These additional offerings can help to generate higher, sometimes passive, earnings as well as increase a firm's potential differentiation. Ways" (Margarit, Methods that can be used to do just this include the following:

Setting up a knowledge base that your clients can have access to that includes a FAQ or query function allowing your clients to query you for information.

Using a feedback form where clients can offer their input as their needs and product suggestions can help in determining valuable information concerning customer's needs; and if the product is difficult to operate the provision of free or subsidized training will assist customers to overcome these difficulties.

Margarit relates that automation of the various functions of the firm through use of web technology results in a significant saving of operating costs..."

The work of Chatterjee entitled: "Technology for Establishing a Global Presence Using Electronic Branding & Marketing: A Perspective Implementation Aspect" relates that whether a business has a presence on the Web in terms of a company website is "really irrelevant." (nd) Chatterjee states that e-marketing "encompasses the tasks of Informing, Communicating and Promoting products and services by making information available over the net, covering the availability of the product and services for achieving sales and provides inputs that helps generate good word of mouth. I t is achieved by getting the customer to visit a featured outlet. Almost every large sized firm has this kind of basic information available on their website."

E-Commerce is stated to include: "...the additional technology capability built in a website that permits transactions including enquiring, selecting, collecting payment and providing customer support to ensure 'automated' selling of product and services on the net with a bundle to associated services. The complexities involved in ensuring a secure transactions environment for the company as well as the customer makes it an expensive and challenging task. User-friendliness makes the difference." (Chatterjee, nd) Chatterjee states that 'e-business: "...is the most complex form of these technologies, which includes the use of integrated technology platforms and applications to conduct company's entire set of business processes in an automated manner." (Chatterjee, nd) Chatterjee relates that it is important for "Businesses to understand what are the typical issues faced by them. The major problem areas are:

It is difficult and expensive to establish and maintain web-presence due to investment and technical constraints, as a result of which Sales opportunities are often in lack of up-to-date _ information on products, or current; price lists (when and where it is wanted), 2. Creating and maintaining web content is dependent on external agencies, costing money apart from the efforts involved in follow-ups to get things somewhat right! (Chatterjee, nd)

The key purpose of marketing does not change when using technology but remains the same and is comprised of "Creating awareness, tracking campaigns, crating rich customer contact records, fulfilling literature requests, providing information, assistance or support over web and email, and creating linkage to customer order and support database." (Chatterjee, nd) Done consistently this will result in "compilation of all prospect and customer data in a single repository. That in turn will help easily identify the key accounts within this repository. With the right set of analytical capabilities, processes and tools, it will also be possible to develop an ideal client profile(s) by identifying key attributes for targeting just the right kind in a database, based on selection of relevant attributes. Lastly, this will help in identifying prospective client organizations, similar to the businesses, where the offered services are drawing repeat purchases feasible only if, there is a systematic effort at acquiring names of key players in the newly identified prospect organizations. This would involve generating leads from key customers through references, converting qualified leads into revenue, forecasting sales pipeline and evaluating the effectiveness of new marketing campaign by understanding which product / service map relates to a specific segment, and conduct surveys to determine level of Customer Satisfaction in each of these segments to drive improvement. Now that the activities and benefits from the marketing efforts are stated, it may be the right place to seek a few inputs to determine the steps ahead." (Chatterjee, nd)

Questions that will assist in identification key issues related to attracting and retaining online visitors and prospective customers include the following:

How much should you spend on building and marketing your site?

How can you get more prospects to know and visit your site?

How do you make your site more experiential and real?

How can you convert visitors into repeaters?." (Chatterjee, nd)

After having established a successful website the more complex issues will need to come under focus, which include:

How to build a stronger relationship with current customer;

How to build a customer community;

How to capture...

(Chatterjee, nd)
This information will vary according to the organization and would be dependent upon both the type and nature of the business of the organization. In addition, determining factors are the customer profile of the organization and the nature of the business of the organization. Promotion is identified by Chatterjee to have be found in research to be necessary for starting and maintaining the visitor flow to the organization's website.

Key Considerations for Internet Advertising

Key considerations for Internet Advertising are:

1) What are the various ways to advertise on the Internet; and 2) How is the choice made for the rights site when placing ads or purchasing sponsorship? (Chatterjee, nd)

Methods of Internet Advertising

There are several methods available for placing ads and promotions online, which include the following:

Banner Ads - Small changing ads and are the most popular accounting for approximately 40% of the net's overall advertising. These are easy to create, fairly inexpensive and link directly to the advertiser's website and deliver quantifiable results.

Sponsorship - the usage of a set and fixed by an associate service provider, which accounts for approximately 30% of the total of Internet advertising.

Interstitials are ads which pop up as one surfs and accounts for 8% of the total of all internet advertising.

Alliances and affiliate programs; and Push-based mailer with commercial content account for 12% of net expenses. (Chatterjee, nd)

Chatterjee states that the internet makes the provision of two primary modes of communication of the commercial-marketing message and provides the options of the Internet advertising or email advertising.

Marketing areas that technology and use of the Internet can improve include:

Promotion

Direct Marketing

Advertising

Limited Period Offers

Targeted Offers

Brand Recall and Image Building

Customer Contact, Interaction & Service

Customer Relationship and Loyalty

Use of the Internet as an alternate sales and product distribution channel. (Chatterjee, nd)

Key Elements for Success in Internet Marketing

In order to realize success in Internet marketing the following key elements are stated:

1) Development of a deep understanding of customer requirements and their profiles so that one clearly identifies where to promote and what the prospective visitor would want to look for in the organization's website;

2) the sites degree of readiness in handling queries through improving team responsiveness and use of the Internet in the reduction of cycle and response times.

3) Organizations are often tempted while trying to create a better important to state or display products or services that are limited or not currently available for sale. This works against the company's website credibility.

4) it is also important to have a team that matches the vibrancy of the site, and build the excitement and liveliness of the site so that even regular visitors get attracted by the changing content to return more frequently. This also helps building a higher recall for the site. As one gains experience form the past actions, it is important to learn and apply these to improve everything in the site for the better, and be continuously ahead of your competitors! These would lead to even more features and functionalities in the areas of Shipment & Delivery Tracking and online Customer Support. (Chatterjee, nd; paraphrased)

Social Media Optimization critical aspect of using technology is marketing is "social media optimization" (SM0). Social media optimization uses tools such as Web 2.0 including:

1) Blogs;

2) RSS feeds;

3) Social networking sites;

4) Social bookmark buttons;

5) Tagging;

6) Multimedia posts; and 7) Wikis for the purpose of targeting audiences, creating an online p presence and in developing familiarity and authority with the organization's customers. (Chatterjee, nd)

SMO is stated to "harness the power of the social network...provide numerous and growing opportunities to be a participant in the online communities...create new opportunities to reach potential customer and establish a dialogue...operates in a way that is analogous to 'word of mouth' advertising but is more efficient due to the tools and organization of the internet." (Webconsul, 2007)

Web Presence Marketing

Web Presence Marketing' is a process of making use of the Internet in business promotion. Marketing via the World Wide Web has been found to be a method in reaching a target audience that is more cost effective and is more effective overall in reaching prospective customers by many organizations. According to Webconsul (2007): "The first step is to develop a professional website with concern for both human viewers and optimized for search engines. The site is then promoted using a…