Building Relationships Online

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Building Relationships Online the road ahead or
the road less travelled by?

• Joe Passmore
• Head of Corporate Marketing
• University of Ulster

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University web development is at a fork in the
road...

• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
• I took the one less traveled by,
• And that has made all the difference.
• (The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost)
• to carry on or to move to a new paradigm

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Some features of University web sites...

• Lack of segmentation - mass market approach
• Each visitor sees the same information
• Information flow is one way
• No systematic data capture plenty of hits
• HITS - How Idiots Track Success
• What is the transaction?
• How do we measure it?

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The Unanswered Question

• What value is your website adding to your
  universitys activity?

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Why do you have a website?

• Because you can?
• Technology seduction, the 19th Hole syndrome
• or is your site built on customers expectation
  and requirements?
• What do they want?
• Ask them!

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Critical Success Factors

• CSF Criteria
• Strategic Planning Clearly defined business
  goals analysis of customer needs and
  expectations
• Web Design/Production Professional design and
  structure
• Organisational Structure Integrated with other
  activity isolation leads and Integration to
  electronic brochure professional management of
  email
• Internet Marketing Proactive in inviting users to
  register interests one- to-one communication
  customized information
• Measurement Criteria Payback may come in offline
  activity monitor likes and dislikes of site
  ensure realistic targets and clear
  measurement criteria
• Based on Pira Research, McGurran

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Critical Success Factors contd

• Know your customers
• Segmentation issues - who sees what and why?
• The building of valuable relationships online
  with customers
• What is value?
• Repeat visit to see relevant information

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Relationship Marketing

• Marketing is to establish, maintain and
  enhance relationships with customers and other
  partners at a profit so that objectives of the
  parties are met. This is achieved by a mutual
  exchange and a fulfillment of promise
• Christian Gronroos, 1994
• or, put more succinctly...
• An elaborate form of database marketing
• Brodie et al, 1997

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Some background

• Properly applied it and used it can be used to
  gather unprecedented amounts of data on specific
  customer needs and therefore have a positive
  impact on customer service
• A new marketplace where customers will choose to
  give organizations information about themselves
  consumers may choose to be more selective about
  the type of information they leave on websites
• ...not just a more powerful customer but a more
  complete implementation of the marketing concept
• Hoffman and Novak, (1996)

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Some relationship marketing issues

• Customer satisfaction as intention to repurchase
• The longer a relationship lasts the more
  profitable it becomes
• Each time a visitor returns to a site they see
  the same thing - unacceptable
• Every time you go to the bank they dont ask you
  to open a new account!
• However, they might try to sell you additional
  products based on your profile

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Building relationships

• Data gathering online and offline
• Integration between online and offline activity
• Building affinity - lifetime email address
• University as ISP - partnership with other
  providers
• Portal becomes a delivery channel for
  information, course updates, news appeals etc

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University site segmentation

• Site segmentation
• A series of portals for different users
• Intranet Internet Extranet
• Student Intranet
• Business Site
• Admissions/applications site

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Site Objectives

• Generate leads
• Educate a target audience
• Provide customer service
• Attract repeat visitors/repeat purchase
• Track visitors lead them to action
• Encourage visitors to leave information
• can facilitate interactivity/cross selling e.g.
  Amazon.com
• raises ethical issues and data protection issues
• The primacy of the customer

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Technology assimilation

• Experimental applications
• Prototype scientific applications
• Efficiency/Convenience applications
• Technology used to same work as currently being
  done but more conveniently/at less cost
• Effectiveness applications
• Old problems addressed in new with better results
• Previously unthinkable applications
• With the required literacy, truly innovative
  exploitation occurs

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Stages of Technology Assimilation (Haeckel, 1985)
Previously Unthinkable
Effectiveness
Efficiency/ Convenience
Experimentall
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High Level of RM
Commitment
Expansion
Low Level of ECom
High Level of ECom
Exploration
Experimental
Efficiency/ Convenience
Effectiveness
Previously Unthinkable
Awareness
Universities
Low level of RM
No awareness
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University marketing - beyond 2000

• Increasing emphasis on one-to-one communication -
  building relationships
• Developing mechanisms for data capture
• Introduction of call centres - Plymouth, Newport
• Use of databases for content management
• Greater integration of online offline activity
• Increased use of Print on Demand
• More targeted communications
• Look out for the Data Protection Act!

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Know the road ahead...

• Would you tell me please which way I ought to go
  from here?
• That depends a good deal on where you want to
  get to, said the Cat.
• I dont much care where said Alice
• Then it doesnt much matter which way you go,
  said the Cat.
• - so long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an
  explanation.

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Last words...

• Segmentation
• Personalization
• Relationship
• Affinity
• Loyalty

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Selected reading

• Berthon P, (1996) Marketing Communications on the
  World Wide Web, Business Horizons, Vol 39, No 5,
  pp24-33
• Cornforth SR and Koty W, (1996) Untangling the
  Web It takes more than hits to evaluate your
  sites successes or troubles, Currents
  July/August pp 10-16
• Dwyer FR, Schurr PJ and Oh S (1987) Developing
  Buyer-Seller relationships, Journal of Marketing,
  Vol 51, No 2 pp 11-27
• Gronroos, C (1994) Quo Vadis Marketing? Towards a
  relationship Marketing Paradigm, Journal of
  Marketing, Vol 10, pp347-360
• Haeckel SH, (1985) Strategies for Marketing the
  new technologies commentary, Marketing in an
  Electronic Age, Buzzell RD ed, Harvard Business
  Press
• Hoffman D and Novak TP, (1996) A new marketing
  paradigm for Electronic Commerce, paper submitted
  for The Information Society
• Hoffman D and Novak TP, (1996) Marketing in
  hypermedia computer mediated environments
  conceptual foundations, Journal of Marketing Vol
  60, pp50-68
• McGurran P (1997) Web Europe, Internet Business,
  May 1997, pp28-31
• Rogers, EM (1983) Diffusion of Innovations, 3rd
  Edition, The Free Press New York

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