1、 标题： The Evolution of Internet Marketing 原文： Paper at a Glance: As multi-channel commerce (i.e., the ability to purchase goods and services via, for example, the Web and the call center) becomes increasingly ubiquitous, technology (now indistinguish able from the processes it enables) has become the
2、 means to instant gratification. However, the Web as a standalone channel presents as much of a liability as it does an opportunity because best business practices for cohesively exploiting the internet and systematically thriving in cyberspace have lagged. Not least of all in the marketing arena. T
3、he “old” Internet laid the foundation for the most critical mistake organizations have made with the Web to date: failing to integrate the Web into their overall channel structure. The “new” Internet presents a new set of opportunities if marketers realize that decisions of online searchers are infl
4、uenced by a broad number of offline sources and vice versa. The Take-Away: Brand, relationship and internet marketers must break through (often artificial) boundaries to coalesce around the customer as the design point. Organizations must plan to be customer-proactive as commerce paradigms shift fro
5、m push to pull. Cross-channel integration will enable organizations to optimize the way they treat customers and right-size costs. Introduction For too many organizations, cross-channel integration is simply a buzzword-compliant trend du jour, and little more than lip-service is paid toward implemen
6、ting it. However, from the customers perspective, this lack of integration is aggravating an already frustrating problem when interacting with multi-line, multi -channel organizations, leading customers to wonder, Why dont they know me HERE when Ive already told them about me THERE? The Internet Has
7、 Changed the World Well, maybe not the world, but the Internet has clearly gained momentum as it has moved from being a commercial experiment to a legitimate, mission-critical, business engine in almost every business sector. Among other statistics supporting its significance, the U.S. Census Bureau
8、 reports that U.S. retail e-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2005 continued its steady climb, accounting for 2.4 % of total retail sales (up from 1.6% and 1.9% over previous years, adjusted for seasonality). And thats just in the retail sector. However, the Web as a standalone channel present
9、s as much of a liability as it does an opportunity because it offers consumers anonymity until the moment of purchase. This, in turn, limits the ability of the enterprise to motivate (re)- purchasing based on the buyers pain and needs - in turn, contributing to diminishing consumer loyalty and lower
10、 switching costs. Unfortunately, best business practices for cohesively exploiting the Internet and systematically thriving in cyberspace have lagged； not least of all in the marketing arena. “Old” Internet Marketing In the beginning, the Internet was cool. In a nod to modernization, many Global 200
11、0 companies dabbled in the Web with experimental web sites, often nothing more than technology-lite brochure sites. These experiments were purposely separated from day- to-day operations given all the unknowns relative to business impact, claiming dedicated people, business processes, technology, an
12、d information. The Web was commonly run by the jeans-wearing ponytail set as opposed to the blue suits carrying sales bags. Throw a pizza into the “conference-room-cum-web-lab” now and again and all was right with the world. Web marketing largely consisted of mass, outbound e-mail blasts and getting
13、 e-mail right became a huge focus of Internet marketing. E-mail technology jockeys found themselves acting as new-age marketers and it became more about crafting the perfect e-mail than about getting the right message to the right customer via the right channel. Thus the foundation was laid for the
14、most critical mistake organizations have made with the Web to date: failing to integrate the Web into their overall channel structure. Indeed we thought we were making things better by bifurcated marketing disciplines based on channel (e.g., online vs. offline) and formalizing the discipline of onli
15、ne or Internet marketing. We scoffed at the idea that a relationship or a brand could be enhanced through the Internet, and Internet marketing evolved separately from Relationship Marketing and Brand Marketing. Online marketing sub-specialties evolved (e.g., search marketing), business disciplines w
16、ere replicated (e.g., order management, online customer service, revenue tracking) and voila! we created parallel e-businesses. Remember the pre-dot. bomb days of Internet spin-off businesses? Still, Internet marketers were not blind to the exigencies of cross-channel marketing； its just that to the
17、m, cross-channel was integrating Google to Yahoo!, rather than web activity to point-of-sale. Marketing was all about “pushing” messages to customers, and most marketing efforts were (and still are) designed with the channel as the primary consideration, and the customer as a secondary design point.
18、 All we were really doing was reinforcing the Internet as a separate and distinct element of business. We assumed that lack of access to technology and fear of the unknown would prevent customers from truly embracing (or even demanding) the Internet as a legitimate means of transacting business in c
19、ombination with other channels. Things improved with the advent of “pull” marketing and all its implications: customers would proactively pull companies (see Figure 1) to them on their terms, via their preferred channels, and when they are ready. Banner ads are a classic example of pull marketing: t
20、he banners are ubiquitous (and presumably targeted at a users current behavior), but a customer can choose to click through or not. Even with this evolution to pull marketing, customers remained subservient to the channel due to a dearth of information that could be culled from across channels and i
21、ntegrated into a “panoramic view” of the customer. The panoramic view of the customer is an enterprises “corporate memory” of a customer across time, channels, and business lines. Also called the “360 view,” its purpose is to optimize customer interactions for maximum segment profitability. To creat
22、e the panoramic view, organizations must have a consistent approach to collecting accurate customer information, reaching beyond traditional transactional and demographic information to include information about all interactions whether or not a sale resulted. Indeed, marketing has remained largely static and reactive because channel/ customer/offer
