Kristina

The Importance and Future of Internet Marketing

"Internet marketing is nothing more than another aspect of channel promotion management within the marketing mix." In the early 90's, Tim Berners-Lees developed an Internet based global information initiative and released it to the Internet Community. It didn't take long and the World Wide Web (WWW) began to bloom. Companies were being told incessantly that they needed to be on the web. So companies soon began to create a web presence by using some clipart graphics, a couple of construction signs, and some contact information and then said, "Hey look, we're on the World Wide Web." Since this introduction, technology has rapidly expanded and more and more people have adopted technology in their everyday lives. Thanks to the development of browsers such as Netscape and Explorer, and to their multimedia characteristics, the WWW has become extremely popular for commercial and personal publishing and has expanded the potential of the WWW and the Internet as a medium for marketing. Increasingly businesses are using the Web and e-commerce to gain a competitive advantage over real world businesses. Statistics show that in Australia 25% of households have Internet access and that 44% of adults accessed the Internet in 2000 .

In today's fiercely competitive business environment, there is a strong need for an organisation to become globally competitive. E-Marketing provides us with a means of doing this. It is clear that there are fundamental differences between the operation of business on the Internet and in the real world. Indeed it would be surprising if this were not the case. Still there is widespread expectation that business will operate on the Internet in much the same way it operates in the real world. Unlike the real world the Internet is not based on scarcity but on abundance, there is an abundance of information and anyone can trade in it. Traditionally marketing has been defined as 'the process of planning and executing the conception, distribution, promotion and pricing of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives.' using mass communication, a one to many process, using mediums such as billboards, television and newspapers. The introduction of the Internet offers many new and unique opportunities and challenges to marketers.

Internet marketing has not completely revolutionised the concept of Marketing, but has incorporated it and expanded the opportunities available to marketers. Internet Marketing still uses the traditional concepts...