ESL 91
SPRING, 2004
FOCUS DISCIPLINE ESSAYS:
BUSINESS

Alek
Byeungsoo

Alek Lyand
ESL 91
Spring, 2004

What is Marketing?

Three Principles of Web Marketing

         According to Product Development and Merchandising by Loretta F. Kasper, marketing is the exchange of services and goods for money or for the other services and goods. It is very important for the creation, promotion, pricing of goods and distribution. Marketing includes four types of utilities: form, place, time, and possession. All of them are very important in developing and marketing a product. All of principles of marketing have changed as a result of the Internet. Therefore, Web marketing is very important our days. It has three principles of Internet marketing: provide information, get interactive, and be dynamic. In 2004, anybody can buy anything from all over the world by using the Internet.
         The most important thing in marketing is to find a need and meet it to customers. Every company wants his customer to be satisfied with buying products. A satisfied customer will buy something from this store again and again. If a company wishes to be successful in business, they have to know about marketing utilities. According to Product Development and Merchandising by Loretta F. Kasper there are four of them: form, place, time, and possession.
                 Form is the most important utility for businesses. Companies have to offer as many products as they can to their customers. It means all products are going to be in stock. If customer wants to buy something, he can do it any time he wants. For example, I can’t buy a record from the store if the item is unavailable.
                 Place utility is very important too. Companies have to offer a system of ordering items by mail. If a customer lives in New York and he has found the item in another city or country, but he can’t buy it by mail, this company just lost one customer.
                 Another important utility in marketing is time. Companies have to offer the product at the time I need it. For example, if I want to buy a record from the store and it is backordered, I don’t want to wait for it for a long time. I want it as soon as possible. So, I will find another store, which has this record in stock. The product doesn’t have time utility for me.
                 The last one is possession utility. This utility has to complete the exchange after form, place, and time utility are done. For example, if I buy a record from the store and the store has my item (form); the store can send it to me by mail (place); a record is in stock (time); but the store accepts only American Express credit card, and I only have Visa and Master Card, I can’t complete the process. So, possession is a very important utility in marketing too.
          Today, another thing that also is very important is web marketing. People use the Internet to sell or buy any products. For example, I’m a DJ. I have bought all my records from the Internet. And I’m still doing it. I can listen to almost all of them on different web sites. I don’t have to find any record stores where I can listen and buy items I want. I don’t have time for these things. It’s easy for me to use the Internet.
                According to The Revolution Requires a New Approach to Marketing at the http://www.action-links.com/businesspages/3principles.htm Internet marketing has to follow three principles: provide information, get interactive, and be dynamic. They are very important to any company’s success.
                 Provide Information is the first principle. It’s the most important principle of Internet marketing. A Web store has to provide as much information as possible about the items they sell. They should use text, pictures, and other combinations to communicate. A customer has to get all information he needs to buy an item from the Web site. If a customer doesn’t see enough information, he leaves this site to find the other one.
                  The second principle of Internet marketing is get interactive. Web stores have to keep in touch with customer. As The Revolution Requires a New Approach to Marketing at the http://www.action-links.com/businesspages/3principles.htm, says “Build a relationship with your customer base. The Web is a community of people. They are on the Internet because they enjoy the interaction and communication that is provided.” Give all telephone numbers and e-mail addresses to contact for any problems. The store has to answer the e-mails as quickly as possible. It gives great tranquility to the customer, when he or she knows that somebody is processing his or her order.
                  Be dynamic is the third principle. A web store has to make any updates of all things on the site. It can be adding more information about the item or it can be a new picture of the product. Updates are very important in Internet marketing. Customers can see that the site is working. The things are changing. It means if you order something, somebody will start to work with your order immediately.   
                  So, every company, if they wish to be successful in business should think about four types of utilities, and follow the three principles of Internet marketing. Now, many businesses don’t know how to use the Internet to sell products. But in a few years we will see how the development of marketing has changed the world in which we are living.

Return to the Top of this page


Byeungsoo Koo
ESL 91
Spring, 2004

Explore the area of marketing in business. What is marketing? How have the principles of marketing changed as a result of the Internet?

          Business in the world is growing more and more and there are so many competitors in the marketplace. Therefore, it is essential to understand what is marketing and what the system of marketing is. According to the website www.davedolak.com, marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. Through marketing, individuals and groups create and exchange products and services with others in order to create value or satisfy wants and needs. In order for companies to be successful and lead the market in the market place, they have to realize and recognize four utilities in developing and marketing products. These are form, place, time, and possession utilities. Also, individuals and companies should both understand the law of supply and demand so that both recognize how the price of products is decided. These days we are also experiencing a lot of changes not only in our daily life, but also in the business world by using the Internet. We expect that more and more people would do the exchange, which is buying and selling goods or products, by the Internet and that exchange would greatly influence companies to have their own way of marketing strategies.

              Interdisciplinary English in unit 5 Product Development and Merchandising written by Dr.Kasper says that there are four utilities; form, place, time, possession utilities. First, form utility is that if the product is in the right necessary form such as size. We can’t buy anything if a store doesn’t have the size we are looking for. Second, place utility is whether the item I looking for is in the right place where I want to buy it. I am in NY, but if an item that I look for is in Florida, it doesn’t make any sense. I can’t go to Florida to buy an item. Time utility is whether a product is available at the right time when I try to buy it. For instance, it is going to be hard to find winter clothes in summer or summer clothes in winter when we need them. The last one is possession utility. Here all the other three utilities are met, but something prevents me from buying a product. For example, a store may accept only Visa and Master Card but I have only American Express that makes the exchange not happen.

            How is the price of any product decided? We’d better know the law of supply and demand. In theory, when supply surpasses demand the price of a product goes down because there are more than enough goods that consumers need. In contrast, when demand surpasses supply the price of products goes up. Not to mention, people want to buy more and more goods that are short in stock. Naturally, the price of goods would go up and the more companies try to make the same goods to make profit, to satisfy their customers. That is why it is essential to know what the system of supply and demand is. The more companies know the market and market place, the more competitive they are, and the more they can satisfy their customers and eventually gain a profit. Let’s think about the automobile industry, for instance. There are a lot of companies manufacturing cars in the world.  They have to make more satisfying cars for their customers than any other competitive companies.  Otherwise, people would think about buying other company’s cars. The company should know all the time what their precious customer wants and needs so that they can be more competitive and successful in the market place. Companies not only need to produce good quality goods, but also have to have a close relationship with the consumers. There is unlimited competition in the market place. If a company doesn’t take good care of their customers, people are not going to buy their products any more. They might buy another competitor’s products that look more attractive, useful or cheap. Therefore it is the most basic idea for companies to be successful: making better goods than any other company, knowing the consumer’s needs and wants and having a good, close relationship with the customer all the time.

            In addition, our society has been changing in a very fast speed since people use the Internet, which is a revolution in our twenty-first century. The Internet has changed our life style. We are so heavily dependant on the Internet in all our life that we can’t even imagine not having the Internet. The Internet has also changed the way of communication, life pattern and even marketing. In traditional way, information broadcasted by mass media such as television, radio, and newspapers has to be limited by the time, place and form to be advertised and viewed to the customers. All of the information is completely one-sided and in one direction, from media to the consumer. However, The Internet has made everything different. Most of information is going to be consumer-oriented, which traditional marketing can’t even imagine. Through the Internet, people can order whatever they want to buy instantly through a website. People even don’t need to go a store to buy something. They can order an item at their home and receive it at home. The Internet even makes it easy for us to compare an item, price of a product, features to other companies. Using the Internet makes it easy for customer to shop and for companies to market.

According to the website www.action-links.com there are three principles of web marketing. They are provide information, get interactive and be dynamic. Provide information means that companies have to provide as much quality information and content as possible using text, video, audio and combinations to communicate. The more information you provide, the more the Internet user will watch your web page more often to use valuable information. Get interactive means that the Internet is the best tool to use not only to provide a lot of information but also to get a close relationship with customers using online magazines, email newsletters, feedback forms. These new, evolutionary media make it possible to communicate with customers 24 hours a day seven days a week so that companies can hear the voice from their customers at any time. Be dynamic means that companies should update and change information as quickly as possible. Unlike the conventional ways of sending mail, using the Internet doesn’t cost a lot.  Even a small countryside business can have customers from all over the world once they build web page as low as $20 per month. These three principles - provide information, get interactive and be dynamic, can only make a company successful by Cyberspace marketing.

In conclusion, we are living in a world where business is growing, changing and moving very fast. Companies should always know this fact that business keeps changing so fast. If they don’t invest in research and development to make better goods, they are going to fall behind and are not going to be successful in business. They should also keep trying to find what the customer’s needs and wants are and should provide them with goods and services in a timely way. The most important thing that companies should know is that they have to use the Internet as the most powerful tool for marketing to be successful.

Return to the Top of this page


Page last updated on April 30, 2004