vast number of online-only publishers including horizontal portals (Chapter 2) such as
search engines and vertical portals such as industry-specific sites. The concept of the
long tail (Chapter 5) also applies to web sites in any sector. There are a handful of key
sites, but many others can also be used to reach customers. The online marketer needs to
select the most appropriate of this plethora of sites which customers visit to drive traffic
to their web site.8 Integration
Although new media have distinct characteristics compared to traditional media, it does
not follow that we should concentrate our communications solely on digital media.
Rather we should combine and integrate traditional and digital media according to their
strengths. We can then achieve synergy – the sum being greater than the parts. Most of
us still spend most of our time in the real world rather than the virtual world and multi-
channel customers’ journeys involve both media, so offline promotion of the
proposition of a web site is important. It is also important to support mixed-mode
buying. For example, a customer wanting to buy a computer may see a TV ad for a cer-
tain brand which raises awareness of the brand and then see a print advert that directs
them across to the web site for further information. However, the customer does not
want to buy online, preferring the phone, but the site allows for this by prompting with
a phone number at the right time. Here all the different communications channels are
mutually supporting each other.
Similarly inbound communications to a company need to be managed and are crucial
to the health of a brand, as indicated by Schultz and Schultz (2004). Consider if the cus-
tomer needs support for an error with their system. They may start by using the on-site
diagnostics, which do not solve the problem. They then ring customer support. This
process will be much more effective if support staff can access the details of the problem
as previously typed in by the customer to the diagnostics package.
Evans and Wurster (1999) have also suggested an alternative framework for how the
balance of marketing communications may be disrupted by the Internet which we con-
sidered in Chapter 5 in the section on Place. They consider three aspects of consumer
navigation that they refer to as ‘reach, affiliation and richness’.Differences in advertising between traditional and digital media
Evaluation of the differences between traditional and new media for advertising is neces-
sary in order to select the best media for promoting the online presence. Janal (1998)
considered how Internet advertising differs from traditional advertising in a number of
key areas. These are summarised in Table 8.1.CHAPTER 8· INTERACTIVE MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Table 8.1Key concepts of advertising in the traditional and digital mediaTraditional media Digital media
Space Expensive commodity Cheap, unlimited
Time Expensive commodity for marketers Expensive commodity for users
Image creation Image most important Information most important
Information is secondary Image is secondary
Communication Push, one-way Pull, interactive
Call to action Incentives Information (incentives)