Through understanding the key interactive communications characteristics enabled through digital media we can exploit these media while guarding against their weaknesses. In this section, we will describe eight key changes in the media characteristics between traditional media and new media. The eight key changes in communications characteristics as marketers move from exploiting traditional to new media are:
1. From push to pull. Traditional media such as Print, TV and Radio are push media, a one-way street where information is mainly unidirectional, from company to customer unless direct response elements are built-in. In contrast, the web is an example of a pull media. This is its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. It is strength since pull means that prospects and customers only visit a web site when it enters their head to do so –when they have a defined need – they are pro-active and self-selecting. But this is a weakness since online pull means marketers have less control than in traditional communications where the message is pushed out to a defined audience. What are the e-marketing implications of the pull medium? First, we need to provide the physical stimuli to encourage visits to web sites. This may mean traditional 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 email is important – this is an online push medium, it should be a priority objective of web site 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.
Push media: Communications are broadcast from an advertiser to consumers of the message who are passive recipients.
Pull media: The consumer is proactive in selection of the message through actively seeking out a web site.
2. From monologue to dialogue: Creating a dialogue through interactivity is the next important feature of the web and new media. Since the Internet is a digital medium and communications are mediated by software on the web server that hosts the web content, this provides the opportunity for two-way interaction with the customer. This is a distinguishing feature of the medium (Peters, 1998). For example, if a registered customer requests information, or orders a particular product, it will be possible for the supplier to contact them in future using e-mail with details of new offers related to their specific interest. A web site, interactive digital TV and even a mobile phone all enable marketers to enter dialogue with customers. These can be short term – perhaps an online 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 – click stream 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 build a more detailed picture that is used to refine our products and offers.
Interactivity: The medium enables a dialogue between company and customer
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 or micro-segment becomes more practical – e-marketers can afford to tailor and target their message to different segments through providing different site content or e-mail for different audiences through mass customisation. We can even move to one-to-one communications where personalised messages can be delivered according to customer preferences. The interactive nature of the Internet lends itself to establishing dialogues with individual customers. Thus potentially it is a one-to-one communication (from company to customer) rather than the traditional one-to-many communication (from company to customers) that is traditional in marketing using the mass media, such as newspapers or television.
4. From one-to-many to many-to-many communications: New media also enable many-to-many communications. Here customers can interact with other customers via your web site or in independent communities. The success of online auctions such as eBay also shows the power of many-to-many communications. However, online discussion groups represent a threat since it is difficult to control negative communications about a company.
5. From ‘lean-back’ to ‘lean-forward’: New media are also intense media – they are lean-forward media in which the web site 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. The medium changes the nature of standard marketing communications tools such as advertising: In addition to offering the opportunity for one-to-one marketing, the Internet can be, and is still widely used for one-to-many advertising. On the Internet the overall message from the advertiser becomes less important, and typically it is detailed information the user is seeking. The web site itself can be considered as similar in function to an advertisement (since it can inform, persuade and remind customers about the offering, although it is not paid for in the same way as a traditional advertisement).
7. Increase in communications intermediaries: If we consider advertising and PR, with traditional media, this occurs through a potentially large number of media owners such as TV and radio channel owners and the owners of newspaper and print publications such as magazines. In the Internet era there is a vastly increased range of media owners or publishers through which marketers can promote their services and specifically gain links to their web site. Traditional radio channels, newspapers and print titles have migrated online, but in addition there are a vast number of online only publishers including horizontal portals such as search engines and vertical portals such as industry specific sites. 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, this does not mean we should necessarily concentrate our communications solely 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 offline promotion of the proposition of a web site is important. It is also important to support mixed-mode buying. For example, a brand which raises awareness of the brand and then sees an advert in a print ad that directs him 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. Similarly inbound communications to a company need to be managed. Consider if the customer needs support for an error with their system. They may start by using the onsite 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment