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It is never the size of the step that a person takes that counts, but its direction

 

The Psychology of eMarketing, Internet Marketing, Internet Advertising, eMarketing Strategies, Website Design, Content Analysis, and Online Branding; a unique and innovative analysis

 

PERSPECTIVES ON E-MARKETING, INTERNET MARKETING, INTERNET ADVERTISING

Most eMarketers ask: what should we do to sell more?

We firmly believe we need to ask: why do customers buy?

To paraphrase Philip Kotler, "marketers are struggling to find new conceptual bases on which to design and deliver their marketing programs. The haunting truth is that traditional marketing is not working. Top management now sees many mass advertising campaigns as losing money. The power of creative branding is visible to all. We are drawn to Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Coca-Cola, Apple Computer, Heinz, Gillette, and of course Porsche. These companies have learned how to make their brands live in customers' minds and hearts."

I like to add AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) to the list above. AARP is a very successful Brand. We will analyze AARP's websites.

Branding is much more than just attaching a name to a product. Branding is about making a lasting promise on delivering a fulfilling experience. Here at Iconocast.com we use a proven scientific system for your Website Design, Internet Marketing and Advertising campaign. Here is a brief overview:

One of the wonderful things about well-formulated theories is that they can lead you conceptually and empirically to places that you never intended to go. No theory illustrates this better than Edward L. Deci theory of intrinsic motivation. Deci's theory was conceived with subjective aspects of motivation in mind. Much of the research inspired by the theory has been physiological in nature.

Majority of websites are found through visitor's (initial) intrinsic motivations using search engines or other search methods. This is an important premise behind our theory and our model. It is the visitor who is intrinsically motivated and highly involved to find your website using Yahoo or Google. You must first appreciate two very important keywords which are Intrinsic Motivations and High Involvement.

Intrinsic motivation are the type that are originated within. Extrinsic motivations are externals such as rewards and money. Let's first look at extrinsic motivations. A good example of extrinsic motivations to buy something, perhaps would be observing an ad in a newspaper about a product that you really don't need, but extrinsically motivated (maybe just because there is a coupon) to buy that product. The other day I was at a major department store, and after a purchase, I was given a $10 gift certificate toward purchases of more clothing. This is a clear example of extrinsic motivations. Of course that $10 is very motivating to purchase more, however, we believe most buyers will eventually feel cheated.

Those websites that ignore visitor's intrinsic motivations and high involvement will have a hard time selling. On the contrary, websites that understand their buyer's intrinsic motivations and try to foster such motivations will sell easily. Incorporating the elements of buyer's intrinsic motivations and high involvement into your Internet Advertising is the key. We have gained the experience and skills to design your Website, Internet Advertising and Internet Marketing with this powerful method. We are so confident that our system generates results that we guarantee our work. Actually, providing assurances is part of buyer's intrinsic motivation and we follow our own system and we guarantee our work. Guaranteed! We do not charge until you see results from your website or what we do for you! We are confident. As you read the details of our method you will agree why we are so excited about this method and why we are so confident.

First let us look at the implications when a website visitor is highly involved in purchasing. When a visitor is highly involved, strong arguments inside the website produce acceptance, but weak arguments are not merely unpersuasive but actually can be antipersuasive. This means websites who dedicate a page or two explaining the logic behind the product with strong arguments will do better. In fact research has shown that weak arguments might have negative impact or boomerang. That strong arguments are persuasive and that this pattern peaks under high involvement seem straightforward enough; what happens in relation to weak arguments is more complex. Message recipients under weak argument conditions face a potentially interesting dilemma: The message position suggests a conclusion at odds with its supposed supportive content. I cover the science of persuasion inside the Internet Marketing through Persuasion page. In this page I will focus on the theory of Intrinsic Motivations.

Intrinsic motivation is defined as the inner life force or inner energy for an activity such as Internet purchases or any Internet activity. Extrinsic motivation is opposite and is defined by any outside force or energy for any activity. Intrinsically motivated behaviors are ones that are aimed at establishing certain internal conditions that are rewarding. This article is about the buyer's intrinsic motivations and why people buy Internet Brands. This article is very relevant to Internet Marketing since Internet Marketing has become Search Engine Marketing. In this article we will discuss Branding on Internet and also show that buying Brands has many advantages in the psychology of consumers.

Buying Brands, based on buyer's intrinsic motivations, helps alleviate dissatisfaction, brings about improvement in some situations and effects better consequences.

If certain Brands are targeted to make a person more autonomous or relate to his/her intrinsic motivations (rather than extrinsic motivations), they are even more sought after. This is a very powerful concept. We will discuss our theory mainly around the two concept of autonomy and intrinsic motivations. We will show that marketing campaigns that consider making people more autonomous and also foster buyer's intrinsic motivations are more powerful and influential. This is the essence of these laws and this article. The notion of marketing and Branding is vast and perhaps is best explained by examining an array of advancement in the field of psychology, persuasion, economics, sales, communication research, and human experiences.

As we will explain the psychology of the Branding, some methods used by branding advertisers might seem deceptive, unethical or wrong. We do not approve of these methods. However, we like to examine or expose them. We believe they are worthy of examining, even though, they might come across as sham and corrupt. Please bear with us; we believe you need to know!

Human motivation falls in two categories, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivations. Majority of method and techniques used in motivating people to buy Brands are unfortunately of buyer's extrinsic motivations. We like to encourage the reader to design Websites, Branding or Advertising campaigns based on buyer's intrinsic motivational factors. The concept of autonomy plays an important role here. Autonomy and intrinsic motivation are almost identical. Here is an overview:

We will explain that the main and first ingredient of intrinsic motivation is autonomy. Autonomy is when one acts in accord with one's self; it means self-governing and feeling free to take responsibilities for one's actions. Autonomous people go about their activities with a sense of interest and commitment. According to psychological reactance theory (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981; Jones & Brehm, 1970), persuasive communication poses a potential threat to freedom. Essentially, reactance is motivated by the individual's basic need for self-determination in effecting his or her own environment. This need for effectance and autonomy is predicated on the basic assumption that, in regard to certain limited and specifiable areas of behavior, people have a distinct and strong preference to perceive themselves as masters of their own fate.

Communication researchers in particular can contribute much to reactance research by moving away from questions such as "What is reactance?" and asking instead "What message factors facilitate or inhibit reactance?" Moreover, given such an approach, reactance theory may serve as a sound theoretical basis by which to explain similar outcomes obtained through the use of seemingly divergent message types.

Internet Audience. it is apparent that reactance may be quite prevalent among Internet Audience subgroups whose members (a) hold self-determination to be very important, (b) see that target behaviors are being chosen for attack, and (c) feel confident that they have sufficient knowledge on which to base decisions.

Research efforts are currently under way to extend the scope and applicability of reactance theory to varying contexts and populations. Those interested in the social effects of the mass media and new information technologies have paid very little attention to reactance formulations. While there has been a geometric increase in the use of mediated communication to change attitudes and/or alter behaviors, there has not been much (if any) recognition of the potential for public service announcements, paid advertisements, media advocacy, and Web sites to be seen as communications that enhance reactance. Certainly, there are questions as to whether mediated communication, in which messages can be simply ignored or discounted, might have the same potency in arousing psychological reactance as would a face-to-face encounter in which more surveillance, actual means to control or restrict freedom, and an enhanced sense of immediacy between persuader and target exist. Even though such questions currently remain unanswered, it appears that the failure of a number of media campaigns aimed at specific target audiences argues for looking at psychological reactance as a potential explanation for reaction to all kinds of mediated suasory attempts.

In 1968, psychological theoretician Richard deCharms published a book discussing the importance of a concept he called personal causation. He believed that the key to intrinsic motivation is the desire to be the "origin" of one's own action rather than a "pawn" manipulated by external forces (extrinsic motivation).

Intrinsic motivation is associated with richer experiences, improving self esteem, better conceptual understanding, greater creativity, achieving competency, and improved problem solving. Using his line of thinking and several experiments with subjects seemed to suggest that extrinsic motivations (such as rewards or fear) do indeed undermine subjects' feelings of personal causation, and thus their intrinsic desire for mastery.

Extrinsic motivational factors seemed to turn the act of playing into something that was controlled from the outside: It turned play into work, and the player into a pawn. Hence any Website, Advertising or Branding campaign that uses extrinsic motivational factors (such as rewards, Fear, Apprehension, Controlling, Evaluative Feedback, Ego Involvement rather than Task Involvement, Pressure, Negative emotional tone, and Constraint) for branding or Internet Marketing purposes target the extrinsic motivation of the buyer and hence is not as effective or fully influential. Our ninth law of Branding deals with this method. If you notice rewards is not used as often as it was used in 60's or 50's.

Perhaps the best example of Branding campaign that targeted buyer's intrinsic motivation is the Ford Focus Campaign (see below) and the concept of freedom (autonomy) that an automobile might effect for the buyer. We discuss this in our third law of Branding. Next we discuss autonomy.

 

Freedom Car http://www.ford.com/en/innovation/engineFuelTechnology/freedomCar.htm

Last year, president George W. Bush proposed $1.2 billion in research funding towards a bold vision of a transportation system powered by hydrogen. "With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and be pollution-free," he said. Delivering this vision is the responsibility of the FreedomCAR program. The "Freedom" in FreedomCAR represents: • Freedom from petroleum dependence • Freedom from pollutant emissions • Freedom to choose the vehicle you want • Freedom to drive where you want and when you want • Freedom to obtain fuel affordably and conveniently The ultimate vision of FreedomCAR is a transportation system powered by hydrogen. The president's vision of a child born today driving a hydrogen-powered vehicle is both compelling and timely. It also recognizes that significant technical and infrastructure challenges must be addressed, barriers must be overcome, and commitment by government and industry is crucial. FreedomCAR is poised to deliver on this vision.

A person is defined autonomous if he/she uses his/her own information to make a decision or to change the environment to enhance his/her well being. The importance of autonomy can be summed up in the following slogan: No meaning without intention; no intention without function; no function without autonomy. We will show that many skills and qualities (such as purchasing, learning) are significantly facilitated by autonomy, and further by qualities that are functional for autonomy. To feel and to have an autonomous personality, requires that a person feel flexible, open to new information, capable of decision making for change and most important, be able to evaluate his/her decisions and the results of the change. Another quality of the autonomous person is the ability to facilitate an environment that can contribute further to his/her autonomy. All these modifications and change must be self-guided. We will show that Websites, Advertising, and Internet Marketing that actually influences these factors are more effective.

We believe autonomy (regarding Internet Purchases) is multidimensional and varies in degree. If the dimensions are distinct enough, we can talk of kinds of autonomy, such as material autonomy, psychological autonomy, social autonomy, and informational autonomy. These kinds of autonomy arise at different levels, and in differing hierarchies of levels, so autonomy is also relative to level and hierarchy. Autonomy must always be self generating, or an autonomous person would not be able to maintain it. Furthermore, autonomous persons are best formed spontaneously. We have the experience and the knowledge to design your Website, Internet Advertising and Marketing considering the powerful effect of these concepts.

 

Factors affecting Buyer's Intrinsic Motivation:

Self-Determining

Support Autonomy

Positive emotional tone

Consistency

Warmth, energy, fun

Being Credible (we have covered website design to achieve credibility and trust)

Informational Feedback

Task Involvement (rather than Ego Involvement)

Liking

Novelty, Enthusiastic, and Interesting

Removing Incongruity; Removing Anxiety, Providing Assurances; Guaranteed Work

Effective in interaction

Inducing Curiosity

Originality

Direct Involvement

Playfulness

Feeling of Efficacy (adequacy, capableness, effectiveness, efficiency, energy, influence, performance, potency, power, productiveness, strength, success, sufficiency, use, vigor, virtue)

Imagining Future Outcomes

Adaptability and Receptive

Mastery

Independence Enhancing

Knowledge Enhancing

Skill Enhancing

Growth Enhancing

Exploration Enhancing and Adventurous

Discovering and Inquisitive

Satisfaction and Affectionate

Removing Anxiety, Uncertainty and Fear Reductions

One's Interests are understood

Other Self Determination Factors

Self Directing

Society and Human Relatedness

Enjoying and Elated

Benefiting

Saving Money

Freedom

None Regulating

Positive Feedback

Ease and Flexibility (flexibility that allows one's attitudes to direct action toward the effective achievement of one's aims.)

Volitional Responding

Rational Processes

Zestful and Cheerful

Engaging

Informative

Security

Comfort

Happiness

Hope

Optimism

Reduction in Pain

Cure

Solution

Resolution

Joy

Love

Conquering

Being Understood with Positive Feedback

Being Appreciated

Being Competent

Being Young, Energetic, Active, Successful, Winning, Improving, Achieving, Creative, Goal Oriented, Having Choices, Healthy Curiosity

Address the concept of courage, confidence, compassion, an idealized behavior, an idealized person to be, self-esteem, and achievement of an ideal image.

 

Selling By Extrinsic Motivations

We have been testing our theory on several Websites using evaluative feedback (extrinsic motivation) and informational feedback (intrinsic motivation). Here are the results:

Our research results show that those website visitors who rated themselves controlled exerting significantly less effort to complete the purchase or their search (abandoning) than those buyers who were not. It may be that those visitors who had been controlled superficially complied by doing what was asked, but they also reacted against the controls by putting in less effort on the buying process than the subjects who got informational feedback. In essence the cognitive theory says:

Amotivation: According to cognitive evaluation theory, when environments allow neither self-determination nor competence for a given behavior, people will become amotivated with respect to that behavior. This may be accompanied by such affective and cognitive states as helplessness, depression, and self-disparagement. As we said earlier, a situation will be amotivating when it is interpreted as unmasterable, that is, when one perceives oneself to be incompetent to attain one's desired outcomes. This would typically occur when one receives persistently negative feedback about one's performance, when one repeatedly fails, or when one believes that outcomes are noncontigently delivered.

This is a powerful theory that summarizes what could exactly happen when a website visitor gets amotivated in the process of searching the website.

 

Factors affecting Buyer's Extrinsic Motivation

Controlling (no buyer's control over the desired outcome; date product will be received, colors, shapes, sizes,....)

Evaluative Feedback

Ego Involvement (rather than Task Involvement)

Pressure

Perplexed and Bewildered

Negative emotional tone

Constraint

Hopeless and Annoyed

Defiant and Disgusted

Surprised and Shy

Afraid and Hesitant

Repetitious

Boredom Inducing

Manipulative

Rewards, Token, Toys, Gold Star, Red Ribbons..

Contingencies

Money

Prize

Competition or competitive

Force

Regulating

Fear, anticipation, concern

Uncertainty

Doing it for someone else

Duress and Hostile

Unknown

Unexpected

Too Futuristic

Deadlines

Avoidance of Punishments

Anxiety Provocation

Surveillance

Evaluations

Goal Impositions

 

Ryan (1982), who first introduced the concepts of internally informational and internally controlling regulation, hypothesized that internally informational events facilitate intrinsic motivation, whereas internally controlling events undermine it. Intrapersonal events differ in their qualitative aspects and, like external events, can have varied functional significances. Internally informational events facilitate self-determined functioning and maintain or enhance intrinsic motivation. Internally controlling events are experienced as pressure toward specific outcomes and undermine intrinsic motivation. Internally amotivating events make salient one's incompetence and also undermine intrinsic motivation.

Any of these motivational factors, intrinsic or extrinsic, could also be important to advertising. Sadness would be aroused by a commercial showing an older woman reflecting on the loss of a mate or by an advertisement attempting to gain support for resources for a famine stricken country such as Somalia by portraying an undernourished child.

Enthusiasm and joy might be created by commercials showing people playing volleyball at a beach with upbeat, active music in the background. A political ad might try to raise hostility toward the opponent.

Professor AAker says: Some ads can create a feeling of confidence. Other ads can create feelings of elegance. A perfume ad showed a sophisticated woman preparing for a ball. A BMW ad showed a stylish, elegant woman slowly entering a car. Both ads surely engendered feelings of elegance, style, and class for some audience members.

There has by now been substantial research on the different types of feelings that can be and are created in advertising and on how different kinds of ad content can lead to different kinds of feelings. Rajeev Batra and Morris Holbrook, for instance, have identified twenty different types of distinct feelings that ads can create and have shown how to measure them validly and reliably. They point out that other researchers, such as the psychologist Carroll Izard, have developed classification schemes that contain even fewer types of emotions, while psychologist James Russell has argued that all feelings fall into one of four cells in a grid defined by two axes, "pleasant-unpleasant" (or positive-negative) and "low-to-high arousal." Thus, while anger is unpleasant and highly arousing, fear is unpleasant but less arousing, and while joy is positive and high arousal, a feeling of relaxation is positive but low arousal. Similar dimensions (axes) have been found using feeling-evoking ads, by researchers Julie Edell and Marian Burke, and by Holbrook and Batra.

Based on such research, some advertising agencies consciously decide which kinds of feelings they need to create in particular situations and then design ads that have appropriate content and executional elements (such as the type of music, visual editing, and celebrity used). The ads can then be copy-tested to see if the targeted feelings are indeed being created, and if feelings that are not sought are inadvertently emerging. For instance, BBDO uses a card deck of people's faces, each of which displays a distinct emotional state. McCann-Erickson uses a list of emotional adjectives, as does Ayer.

In general we believe in advertising that are clever, tasteful, warm, believable, entertaining and creative. They have to build trust and credibility with a common touch.

Books we suggest:

When intelligent readers find a great book and finish it, they usually feel on the top of the world. The feeling is indescribable.

Here are many books that if your interest lies in this subject, will rocket you to the moon.

Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward L. Deci, Richard Flaste (Paperback)

Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (Perspectives in Social Psychology) by Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan (Hardcover)

A Practical Guide for Teaching Self-Determination by Council for Exceptional Children Division on Career Development and tr (Corporate Author), Sharon Field (Editor) (Paperback)

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance (Educational Psychology) -- by Carol Sansone, Judith M. Harackiewicz; Hardcover

The Handbook of Self-Determination Research by Edward L. Deci (Editor), Richard M. Ryan (Editor) (Paperback)

 

Examples:

I had a chance to analyze the website at : http://www.addisonavenue.com/.

Here are their current relevant keywords:

 

Knowledge - Your Most Valuable Marketing Tool

by Titus Hoskins

June 28, 2006

Without a doubt, knowledge is your most valuable marketing tool. It is the essential and necessary element needed to succeed in any marketing venture. This holds especially true for Internet Marketing. The right marketing knowledge will save you time, money and a whole lot of stress.

But where does one acquire such knowledge? Where does one find the necessary information you need to market successfully online? And just HOW does one go about acquiring such knowledge? Internet marketing is a relatively new field. The Internet itself is a relatively new phenomenon, created within the living memory of most of the people reading this article. Most of its now common features... search engines, online stores, email, websites, blogging... are all new inventions for our glorious cyber age.

Take for example, one of the Net's major players Google; it has only been crawling and searching the Net since 1998 - who would have believed an 8 year-old could wheel so much power and influence? Other players such as Amazon, Yahoo, Ebay, MSN... are all just new kids on the block when compared to the long history of marketing.

Like any industry, business or field of study - Internet Marketing has produced its own experts. People who have mastered the art of web marketing from first-hand experiences, lessons learnt and drawn from the trenches - the most trustworthy of all knowledge. Valuable knowledge they can use again and again to market their wares online.

This knowledge has become a valuable marketing tool for those who have mastered the skills of the trade. It can quickly turn any website into a profitable endeavor, producing income 24/7/365. Nor should this knowledge be seen as anything magical. Knowledge in any field can produce wealth; think of all the fine craftsmen and artists of old who had to learn a skill and knowledge to produce great priceless pieces of art.

Think of the cabbies of London who must acquire the Knowledge of the routes around London in order to make a living. For that matter, think of any modern profession and you will have to acquire the proper knowledge in order to practice your trade or profession. Internet Marketing is no different. You must acquire the skills and knowledge to market successfully online.

But the question still remains, where does one acquire this knowledge, the real marketing tool you need to succeed online? One source would surely have to be the experts. Who else will know the answers but the present day Top Internet Marketers? But who are these people? What are their names?

If you surf the web, no doubt you have come in contact with these marketers. Directly or indirectly their handiwork is everywhere. Their ideas, methods, and marketing techniques have influenced most of the sites on the web. Many of better known ones even have mentoring programs to train and teach their protégés.

Acquiring the knowledge could just be a matter of hooking up with one of these so-called marketing gurus. Where are these elusive creatures hiding? Who are they? If you're new to Internet Marketing - one good place to start is this site: www.gurudaq.com - it lists some of the major marketers on the web.

All these Internet Marketers have opt-in lists and ezines which you can join to get first-hand tips and advice. Make sure these names have some significance to you: Marlon Sanders, Yanik Silver, Neil Shearing, Ken Evoy, John Reese, Rosalind Gardner, Joel Comm, Jim Daniel, David Vallieres, Willie Crawford...

Many of these Marketers have their own info products which you can purchase to gain more knowledge. Many also have free guides, reports and articles you can learn valuable information from. Most have websites choked full of valuable marketing information, yours for the taking. One of the saving graces of the Net - it is a vast storehouse of our collective knowledge. We can access that knowledge anytime, anywhere... one large reservoir of marketing knowledge can be found in the online marketing forums.

Here are the Top Forums: Anthony Blake's Entrepreneurial Success Forum - www.ablake.net/forum/ Michael Green's How To Internet Marketing Forum - www.howtocorp.com/forum/ Allen Gardyne's Associate Programs- www.associateprograms.com/discus/index.php Willie Crawford's Discussion Corner - www.williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi Jim Daniels CyberMarketing InfoBoardOne - www.network54.com/Forum/184615 Lesley Fountain's Friends In Business Board - www.friendsinbusiness.com/board1/ If you need direct, hands-on Internet Marketing training manuals, try the free Masters Courses offered by SiteSell.com: Net Writing, Action Guide, Affiliate Marketing... are all covered in these excellent handy guides.

You can find a link to these free manuals at the end of this article. Don't forget the pioneers of marketing in general, try to get your hands on copywriting and advertising tips/advice/techniques from marketing Masters of the past: Claude Hopkins, John Caples, Robert Collier and Vic Schwab.

Many of their methods can be directly applied to online marketing. Many of their marketing methods and theories still cast a ghostly reflection in all of today's Internet Marketers. Keep in mind, studying any trade takes some time and effort on your part.

So do your homework - study the Masters, past and present! Acquire some of their knowledge, learn some of their skills and yes, model some of their marketing methods and techniques in your own online marketing. Persevere, examine, harvest and digest the wealth of knowledge that's yours for the taking. Cram if you have to, but acquire as much marketing information as you possibly can. Then apply that knowledge to your own online interests as you would any other marketing tool.

Then the next time you're tempted to buy some expensive piece of marketing software - go ahead and buy it! But if you have done your homework and studied all your marketing lessons, you will know that knowledge is the one and only marketing tool you need to succeed online. Never forget it! Just keep repeating it... Knowledge is my most valuable marketing tool.

Copyright 2006 Titus Hoskins

 

Titus Hoskins

The author runs numerous websites, his first was a general Internet Marketing site http://www.bizwaremagic.com And his latest site is a Marketing Tool Guide where you can find all the latest helpful and effective marketing tools, including the Internet Marketing manuals mentioned above: http://www.marketingtoolguide. com/free_marketing_tools.htm

 

More on eMarketing Strategies

Before we cover eMarketing on this web site, we strongly suggest you get to know our Branding Laws.

We like to apply our Branding Laws to the concept of eMarketing. Our first Branding Law is about cause and effect. It is about repeating the same success.

We like what online shopping sites such as wholelattelove.com has done. Here is a truth about me. Last year I was looking for a very inexpensive Cappuccino machine. I was looking to spend somewhere around couple of hundreds. While I was searching Google, I came across wholelattelove.com. There I found a comprehensive review of all different types of Cappuccino machines. What I read persuaded me to buy a $1000 machine. This is the power of worth of mouth.

Internet buyers are smart. They read and they search for information. We believe a site that gives the best information that shoppers are looking for will sell online.

The second law is about doing a bit more of an effort that might get you much larger results. When it comes to emarketing we like the Google Adwords Select. Google Adwords provides you with so many internet marketing tools that will certainly improve your eMarketing efforts. By just doing a bit more analysis on your keywords, conversion tool, and other Google Adwords Tools, you can find out so much about your market. You can target geographically by zip code or even longitude and latitude numbers. Google has provided the eMarketers the best tools you can imagine. Just spend a bit more time at Google Adwords Select and you will be amazed how much more you can do.

The third law is about perceived quality and what it can add to you. As an example we like the new social network websites. In social network websites individuals describe themselves in a personal profile. They participate in communities and reveal what they like and what the enjoy doing. If you can think of better examples, email us ( tim (at) iconocast.com ).

The fourth law is about pricing on Internet. Recently I was involved in helping an online contact lens shopping site. After several analysis of the site success and failure efforts, we realized people did not really switch their sources if they were happy with their current online provider. Lowering price did not help us. People are willing to pay more if they know they will get their lenses on time and safe.

The fifth law is about primary and secondary motivations to buy. I believe Google is the best example. Most search engines these days follow what Google invented 6 or 7 years ago. However, people have not switched from Google. why? People secondary motives in doing searches online has a lot to do with other people doing the rationalization for them. Google has benefited tremendously from worth of mouth and how people have found their own names where they never expected. Most people go on Google and just type their name (Google Yourself). Most of the time their name will eventually show up somewhere. Again we really like to know what you think. Tell us your views and share with us your own examples. tim (at) iconocast.com.

 

 

This page is inspired by a book by professor Kotler; (Kotler On Marketing); Some Excerpts:

 

"It is useless to tell a river to stop running; the best thing is to learn how to swim in the direction it is flowing" (anonymous)

 

Professor Kotler in his inspiring book, Kotler on Marketing, says it best, "The digital revolution has forced the markets to operate on quite different principles. Marketers are still learning the new Internet Age. The rapid pace of change makes it imperative that each company sets aside serious time to peer into the future and ask what adaptations should be implemented to survive these changes."

The Internet Marketing change will definitely change the shape of the company in not-too-distant future. Do you know what your company will look like? Does the company have a clear idea about what to do with its web site marketing and how to grow it. Companies will need rapid responses, responding to emails, complains, and providing information about products and marketing information in detail format; the need for additional attractions to the website; the need for a database as who visited the website, what information was left behind and how was that prospect served. And, most important how to link to distributors, resellers, and suppliers if the company was ever approached by any of these for a link. Are you ready? Is your company ready?

More than 100 million people worldwide can connect to Internet and traffic is estimated to double every hundred days. E-commerce was $20 billion in 1998 and is expected to pass 350 billion by 2003. Information flows in an instant all over the glob at no cost.

Most marketer have now realized that Internet is different from conventional media in several respects. Here are the differences. First, Internet serves as a communications channel, a transaction, and distribution channel. Consumers can get information, make intelligent choices, and finally pay all through the Internet. No other medium can accomplish these functions instantly, without resorting to other means. Second, the Internet is by nature interactive. Users can initiate a shopping process by visiting a website and then clicking on hyper-linked text for more information. Third, it has the capacity for multimedia content. It can carry not only text and graphics but also audio and video content. The multimedia nature of the Internet is suitable for high-impact branding. The Internet has become an integral part of the branding mix for many advertisers. New forms of branding are animated banner ads, sponsor logos, interstitial's, “advertorials,” “advertainment,” and 3-D visualization.

The digital revolution has forced marketers to rethink fundamentally the process by which they identify, serve, communicate, and satisfy their customers. The truth is that Internet now offers much more detailed information to consumers. Unfortunately there will always be some wrong information, some old information, some unchecked information and most important some information manufactured by your competition. Marketers need to understand what to do with wiser, more informative, and ready to better inform the "misinformed consumer".

Consumers can identify best suppliers, check their credit rating and history. The consumer's computer has become the Opinion Leader. People follow their opinion leaders to make decisions on which new products they should buy. They now trust the information from their computer. The more merchants get the opinion leaders on their side, the more chances of successful new product lunching. The more you get the computer on your side, the more you succeed.

 

So what should marketers do to win their customers back?

Marketers have to be ready and have to be even more informative about their own position in the market. Having the upper hand is crucial. Knowing what consumers know and can be accessed is essential. The information is so essential that marketers need to even check to see if their products are auctioned in markets such as eBay or other auction places and for how much.

Buyers Power

Buyers power is increasing. Highly familiar products are increasingly sold in electronic markets since the customer doesn't need to see or feel them. Affiliate selling has helped electronic markets to evolve from single-brand web sales sponsors to multi-brand web page sponsors. The border line between who is a buyer and who is a seller has become vague if not completely removed. Buyers can set up their own shop and buy from their own shop while selling to others. In the light of the foregoing, what should marketers do to ensure keeping the customer if not developing or expanding their markets.

It is essential to learn the rules of e-commerce. Marketers need to build and actively manage a customer database. Need to know where the potential prospects are and what websites they are visiting. A rich customer database can provide the company with a strong competitive advantage. The marketers need to clearly define the strategies on how to take advantage of what tools are available to them on Internet. Internet tools and Internet e-commerce tools are essential to their success. If competition is using them, marketers need to understand the disadvantage of not benefiting from Internet tools. The sooner marketers understand and use those tools the better since these tools are improving with the speed of light. Imagine if you had to learn how to operate a complex machine such as a computer tomorrow. Internet or ecommerce tools provide the company with market research, how to run discussion forums, provide training, provide online auctions and exchanging, and even delivers digital goods for a price.

The company's web page has to be appealing, relevant, and current. if it is to attract repeat visits. Companies should add weekly news or features. The marketer has to ask why should a customer want to come back to our website. Where is the potential customer? The company should consider what web sites their potential customers are likely to visit and consider putting advertising banners on those sites.

A good marketer should be able to answer this question for his/her new customer: 'If we decided to work together, how will the customer's business grow?'

 

In the Internet age the informed consumer can buy from a myriad of sources

Strong customer focus is the key to company's growth and expansion. Companies should continuously examine the current and future customer's expectation. How does your company answer this question? There is, however, a very deep answer to this question. Your company must develop a vision.

 

How do companies develop vision?

Companies develop vision by doing several important tasks simultaneously while keeping an eye on their competition. They have strong market research organizations. They measure the temperature and the pulse of the market. They are aware of the changes and the power of agents that shape the market; they examine power shifts, power increases and loss of power by those who once had power.

Before Internet age, distributors and reps had awesome powers. Manufacturers and producer's did not own the consumers. Since reps and distributors were closer to consumers, they enjoyed an advantage. They were the true owners of customers.

It should now be clear to anyone that the Internet has given consumers more power than ever before. Of course, we believe consumer power is a good power and overall a beneficial power for economy as a whole. Informed consumers make better choices. However, based on this fact, how should businesses change the shape of their selling strategy to adapt to this power change? Knowing who has the power in the market is essential. A wise, savvy, and smart marketing team should look for ways to take advantage of this power shift rather than fighting it. We will show you exactly how.

Your company's vision statement must address this power shift. It must also address your customer's values.

 

Can you define your customers' values?

What values do your customers realize by working with you? Articulate what your customer will get as value by doing business with you. Is it a superior product? Is it market expansion? Is it higher search engine ranking? The more you segment your customers, the better you can define those values. Defining those values and also defining a path to transfer a new customer to a loyal customer is essential.

 

How do you transfer a new customer to a loyal customer?

Your company needs to establish an online automated system to measure and monitor your company's performance toward this goal. The system must measure all the levels of your interactions with your customer. It should measure your communication with your customer, emails, forms, databases.......

Do you have all the relevant information your new customer is asking for? Are all the selling policies established and automated? Does your system measure what your customer most value about working and doing business with your company? Does your system measure the delivery of what was promised to the customer either through your product or through your service? Does your system tell you how to improve on delivering this promise or your customer satisfaction? Most important your new automated system must establish a process.

 

How do you establish a selling or market expansion process?

Answer: through an effective ecommerce system

Your new online ecommerce system must be able to qualify your potential customers as much as possible. This is basically done through gathering the right information either from the customer or through other means. Your new ecommerce system must be able to show your capabilities clearly and effectively. To be able to sell or expand your market, your system must monitor all the selling steps. Replicating the existing information about your product or the content of your website for your new selling team is essential. Don't let your selling team tell your customer what is not relevant to your product or your services.

 

What is the best online ecommerce system to expand your market?

StarMonitor is the most reliable online ecommerce tool we have found.

First, StarMonitor software is visionary. Affiliate or associate selling is visionary. If you still have not established an affiliate selling program, you are not taking advantage of the best selling and market expansion system ever designed online. StarMonitor takes advantage of the power shift. You will take back the ownership of the customer by developing an effective affiliate program. You own the software and the system on your server and not the affiliate or Rep, so you own the most important part of selling.

Second, StarMonitor software shares your customer's values. Customers prefer to buy from those who have already bought and do appreciate your product. Your own customer can quickly become your affiliate and sell your product. They don't need a website. StarMonitor replicates a website for your new affiliates so the information is intact. No worries about what the affiliate or Rep is saying about your product.

By developing an affiliate program, you can effectively take advantage of the power shift we mentioned above. As we all know the Internet has shifted the power from powerful reps and distributors to consumers. It's now obvious that by developing an affiliate program, you will be including powerful consumers in your own selling team. StarMonitor obviously transfer your new customer to a loyal customer by making him/her your affiliate.

You have to invest on a new software, however, your affiliates just join for no cost and just collect a commission (you decide how much) after they sell or perhaps just do something for you. Yes, the sale is not necessary. StarMonitor is equipped to track actions and not necessarily sales. Actions could be defined as emails, filling out forms, clicks, or just impressions of your website.

StarMonitor tracks all the action steps. You define those action steps.

Even if you don't need an affiliate program, StarMonitor software still does all that was promised as a complete tracking and market expansion tool. Click here for more information on StarMonitor http://www.starmonitor.com/ for affiliate tracking software, affiliate software and ecommerce tool.

 

Optimists And Pessimists Are Influenced By Different Ad Messages

When it comes to financial matters, people tend to fall into two categories: prevention-focused (risk-averse) or promotion-focused (gain-oriented). A study in the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research tests comparative ads that are positively framed ("Brand X is better than Brand Y") and negatively framed ("Brand Y is worse than Brand X"), and analyzes how their effects might differ depending on your initial mindset.

Shailendra Pratap Jain (Indiana University), Charles Lindsey (SUNY Buffalo), Nidhi Agrawal (Northwestern University), and Durairaj Maheswaran (NYU) found that financial outlook - which can shift after a traumatic event, such as stock market losses - was also reflected in how people viewed advertising. Prevention- focused consumers responded most favorably to messages emphasizing safety and loss-avoidance while promotion-focused consumers were drawn to ads promoting achievement and gain-seeking.

'This research shows that the effectiveness of positively and negatively framed direct comparative ads depends on differences among consumers (i.e., whether they are prevention or promotion focused). Thus, it underscores some consumer and message considerations that managers need to take into account in executing comparative advertising strategies," the authors write.

Interestingly, prevention-focused people also had a stronger preference for consistency. They tended to favor the brand being advertised over the brand to which it was compared. Prevention-focused people also looked at the comparison brand first, while promotion-focused people evaluated the advertised brand.

"We find that focus differentially influences which brand is evaluated first, which comparative frame is effect in driving evaluations, and whether a higher/lower rating of the initially evaluated brand influences the rating of the subsequently evaluated brand," the authors conclude.

###

Shailendra Pratap Jain, Charles Lindsey, Nidhi Agrawal, and Durairaj Maheswaran. "For Better or For Worse" Valenced Comparative Frames and Regulatory Focus," Journal of Consumer Research: June 2007.

Contact: Suzanne Wu
University of Chicago Press Journals

source ; http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=70648

 

Contact: Paul Alpar
alpar@wiwi.uni-marburg.de
49-642-128-23703
Inderscience Publishers

E-shop till you drop

Role models for internet shops

Online shopping is big business. Websites selling everything from mp3 players and music to books and budget flights continue to thrive. Now, an international research team have devised a simple method for assessing the success of internet shops and e-commerce sites.

Naveen Donthu of the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA, and Paul Alpar of the School of Business Administration and Economics, at the Philipps University Marburg, Germany and explain that there are several ways to assess the success of an internet shop. However, the most obvious approach is simply to measure how well the respective websites transform their inputs into outputs and compare them. In other words, they ask does the site get as much back from its investments as its competitors"

A shopping website is both a computer information system and a sales channel, Alpar explains. So, he and Donthu have used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to obtain a performance benchmark for a range of internet shops. The data sources they analyzed include results from a web crawler, website visitor statistics collected by a market research firm, and measurement of visitors' perceptions of the sites.

According to Alpar and Donthu, the proprietors of e-shops desperately need measures of whether they are succeeding or not. Early measurements focused only on the number of visitors to an e-shop, click-through or conversion rates. That can help provide insights into whether an advertising campaign is working but does not take into account the efforts associated with creating and running the site and says little about the economic success of the site.

The team suggests that the two areas of measured success - the technical variables, information content and site usage, and the marketing variables, perceived website quality and intention to purchase - have to be brought together in a definitive analysis. They have now investigated 37 websites in the clothes and accessories sector and combined both aspects of success - technical and marketing to evaluate each.

One of the main findings is that offering too wide a variety of products leads to lower efficiency. "One of the advantages of big department stores in the physical world is their offering of 'everything under one roof', says Alpar, "This advantage does not count online since moving from one specialty shop to another does not take more time than moving from one department to another of the same store." He adds, that, "Consumers may reason 'I'll look for product X at shop A because they are likely to carry it'. On the internet, most consumers enter a store via a search engine or even a price comparison site because this leads them quickly and directly to the products they are looking for."

The team suggests that the more efficient websites - Jcrew, Abercrombie, Gap, and Urbanq - can act as role models for the less effective ones. The non-efficient websites can learn how to become efficient by reducing specific inputs or by increasing specific outputs and by how much these inputs or outputs need to be changed to perform at least as good as the competition.

 

Why the Web tells us what we already know

The Internet is not the font of all knowledge, despite the plethora of information available at your fingertips.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have found that while Internet searches do bring up a variety of useful materials, people pay more attention to information that matches their pre-existing beliefs.

“Even if people read the right material, they are stubborn to changing their views,” said one of the authors, UNSW Professor Enrico Coiera. “This means that providing people with the right information on its own may not be enough.”

The research considered how people use Internet search engines to answer health questions.

“We know that the web is increasingly being used by people to help them make healthcare decisions,” said Professor Coiera. “We know that there can be negative consequences if people find the wrong information, especially as people in some countries can now self-medicate by ordering drugs online. Australians can order complementary medicines online and these can interfere with other medications.”

“Our research shows that, even if search engines do find the ‘right’ information, people may still draw the wrong conclusions – in other words, their conclusions are biased.”

What also matters is where the information appears in the search results and how much time a person spends looking at it, according to the research which has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

“The first or the last document the user sees has a much greater impact on their decisions,” said Professor Coiera, who is the Director of the Centre for Health Informatics at UNSW.

Dr Annie Lau worked with Professor Coiera to design an interface to help people make sense of the information which they are presented with and to break down these decision biases.

“The new search engine interface we have designed could be a part of any search engine and allows people to organise the information they find, and as a result organise their thoughts better,” said Professor Coiera.

While the research was conducted in the area of health, Professor Coiera said the results – and the technology – are applicable to other fields too.

The research on the interface will be publicly available within a year.

 

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