5.3 The Market Targeting
The Web can be considered as an active medium from the
consumer point of view. Consumers are free to search for the information of the
products and brands in which they are interested. That way it is possible to
get the level of interest and involvement of the consumer in visiting the web
site. In addition, instantaneous feedback is provided from the consumer to the
marketer. The click and hit of the user which are stored by the web server
constitute a feedback. The storing of the consumer feedback can be then
analysed through the IT data mining techniques and turned into meaningful
marketing information.
Visitation data can be very useful in the building of the
e-customer profile. To that purpose, the total number of hits, the distribution
of the hits among the pages and across time, the order of the pages been
accessed can be easily combined with other user profile information such as
registrations through online questionnaires. This combination of data can help
to fulfil the consumers needs, its interest and the patterns of demand and
buying behaviour. Consequently, the marketer can indentify the target segments
and even niches. The collection and analysis of these informations help the
marketer to develop a real one-to-one marketing in order a to increase the
level of service.
The web makes it easier to get and collect the psychological
and behavioural or lifestyle data at a modest price. As a matter of fact,
Internet marketing provides the collection of the data from every potential
user of the company web site, whereas the filling of web forms requires a
tangible reward. In addition, email messages or tailor-made web pages can reach
the e-customer at a low price.
With regard to the niches, virtual communities can be built up
easily with the use of news-groups. Usually these news-groups are targeting
e-consumers with quite the same interest and behavioural pattern. The members
of the virtual community can exchange information on a regularly basis and
experience quite often a sense of belonging. As a result, these customers
become more loyal to the companies.
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