ONLINE MARKETING

INTRODUCTION

American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature
that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term of brand
is trademark”. Brands are seen as complex social phenomena which have a huge value for companies and
customers. A brands’ goal is identification of a product and its producer as to differentiate the offering in
a valued way and command margin.
On the contrary, “customer journey” describes the “tour” a customer goes through before purchasing,
ordering or asking for a certain product or service of a company. It shows what kind of touch points are
responsible for a potential consumer to finally end up on a company’s website. This journey can last a few
hours or even days. The so-called touch points are classy advertisements as TV or radio
spots, banners but also online marketing measures or mouth-to-mouth advertisements where customers get
the possibility to get in touch with a company

ONLINE MARKETING: STATE OF THE ART

One of the key indicators of online marketing development is the growth of the number of internet
users. For nearly 25 years public is having access to the internet. Since then it has been a continuing development and innovating process. People are able to do nearly everything with their computers e.g.: shopping,
booking, doing researches, communication, etc. The following graphic shows the enormous increase of
internet users since 1995:
These numbers demonstrate the importance of internet nowadays and necessity for companies to be
present on this certain market – the online market. However, mentioned figures describe the potential of
online marketing strategy, its growing audience. But is the online marketing efficient? What are pros and
cons? In order to answer such questions and to provide the reader with better insights regarding online marketing in the text below we shall analyze results of the surveys conducted by the CMO

CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR

One of the most important topic companies should focus on is the customer behavior. It is necessary
to understand how customers evaluate and make decisions to segmenting, targeting, positioning and to developing an effective marketing mix.

It must be said that there is a difference between ultimate consumers and organizational buyers (especially businesses). In this paper the focus is on the behaviour of ultimate customers (Springer Gabler Verlag,
n.d.). Before a consumer decides to buy a certain product or service he or she goes through five different stages which are summarized in the so called “consumer decision making process” which will be explained.