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ads, direct mail or physical reminders. Second,
we need to ensure our site is optimized for
search engines – it is registered and is ranked
highly on relevant keyword searches. Third,
e-mail is important – this is an on-line push
medium, it should be a priority objective of
website design to capture customer’s e-mail
addresses in order that opt-in e-mail can be
used to push relevant and timely messages to
customers.
2 From monologue to dialogue. Creating a dialogue
through interactivity is the next important
feature of the web and new media. A website,
interactive digital TV and even a mobile phone
enables us to enter dialogue with customers.
These can be short term (perhaps an on-line
chat to customer support) or long term
(lifelong dialogues discussing product and
supply requirements). These dialogues can
enhance customer service, deepen
relationships and trust, and so build loyalty.
But digital dialogues have a less obvious
benefit also – intelligence. Interactive tools for
customer self-help can help collect intelligence
- clickstream analysis recorded in the web log
file can help us build up valuable pictures of
customer preferences. If we profile customers,
placing them into different segments, then we
can build a more detailed picture that is used
to refine our products and offers.
3 From one-to-many to one-to-some and one-to-one.
Traditional push communications are
one-to-many. From one company to many
customers, often the same message to
different segments and often poorly targeted.
With new media, ‘one-to-some’ – reaching a
niche becomes more practical – e-marketers
can tailor and target their message to different
segments through providing different site
content for different audiences through mass
customization.We can even move to
one-to-one communications where
personalized messages can be delivered
according to customer preferences.
4 From one-to-many to many-to-many
communications.New media also enable
many-to-many communications. Hoffman and
Novak (1996) noted that new media are
many-to-many media. Here customers can
interact with other customers via your website
or in independent communities. The success of
on-line auctions such as eBay also shows the
power of many-to-many communications.
However, on-line discussion groups represent a
threat, since it is difficult to control negative
communications about a company. For
example, one recent post to newsgroup
‘uk.food+drink.misc’ by a consumer referred to
finding a rat’s foot in a supermarket product.
Since the supermarket was monitoring these
groups it was able to attempt to control the
situation by explaining that it was ‘an
irregularly shaped, very thin fragment of
vegetable material’. So, the e-marketing actions
of many-to-many communications are to
consider whether you should set up on-line
communities on your site, or whether you can
tap into other independent communities on
specialist portals.
5 From ‘lean-back’ to ‘lean-forward’. New media are
also intense media – they are lean-forward
media in which the website usually has the
visitor’s undivided attention. This intensity
means that the customer wants to be in
control and wants to experience flow and
responsiveness to their needs. First
impressions are important. If the visitor to
your site does not find what they are looking
for immediately, whether through poor design
or slow speed, they will move on, probably
never to return.
6 Integrated. Although new media have distinct
characteristics compared to traditional media,
this does not mean we should necessarily
concentrate our communications on new
media. Rather, we should combine and
integrate new and traditional media according
to their strengths. We can then achieve
synergy – the sum is greater than their parts.
Most of us still spend most of our time in the
real world rather than the virtual world, so
off-line promotion of the proposition of a
website is important. It is also important to
support mixed-mode buying. For example, a