Business Topics and E-commerce
Business Topics and E-commerce • Some on-line resources on topics… • Business Plans • Someone’s site on E-commerce techniques • Startup Case Studies website • Marketing and E-Commerce 1 University of Virginia Business Plans US Small Business Administration Free on-line short courses: http://www.sba.gov/services/training/onlinecourses/index.html In general, the courses are all self-paced and should take about 30 minutes to complete. Most of the courses require a brief online registration. Small Business Primer: Guide to Starting a Business How to Prepare a Business Plan Technology 101: A Small Business Guide 2 University of Virginia Business Plans website US SBA site (previous slide) Commercial website: http://www.bplans.com Ecommerce sample business plan: http://www.bplans.com/e-commerce_startup_business_plan/executive_summary_fc.cfm 3 University of Virginia Palmer Web Marketing http://www.palmerwebmarketing.com Some interesting resources Handout for discussion: But caveat surfer! Top 10 eCommerce Startup Mistakes Free e-book (79 pages, lots of whitespace) eCommerce Roadmap 4 University of Virginia eCommerce Roadmap contents Palmer Webmarketing has a free e-book http://www.palmerwebmarketing.com/e-commerce-ebooks/ecommerce-tips-ebook.php Contents are: Landing Page Optimization Site Navigation Optimization Site Search Optimization Category Page Optimization Product Page Optimization Shopping Cart Optimization Checkout Process Optimization Customer Service eCommerce SEO Tactics 5 University of Virginia Startup Review: Case Studies http://www.startup-review.com/blog/about/ a blog that profiles successful Internet start-ups in a case study format Created through interviews with early employees at the companies profiled and industry experts Advertising.com, Betfair.com, Craigslist, Digg.com, eCRUSH Network, eHarmony, Facebook, Flektor, Flickr, Greenfield Online, Grouper Networks, Homegain, HotJobs, HOTorNOT.com, iStockphoto, Jumpcut, Jumpstart Automotive, Linkshare, LoopNet, LowerMyBills.com, Marchex, MyBlogLog, MySpace, Newegg, Reddit, Rent.com, Rotten Tomatoes, StepUp Commerce, Userplane, Wallstrip, Xfire, YouTube, Zappos.com 6 University of Virginia 7 University of Virginia Marketing A definition of marketing: strategies and actions a firm takes… to establish a relationship with a consumer… and encourage purchases of its products or services. Marketing issues include: Understanding customers Products and brands (branding) Segments, targets, positioning And more… 8 University of Virginia Knowing About your Customers community, culture, lifestyle how they shop frequency, barriers (e.g. trust), facilitators where they get information about products behavior on-line behavior once on a site 9 University of Virginia Internet Marketing Techniques An e-business has new ways to learn about customers and behaviors. Examples: Analyzing behavior of customers on your website Storing shopping cart info, orders, etc in databases Datamining Customer registration info 10 University of Virginia Analyzing Behavior on Website Let’s look at Analyzing weblogs Web bugs 11 University of Virginia Web servers log access Web logs can record: IP address of visitor Time-stamp URL requested (page, image, script) Servers response URL from which visitor came to this site Browser and OS info 12 University of Virginia From Logs We Can Analyze: Day, time and time-of-year info What people requested The "clickstream" -- a trace of pages they went through Where they came from What kind of computers they use 13 University of Virginia Companies and Technologies WebTrends (www.webtrends.com) "Analytics" product: http://www.webtrends.com/Products/WebtrendsAnalyt ics8/Datasheet.aspx They say: "Analytics allows you to measure all aspects of your organization's online presence, from static site content to what customers are doing on your blogs. Enhanced support for open standards lets you connect aggregate online data with purchasing, sales and other enterprise systems to get one view of your customers and data." 14 University of Virginia Companies and Technologies Google Analytics Free Service, http://www.google.com/analytics/ They say: “[GA] is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.” 15 University of Virginia Google Analytics GA can track visitors from all referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-perclick networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links within PDF documents. How's it work: A "page-tag" included on each web page. A bit of Javascript Collects visitor data, sends it to Google data collection servers. Reports done hourly (with some lag) 16 University of Virginia More User Info In addition to logs, there are: Cookies You know about these. Can identify a returning customer (new or repeat visitor) Can say how long since they were here, etc. Not completely accurate. (why?) Web bugs 17 University of Virginia What’s a Web Bug? A graphic image on a Web page or in an Email message A link to an external site, not an image embedded in your message Designed to monitor who is reading the Web page or Email message May be invisible (size 1 pixel by 1 pixel) or not Sometimes knowns as a "clear GIFs", "1-by-1 GIFs" or "invisible GIFs“ (More info: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.ht ml) 18 University of Virginia How’s This Work? Web bug: on some other server Remember: when a server delivers a HTML file or an image file, it logs this A page or an email can have an image that’s stored on some external site Thus the server there logs delivery of that image (even if it’s invisible to you) 19 University of Virginia Examples (in HTML) <img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/pixel.quicken/N EW" width=1 height=1 border=0> <img width='1' height='1' src="http://www.m0.net/m/logopen02.asp? vid=3&catid=370153037&email=SMITHS%40tia c.net" alt=" "> 20 University of Virginia What Info Can Be Gathered? Again, the server where the bug lives will log: The IP address of your computer The URL of the page that the Web Bug is located on The URL of the Web Bug image The time the Web Bug was viewed The type of browser that fetched the Web Bug image Also possible: Info from any cookie that's on your machine 21 University of Virginia Web Bugs on a Web Page Using personal info in a cookie, ad companies can track what pages you view over time Stores this info in a database Later used to target specific banners ads for you How many people view a website 22 University of Virginia Web Bugs Used in an Email Tells if and when a message was read Links email address with the IP address of machine you read mail on Within an organization, can tell how often a message is forwarded and read In spam: How many users have seen the spam message Allows spammers to detect valid email addresses 23 University of Virginia Web Bugs: Legal, Ethical? Controversial! Attempt to monitor you without your knowledge Legal? Not clearly illegal They are used on the websites of legitimate companies Privacy policies for websites generally don't mention these 24 University of Virginia Web Bugs: What can you do? You can't easily identify web bugs New email clients (e.g. Mozilla Thunderbird) do not display images in email that are links to files on external sites (see next slide) Firebug can help you find them! (Images embedded as part of email message are OK) You can click "Show Images" button Also nice not to see some images in spam Helps to disable and delete cookies 25 University of Virginia An Email Client Blocks Remote Images 26 University of Virginia 27 University of Virginia Advertising Establishing a relationship with your customer means: attracting and getting customers Therefore, ads! Previously: TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, direct mail Now also: advertising networks (e.g. DoubleClick), affiliate marketing, blog marketing,… Search engines: SEO; pay for placement and rank 28 University of Virginia Ads Moving On-line On-line advertising growing 20% per year Intel: Proctor and Gamble (world's largest advertiser) 35% now on-line Nike: has moved 50% of its marketing budget to the online channel only 35% in traditional channels the rest on-line and events (Numbers reported as of 2007.) 29 University of Virginia Advertising Networks Participating sites (publishers) agree to display ads Thus the Advertising Network has an inventory of available slots Database info, customer info, etc. used to sell slots to those who match the site Also, customer movement tracked from site to site to discover customer interest Also, you identity may be known (from some site’s registration), so ads matching your demographic are shown 30 University of Virginia Big Business DoubleClick 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream First SW released in 1996 Bought by Google in April 2007 for $3.1 billion Bought by WPP for in June 2007 for $649 million Aquantive Bought by Microsoft in May 2007 for $6.1 billion 31 University of Virginia Big Business: E.g. DoubleClick 60 billion ads per month About 24,000 a second 100 million user-profiles Relies on databases, servers, cookies, web bugs See diagram 32 University of Virginia 33 University of Virginia Other Marketing Approaches Web 2.0 leads to marketing on… Blogs, social networks, viral marketing 34 University of Virginia Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Most major search engines allow companies to pay for their ads to be shown in response to specific searches But steps you can take may help Register with search engines (if allowed) Make sure your keywords match common queries Links: links to your pages, links to other pages Especially in title, headings, meta, top-level pages Increasing in-links? Affiliate relationships, ads, dummy websites Hire a pro (PalmerWebMarketing’s e-book has some suggestions too.) 35 University of Virginia Much much more… Handout from textbook: E-commerce: Business, Technology, Society by Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol Guercio Traver Covers: Ads (on-line, banner, video) Costs, effectiveness Email, spam Terminology for ads/on-line marketing Etc. 36 University of Virginia
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