Research Proposal

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR EFFECTIVENESS

OF ONLINE MARKETING

Submitted by:

MansiBafna(PH-15)

NamitaRaul(PH-12)

Course:M.pharm+MBA

(Pharmaceutics)

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Abstract:

Internet marketing is a huge term for the marketing of the products and services
using various digital technologies,mainly on the internet.Many brands and
businesses utilize the internet marketing.This is becoming prevalent as people find
using the digital services rather than going to the physical shops. Researchers who
plan to develop research using the Internet need to be aware of several problems
related to this new tool. We show that the nature of the Internet creates different
sampling problems. To identify these problems, a seven-step procedure following
the steps of the sampling process is proposed in this research proposal.

Key words: Internet, sampling unit, marketing, questionnaire, websites.

Introduction:

The Internet as a marketing research tool is relatively new and marketing

researchers need to learn how well to use it. In this, we will develop a framework
to carry out research to identify the potential opportunities and problems related
to the use of the Internet for their marketing research.
We shall organize our discussion around three important themes:
(1) Survey design
(2) Sampling
(3) Fieldwork.

We shall first develop a systematic classification of Internet marketing survey

designs based on the different combinations of the objectives of the survey, the
selected sampling unit , and the data collection method to be used. The result of
this combination will lead us to discuss eight different designs. Fieldwork
problems will be finally presented with a focus on the format of the
questionnaire, the use of search engines to obtain a frame and problems related
to the sampling units.

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Importance/benefits of the study

Internet Marketing refers to a set of powerful tools and methodologies used for
promoting products and services through the internet. It connects the various
organizations with qualified potential customers and takes business development
to a much higher level than traditional marketing. Internet marketing
synergistically combines the internet’s creativity and technical tools, including
design, development, sales advertising subsequently focusing on the primary
business models such as E-commerce. Internet marketing includes a wider range
of marketing elements available on the Internet.
Online marketing can deliver several benefits such as:
• Growth in potential
• Reduced expenses
• Elegant communication
• Better control
• Improved customer service
• Competitive advantage

A systematic classification of Internet marketing survey designs:

The first question to be asked by a marketer planning to use the Internet for its
researchis:
 What do I want to do?
 What are the objectives of the research?
Different types of research may be conducted through the Internet or with the
help of the Internet. A characteristic classification of Internet marketing research
designs may be constructed round three dimensions:
(1) The objectives of the survey
(2) The sampling units
(3) The data collection method.

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Research objectives:
We may use the Internet to meet three different types of research objectives:

1. To study how the Internet is used as a marketing tool.

2. To study how can use the Internet as an alternative medium for traditional
questionnaire surveys.
3. To use the Internet to study Internet consumer behaviors.

The use of the Internet relates to studies of the way firms use the Internet as a
marketing tool. It shall be noticed that the Websites have been used to achieve the
objectives of a number of marketing strategies, for examples:

1. Serve as an electronic couponing and an unaccountable device.

2. Gain access to previously unknown or inaccessible buying influences
3. Project a favorable and powerful corporate image
4. Provide specific product information
5. Foster and encourage consumer involvement with the product range
6. Generate qualified and trained leads for salespeople
7. Handle customer complaints, problems, queries and suggestions.

Internet marketing research may be used to study the effectiveness of the internet
marketing.
The Internet could also be used to perform traditional questionnaire surveys.
Except for technical specifications, there are no real differences between Internet
questionnaires and traditional mail or phone questionnaires. The advantage of the
Internet is that it can offer a richer support for the questionnaire and it also allows
data to be recorded without any intervention, which is one of the important
advantages. Internet questionnaire surveys could be used to investigate any
traditional marketing research question ranging from firms’ marketing strategies
and policies to consumer behaviors.
The third type of marketing objectives that could be reached by an Internet
marketing survey is the study of Internet consumer behaviors. For example
understanding how consumers shop in cyberspace and why they do what they do.
Internet consumption includes:

• Gathering information passively via exposure to advertising

• Shopping
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• The selection and buying of specific goods, services, and information.

The kinds of surveys are concerned about how consumers use the Internet,
how they navigate and how they buy on the Internet, etc. Customer satisfaction
related to Web sites could also be studied in the same way.

Literature review:
Online marketing is also known as Internet marketing, Web marketing, digital
marketing and search engine marketing (SEM).This chapter aims at exploring
detailed information on major domains of the effectiveness of the internet
marketing by reviewing past research, books and related articles. Modern studies
and past theories will also be studied. Since the major areas of research topic are –
effectiveness of internet Marketing. The review of literature will revolve around
this topic.

 Literature on the Internet

The internet is a worldwide network of computers which supports electronic
communication and helps the users to access information from far sources.It
contains endless variety of information.It is the fastest growing medium of
communication in the world.The internet allows instantaneous deals and services
in marketing.today,it is used commercially worldwide.[1]

 Literature on Internet marketing

The internet services will drive marketing to the opposite end of the spectrum from
“mass” marketing to customized “one-to-one” marketing.Marketers have carefully
designed World Wide Web sites which are helping the prospective customers on
an individual basis, much as that of an ATM operating system. Online/internet, one
to one approaches are found to be innovative and glamorous with the significant
new challenges coming ahead. The significant aspect of the easy access with the
customers. Communication and information technology development has helped to
built relationships with clients. How important is Internet marketing for the
success of an organization? There are no exact answers for this question. It
depends on the nature of one company business line. There are many companies
currently using the Internet as their main business transaction such as DELL, Air
Asia and many more. It is important to understand the relationship between digital

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communication and traditional communication in the old media.For example, TV,

radio, newspapers, magazines and billboard ads, the communication model was
and is one-to-many compared to one-to-one or many-to-many communication
model in digital media like blogs, social networks, wikis and other social
media.[2].The increased fragmentation of media and customers has led to the
development of the new communication channel-the internet. Today, the
communication strategies differ broadly from the earlier ones. Online marketing is
today seen as the new era of business for market communication. The list of users
of the different mediums is Facebook, pinterest, myntra, Blogs, Twitter, YouTube
and LinkedIn. Social media is defined as a group of Internet-based applications
that are built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0
facilitating the creation and exchange of user-generated content. It consists of
different Internet applications such as blogs, social networking sites, content
communities, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds and social worlds. Many
companies today are using some or all of the new media to develop targeted
campaigns that reach specific segments and engage their customers to a much
greater extent than traditional media.The social media is used as a new hybrid
element of promotion mix. Online opportunities and their future drawbacks on
traditional marketing are expensive.

Online marketing are the interactions between individual recipients and consumers
The social networking that allows the quick and easy dissemination of information
and mis-information is in part a product of changes in online communication
channels.The emergence and popularity of social networking websites and social
media has made it just as easy for an individual to communicate in real time with
thousands of total strangers as with a single close friend.[3].

For example, allow the users to post ratings, comments, opinions, and full
reviews about products. Wikipedia.com makes it possible for anyone to edit
information about an organization or person. The distribution of products,
information and promotional benefits to target customers through interactive
communication in a way that allows response to be measured. It accounts for direct
connections with carefully targeted individual customers to obtain an immediate
response and cultivate lasting customer relationship.[4]

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Methodology:

Sampling units:

Three different sampling units could be used in an Internet marketing survey:

(1) Webpages
(2) Web sites
(3) Internet users.
A sample of Web pages could be drawn to:

 Survey the design.

 The content.
 The advertising space on these pages.
 The time these pages remain unchanged.
 The number of visitors that a page has (number of hits).
 The time visitors spend on a particular page.
A sample of Web sites could be drawn to survey firm’s Internet
communication and marketing strategies, the structure of a site, etc.Finally,a
sample of Internet users could be drawn to study their general Internet
behavior or their behavior toward a particular Website or page. A sample of
Internet users could also be drawn to ask them to fill in an Internet
questionnaire or to send them a questionnaire by e-mail.

Data collection method:

The third dimension of our typology of internet marketing survey designs is

related to data collection methods.Three different methods may be used:

1. Direct observation
2. A questionnaire
3. An experiment
The direct observation of the content of a website or page could either be done by
the researchers or samples of users. This method may be used to collect the
objective data such as the number of advertisements on a page or the existence of
frames or the number of links inside a particular page or to collect the subjective
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data such as the satisfaction of users or their reaction to content or design of a web
page.

Three kinds of format could be used for questionnaire survey

1. Web-site questionnaires
2. E-mail questionnaires
3. Text formatted forms sent by e-mail as an attached file
An experiment can be conducted by the creation of an experimental websites and
by studying users, behaviors towards some manipulated changes in the sites. The
content, the design and/or the navigation flow may be manipulated to identify their
effect on consumer behaviors.

Eight different designs resulting from the three combination of dimensions

mentioned above:

1. The first and easiest design is to draw a sample of webpages.This design

may be used to study the effectiveness of the internet as a marketing tool
and the content in the form of image or advertisement.
2. A second design is to draw a sample of webpages by a two-stage sampling
representative designs of the samples.
3. It is compared with the previous designs and this will help us to study the
structure of site.This design can be used to develop a typology of internet
retailers.
4. A design could be used to examine the impact of the retail marketing mix on
consumer attitudes.In this case,first sample will be of the customers and the
second sample will be of the websites or the pages.
5. A sample of websites could also be drawn to obtain the address(mail,e-mail
or phone) of firms and/or the name of managers.A questionnaire could be
send to these firms or managers.
Importance:

 Before sending a questionnaire,some chracteristics of the firms to be

sampled could be checked to be sure that these firms belong effectively
to the population to be studied.
 The websites can offer that the information is not listed anywhere else,for
example:an e-mail address.
7.The internet users will be asked to visit selected websites and to fill in a
questionnaire concerning their experience with the selected websites.This will
allow to control which sites are visited by the internet users.
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8.An experimental design could also be used for an internet marketing survey.
An experimental Web site may be designed and samples of internet users could
be drawn and asked to visit the site.Their behaviors could be studied after
modification of some characteristics of the sites,its content,visual designs or its
navigational design.It could be used for the study of web as a transnational
communication tools.

Figure:Typology of Internet marketing research

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Certain questionnaires could be conducted and the data could be analyzed

accordingly:

1. Knowledge about the use of internet

Everyone can use the internet for social networking, media sharing (photo, songs
& video), online shopping, local search,etc.
To understand whether respondents will be convergent with the use of
Internet,they could be asked about their knowledge of internet. The details of
which are tabulated below.

Code Response Frequency Percent

0 Not
knowledgeable
about
1 Somewhat
knowledgeable
about
2 Knowledgeable
about
3 Knowledgeable
about
4 Very well
knowledgeable
about
Total
Questionnaire:

1. What do you primarily use the Web for?

2. What do you find to be the biggest problems in using the Web?
3. How do you find out about new WWW pages/sites?
4. In general, do you like or dislike Internet advertising?
Interpret the results as per the percentage of respondents obtained and study could
be carried out whether they are well convergent with various usage, functions and
benefits being offered by internet.

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2.Frequency of being online:

The details of frequency of being online are tabulated below:

Code Response Frequency Percent

1 Very Low
2 Low
3 Moderate
4 High
5 Very high
6 Very high
Total
Questionnaire:

1. On average, how often do you use your WWW browser?

2. On average, how many hours a week do you use your WWW browser?
3. How many hours per week do you use your computer for work/play?

3.Use of online activities by companies in their marketing efforts:

To analyze in detailed respondents will be asked to give their view on agreement

scale considering two different attributes. The responses are coded as below:

1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. No opinion
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree

Code Response Frequency Percent

1 Strongly disagree
2 Disagree
3 No opinion
4 Agree
5 Strongly agree
Total
Questionnaire :

1. Does the organization work for using the web effectively?

2. Does the organization use the web effectively to reach customers?
3. Does the organization use the web effectively to interact with customers?

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4. Does the organization uses the web effectively in marketing its products?
Interpretation could be done from the percentage obtained.

Analysis and Interpretation:

Graphical representation could be done from the data obtained and we will be
using the SPSS statistical tool and descriptive analysis could be analyzed for all
the above three types of data.

Schedule:

Activity Time span

Internet marketing survey 1month
Literature review 1 month
Methodology 2 months

Total sampling units from which data will be collected are 300-500 people. Total
time span for conducting research will be approximately 4 months.

Bibliography:

1. Business Research methods by William G.Zikmund,Oklahoma State

University,Chapter 2 ,page no.29
2. Internet marketing uses One to one marketing. Fosket, Sally, Direct
marketing; Nov 1996, pg no 38
3. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, pg no. 4
4. (iProspect, 2007, p. 3), epinions.com
5. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-1998-
10/questions/use.html
6. 6.http://www.dypatil.edu/schools/management/wpcontent/uploads/2015/05/
Study-Of-The-Effectiveness-Of-Online-Marketing-On-Integrated-Marketing
Communication-Amruta-Pawar.pdf
7. 7.Internet marketing:opportunities and threats by Olivier Furrer and
D.Sudharshan.

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