CIM275 Web Marketing

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CIM275 Web Marketing

• Week 6- Product

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Objectives

• After reading this you will be able to
• Define product and describe how it contributes to
  customer value.
• Discuss how attributes, branding, support
  services, and labeling apply to online products.
• Outline some of the key factors in e-marketing
  enhanced product development.
• Identify the six categories of new-product
  strategies and the six classifications for a
  suggested Internet product taxonomy.

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The Google Story

• In 1998, co-founders Brin and Page delivered an
  innovative new search strategy that ranked
  results on popularity as well as keywords.
• Generates revenue from two B2B markets
• Licensing of its search services.
• Sales of keyword banners to advertisers.
• Innovative products and strong customer focus are
  driving its success and profitability.
• Go to Google.com and explore Froogle, GMail and
  the Tool Bar. Do you agree that they are highly
  innovative products?

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Many Products Capitalize on Internet Properties

• A product is a bundle of benefits that satisfies
  needs of organizations or consumers.
• Includes tangible goods, services, ideas, people
  and places.
• Products such as search engines are unique to the
  Internet while others simply use the Internet as
  a new distribution channel.

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Creating Customer Value Online

• Customer value benefits - costs
• Product decisions must be made that deliver
  benefits to customers
• Attributes
• Branding
• Support Services
• Labeling
• Packaging

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Attributes

• Attributes include quality and features.
• The Internet increases customer benefits in many
  ways.
• Media, music, software and other digital products
  can be presented on the Web.
• Mass customization is possible.
• User personalization of the shopping experience
  can be achieved.

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Branding

• A brand includes a name, symbol or other
  information.
• A brand represents a promise or value proposition
  to its customers.
• Brand equity is the intangible value of a brand,
  measured in dollars.
• eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon rank among the top 100
  brands in the U.S.
• A great brand taps into popular culture and
  touches consumers.

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Brand Relationships

• Exhibit 10.4 displays 5 levels of brand
  relationship intensity.

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Branding Decisions for Web Products

• Firms can use existing brand names or create new
  brands on the Internet.
• Some firms may use different names offline and
  online to avoid risk if the new product or
  channel should fail.
• Sports Illustrated created thriveonline.com.
• Wired Magazine changed its online version name to
  Hotwired.

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Creating New Brands for Internet Marketing

• Good brand names should
• Suggest something about the product.
• Differentiate the product from competitors.
• Be capable of legal protection.
• Be short, memorable, easy to spell and translate
  well into other languages.
• Cobranding occurs when two companies put their
  brand names on a product
• Yahoo! Visa shopping pages
• EarthLink-Sprint

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Internet Domain Names

• A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a Web site
  address.
• Also called an IP address or domain name.
• Domain names contain several levels.
• The second-level is often the name of the
  company.
• The top-level may be .com or a country name, such
  as .mx for Mexico.
• ICANN is a nonprofit corporation that makes
  decisions about protocol and domain name
  assignment, registration, etc.

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Largest Top-Level Domain Names
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Registering a New Domain Name

• Sites such as VeriSign provide domain
  registration services.
• More than 97 of words in the dictionary have
  already been registered as domain names.
• Picking the right domain name can make a huge
  difference.
• Directing people correctly to a site.
• Building consistency in marketing communications.

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Support Services

• Customer support is a critical component in the
  value proposition.
• Customer service reps help customers with
  installation, maintenance, product guarantees,
  etc. to increase customer satisfaction.
• CompUSA combines online and offline channels to
  increase customer support.

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Labeling

• Labeling has digital equivalents in the online
  world.
• Online labels provide information about
  installing and using software.
• Online labels also provide extensive legal
  information about the software product.
• Online firms may add the Better Business logo or
  TRUSTe privacy shield to their sites.

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Microsofts Terms of Use Label
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Customer Codesign

• Business and consumer collaboration are possible
  on the Internet.
• Software developers often seek customer input
  about new products.
• They often allow users to download new products,
  test them, and provide feedback.
• Customer interaction has been found to increase
  product success.
• Amazon seeks customers product reviews.

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Product Mix Strategies

• Companies can choose among six categories of
  new-product strategies.
• Firms will select one of the following
  strategies, based on marketing objectives, risk
  tolerance, resource availability, etc.
• Discontinuous innovations new-to-the-world
  products.
• New-product lines new products in a different
  category for an existing brand name.

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Product Mix Strategies, cont.

• 3. New variation of a current product line.
• 4. Improvements or revisions that replace an old
  product.
• 5. Current products targeted to different markets
  or promoted for new uses.
• 6. Me-too lower-cost products.

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Taxonomy of Internet Products

• Products can be classified according to the
  customers to
• whom they appeal.