publicity on the web as well as offline. With the acquisition of YouTube through Google it is expected that the use of online video-sharing sites as marketing tools will increase. Advertising on video-sharing sites allows marketers to promote their products to a young, very engaged crowd. This young crowd, which consists mostly of members of the Generation Y, is known for its skepticism towards mass advertising and difficult to market to. The Generation Y is very internet savvy and due to its large size of increasing importance for marketers and companies. Online advertising in forms of vlogs, blogs, interactive websites and video-sharing sites seems to be an excellent opportunity to reach this market segment and create brand loyalty in young years. A concept the United Nations seem to have understood.

Google Is in Talks to Buy YouTube As Rivals Also Eye Hot Web Property

The article Google Is in Talks to Buy YouTube As Rivals Also Eye Hot Web Property by Kevin J. Delaney was published October 6, 2006 in the Wall Street Journal. The article talks about another possible acquisition through web-search giant Google to increase its presence in Internet video advertising. According to the Wall Street Journal Google is in talks with YouTube to purchase the California based online-video company for roughly $1.6 billion. After Google’s competitor Yahoo announced interest in the social-networking site Facebook earlier last week, to gain market share in the highly lucrative online ad market, this clever move could put Google far ahead of its competition in terms of market reach. Yahoo itself showed interest in YouTube but its initial offer was turned down. YouTube is currently the market leader in terms of daily visits which averages around a 100 million video views per day or 46% of the market share. The deal between Google and YouTube would combine a massive online ad system with the top online-video site and would allow for a big-boost in Google’s online-video efforts. Google could integrate YouTube’s immense inventory of tagged video contents with its key-word approach and advertising customer base to become even more attractive to online advertisers. Advertising could not only be presented in paid search, sponsored links or banner ads but also through minimovies and webisodes. Minimovies are very short, cinema-like ads filmed specially for Internet showing, while webisodes could be animated cartoons, TV-like ads or music videos using Flash or other technologies. Besides the various possibilities of using different online marketing techniques, Google would also gain a highly engaged audience. Since TouTube’s movie clips are tagged according to their content or genre, viewers could receive selected advertising according to their preference or interest. Google will be way ahead of the online advertising game if they could really pull off the deal with YouTube compared to its biggest competitor Yahoo and increase the interest of online advertisers in its services. After the recent purchase of the exclusive rights to provide ads and search engine results on MySpace, Google is continuing its shopping tour through the World Wide Web. Websites such as YouTube and MySpace, are seen as the “front doors to the Internet where companies can grab users’ attention and market to them”. Hopefully these shopping trips will turn out to be profitable for Google and the online marketing industry and not turn out in another internet bust, other internet companies experienced in the past.