DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE MARKETING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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ABSTRACT

The Project Online marketing information management system is a complete multi-user website. The system helps in buying of goods, products and services online by choosing the listed products from website (E-Commerce site). This system provides an efficient way of adding almost all the features of the online marketing information. In the cause of writing this research, HTML, CSS, PHP, JS and Sublime text were used to design the system (front end) and Xampp Server was used to store the database (back end). The website has a large memory of storing all the goods in the shop and also keeping record, it is highly effective and accurate.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background of Study

The Internet has its origins in cold war and technological rivalry between USSR and US. In fact “while the World Wide Web was created in 1991, its origin dates back to 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik I satellite” (Dickey and Lewis, 2011: 2). US reacted with establishment a department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) which launched in 1960s ARPANET, an experimental project of computer networks from which what we now know as internet developed. Since then internet contributed to science incredibly and “by the late 1980s the internet was being used by many government and business institutions” (Ferguson, 2008: 69).

So internet was considered an inclusive communicative tool of scientific and research centers for several years and its academic function was its dominant prior to discovering its commercial capabilities which led to its commercialization. As Oksana (2007) puts it: “until the mid-nineties, the research and academic communities accounted for most of the internet population but the commercialization of internet soon gained enormous momentum and the business community quickly became aware of the potential it has to offer”. With increasing the number of internet users during the 1990s, entrepreneurs started to appreciate commercial prospects of this new medium. Although there is no complete consensus on when did internet marketing exactly start, but the majority of commentators refer to 1994. So it is widely held that “significant commercial use of the Internet began with the first ‗banner ads‘ on web pages in 1994, and the appearance of Internet-based ‗malls‘ (the electronic equivalent of a storefront) such as Amazon.com in 1995”.

Statistics make it clear that this young marketplace, online marketing, has had an astonishing rate of growth. So amazing is the growth rate of this new paradigm of marketing that it is hard to believe how young it is. In fact “in 1994, spending for internet marketing totaled nearly nothing, but increased to over $300 million in 1995. After a decade later, marketing spending and internet marketing business has exploded to nearly $500 billion (according to Forrester Research). Today, it‘s hard to believe in having an organization which doesn‘t have some kind of online presence.” (Shirvastav and Alam, 2014: 25) This brief historic background is concluded by pointing to the fact that step by step online marketing has become a much more sophisticated practice. So early methods of internet marketing such as online advertising and email marketing has been followed by more younger, developed methods such as search engine optimization or social media marketing.

What is online marketing?

Chaffey et al. (2000) simply define internet marketing as “the application of the internet and related digital technologies to achieve marketing objectives”(12). This definition is a simple definition which, unlike the following ones, does not touch the important aspect of customer relationship. According to (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012: 508; Kotler et al., 2010: 493) Online marketing consists of measures and activities to promote products and services and build relationships with customers over the Internet. Burrett (2008) understands online marketing as ―carefully targeting users and getting them to interact with you while they‘re engaged with the most personal, intimate medium ever invented‖ (44). The most comprehensive definition has been articulated by Chaffey (2007), he defines online marketing as ―Applying Digital technologies which form online channels (Web, e-mail, databases, plus mobile/wireless & digital TV) to contribute to marketing activities aimed at achieving profitable acquisition and retention of customers (within a multi-channel buying process and customer lifecycle) through improving our customer knowledge (of their profiles, behavior, value and loyalty drivers), then delivering integrated targeted communications and online services that match their individual needs”. As this relationship concept definitions show online marketing revolve around interaction and building relationship with customers, a point which discriminates it from traditional, offline marketing.