Digitalwall: Stop Internet Marketing (2) All Action; No Reaction

Consumers are jaded on or off the Internet.

Stimulus, reaction; stimulus, reaction... This description should not find you baffled if you knew that it is the traditional Internet marketing I am trying to depict. This simply is how consumers have been treated for a long while.

Let me elaborate on how consumers get impatient and finally jaded with this seemingly unending process of stimulation and reaction, a process that has seen the Internet read and treated as a medium and a marketing channel for at least the past five years. This, nevertheless, is an approach that has been survived by the newest expectations of Internet marketing.

In Taiwan, the year 1998 marked the roughly simultaneous establishment of five major commercial portal sites as well as a number of mid-size content websites that might be smaller yet collaborated to form an advertising network. Online advertising, as a concept, has since been commercialized, meaning any salesperson would be able to show you the price list of Internet banner ads any minute now.

Earlier on, the advertising banners posted on portal sites could register a click rate of at least 10%, meaning that out of every 100 persons who laid eye on that page, ten would actually click on the ad. Some ads with more sensational copywriting or more alluring gifts might even make it above 20%.

These click rates, however, proved to be short-lived as they dropped to less than 2% within one short year and then to about 1% after another. The hit rates thrived and then tapered off for the simple fact that Internet ad's attraction wore off as time went by. After all, the initial attraction stemmed from the novelty of the Internet as a never-before-seen media, not from the ad content itself.

Starting 1999, the free newsletter service as a power ad tool began to gather attention, as eCommerce website owners found that ads inserted into newsletters got more click-ins than website banners and were capable of achieving a click rate of some 10%. Better, these inserts are at eCommerce websites' liberty to be sent to consumers, making them a more effective promotional tool.

In just one short year, however, this figure has fallen back down for the same reason. That's when the eCommerce website owners found that they must introduce database marketing to differentiate between newsletter subscribers that belong to different demographic categories along the lines of age, gender, and income, and then send ads of different contents or styles accordingly, to improve click rates.

Such strategy has given rise to eDM. Due to the fact that portal sites come with a large number of members, however, even the highest level of precision in data analysis, cross reference, and client targeting could not revive click rates to above the 10% mark.

Entering 2003, when the SARS outbreak pushed up concurrent Internet user count, people suddenly picked up the habit of shopping online and more people realized that they could start a small business for extra income. The bad news, however, was that with people of this mentality growing in numbers, junk mail became an almost intolerable nuisance to many.

I myself have an e-mail account that I have used for seven years. With this e-mail account, I have purchased plane tickets, handsets, books, and movie tickets. Every week or month, like a clock that does not need new batteries, eCommerce websites I have patronized mail me newsletters, either to send regards or messages of discounts.

As time goes by, I have lost track of the things I've bought over the Net and the newsletters could well have inundated my place just as the owl mail flooded the house of Mr. Dursley in the first installment of Harry Potter franchise were it not for the fact that all of these commercial prints existed formless.

It turns out that every eCommerce website thinks it a good idea to prompt me to buy more by sending me newsletters; worse, I never missed any of this junk mail given that this e-mail account has been there forever.

Newsletters of this sort come in every day like there is no tomorrow. In fact, it has gotten to a point where I have to routinely delete over 500 e-mails tagged "unable to handle" manually, and by routinely I mean every single day. Here I am talking about a huge chunk of mail mass that comprises junk mail, eDM from eCommerce websites, and free newsletters whose sheer number snuffs any possibility of me reading them.

What I am experiencing is a critical phase where consumers have started to feel numb to stimulation. That is, a lot of these e-mails are getting are blown off as useless and go straight from inbox to trash box. We'd be pushing it to claim that this should not be happening. We must realize that "online" marketing is only as effective as the marketing itself can be, despite all the hype and fancy names that Internet marketing heaps onto itself.

The old-school direct marketing, defined by acquisition of a list of target clients and then the mailing of ads right to their mailboxes, has averaged a return ratio of some 2%; by going digital, to one's dismay, the improvement of the ratio is hardly noticeable, if any.

Not in the least being scornful of Internet marketing, I am here simply trying to shed light on the fact that in recently years, when eCommerce has been making its second comeback, many website owners are actually in the thick of eCommerce for the first time and have been innocently buying all the traditions that have been passed down during the past five years. What they fail to realize is that now is a different time and age.

I dubbed this a "blind faith" in the Internet. A lot of people making their first attempt at eCommerce scamper to order newsletter, community, shopping cart, and credit card payment system features. What they fail to reflect on is the question of whether they really need these and whether these functions will give them what they want.

Last but not least: do you really need a website to be in the "eCommerce"?

Advertising or marketing based on the formula of stimulus-reaction will ultimately fall on its face. In fact, it has, signaling that it's high time that one parted with these marketing gimmicks and looked for redemption in brand names. As a pity for most and a bliss for a wise few, this reality hasn't sunk in for many out there. (
2004/03/14 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )