Using the web as a marketing tool

M.Comm.Web sites started to become more prominent in South Africa during the latter half of 1993. Since then numerous companies have ventured onto the web and utilised the web to market and sell their products and/or services via this new medium. Companies started to make use of the web because they wanted to show that they were making use of leading edge technologies, because they followed their competitors or because their markets required it. There were also many positive perceptions created by the media that it seemed that the web would create a fortune for any company. There are several reasons why the web can be utilised as a marketing tool by companies. These reasons are aspects such as: • direct marketing that are made easier by the web; • improved branding; • high-levels of customer service; • public relations can be improved by the web; • increase in sales by selling items via the web; and • improving integration with other companies by utilising e-commerce and optimising the supply chains. Companies also need to understand how to make use of the web to market them. Attention must be given to aspects such as proper interaction with customers, adherence to the rules of the web, design issues, the promotion of the web sites and choosing the most effective domain name. Unfortunately a large number of companies found that marketing on the web was not an easy exercise and after a while were either forced to stop their web efforts or decided to quietly end their web venture. The companies that were unsuccessful on the web did not realise that, as with everything else in business, the web is hard and continuous work that involves assigning proper resources to the effort. When companies want to do marketing on the web they need to know their target market. The target market on the web can be very different from the traditional target market with their own set of requirements. Companies must know who the target market is on the web, what they require from web sites, why they would return to web sites and how they got to know about web sites. The problem facing companies that engage in using the web for marketing is getting noticed and staying relevant. The research problem that had been identified is how companies can get noticed on the web by their customers and stay relevant to their customers on the web. The empirical research that has been conducted focussed on the South African web community. The non-probability sampling technique has been used with the judgment sampling method. A number of 1500 sample members have been chosen. It has been attempted to ensure that the sample was representative of as a wide scope of the web community as possible. Selection was done based on age, gender, education, and occupation. After the responses were analysed it was interesting to note that most of the respondents still are not using the web to purchase items since they prefer to touch and see the items that they buy. A large number of respondents also indicated that the web is more effective in quite a number of areas than the traditional media such as television, radio, printed media and billboards