What benefits can the Internet provides?

What benefits can the Internet provides?
According to Bocij et al. (1999 in Chaffey et al. 2003), the benefits of an Internet presence can be summarized using the ‘6C’:
1. Cost reduction. Achieve through reducing the need for sales and marketing enquires to be handled by telephone operators and the reduced need for printing and distributing marketing communications material, which is instead published on the website.
2. Capability. The Internet provides new opportunities for new products and services and for exploiting new markets.
3. Competitive advantage. If a company introduces new capabilities before its competitors, then it will achieve and advantage until its competitors have the same capability.
4. Communication improvement. This include improved communications with customers, staff, suppliers, and distributors.
5. Control. The Internet and intranets may provide better marketing research through tracking of customer behaviour and the way in which staff deliver services.
6. Customer service improvement. Provided by interactive queries of databases containing, for example, stock availability or customer service question.

Internet Marketing concepts:
Many companies, when starting to use the Internet for marketing, took the approach of simply re-publishing existing marketing materials in a new form. This approach, termed ‘brochureware’ or electronick brochures, was a practical first step, but is now discredited since it fails to acknowledge the differences in this medium (Chaffey, 2003):
§ The medium itself is different in that it is digital, interactive, and a greater depth of information can be published on a web site.
§ The demographics may be different
§ The culture of purchaser may be different;
§ The market may be different.

As a digital medium the Internet is quite different from traditional mass media in a number of aspects (Chaffey, 2003):
1. It is predominately a pull medium rather than a push medium
2. It is a digital medium that enables interaction
3. It offers potential for one-to-one or many-to-many communication
4. The medium changes the nature of standard marketing communications such as advertising
5. Changes to the distribution channel and marketplace enabled by the digital medial.

There are number of ways that the Internet support marketing communications?
1. The Internet most readily lends itself to impersonal communications such as advertising, PR and sales promotions since this sort of communication can be achieved simply by publishing existing documents such as brochures.
2. The Internet is of great value in advertising, as web sites provide the opportunities to give greater information on product features and benefits than do other media such as television and newspapers.
3. The Internet also offers great scope for PR and sale promotions. The Internet has significantly change the nature of PR, since a company web site itself can act a vehicle for PR.
4. Personal communications such as sales calls from the company to the purchaser are not really facilitated by the Internet, although it may be possible in the future if video conferencing becomes a routine business activity.
5. Of all personal communication techniques, direct marketing offers the most potential for use by the Internet.
6. Internet marketing can help enhance brand activities techniques which include: sponsorship, exhibitions, customer feedback, and co-branded content.

Recommended Book
Dave Chaffey, Internet Marketing