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The Characteristics of Interactive Marketing Communications

The document discusses 8 key differences between traditional and new interactive marketing communications: 1) Traditional media is "push" while new media is "pull" requiring marketers to encourage site visits through ads, search engine optimization, and capturing email addresses. 2) New media enables two-way "dialogue" through interactivity and collecting customer intelligence from analytics. 3) Traditional media is "one-to-many" while new media allows more targeted "one-to-some" and personalized "one-to-one" communications as well as "many-to-many" interactions between customers.

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135 views2 pages

The Characteristics of Interactive Marketing Communications

The document discusses 8 key differences between traditional and new interactive marketing communications: 1) Traditional media is "push" while new media is "pull" requiring marketers to encourage site visits through ads, search engine optimization, and capturing email addresses. 2) New media enables two-way "dialogue" through interactivity and collecting customer intelligence from analytics. 3) Traditional media is "one-to-many" while new media allows more targeted "one-to-some" and personalized "one-to-one" communications as well as "many-to-many" interactions between customers.

Uploaded by

nilesh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The characteristics of interactive marketing communications

To best exploit the characteristics of digital media, it is important to understand the different
communications characteristics of traditional and new media. In this section, we look at eight key
differences. 1 From push to pull Traditional media such as print, TV and radio are push media, a one-
way street where information is mainly unidirectional, from company to customer. In contrast, the
web is an example of pull media , more idely known today as inbound marketing. It means that as
prospects and customers only visit a website when it enters their head to do so – when they have a
defined need – they are proactive and self- selecting. But online pull means marketers have less
control than in traditional communications where the message is pushed out to a defined audience.
What are the digital marketing implications of the pull medium? First, we need to provide the
physical stimuli to encourage visits to websites.

This may mean traditional ads, direct mail or physical reminders. Second, we need to ensure our site
is optimised for search engines. Third, email is an online push medium, so it should be a priority
objective of website design to capture customers’ email addresses in order that opt-in email can be
used to push relevant and timely messages to customers.

2 From monologue to dialogue Creating a dialogue through interactivity is important. Since the
Internet is a digital medium and communications are mediated by software on the web server that
hosts the web content, this provides the opportunity for two- way interaction with the customer.

This is a distinguishing feature of the medium (Peters, 1998). For example, if a registered customer
requests information, or orders a particular product, it will be possible for the supplier to contact
them in future using email with details of new offers related to their specific interest. Deighton
(1996) proclaimed the interactive benefits of the Internet as a means of developing long- term
relationships with customers. A website, interactive digital TV and mobile phones all enable
marketers to enter dialogue with customers. But digital dialogues have a less obvious benefit also –
intelligence. Interactive tools for customer self- help can help collect intelligence – clickstream
analysis recorded in web analytics can help us build up valuable pictures of customer preferences
and help marketers ‘sense and respond’.

3 From one-to-many to one-to-some and one-to-one Traditional push communications such as TV


and print are one-to-many: from one company to many customers, often the same message to
different segments and often poorly targeted.

With new media ‘one-to-some’ – reaching a niche or micro-segment becomes more practical – e-
marketers can afford to tailor and target their message to different segments. We can even move to
one-to-one communications where personalised messages can be delivered.

From one-to-many to many-to-many communications New media also enable many-to-many


communications. Hoffman and Novak (1996) noted that new media are many-to-many media. Here
customers can interact with other customers via your website or in independent communities. The
success of online auctions such as eBay also shows the power of many-to-many communications. 5
From ‘lean-back’ to ‘lean-forward’ New media are also intense media – they are lean-forward media
in which the website usually has the visitor’s undivided attention. This intensity means that the
customer wants to be in control and wants to experience flow and responsiveness to their needs.
First impressions are important. TV is more lean-back – the TV may be on, but its audience is not
necessarily watching it. An article in The Guardian (2003) entitled ‘TV ads “a waste of money” ’
summarises research observing the reaction of consumers to ads. It supports those who argue that
many consumers do not regularly watch TV ads.

The study found people who watched television with family or friends were far more likely to talk to
each other during the commercial breaks than to focus on the ads. Others spent the commercial
break doing housework, reading or channel hopping.

6 The medium changes the nature of standard marketing communications tools such as advertising
In addition to offering the opportunity for one-to-one marketing, the Internet can be, and still is,
widely used for one-to-many advertising. On the Internet the overall message from the advertiser
becomes less important, and typically it is detailed information the user is seeking. The website itself
can be considered as similar in function to an advertisement (since it can inform, persuade and
remind customers about the offering, although it is not paid for in the same way as a traditional
advertisement). Berthon et al. (1996) consider a website as a mix between advertising and direct
selling since it can also be used to engage the visitor in a dialogue.

Constraints on advertising in traditional mass media such as paying for time or space become less
important. Peters (1998) suggested that communication via the new media is differentiated from
communication using traditional media in four different ways. First, communication style is changed,
with immediate or synchronous transfer of information through online customer service being
possible. Asynchronous communication, where there is a time delay between sending and receiving
information as through email, also occurs. Second, social presence or the feeling that a
communications exchange is sociable, warm, personal and active may be lower if a standard web
page is delivered, but can be enhanced, perhaps by personalisation.

Third, the consumer has more control of contact, and finally the user has control of content, through
selection or through personalisation facilities.

7 Increase in communications intermediaries If we consider advertising and PR, with traditional


media this occurs through a potentially large number of media owners for TV, radio and print
publications. In the Internet era there is a vastly increased range of media owners or publishers
through which marketers can promote their services and specifically gain links to their website.
Publishers also include individual influencers such as celebrities, industry commentators, bloggers
and anyone actively using social media! Traditional radio channels, newspapers and print titles have
migrated online, but in addition there are a vast number of online-only publishers including
horizontal portals (Chapter 2) such as search engines and specialist sites such as industry-specific
sites. The online marketer needs to select the most appropriate of this plethora of sites to drive
traffic to their website.

8 Integration remains important Although new media have distinct characteristics compared to
traditional media, this does not mean we should necessarily concentrate our communications solely
on new media. Rather we should combine and integrate new and traditional media according to
their strengths. We can then achieve synergy – the sum is greater than its parts. Most of us still
spend most of our time in the real world rather than the virtual world, so offline promotion of the
proposition of a website is important. It is also important to support mixed-mode buying. Similarly,
inbound communications to a company need to be managed. Consider what happens if the
customer needs support for an error with their system. They may start by using the on-site
diagnostics but these do not solve the problem. They then ring customer support. This process will
be much more effective if support staff can access the details of the problem as previously typed in
by the customer to the diagnostics package.

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