Online marketing.

1.Executive Summary

Customers benefit from online marketing in many ways. It is interactive, immediate and provides access to an abundance of comparative information about products, companies and competitors. Marketers also benefits from online marketing. For them, it helps consumer relationship building, reduces costs, increases efficiency, provides more flexibility and is in the form of the Internet, a global medium that enables buyers and sellers in different countries to interact with each other in seconds. Marketers can conduct online marketing by creating an electronic storefront; placing ads online, participating in Internet forums, newsgroup or using online e-mail or webcasting. However, there remains a potential for customer abuse, ranging from irritation and unfair practices to deception and fraud. In addition, there have been growing concerns about invasion of privacy, perhaps the most difficult public policy issue currently facing the online marketing industry.

2.Conducting online Marketing

Online Marketing has evolved through three stages.

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In the first stage, Web sites published the same information to all customers, who received material by clicking on links. In the second stage, firms and consumers began using the Net as an outlet to actually buy and sell products and services. In the third stage, which is till evolving, it is becoming the ultimate manifestation of marketing concept through customization and personalization of products and services to satisfy individual customer needs. Marketers can conduct online marketing in four ways as follows:

a.Creating an Electronic Online Presence

A company can establish an electronic online presence through buying space on a commercial online service or establishing its own Web site. Buying a location on a commercial online service involves either renting storage space on the online service's computer or establishing a link from the company's own computer to the online service's shopping mall. JCPenney and Eddie Bauer, for...