Internet Marketing Exploratory Descriptive and Causal
One of the most useful aspects of the Internet is its accessibilityto the development of new business ideas regarding the gathering anddisseminating of information. One Internet marketing aspect that cannot bedeployed by a brick and mortar firm, for example, is the use of Internetsearch engines, such as Google (which has recently 'gone public' toinvestors) as a business. In other words, actual portholes to informationon the World Wide Web can become businesses and advertising sitesthemselves. Other aspects of using the Internet for as a way of marketingactual information systems can be found at the Electronic Library, whereusers can pay a fee to access protected documents in a number of onlinejournals. Access to information very quickly becomes a commodity to be
Theresults of the questionnaire can then be tabulated. In thesecontrolled environments, consumers test products and then analyze, throughprobing questions by surveyors, why they liked the particular function,color, smell, etc. To determine the cause of a product'ssuccess or failure online is more difficult, as the larger quantity ofreplies and the greater control over the style of the replier's response onthe Internet, means that the cause may prove elusive for the marketer. However, the main use of suchdescriptive research to marketers is anecdotal. Thus Internet marketing tools are not perfect replacements for 'real world'marketing tools, although they provide an asset to markets because of theirsize of reply base and the candor they encourage. The results are moredifficult, but still possible to quantify. In the real world, this cantake the form of surveys done face to face. As with real-life marketing research and information gathering, thereare exploratory, descriptive, and causal research designs that can generatesuch information regarding Internet consumers to create more effectivemarketing devices. One of the most valuable sources of information as commoditiesprovided by the Internet are the sources of data that can be accessedregarding consumers and why they buy or do not buy products. Individualmarketers can send out surveys on the Internet in massive numbers, andthrough the use of online coupons, for example, give immediatereinforcement for the Website user's time in filling out such surveys, aswell as encourage them to purvey the Website's products yet again. Descriptive research is more open ended. Examples of this in the real world can be seen in test studies. Exploratory research can take the form of on-linequestionnaires, directed, for instance, to those who use a particularWebsite, asking them about the quality of the site, whether the productsaccessed were desirable to them, and if the instructions regarding theproduct, if complicated to use such as computer products, were clear.
Common topics in this essay:
Electronic Library,
,
Wide Web,
descriptive research,
internet marketing,
marketing tools,
causal research,
real world,
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