All marketers face one primary issue after they have chosen to create a Web site: "How do I let my potential customers know that I am here on the Internet?"
Several mechanisms for creating traffic at marketing sites on the Internet appear to be evolving:
First, marketers can advertise their addresses on the World Wide Web. Print ads for high tech products are starting to include Internet addresses. Ultimately, consumer advertising will include the Internet addresses for specific product-oriented sites, just as print advertising today often includes a product's 800-number.
Second, marketers can participate in shopping malls or shopping "environments" that are developing on the Internet. These are areas that are typically organized by category and either facilitate transactions by hosting a marketer's content or link consumers to the marketers' sites.
So consumers who are thinking of buying a car might go into an Internet shopping mall to find links to product information on the cars that are of interest to them. For other products, consumers might visit these "shopping malls" to make specific purchases.
Third, marketers will purchase gateways in high-traffic editorial sites. For advertisers, print publications aggregate consumers and give advertisers an opportunity to catch their attention. Editorial sites on the Internet will serve a similar function.
On the Internet, an editorial site is any collection of content that attracts a significant number of consumers. Popular editorial sites are high-traffic areas that will help bring an audience to marketers' sites. They will help to create this audience by selling marketers the opportunity to create gateways (hypertext links) that give consumers an option to jump from editorial sites to marketers' domains.
For example, Time Inc. New Media operates Pathfinder-which includes offerings from Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Money, Fortune, Entertainment Weekly and a number of other publications. Advertisers have an opportunity to purchase an icon at the bottom of specific screens that serve as gateways from Pathfinder editorial sites to advertisers' Internet sites. In this non-intrusive arena, consumers are exposed to this opportunity and can choose whether to enter the marketer's domain.
Ultimately, the success of Pathfinder and other editorial sites on the Internet as advertising vehicles will depend on the extent to which consumers, who are in these editorial environments, choose to look and act on marketers' messages.
One question that is frequently raised is: "Why would consumers choose to enter an advertiser's area?" The answer seems relatively obvious: Consumers who are real prospects for particular products will self-select. They will visit advertisers' areas because they want to learn about products that may be useful to them. And consumers in this interactive medium are naturally curious. They are typically on the Internet to explore, and they are likely to view non-intrusive advertising as an integral part of the entertainment and information aspect of the online experience.
It is also important to note that marketers, who seek to build traffic through an editorial site, may also receive an important additional benefit: highly valuable research. In some cases, editorial sites may be able to report to marketers how many distinct individuals visited their site through the editorial gateway (the reach provided), the extent to which specific visits were repeat visits (the frequency provided) and possibly some aggregated demographics that paint a picture of the types of customers passing through this particular gateway.
There is one more fundamental change that needs to be mentioned: the coming distribution of the Internet over the cable wire into the personal computer at home. A central aspect of the online experience is determined by the speed at which the information moves to the consumer.
Today a number of cable companies are experimenting with distributing online information through cable systems to a special PC modem in the home. This type of system will permit distribution that is at least 10 times faster than even a 28.8 system. As a result, entirely new horizons will open, and the distribution of video materials through the Internet to the PC will become commonplace. It is anticipated that the development of this next generation of services will fuel an even stronger growth in consumer demand for Internet-related services.
It is important to note that this distribution through the cable does not require the capabilities that are necessary for interactive TV and, in fact, many cable systems are already wired in a way that would support this service. Moreover, it is generally believed that services of this type will roll out on a large scale within the next two to three years.
It is rare for a new media form to develop with two valuable ingredients: a large base of consumers who are real customers and a low cost to enter and experiment. The combination of these factors strongly suggests that if you as a marketer are not actively exploring the potential of the Internet, you are ignoring it at your own peril, because it is likely that your competitors are already there.
Mr. Judson is general manager of Time Inc. New Media. This piece is excerpted from the summer 1995 issue of The Advertiser, the magazine of the Association of National Advertisers. Copyright 1995 Bruce Judson.
