INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO Y DE ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES DE MONTERREY

CAMPUS GUADALAJARA
 
 
Mt-95-045. Internet Marketing
 
Requirements

Absolutely necessary: Basic marketing


Desirable: Consumer behavior
Marketing Research
 
Semester and major
 
After the seventh semester
LEM, LAE, LIN
 
Description
 
The Internet is the first exciting, significant marketing tool to emerge in many years. New opportunities create lots of questions, however. How can firms leverage new technologies to maximum benefit? How much commitment should marketers make to Internet programs? Is our market on line? And many more questions that this new technology has brought to the marketing live of the organizations.
 
In the early 1950s marketers discovered something innovative: If you give customers what they want, and do it better than the competition, sales will grow. This idea give birth to marketing concept: An organization exist to satisfy customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objectives. But what is the issue about Internet and marketing? With the introduction of the Internet, marketers have the technology to mass customized communication and products to increasingly smaller targets: taken to its natural extension, a target market can be now one person.
 
Another issue is that Internet is, we like it or not, a new marketing tool. Marketers use the Internet to gather data for the marketing planning. The Net has become an integral pieces of the marketing mix, spawning new products and serving as both digital distribution channel and an electronic storefront. The Net is also a strong medium for communication with target audiences with the unique characteristic that allows two-way communication.
 
General Objective
 
Understand the strategic implications of how new capabilities associated with the Internet can impact traditional marketing concepts and practices and examine, analyze, and evaluate the most important marketing issues facing firms who wish to compete in this revolutionary and dynamic new media.
Provide a framework for evaluating and exploiting electronic commerce business opportunities by understanding how value is created for consumers and how firms gain sustainable competitive advantages.
 
 
Specific Objectives and Content
 
1. Introduction to Internet Marketing (3 hrs)
Compare and contrast many different perspectives for describing the Internet.
Describe the net as a marketing mix tool.
 
2. Internet Demographics (3 hrs)
Describe the characteristics of Internet users.
Review the latest information on internet marketing and demographics of users.
Discuss the importance of segmenting Net users by behavior.
Describe and compare the characteristics of Internet marketing research.
 
3. Changes in Consumer Behavior (4hrs)
Review the most important aspects on consumer behavior.
Review the latest information written about Internet marketing and consumer behavior.
Understand the way that the Internet affects consumer behavior
Describe and compare the characteristics of "smart agents"
 
4. Mass Customization (4 hrs)
Understand the practical implications of Internet marketing concepts
Review the latest information on internet marketing and customization.
Understand how the Internet is supporting the concept of mass customization and its implications.
Identify the different types of business models that a company could use in the Internet environment
 
5. Competition and Business Strategy (4hrs)
Review latest information written about internet marketing and business strategy
Review traditional business strategy models
Understand how the Internet is changing business strategy
Identify the different types of business models that may develop in the future on the Internet.
 
6.Company Changes: Managing in a Turbulent Environment (6hrs)
Review the latest information on internet marketing and organizational issues
Understand the practical implications of the internet marketing concepts on organizational issues.
Understand the way that Internet is changing organizational structure
Understand the implications of internet marketing concepts for a local company
Understand how the Internet could be used to establish business to business relationships.
 
 
 
7. Product Life Cycle and New Product Development (4hrs)
Review product life-cycle and new product development concepts.
Understand the implications of the Internet marketing concepts for a local company.
Apply the concepts of product development on the Internet.
Understand the implications of the Internet on new product development
Review latest information on Internet marketing and product development
 
8. Branding on the Net (4 hrs)
Introduction to concepts associate with brand equity
Understand the implications of the Internet marketing concepts for a local company.
Analyze the way that companies are using the Internet marketing concepts to develop strategies.
Understand the implications of the Internet on brand introductions and development.
Understand the implication for a company whose product is information.
 
9. Pricing on the Net (4hrs)
Understand the implications of internet marketing concepts for a local company
Analyze the way that companies are using internet marketing concepts to develop pricing strategies.
Review latest information on internet marketing and pricing
Understand the theoretical implications of the internet on price setting
Understand the practical implications of the internet on price setting
Explore emerging issues in pricing on the internet.
 
10. Distribution (6hrs)
Review the latest information written on internet marketing and distribution
Analyze the way that companies are using internet marketing concepts to develop new distribution strategies.
Understand the implications of internet distribution concepts for a local company
Understand and evaluate how the Internet may impact our knowledge of distribution.
Exposure to actual internet distribution strategies
Understand and evaluate how the Internet extends the capabilities of firms in distributing their products.
Test implications of new distribution strategies in a simulated environment.
 
 
11. Promotion (7hrs)
Analyze the way that companies are using internet marketing concepts to develop promotion strategies.
Review the most important concepts associate with promotion.
Evaluate how the internet impacts how firms communicate with their customers.
Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Web as an advertising medium.
Understand how the internet impacts a local firms’ promotion strategies
Analyze the way that search engines find information
Review the latest information on internet marketing and promotions
Understand the strengths and weaknesses of Web customization agents
Review strategic concepts related to promotion via the Internet.
 
 
Methodology
 
1. Chapter’s readings
 
Every student will be responsible for reading, analyzing and deliberate about the different chapters in the book that will be assigned each week.
 
It will be expected that the student could, after careful reading of the chapters, arrived to personal conclusions that he will share with other students through the discussion of some questions with his team and then, using an asynchronic method with the rest of the class. In the same way, he will be able to develop all the homework assigned for that session.
 
The reading will be evaluated by answering the discussion questions and by doing the self evaluation for each chapter.
 
2. Videoconference or guest lecturers
 
In order to give the student the opportunity to interact with experts in internet marketing field around the world and to let them hear different opinions about the topic there will be a set of videoconference or guest lectures throughout the semester. The videoconference will be related with the topic cover in that week or the previous week.
 
Every student, working in their assigned team, will be responsible for preparing a set of three questions that they would like to make to the expert in turn. This questions will be sent to the teacher by mail at least two days before the videoconference.
 
The teacher will evaluate the quality of this questions using the following criteria:
 
Relation with the topic
Level of reflection involved in the question
 
 
 
3. Discussion questions
 
Every student, working in their assigned team, will participate in an asynchronic discussion, using chat or course room, about three discussion questions for each chapter. The idea of this method is to complement the questions that a student could make in the classroom by rising his hand and open a more flexible space where the students and the teacher could have more interactions.
 
Each team should make at least three contributions to the discussion. One team will be responsible for the peer evaluation process using the following criteria:
 
Number of comments for each team
Comment’s reflexive quality
Comment’s relation to the topic
Comment’ discussion generation
Spelling
Quality of the answers
 
4. Interview
 
In order to give the student a clear awareness of the national and regional needs, a team will be responsible for the production of 10 to 15 minutes interview with the owner or manager of a local company that is using or want to use internet marketing as a marketing strategy. This interview will be produce by the students in the ITESM Guadalajara Campus and send to the students at the UNC Chapel Hill.
 
The guidelines to produce such interview will be:
 
  1. Develop a questionnaire, before going to the interview, taking into considerations the topic that has been cover that week in the class. The main idea is try to find in the company the concepts that have been covered in the textbook, the class and the readings.
  2. Use the first minutes to talk and make an introduction about the company and the people you will be interviewing.
  3. Use the document "Notes on Creating a Video Segment"

 
The video will be evaluated by the whole class at ITESM and UNC using the following criteria:
 
Quality of the questions used during the interview
Relation with the topic cover during the week
Quality of the video
Generation of group discussion
 
 
5. Web site case
 
Some of the weeks, one team will be responsible for presenting to whole class (15 minutes) a service company that they have located in the Web. The presentation will cover:
 
An overview of the company and the type of function they have
The benefits of the service they offer
Principal competition and type of customer they serve
What type of corporate purpose they have
What source of income are they using
What is the stage of the adoption process
 
The whole class will evaluate how well the assigned team performs the presentation.
 
6. Research briefing
 
Since no one person can keep up with the quickly changing information about the Internet, the students will prepare a short typewritten report (up to 5 pages double spaced) on a cutting edge topic of interest working on their teams. It will include at least 5 references for the report.
 
Teams will be required to write and send to the course room or chat room a short paper (3 pages, double-spaced which should include:
 
A brief summary of the key points of the article
A discussion of the how this article relates to a key concept examined in this course and implications for the services marketing practitioners
A personal evaluation of and reaction to the article, based upon the marketing perspective the student has gained during the course.
 
Teams will also present this information to the class in 10 minutes on the due date so we can all learn from your research and
 
 
 
 
 
7. Case Analysis
 
Cases are viewed as vehicles for learning diagnostic skills and for applying concepts and frameworks introduced in readings and lectures.
 
The learning from cases comes in two ways. The first involved pre-class preparation: the ability to diagnose case problems and issues, to select and apply appropriate forms of analysis and to make decisions about case solutions. Each student should make decision about what should be done before coming to class and be able to document that solution on basis of analysis. As a result of this part, the student, working in the assigned team, will present a written report of the case’s solution.
 
The second part of learning from cases comes from realizing that other people do not always diagnose, analyze, and solve problems the same way. Understanding others’ positions, learning from them, and countering them with your own is a critical part of the learning experience. To do so, one of the teams will be responsible for leading the in class case’s discussion an presentation, using power point slides, where all the teams should make contribution based on their analysis. This team will also be responsible for the peer evaluation of the case’s solution.
 
The case written solution should include:
 
Problem analysis 25 points
Assessment of organization’s service marketing problems.
Summary of critical environmental and situational factors indicating problem.
Identification of other marketing sub-issues or sub-problems that stem from services marketing problems.
Completeness of problem identification.
 
Alternative recommendations 20 points
Identification of alternative marketing strategies to deal with services marketing problems.
Itemization of pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages of each.
 
Selection of best alternative 20 points
Support for selection of alternative
Thorough discussion of alternative
 
 
 
8. Additional Readings
 
In order to give the students more insight in each topic cover during the semester a set of additional readings has been assigned. The student should read individually and then work collaboratively in an asynchronic chat where they will answer three questions that have been established making at least three contributions to the discussion. One team will be responsible for making a 15 minutes presentation of the key elements in the article using power point slides and will debrief the issues covered by the different teams in the discussion group. The same team will be responsible for the peer evaluation process.
 
9. Final Project
 
The purpose of this project is to give students the exposure to the internet marketing in practice. The project involves finding out about an evaluating an existing company based on the concepts in this class.
 
The following items are designed as guidelines for the final project.
 
The report may contain the following:
 
1.Preface
 
Title Page
SBDC Completion Form (if applicable)
Confidentiality Agreement (if applicable)
Thank you letter to the client
 
Table of Contents. At the beginning of each plan, have a detailed table of contents.
 
2. Executive Summary.
 
This is an overview of the entire report. It should summarize each of the main parts of the Internet marketing plan, including a description of the product, its differential advantage, the required investment, anticipated sales and profits, etc.
 
3. Introduction.
 
This section should include a short profile of the company. It should also include the justification for marketing it on the Internet. It should also address the following questions:
 
What is your product? Why is it appropriate for marketing on the Internet?
What is your business model? Are you a content site?
Are you a catalog or a store?
Do you offer customer support?

 
What domain name would you recommend? Is it available?
Is it intuitive?
Does it relate to your product?

 
4. Environmental or Situational Analysis.
 
Several factors should be considered here, including:
 
Who is your target market? Where are they located? What web sites do they visit? Why? List these sites.
Do they participate in e-mail discussion lists?
Do they participate in Usenet news groups?
Do they participate in Web-based forums?

How will you reach them? Via e-mail?
Targeted ads?
Reciprocal links?
Via public relations activities?

What will make them come to your site?
What is the estimated size of your target market?

Who is your competition? Who are your online commercial competitors?
Who are your offline commercial competitors?
Who are your online non-commercial competitors?
Who are your offline non-commercial competitors?
Are there any online substitute products?
Are there any offline substitute products?
What do you offer that your competitor doesn't?

What is the demand and demand trend? What is the likely demand for your product? Is demand increasing or decreasing?
Who makes the buying decision?
How, when, what, and why do they buy?
If you are trying to drive traffic to your site to receive advertising revenue, is your web content in demand?
What content could you use to increase demand?

Technology. Is this product susceptible to changes in technology? What is the lifecycle of this product?
Resources of the Firm. How does the availability (or lack thereof) of funds affect your situation? What are the firm's strengths and weaknesses?
 
 
Problems and Opportunities. What are your problems and opportunities?
 
State or restate each opportunity and indicate why it is, in fact, an opportunity.
State or restate every problem. What do you intend to do about these problems?
Clearly state your competitive differential advantage.
 
5. Marketing Objectives and Goals.
 
Why are you marketing on the Internet?
 
State precisely the marketing objectives and goals in terms of sales volume, market share, ROI, site visits, click-through, or other objectives and goals for your Internet marketing plan and the time needed to achieve each one of them.
You might consider developing an market attractiveness/business capability matrix and conducting a life cycle analysis.
 
Marketing Tactics. State how you will implement the marketing strategy(ies) chosen in terms of the product, price, promotion, and distribution of the product. Some things to consider:
 
Product. Will you have to adapt your product to the Web's international audience?
Is your product a tangible product, a service, a virtual service, or intellectual property? How will this affect your marketing?
How will you handle commercial transactions? What shopping cart software will you need?

Distribution. Is your product distributed online or offline?
Given the Web's international scope, are there some countries you in which you cannot distribute your product? If so, clearly state this.

Promotion. What is your e-mail marketing strategy? Opt-in?
Discussion list sponsorship?
Discussion list participation?
What autoresponders will you use?
Will you use HTML mail with ad banners?
Will you create a virtual e-mail community?

 
 
What is your advertising strategy? Will you use banners, buttons, or interstitials?
Will you participate in an associates program?
Will you sponsor content?
Will you pay for hyperlinks?
Will you exchange hyperlinks?
On which sites will you buy advertising space?
What is your web site strategy? What is your link strategy? Extensive, frequent, infrequent, or no link? Why? Does your web site support your banner/button/interstitial/e-mail advertising strategy? Why would someone want to return to your web site?

Will you host advertisements? Which ad network will you use? Why?
How will you track ad visits?
Are your hosted ads targeted to your site visitors?
Will you use CPM, CPC, CPT, or flat rate? Why?
Do you have a rate card/media kit online?

Will you participate in an associates program? Why?
What does it ad to your site?
What is your commission?
How will you support your associates program?

What is your search engine strategy? To which search engines/directories will you submit your site?
Have you provided an adequate title, page description, and list of keywords for each page on your site?
Will you pay for search engine submission, or do it yourself?


Price. If you distribute offline, how much will distribution add to the price of your product?
How will you actually conduct a transaction? Use a third party (e.g., an associates program)
Over the phone?
On the web? What shopping cart software will you use?

What will be the price of your product?
Will you be able to reduce the price be reducing the channel of distribution?
If you accept ads, how much will you charge?

 
 
 
 
 
 
6. Web Site.
 
What Internet service provider will you use? What should you consider before choosing an ISP? What ISP services will you need?
What is your domain name?
 
7. Implementation and Control.
 
If possible, calculate your breakeven point.
Compute sales projections and cash flows on a monthly basis for a one-year period.
Determine start-up costs and a monthly budget, along with the required tasks.
What human resources will your strategy require?
 
8. Summary.
 
Summarize all of your advantages, costs, and profits. Restate the differential advantage that your plan offers over the competition and why the plan will succeed. If your recommendation is not to use an Internet marketing plan, use this section to summarize your reasons for not selecting the market.
 
9. References.
 
If you use references from the Internet, make sure you cite your Internet sources correctly.
 
10. Appendices.
 
Include all supporting information that you consider relevant.
 
 
Grading
 

Chapter questions
5%

Interview
5%

Web site case
10%

Research briefing
12.5%

Case
15%

Reading discussions
12.5%

Final project
20%

Home exercises
10%

 
 
 
Text Book
 
Marketing on the Internet. Principles of online marketing
Judy Strauss and Raymond Frost
Prentice Hall,1999.
ISBN: 0 13 0105855 6
 
Additional References
 
Strategic Internet Marketing
Tom Vassos
Business computer library, 1996
ISBN: 0789708272
 
Principles of Internet Marketing
Ward Hanson
West Publishing, 1999
ISBN: 0538875739