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www.ulst.ac.uk
www.ulst.ac.uk
Building Relationships Online
… the road ahead or the road less travelled by?
Joe Passmore
Head of Corporate Marketing
University of Ulster
www.ulst.ac.uk
University web development is at a fork in
the road...
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost)
… to carry on or to move to a new
paradigm
www.ulst.ac.uk
Some features of University web sites...
• Lack of segmentation - mass market
approach
• Each visitor sees the same information
• Information flow is one way…
• No systematic data capture – plenty of hits
• HITS - ‘How Idiots Track Success’
• What is the transaction?
• How do we measure it?
www.ulst.ac.uk
The Unanswered Question
What value is your
website adding to
your university’s
activity?
www.ulst.ac.uk
Why do you have a website?
• Because you can?
• Technology seduction, the ‘19th Hole’
syndrome
…or is your site built on customers’
expectation and requirements?
• What do they want?
• Ask them!
www.ulst.ac.uk
Critical Success Factors
CSF
Criteria
Strategic Planning
Clearly defined business goals; analysis
of customer needs and expectations
Web Design/Production Professional design and structure
Organisational Structure Integrated with other activity; isolation leads
and Integration
to ‘electronic brochure’; professional management of
email
Internet Marketing
Proactive in inviting users to register interests; oneto-one communication; customized information
Measurement Criteria
Payback may come in offline activity; monitor likes
and dislikes of site; ensure realistic targets and clear
measurement criteria
Based on Pira Research,
McGurran
www.ulst.ac.uk
Critical Success Factors cont’d
• Know your customers
• Segmentation issues - who sees what and
why?
• The building of valuable relationships
online with customers
• What is value?
• Repeat visit to see relevant information
www.ulst.ac.uk
Relationship Marketing
“Marketing is to establish, maintain and enhance…
relationships with customers and other partners at a
profit so that objectives of the parties are met. This is
achieved by a mutual exchange and a fulfillment of
promise”
Christian Gronroos, 1994
or, put more succinctly...
“An elaborate form of database marketing”
Brodie et al, 1997
www.ulst.ac.uk
Some background
• Properly applied it and used it can be used to gather
unprecedented amounts of data on specific customer
needs and therefore have a positive impact on customer
service
• A new marketplace where customers will choose to give
organizations information about themselves…
consumers may choose to be more selective about the
type of information they leave on websites
...not just a more powerful customer but a more
complete implementation of the marketing
concept
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Some relationship marketing issues
• Customer satisfaction as intention to
repurchase
• The longer a relationship lasts the more
profitable it becomes
• Each time a visitor returns to a site they see the
same thing - unacceptable
Every time you go to the bank they don’t ask you
to open a new account!
However, they might try to sell you additional
products based on your profile
www.ulst.ac.uk
Building relationships
• Data gathering online and offline
• Integration between online and offline
activity
• Building affinity - lifetime email address
University as ISP - partnership with other
providers
Portal becomes a delivery channel for
information, course updates, news appeals etc
www.ulst.ac.uk
University site segmentation
Site segmentation
A series of portals for different users
Intranet
Internet
Extranet
Student Intranet
Business Site
Admissions/applications site
www.ulst.ac.uk
Site Objectives
•
•
•
•
•
•
Generate leads
Educate a target audience
Provide customer service
Attract repeat visitors/repeat purchase
Track visitors & lead them to action
Encourage visitors to leave information
– can facilitate interactivity/cross selling e.g. Amazon.com
– raises ethical issues and data protection issues
– The primacy of the customer
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Technology assimilation
• Experimental applications
– Prototype scientific applications
• Efficiency/Convenience applications
– Technology used to same work as currently being done but
more conveniently/at less cost
• Effectiveness applications
– Old problems addressed in new with better results
• ‘Previously unthinkable’ applications
– With the required literacy, truly innovative exploitation occurs
www.ulst.ac.uk
Stages of Technology Assimilation (Haeckel, 1985)
“Previously
Unthinkable”
Effectiveness
Efficiency/
Convenience
Experimentall
www.ulst.ac.uk
High Level
of RM
Commitment
Expansion
Low Level
of ECom
Experimental
High Level
Exploration
of ECom
Efficiency/
Effectiveness
“Previously
Unthinkable”
Convenience
Awareness
Universities
No awareness
Low level of
RM
www.ulst.ac.uk
University marketing - beyond 2000
• Increasing emphasis on one-to-one
communication - building relationships
• Developing mechanisms for data capture
• Introduction of call centres - Plymouth,
Newport
• Use of databases for content management
• Greater integration of online & offline activity
• Increased use of ‘Print on Demand’
• More targeted communications
• Look out for the Data Protection Act!
www.ulst.ac.uk
Know the road ahead...
‘Would you tell me please which way I ought to go
from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get
to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where –’ said Alice
‘Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,’
said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an
explanation.
www.ulst.ac.uk
Last words...
•
•
•
•
•
Segmentation
Personalization
Relationship
Affinity
Loyalty
www.ulst.ac.uk
Selected reading
Berthon P, (1996) Marketing Communications on the World Wide Web, Business Horizons, Vol 39,
No 5, pp24-33
Cornforth SR and Koty W, (1996) Untangling the Web: It takes more than hits to evaluate your
site’s successes or troubles, Currents July/August pp 10-16
Dwyer FR, Schurr PJ and Oh S (1987) Developing Buyer-Seller relationships, Journal of Marketing,
Vol 51, No 2 pp 11-27
Gronroos, C (1994) Quo Vadis Marketing? Towards a relationship Marketing Paradigm, Journal of
Marketing, Vol 10, pp347-360
Haeckel SH, (1985) Strategies for Marketing the new technologies: commentary, Marketing in an
Electronic Age, Buzzell RD ed, Harvard Business Press
Hoffman D and Novak TP, (1996) A new marketing paradigm for Electronic Commerce, paper
submitted for The Information Society
Hoffman D and Novak TP, (1996) Marketing in hypermedia computer mediated environments:
conceptual foundations, Journal of Marketing Vol 60, pp50-68
McGurran P (1997) Web Europe, Internet Business, May 1997, pp28-31
Rogers, EM (1983) Diffusion of Innovations, 3rd Edition, The Free Press New York
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