<<< INBS 550 Home INBS 550 Internet Marketing Term Project

The course project is a case study concerning an existing or proposed activity in electronic commerce or marketing. This is meant to give students the chance to explore whatever topics excites them, and provide an opportunity to get feedback from the instructor and classmates about their idea.

1- Ideally the project would present a marketing plan for a new business.

2- Alternately, the project could analyze a specific site in depth, describe its underlying business model and strategy, indicate what was working, and what was not, and how the site or strategy might be improved.

3- A final possibility is to conduct an internet-based marketing consulting project, where the project focuses on solving a problem faced by an online company.

There are a wide array of Internet business models:

 Examples include (but are not limited to) automobiles (CarPoint, Investor, Auto-By-Tel, Reynolds and Reynolds); computer sales and service (Dell Direct); Music (www.resrocket.com, MP3, CDNow); Online Auctions, online mortgages, financial services, online banking, electronic brokerages (E*Trade, eBroker, Ceres, Aufhauser and Accutrade), florists, travel services (Expedia, Travelocity, Previewtravel, etc.), online groceries (Streamline, PeaPod, NetGrocer, etc.); clothing retailing, software, ticket sales, hotels, rental cars, news and information services, insurance (home, auto, life), real estate, industrial chemicals (chemdex) and numerous business-to-business informediaries. In general, everything should be suitable.

Project Guidelines:

1-       Students should organize themselves into teams of between 2 and 3 people.

2-     Students should email me the group members before the second session.

3-     An initial writeup providing the topic and focus of the research should be turned in by the second week of class. This write-up should summarize your project in one or two pages, and must include the following:

·         Description of the Industry and existing players

·         Describe the business (new or existing) that you wish to analyze

·         Describe data sources that are available to you

4-       All teams will be asked to give an in-class presentation of their project.

5-     The team will be expected to have a written report that will be distributed the class before the presentation. This will permit the class to review the material before the presentation, so as to give some critical thought about what the group is presenting.

6-      These presentations will be scheduled starting during the fourth session. This is a short time frame and it is important that all teams stay on schedule.

Project Requirements

You are required to turn in a written report three days before your presentation. Each group must receive approval of the industry before getting started. For the written report there is a 12 page limit for the report plus appendices or exhibits. Also, please provide an extensive set of links to external sites. The final report should include the following:

Executive Summary

a)       Clearly define the product/service

b)       Marketing objectives

c)       What are you trying to accomplish for the client and why?

Situation Analysis

Describe the size, trends, key market segments, growth projections, customer/client profiles, sales forecasts, logistics, etc.. How large is the online market (national or world wide) compared to the traditional market. What are current trends in online market growth? For example, Forrester Research estimates that by 2001, on-line brokerage accounts will grow to some 10 million

Strengths, Weaknesses (Internal factors), Opportunities and Threats (External factors) Describe some of the key players in the business. Be certain to identify both existing players What are the competitive advantages/disadvantages for each market player? What impact does each player have in the value chain?

Target Customers 

Decide with which customers your company wants to build relationship. Profile each target by its characteristics, behavior, and desires in the firms product category. Profiling and data mining tools should be recommended for customer acquisition and retention analysis.

Objectives

      Most emarketing plans have more than one objective. Here are some examples:  Increasing brand awareness, positioning a new brand, Personalization, Relationship building. Build sales of a product distributed through the Internet. Increase retention. Sell content to regular subscribers. Increase the LTV of each loyal customer, Decrease order taking fulfillment and billing costs. Customize web page content using real time profiling.

Marketing Mix

Design and plan to customize marketing mix to meet individual needs through emarketing strategies. Marketing mix components should include:

·         Product 

·         Price (e.g. Cost reduction, negotiation)

·         Distribution

·         Marketing communication (e.g. Email, Online advertising, Content publishing)

·         Relationship marketing (Loyalty plans)

Action Plan

Identify specific tactics to implement selected strategies. Tactics can  include site design, technical aspects of e-commerce, enterprise architecture integration etc.

Budget

Identify the expected returns from emarketing investment.

Evaluation Plan  

e.g.  Number of unique visitors, impressions at a site, click-through rates, retention rate, lifetime value

Some helpful links on developing business plans

 

 

Grading

Guidelines for the project are given above and will be scored on the following dimensions: