UNIT - V

MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM (MIS)

DEFINITION : A marketing information system (MIS) consists of people,
equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed,
timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers.
Characteristics of MIS:
Interrelated components.
Processing.
Timeliness.
Accuracy.
Consistency.
Accessibility.
Future Oriented.
Use of computers and statistical tools.

Components of MIS

The role of the MIS is to assess the managers information needs, develop the
needed information and distribute the information in a timely fashion to the
marketing managers.
The following are the major components of MIS:
Internal marketing information/internal report system.
Marketing intelligence system.
Marketing research system.
Analysis and processing of information/analytical marketing system.
1. Internal Marketing Information: The most basic information system used by
marketing managers is the internal records system. They include detailed reports
on orders, sales, prices, inventory levels, receivables, payables and so on. By
analyzing this information, marketing managers can spot important opportunities
and problems.
Ex: The information that can be derived from sales invoices: Product type, size,
pack type, average value, volume of sale by territory, volume of sale by industry
and volume of sale by salespersons. By comparing orders received with invoices
an enterprise can establish the extent to which it is providing an acceptable level of
customer service.
2. Marketing Intelligence System: A marketing intelligence system is a set of
procedures and sources used by managers to obtain their everyday information
about relevant developments in the marketing environment. This scanning of the
economic and business environment can be undertaken in a variety of ways.
Unfocused scanning: The manager, by virtue of what he/she reads, hears
and watches expose him/herself to information that may prove useful.
Semi-focused scanning: The manager, is not in search of particular pieces
of information that he/she is actively searching but does narrow the range of
media that is scanned. Ex: The manager may focus more on economic and
business publications, broadcasts, etc., and pay less attention to political,
scientific or technological media.
Informal search: This describes the situation where a fairly limited and
unstructured attempt is made to obtain information for a specific purpose.
Ex: The marketing manager of a firm considering entering the business of
importing frozen fish from a neighboring country may make enquires in
ministries, international aid agencies, with trade associations,
importers/exporters, etc.
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 Formal search: This is a purposeful search after information in some

systematic way. The information will be required to address a specific issue.
Components of Marketing Intelligence System:
Customer Intelligence: customer intelligence provides useful information
on a customers business, preferences or loyalties, personal demographic
details and whims and fancies too. A good intelligence system will even
tell a marketer what to do and not to do when he or she is with the customer.
This information becomes useful in planning sales calls on customers. It is
also useful in evolving advertising and promotion programmes.
Competition intelligence: This gives information on strengths and
weakness of each competitor in the territory, the strategy and tactics being
used by them and how the customer procures competitor brands. It is
continuously updated.
3. Marketing research: It is the systematic design, collection, analysis and
reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the
company.
4. Analysis and processing of information: Typical tools used are: Time series
sales models, Brand switching models, Linear programming, Elasticity models,
Regression and Correlation models, Analysis of Variance models, Discounted cash
flow etc.

Limitations of MIS
Installing the software is expensive.
Requires new set of skills.
Depends on database.
Not preferred.

MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing research is defined as the systematic design, collection, analysis, and
reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the
company.

The Marketing Research Process: Effective marketing research follows the six
steps process as shown in the diagram:
Step 1: Defining The Problem And The Research Objectives:
Marketing managers must be careful not to define the problem too broadly
or too narrowly for the marketing researcher. A research problem refers to some
difficulty which a researcher experiences in the context of either a theoretical or
conceptual situation and wants a solution for it. A research problem exists when the
individual or the group having one or more desired outcomes are confronted with
two or more courses of action that have some but not equal efficiency for the
desired objectives and are in doubt about which course of action is best. Research
design is the conceptual structure within which research should be conducted.
Research designs can be grouped into three categories:
Exploratoryits goal is to shed light on the real nature of the problem and
to suggest possible solutions or new ideas.
Descriptiveit seeks to quantify demand.
Causalits purpose is to test a cause and effect relationship.

Step 2: Develop The Research Plan:

The second stage of marketing research is where we develop the most
efficient plan for gathering the needed information and what that will cost. To
design a research plan, we need to make decisions about the data sources, research
approaches, research instruments, sampling plan, and contact methods.
DATA SOURCES: The researcher can gather secondary data, primary data, or
both.
Secondary data are data that were collected for another purpose and already
exist somewhere.
Primary data are data freshly gathered for a specific purpose or for a
specific research project.
RESEARCH APPROACHES: Marketers collect primary data in five main ways:
through observation, focus groups, surveys, behavioral data, and experiments.
Observational Research- Researchers can gather fresh data by observing the
relevant actors and settings unobtrusively as they shop or consume products.
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 Focus Group Research- A focus group is a gathering of 6 to 10 people

carefully selected by researchers based on certain demographic,
psychographic, or other considerations and brought together to discuss
various topics of interest at length. Participants are normally paid a small
sum for attending. A professional research moderator provides questions and
probes based on the marketing managers discussion guide or agenda.
Focus-group research is a useful exploratory step, but researchers must avoid
generalizing from focus-group participants to the whole market, because the
sample size is too small and the sample is not drawn randomly.
Survey Research- Companies undertake surveys to assess peoples
knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and satisfaction and to measure these
magnitudes in the general population.
BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH: Customers leave traces of their purchasing
behavior in store scanning data, catalog purchases, and customer databases.
Marketers can learn much by analyzing these data. Actual purchases reflect
consumers preferences and often are more reliable than statements they offer to
market researchers.
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH -The most scientifically valid research is
experimental research, designed to capture cause-and-effect relationships by
eliminating competing explanations of the observed findings.
RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: Marketing researchers have a choice of three
main research instruments in collecting primary data: questionnaires, qualitative
measures, and technological devices.
A questionnaire consists of a set of questions presented to respondents.
Because of its flexibility, it is by far the most common instrument used to
collect primary data. Researchers need to carefully develop, test, and debug
questionnaires before administering them on a large scale. The form,
wording, and sequence of the questions can all influence the responses.
Qualitative research techniques are relatively unstructured measurement
approaches that permit a range of possible responses. Their variety is limited
only by the creativity of the marketing researcher.
Technological Devices: Galvanometers can measure the interest or emotions
aroused by exposure to a specific ad or picture. The tachistoscope flashes an
ad to a subject with an exposure interval that may range from less than one
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hundredth of a second to several seconds. After each exposure, the

respondent describes everything he or she recalls.
SAMPLING PLAN:
Sampling unit: Whom should we survey?: marketers must develop a
sampling frame so everyone in the target population has an equal or known
chance of being sampled.
Sample size: How many people should we survey?: Large samples give
more reliable results, but its not necessary to sample the entire target
population to achieve reliable results.
Sampling procedure: How should we choose the respondents? Probability
sampling allows marketers to calculate confidence limits for sampling error
and makes the sample more representative.
CONTACT METHODS: Now the marketing researcher must decide how to
contact the subjects: by mail, by telephone, in person, or online.
Mail Contacts: The mail questionnaire is one way to reach people who
would not give personal interviews or whose responses might be biased or
distorted by the interviewers. Mail questionnaires require simple and clearly
worded questions. Unfortunately, the response rate is usually low or slow.
Telephone interviewing: is a good method for gathering information
quickly; the interviewer is also able to clarify questions if respondents do not
understand them. Interviews must be brief and not too personal.
Personal interviewing: Takes two forms. In arranged interviews, marketers
contact respondents for an appointment and often offer a small payment or
incentive. In intercept interviews, researchers stop people at a shopping mall
or busy street corner and request an interview on the spot. Intercept
interviews must be quick, and they run the risk of including nonprobability
samples.
Online Contacts: A company can embed a questionnaire on its Web site and
offer an incentive to answer it, or it can place a banner on a frequently
visited site such as Yahoo!, inviting people to answer some questions and
possibly win a prize.
Step 3: Collect the Information:

The data collection phase of marketing research is generally the most

expensive and the most prone to error. Marketers may conduct surveys in homes,
over the phone, via the Internet, or at a central interviewing location like a
shopping mall.
Four major problems arise in surveys. Some respondents will be away from
home or otherwise inaccessible and must be contacted again or replaced. Other
respondents will refuse to cooperate. Still others will give biased or dishonest
answers. Finally, some interviewers will be biased or dishonest.
Step 4: Analyze the Information:
The next-to-last step in the process is to extract findings by tabulating the
data and developing summary measures. The researchers now compute averages
and measures of dispersion for the major variables and apply some advanced
statistical techniques and decision models in the hope of discovering additional
findings. They may test different hypotheses and theories, applying sensitivity
analysis to test assumptions and the strength of the conclusions.
STEP 5: Present the findings:
As the last step, the researcher presents findings relevant to the major
marketing decisions facing management. Researchers increasingly are being asked
to play a more proactive, consulting role in translating data and information into
insights and recommendations. Theyre also considering ways to present research
findings in as understandable and compelling a fashion as possible.
Step 6: Make the Decision:
Some organizations use marketing decision support systems to help their
marketing managers make better decisions. A marketing decision support system
(MDSS) is defined as a coordinated collection of data, systems, tools, and
techniques, with supporting software and hardware, by which an organization
gathers and interprets relevant information from business and environment and
turns it into a basis for marketing action.

CAUSE RELATED MARKETING

Cause-related marketing is the public association of a for-profit company with a
non-profit organization, intended to promote the companys product or service and
to raise money for the non-profit.
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Objectives of Cause related marketing:

Increase sales- It is one of the most fundamental reasons for participating in
cause marketing activities.
Enhancing corporate stature- Due to association with a respected
cause/organization a company may get a better corporate image, improved
national visibility and communications toward social responsibility with the
public.
Thwarting negative publicity- The use of cause related marketing as a
response to negative publicity can be an effective weapon.
Customer pacification- When companies are threatened by a boycott on
their products cause related marketing can act as one part of a more
extensive program to calm down the group who are accountable for the
boycott.
Facilitating market entry- Companies entering a market and at the same
time use cause related marketing to smooth the progress of penetration.
Increase the level trade merchandizing activity for brands promotedImprovements in the number of reorders, sell-through and similar measures
are important objectives for a large quantity of companies involved in cause
related marketing.
Cause related marketing in India
1. Tata Group: The companys philanthropic activities can be dated to as early as
1892. They have run Endowment Schemes to provide higher education for
deserving Indians. Over 3,500 Tata scholarships have been awarded. In July 2002,
Tata Steel presented the first corporate sustainability report, which would serve as
a benchmark and a confidence-builder for other Tata companies. The company has
spent Rs. 1.5 billion on social services during 2001 and 2002 in rural development,
which included community health, basic education and vocational training.
2. Infosys: Formed in 1981 by N.R. Narayana Murthy, Infosys follows a socially
responsible and sustainable path in conducting business. The company has won
many awards such as Best Employers to work for in India, Golden Peacock award
for Excellence in Corporate Governance in the Global Category by the World
Council for Corporate Governance, London and Corporate Citizenship Award by
the Economic Times. Infosys spends about Rs. 50 million on social activities.

3. AV Birla Group: The AV Birla groups initiatives are channeled through the
Aditya Birla Center for Community Initiatives and Rural Development
spearheaded by Rajashree Birla (wife of Aditya Birla). The activities of the group
include innovative projects involving the development of rural youth and
employment generation, education and training and health care projects, helping
the disable people, social causes like widow remarriages, dowry-less marriages and
women empowerment programs. The Birla Academy of Art and Culture set-up in
1962 in Kolkata treasures art works and exquisite exhibits had has evolved into one
of Indias premier institutions for art and culture. The AV Birla group also offers
scholarships to students from IITs, IIMs and BITS (Pilani) to nature tomorrow's
leader. Only the best are selected for the coveted award and are called The Aditya
Birla Scholars.

Advantages of cause related marketing

Attracting and retaining customers.
Market differentiation.
Out reach to Niche Markets.
Motivated and Loyal Employees.
Reinforced company mission.
Creating Positive Image of Brand.
Raise funds for Social Cause.
Favorable public reputation.
Mutual benefit.
Sustainability.

Disadvantages of Cause related marketing

Risk of being perceived negatively.
Main purpose is profits not charity.
Charity as marketing tool.
Negative publicity detrimental for non-profit organization.
Non investment-free.
Dependent on public perception.

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CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS IN MARKETING

RESEARCH
The concepts and applications of marketing research include research in respect of
consumers, product, sales, retail, distribution channels, advertising and promotion,
pricing and physical distribution.
Product Research: It is concerned with the design, development and testing of
new products as well as improvement of the existing one. It also examines whether
the quality of a new product conforms to the desires attributes. In addition it
analyzes the product mix in comparison with the competitive products.
Advertising and Promotion Research: It is a subset of marketing research. It
systematically gathers and analyzes information to help develop or evaluate
advertising strategies, individual ads, or whole advertising campaigns. The
advertiser needs to know how consumers perceive its products or services, what
are their views about the competition, and what image of the brand or the company
would be most appropriate to build.
Consumer behavior research: It is a form of applied sociology that concentrates
on understanding the preferences, attitudes and behaviors of consumers in a
market-based economy, and it aims to understand the effects and comparative
success of marketing campaigns. The consumer research focuses more on the data
collection and relationship building and strengthening between the contacted
consumer and the company.
Retail research: It measures industry and market trends, helping to provide insight
and information for the development of new retail formats and offering. Research
is carried-out at the retail level for concept testing, business feasibility analysis,
identification of the right product mix, studying the target group profile, analyzing
consumer behavior etc.

CUSTOMER DRIVEN ORGANIZATIONS

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Customer-driven marketing involves seeing the products or services from the

customers perspective and communicating the message in the customers
language.
Organizations that understand the key role of customers in their success are known
as customer-driven organizations. In a customer-driven organization, decisions are
made based on the knowledge of customer needs and expectations, and on the
impact of those decisions on the organization-customer relationship.

Strategies of customer driven organization

1. Customer and Business Intelligence Strategy: A customer driven
organization might have Customer and business intelligence as its strategy
for which it needs to use data mining, database marketing and decision
support. These tactics help understand the customer and provide value to the
organization.
2. Branding and Marketing Strategy: This strategy is required for regular
brand assessment and development.
3. Online Interactivity Strategy: These organizations provide websites that
prove very compelling to use and are very practical. Dells website is an
example.
4. Marketing approach: The customer driven organization also needs to have
a marketing approach through email, web or phone.
5. Real time knowledge transfer approach: Finally the organization needs
real time knowledge transfer between employees and customers such that it
promotes the organizations products by themselves. In such real time
knowledge transfer customers get to research and interact about upcoming
products and services thereby increasing the sales ratio for the organization.

Steps in designing customer-driven marketing strategy

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Stages in customer driven organization

It appears there are at least three stages through which a firm must pass to become
truly customer driven as:
1. Bliss: The management of the blissful firm feels it produces a good product
because it often has a good finished-product quality-control program. The blissful
firm has a customer service department that handles customer complaints. The
problem of the blissful firm is in a reactive, status quo mode. It uses its customer
service department to react to customer complaints, most likely without realizing
that typically fewer than 5% of dissatisfied customers actually complain to the
company itself. The cost of acquiring a new customer can be as much as five times
the cost of keeping an existing one. These companies do not really know or
understand their customers. At best, they have some rough data on the frequency
and causes of customer complaints, but typically they do not use this data to fix the
root problem that precipitated the complaints.
2. Awareness: An aware firm has all of the characteristics of a blissful firm, but is
more proactive. Aware firms have customer service departments, as do blissful
firms, but aware firms will open customer service departments for extended hours
to make it easier for customers to use the service. They provide toll-free calling,
they may have a bilingual customer service staff. These firms conduct regular
scheduled customer satisfaction surveys. The marketing managers of aware firms
pay attention to the results of surveys and use the information to help the
organization improve its products and services.
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3. Commitment: Committed firms operate under a philosophy of Total Customer

Integration (TCI). The TCI orientation is a natural subset of Total Quality
Management (TQM), which among other things emphasizes the development of
systems to determine customer requirements. The fundamental philosophy that
drives a TCI approach is that customers are not a target for the firms marketing
efforts, but instead are partners with whom a firm must work to enhance the
delivered value of products or services. It considers customers as valuable assets.
Thus, customer retention is at least as important as acquiring new customers.
Advantages of Customer driven organizations
Considers the needs of customers.
Successful products.
New ideas for products.
Higher loyalty.
Increased connection to brand.
Better financial results.
Increase referrals.
Customer service.
Disadvantages of customer driven organizations
Ever-changing customer needs.
Difficult coordination.
Lack of innovation.
May become self-serving.
High financial cost.

ETHICS IN MARKETING
Ethics: Ethics is the art and science of determining good and bad or right and
wrong moral behavior of a single or group of people.
MARKETING: Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and
delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit.

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Marketing Ethics: Marketing ethics is an area that deals with the moral principles
behind marketing. Ethics in marketing applies to different spheres such as in
product, pricing, Placing (Distribution), promotion & advertising etc...
Why we need Ethics in Marketing?
There are many reasons but will notify some:
When an organization behaves ethically, customers develop more positive
attitudes about the firm, its products, and its services.
To create Values or trust with key stakeholders
To build good image about the organization in the minds of customer,
employees, shareholders and the society.
Ethical Issues in Marketing:
We discuss Marketing issues by using 4PS OF MARKETING:
Product
Consumer safety
Product liability and reliability
Designing for special needs
Packaging
Label information
Packaging graphics
Packaging safety
Environmental implication of packaging
Price: Second P of Marketing
Bid rigging: Bid rigging is a form of fraud in which a commercial contract
is promised to one party even though for the sake of appearance several
other parties also present a bid. This form of collusion is illegal in most
countries.
Supra competitive pricing: supra competitive pricing is pricing above what
can be sustained in a competitive market. This may be indicative of a
business that has a unique legal or competitive advantage or of anticompetitive behavior that has driven competition from the market.
Price fixing: Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same
side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a
fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is
maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand.
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 Price skimming: Price skimming is a product pricing strategy by which a

firm charges the highest initial price that customers will pay. As the demand
of the first customers is satisfied, the firm lowers the price to attract another,
more price-sensitive segment.
PLACING (DISTRIBUTION)
Product distribution (or place) is one of the four elements of the
Marketing MIX.
Distribution of product or service is transporting them from manufacture to
stockiest, wholesalers, retailer and then to consumers.
Unethical Practices in Placing:
Many retailers sell products that have crossed expiry date is unethical.
Exerting influence to cause vendors to reduce display space for competitors'
products is unethical.
Promising shipment when knowing delivery is not possible by the promised
date is also unethical.
Paying vendors to carry a firm's product rather than one of its competitors
are also unethical.
Most drug stores would give too many drugs without prescriptions from a
qualified doctor are also unethical.
Products are moved in unsafe vehicles, are also unethical.
PROMOTION (ADVERTISING &BRANDING)
Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix (product, price,
promotion, and place). It is the communication link between sellers and
buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential
buyer's purchasing decision.
To present information to consumers as well as others
To increase demand
To differentiate a product
Ethical Issues in Advertising
Puffery (Nothing to support the fact.): Advertising puffery is defined as
advertising or promotional material that makes broad exaggerated or
boastful statements about a product or service that are subjective (a matter of

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opinion), rather than objective (measurable), and that which no reasonable

person would presume to be literally true.
Advertising to Children
Promoting Unhealthy Products
Subliminal Advertising: Promotional messages the recipient is not aware
of, such as those played at very low volume or flashed on a screen for less
than a second. Its effectiveness is not supported by scientific evidence, and
its use is considered a deceptive business practice in some jurisdictions.
Deceptive Advertising: Deceptive advertising, also known as false
advertising, refers to a manufacturer's use of confusing, misleading, or
blatantly untrue statements when promoting a product.

ETHICS IN CONSUMER PROTECTION

What is Consumer Protection?
Consumer: refers to any individuals or households that use goods and
services generated within the economy.
Consumer Protection: a concept that are designed to ensure fair
competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace.
Consumer Protection laws : laws designed to prevent businesses that
engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining and advantage
over competitors and provide additional protection for the weak for those
unable to take care of themselves.
Ethics in Marketing in Consumer Protection: Market is flooded with duplicate
goods having fake labels for selling drugs, food stuffs, consumables like agarbatis,
suparis etc. followed by misleading advertisements. This result in disrepute for the
products of good companies even though such fake goods are small in quantities.
Who is responsible for consumer protection?
Responsibility of Business: The business including producers and traders have
to due regard to consumer rights as it is their social responsibility. They have to
come out with quality goods at reasonable prices.
Responsibility of Consumer: All efforts regarding consumer protection will not
produce desired results if consumerism is not accepted as a means of asserting and
enjoying their rights.
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Responsibility of Government: Innocent and helpless consumers should be

protected by the Government through enacting legislations. Government will have
to set its own priorities for the protection consumers right.
Consumer Protection Act,1986
Better protection of interests of consumer.
Protection of rights of consumers.
To prevent practices having adverse effect on competition.
To promote and sustain competition on market.
To protect the interests of consumers.

ONLINE MARKETING TRENDS

Online marketing, is also known as virtual/ Interactive/ Internet Marketing
or e-Marketing. It is the fast growing form of direct marketing. Recent
technological advances have created a digital age. Wide spread use of the internet
is having a dramatic impact on both buyers and marketers who serve them.
Online marketing Trends and Techniques
There are various techniques and methods to online marketing and advertising in
its current trends.it is Important to know about each method:
E-Mail Marketing: The primary reason many people use the internet is to send
and receive e-mail messages. With millions of people online and numbers
substantially increasing each year, it is little wonder that marketing communicators
have turns to email as a viable advertising medium. E-mail advertising is simply
the use of the internet for sending commercial messages. However as with any
other advertising medium, there is no such thing as a single type of e-mail
message; rather e-mail messages appear in many forms, ranging pure text
documents to more sophisticated versions that use all the audio powers of internet.
Blogs marketing: Blogs refers to the fact that certain people, who have gained
enough of experience or researchers choose to make their study, ideas , thoughts,
reactions and dilemmas public, by writing either a weblog accessible to everybody
or one with restricted access, set of confidential issues. Blogs are seen as an
authentic, uncensored way of expressing our ego and get to their final version,
ready to be published, a frequent and chronological one, of personal reflections and
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favorite web links. It is in the context that products and brands are sometimes
discussed. It is here where companies can endeavor to further enhance the equity
of their brands and perhaps even to generate additional business. Much of appeal
of bogs is that a company can communicate directly with prospective customers,
who in turn can become active communicators through their own posted
comments.
Article Marketing: Article Marketing has been used by professionals for nearly as
long as mass print has been available. In proper paper-print form (as opposed to
online forms), article marketing is utilized commonly by business owners as a
means of obtaining free press space. Article Marketing is a type of advertising in
which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These
articles are made available for distribution has the potential of increasing the
authoring business credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients.
Buzz Marketing: Marketing Buzz or simply buzz a term used in word of mouth
marketing is the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service which
serves to simplify the original marketing message, a vague but positive association,
excitement, or anticipation about a product or service. Examples of products with
strong marketing buzz upon introduction were Harry Potter, the Volkswagen, New
beetle, Pokemon, Beanie Babies and the Blair Witch Project. Buzz marketing is a
marketing technique consisting, as its name suggests, of making a noise around a
new product or offer. Similar to virtual marketing, it differs from it in the control of
the content of the advertising message. Buzz marketing activities are designed to
get consumers talking about a product or service. Buzz fosters mystery, stimulates
questions, surprises audiences and exploits consumption contexts to generate the
desired behavior.
Viral Marketing: Viral Marketing and buzz Marketing are similar concepts, the
latter focusing particularly on the creation of an atmosphere of excitement or buzz
about a new product, often within a specific social group. Viral Marketing is
another form of word of mouth that encourages consumers to pass along company
developed products and services or audio, video, or written information to other
online. It can be word of mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the
internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive flash
games, advergames, eBooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.
Display or Banner Ads: The most popular advertising format in the internets
short advertising history has been the static advertisement known as a display or
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banner ad. This format can be considered analogous to a static print ad in a

magazine or newspaper. Banner ads are staple of internet advertising. These are
typically small, static ads placed in frequently visited websites. Banner ads on the
internet are ubiquitous. Click-Through Rates (CTR) to banner ads is very low,
averaging less than 0.3 percent. Banner ads for B2B companies receive somewhat
higher CTRs than do those for B2C companies.
Forum Marketing: Forum is a place where people gather and discuss their
problems, strategies etc. there are many forums on the web that you can join and
participate in discussion. Most of the forums allow a link back to the website in the
signature text which would appear below the post you make. Again a good traffic
builder.
Search Engine Optimization Marketing (SEO): There is a much loved saying
among the interactive advertising community that If you are not on Google, the
business does not exist. Also this statement is true to an extent, there is much
more to SEO than simply submitting the website to Google Search Engine, the
ultimate goal of SEO is to increase the quality or volume of traffic to websites via
search engines. SEO is founded on the theory that the higher a site appears in a
search results list, the more likely that website will be selected by searchers.
Social Media Marketing: It is the new kid on the block as far as interactive
advertising is concerned, but it is increasing exponentially in popularity. Popular
networking sites including Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are social media most
commonly used for socialization and connecting friends, relatives and employees.
Social Media Marketing is particularly attractive to marketers simply because it
encourages a high degree of interaction with consumers and is relatively in
expensive. Social media offers a venue for word-of-mouth communication for the
new decade that allows consumers to share their experiences with the product with
thousands of people in an instant.
Mobile Marketing: Mobile Marketing offers an important means for building up
cooperation relationships, since specialist in mobile marketing use SMS text
messages and MMS multimedia messages to get to their users by means of one of
the most personal devices, namely the mobile phone. Optimizing for mobile has
been a significant priority for businesses. The mobile strategies move beyond
simply having a responsive site or mobile app, and focus on mobile-optimized
content and social media marketing as well.
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We know that Google has been placing additional emphasis on how mobilefriendly sites are; in fact, theyve stated that mobile usability is now relevant for
optimal search results. This emphasis is apparent in the recent launch of a new
feature in Google Webmaster Tools called Mobile Usability. We see many
businesses finally incorporating mobile into all areas of their digital marketing: a
fully responsive website, mobile ads, and separate content specifically for mobile
website users. Businesses will also begin to realize the necessity of having a
mobile social media strategy that considers how mobile users consume and interact
with social media posts.
Advantages of Online Marketing:
1. Global reach
2. Convenience
3. Opportunity for constraints Free Growth
4. Scope for enhancing customer value and customer services
5. Building relationships with customers
6. Helps reduces costs
7. Enhances productivity of sales people
8. Enhance the marketer adjust to market conditions quickly
9. Flexibility in marketing communications
10.Search advantage and wide options
Disadvantages of Online Marketing:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

All products do not lend equally well for internet marketing

Cost involved is not inconsequential
Question marks about profitability
Threat to information security
Customers trust on virtual marketers
Difficult management
Legal issues
Other limiting factors

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