Designing a site (4/4) – 1h

Marketing the site to the world

Lazar’s Development LifecycleDefine the mission &

target users

Collect user

requirements Create andModify

Conceptual design

Create and modify physical design

Perform usability testing

Implement and market the website

Evaluate and improve the website

Marketing - Perspective

Customers’ criteria

Supplier

InfluencesInfluencesSocial

Legal

Cultural

Political

Information

Technological

Economic

Products/services to meet needs

Needs identification interpretation

The Internet

The Internet

How to do Market Research (1/2)

• Quantitative and Qualitative data

• Large-scale– Commissioned surveys/reports

• Small-scale:

How to do Market Research

• Small-scale– Published or online surveys/reports– Magazine articles– Exhibitions– Analyse trends– Reliability and accuracy– Software tools

– Web traffic analysis– Server logs

Principles of Marketing

• Know your customers

• Know your competition

• Know your strengths

• Know your market

• Know how to reach your customers (information & products)

• Know how to keep your customers

• Market research is important

Online Marketing: Issues 1/2

• A ‘new’ marketing culture– Cultural, social and information requirements– Legal, political, economic imperatives– In a technological framework– Traditional business models may still have some

validity

• Enormous potential - large numbers of people use the web

Online Marketing: Issues 2/2

• Users– What do they want?– What will they tolerate? – How much information about themselves will

they give?– How will they relate to Advertising? (Banner

ads, Spam) or direct e-mail marketing?

• Apply marketing concepts to websites (e-commerce)

Why use the web?

• Available on demand (24 hrs)

• Anonymous

• Easy comparisons

• Development Time

• Error Correction

• Relationship marketing– Customer Support– Tailoring– Engagement

• E-mail buttons• Forms• Games• Competitions

Why not use the Web?

• Development Expense• Call charges for modem or mobile users• Impersonal• Easy to get it wrong• Easy to get lost• Easy to jump out• Skimping on design• Search Engines• Easy comparisons with competitor

Choosing domain names

• Naming rules (reduce errors)– Make the URL as short as possible – Use common, natural language words – Use all lowercase characters – Avoid special characters– Beware of Os and 0s (causes confusion, use aliases)

• Don’t change it– Support the old url (Set up a code 301 redirect from

server or <meta http-equiv=“refresh” content=“5; url=http://www.newurl.com”> )

Market Research• Customers

– Web site clients / End Users

• Identify target user population– Tailor products/services for specific customer groups– Wants, needs, likes, dislikes, aspirations, beliefs, attitudes,

lifestyles– Personalization possible (e.g. cookies)– Small and large marketing segments can be tapped– Legal requirements (data collection, protection, privacy)

Traditional Marketing

Large-Scale

– TV commercials, radio spots, newspaper and magazine ads

• Small-Scale

– Place URL on “give-aways” (T-shirts, plastic bags, pens etc) or business materials (letterheads, business cards, newsletters and fliers

Online marketing• Online Communities

– Listservers, newsgroups, chat rooms– Identifies users with a shared interest (targeting)– Links can be added– Unsubscribe

• Reciprocal Linking– Identify web sites your target users visit– Negotiate link– Incoming link

– Content-driven – Free publicity with an endorsement

– Monitoring: Search engines can be used to search for web pages that link to a certain URL e.g. www.hotbot.com

– Web crawlers follow links (e.g. Google and Lycos

Banner Advertisements• Narrow advertisement placed on a web page• Standard size: 468 x 60 pixels (12-16KB)• Clicking on the banner takes the user to the advertiser’s web site

(‘click-through’). Site owner receives revenue.• Banner exchanges• Generate cookies (user customisation and tracking)• Frequently ignored• Can be blocked (e.g. using AdDelete software)• Success can be measured by ‘click through rate’ (CTR)

– % of visitors clicking through e.g• 0.4% basic banner ad• 7% if animated• 10% sound and motion

Search Engines

• Identify web pages that appear to match keywords

• Software / Online services to submit a web site to multiple search engines: www.addme.com

Search engine differences

• Spider, Crawler (Lycos, Google)– Retrieves home page– Text processing (meta tags, words on home page, both)– Identify and access internal links– Further text processing– Extracted keywords stored on a database

• Directory (Yahoo)– Hierarchical Subject Index (performed by staff, until 2002) – Submitted– Now a crawler

• Keyword (AltaVista)• Link popularity (Excite, Google)• Ref: www.searchenginewatch.com

Search Engine Optimisation

• Page Title - Incorporate keyword(s) or phrase• HTML Header Tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3>

– Incorporate keywords/phrase in the first paragraph of text

• Image “alt” text - Provide a text alternative to images that can be indexed by some search engines.

• Avoid Frames• Many of these ideas improve accessibility also.

Search Engines: Fine tuning (1/2)

• Speed up the time to get listed– Yahoo Std service - Free (several months or never!)– Yahoo Express service - $300 (immediate and

guaranteed)

• Paid Inclusion– A search engine will guarantee to list pages from a

web site• But how far up the list? – users often don’t go beyond

page 1

• Paid placement– A search engine will guarantee a top-rank listing to

web site for a given keyword(s) searched

E-commerce sites

• The site is the company

• The interface becomes:»Marketing materials»Store front»Store interior»Sales staff»Post-sales support

Dynamic Templates

• Cookies denote interests

• Database supplies files based on preferences (Animation Pictures Sound Text Video)

• Or learn through what links users select

• Each time you visit, the experience becomes more personal

Cookies

• Text file• Username • Password• Last time visited• Pages visited• Favourite sites• Shopping Cart• Single file updated by browser for each URL• Can be blocked

# RealMedia G2 Cookie File# http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html# This is a generated file! Do not edit.

Summary and Advice (1/2)

• Submit site to search engines and directories • Issue a press release

• Newsworthy content• Target interested editors• Match distribution method to editor preference• Format release appropriately for each method

• Announce in newsgroups (>20,000)• Participate in e-mail lists • Establish links to/from other Web sites (One-

way or Two-way)

Summary and Advice (2/2)

• Purchase ad banners on other Web sites

• Run on-site events

• Issue an e-newsletter

• Conduct a direct e-marketing campaign

• Integrate with traditional marketing and sales

• Measure your results