Content area
Full text
Principles of Internet Marketing, by Ward Hanson. Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing, 2000. Pp.xv + 467. $69.95. ISBN 0 538 87573 9.
The Internet has impacted all phases of businesses from information systems, to organisational structure, to marketing. While it is likely that the Internet could impact marketing more than any other business function, very little has been written that would enable business students and practitioners to manage their Internet marketing effort. This is the objective of Ward Hanson's Principles of Internet Marketing book.
The book is divided into three sections: Part 1: A Framework for Internet Marketing (Chapters 1-5), Part 2: Online Marketing Themes (Chapters 6-12), and Part 3: Implementation and Organisation (Chapters 13-14).
Part 1 begins with an introduction to the Internet, the World Wide Web (W3), and marketing principles. Chapter 2 then continues with a light technical discussion of digital electronics and digitising messages. This is followed by another light technical discussion of telecommunications and the Internet. Chapter 4 develops a basis to understand how individuals utilise the Internet and W3 with a special emphasis on consumer behaviour. Chapter 5, which completes Part 1, develops an understanding of how businesses can utilise the W3 to improve firm performance in many areas. A method of determining the expected value of online customers is developed and well explained in this chapter.
Part 2 (Online Marketing Themes) builds from Part 1 and deals with important topics such as customer support, new product development, and pricing. Chapter 6 explains how the W3 can be economically used to improve customer support while maintaining support quality. In this section the authors derive a Web enhancement ratio (WER) to explain why different companies experience different returns from their W3 activities. Chapter 7 explains the value of personalising products to individual consumer needs and how the W3 can be used to achieve personalisation. New product development is the theme of Chapter 8 with a primary focus on the current requirement for quick time to market for most products. Chapter 9 provides an extensive introduction to the complex problem of brand building and building...