A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/faqs/advertis.faq

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This section is from the document '/services/Advertising on the Internet'.

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---------- Text of forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 94 12:11:12 EST
From: Micheal Strangelove <[e-mail]>
Subject: Advertising on the Internet FAQ

  Newsgroups:
  alt.online-services, biz.comp.services, biz.misc, alt.internet.services,
  alt.business.misc misc.answers, news.answers
  Subject: Advertising on the Internet FAQ
  This document contains a selection of Frequently
  Asked Questions (and their answers) about
  Internet-facilitated advertising. It should be
  read by anyone using the Internet for commercial
  purposes.

  Archive-name: Advertising-FAQ
  Last-Modified: n/a
  Version: 1.0
  Frequency: monthly

  ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET FREQUENTLY ASKED
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
  Version 1.0 - 6 March, 1994

  *** COPYRIGHT NOTICE
  This document is Copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove
  Internet Enterprises, Inc., all rights reserved.
  Permission for non-commercial distribution is
  hereby granted, provided that this file is
  distributed intact, including this copyright
  notice and the version information above.
  Permission for commercial distribution may be
  obtained from the Strangelove Internet
  Enterprises, Inc. Please feel free to distribute
  this document on commercial networks (AOL,
  Compuserve, Delphi, ...) and on bulletin boards.

  HOW TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR

  Michael Strangelove can be contacted by e-mail to
  [e-mail]
  or by postal mail to
  SIE Inc
  208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
  Ottawa, Ontario
  CANADA
  K1N 6V2
  Tel: [phone]
  FAX: [phone]

  INTRODUCTION

  Advertisers spend billions of  dollars every year
  to communicate their message to potential
  consumers. Now businesses are discovering that
  they can advertise to the Internet community at a
  fraction of the cost of traditional methods. With
  tens of millions of electronic mail users out
  there in cyberspace today, Internet advertising is
  an intriguing opportunity not to be overlooked.
  When 1998 roles around and there are one hundred
  million consumers on the Internet, we may see many
  ad agencies and advertising-supported magazines go
  under as businesses learn to communicate directly
  to consumers in cyberspace.

  How can a consultant, corporation, or an
  entrepreneur effectively use electronic mail to
  communicate to Internet user? The following
  document is intended to identify and answer
  frequently asked questions about Internet-
  facilitated marketing. This FAQ is based on the
  book, "How to Advertise on the Internet: An
  Introduction to Internet-Facilitated Marketing"
  (April 1994). If there are question you have about
  Internet advertising that are not addressed here,
  or if you have comments about how to improve this
  document, please feel free to contact me at
  [e-mail].

  Potential advertisers take note -- do your
  homework before blasting onto the Internet. This
  virtual community has some very strong feelings
  about inappropriate activity, and the penalties
  for incorrect advertising methods could be
  international hate mail to you, your boss, and
  your stock holders.

  Nota Bene: It is the intention of the author to
  promote the responsible business use of the
  Internet. Businesses will be making extensive use
  of the Internet for marketing and advertising,
  regardless of how Internet members feel about the
  non-commercial origins of the Internet. The
  Internet is not destined to be a TechnoUtopia, but
  simply a microcosm of global society, with all its
  warts and flowers. This FAQ is intended as a
  proactive measure to ensure that the commercial
  Internet user has adequate information about
  Internet culture so as to contribute to the
  ongoing development of Electric Gaia.

  QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS FAQ:

  Is Advertising Allowed on the Internet?
  Is Advertising on the Internet New?
  Is the Internet a Mass Market?
  Is Unsolicited Advertising Permitted?
  Can I Send an E-Ad to Every Internet User?

  INTERNET ADVERTISING TIPS:

  Find Out What is Acceptable
  Post Only to Appropriate Forums
  Keep it Short
  Avoid Sensationalism
  Create Your Own Forum
  Interact with the Internet Community


  IS ADVERTISING ALLOWED ON THE INTERNET?

  It is surprising how many people still see the
  Internet as a non-commercial, academic, and
  technical environment. Over fifty percent of the
  Internet is populated by commercial users (that
  equals five to ten million commercial users). The
  commercial Internet is the fastest growing part of
  cyberspace, which is doubling in size every year.
  There are more business users of the Internet than
  the total number of all the users of all
  commercial networks combined.

  Over three years ago the US National Science
  Foundation lifted restrictions against commercial
  use of the Internet's American backbone. Now an
  Internet address on business cards is the latest
  craze. As the Internet is not owned by any one
  company or nation, the only real restrictions
  placed upon users are by the consensus of the
  virtual community itself. The trick to effective
  Internet advertising is taking the time to learn
  what is and is not acceptable within any one of
  the more than 7,000 online conferences.

  The one major exception to this is any Internet
  users who have academic accounts provided by their
  university or research institute. It is almost
  certain that if you have an academic Internet
  account, you are forbidden to engage in commercial
  activity over your university's Internet
  connection. This may also hold true for many
  FreeNets -- if you are uncertain about local
  authorized use policy, ask your Internet provider
  or system postmaster.

  It should be noted that Usenet is no less
  commercial than the rest of the Internet. Gone
  forever are the days when the Internet was a
  private club for the techno-elite.

  IS ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET NEW?

  Even among many long-time Internet users, there is
  a perception that Internet advertising is a new
  phenomenon. It is not. In the mid eighties, when
  the Internet was largely an academic, scientific,
  and technical community, commercial activity was
  still allowed if it was in support of research
  efforts. This meant that right from the first days
  of the Internet, there were software developers,
  publishers, consultants, and technicians hawking
  their wares to the academic community. Advertising
  has been taking place on the Internet since its
  beginning. The problem facing the Internet
  community is that the bigger the community gets
  (and it is going to be mindbogglingly big), the
  more it will attract the attention of advertising
  agencies.

  IS THE INTERNET A MASS MARKET?

  For quite some time to come, the Internet will
  never represent a mass market such as TV where
  content is controlled and packaged to a limited
  number of predefined and demographically
  homogenous audiences consisting of millions of
  views. There are no mass markets on the Internet -
  - only micro communities with distinct histories,
  rules, and concerns. These communities are
  gathered into thousands of discussion forums
  ranging from hundreds to thousands of
  participants, but there are no groups of
  "millions." The challenge of the Internet-
  facilitated business is to find a way to reach
  these virtual communities on their terms,
  respecting their local customs. The Internet is
  big, very big, but it is not a mass market that
  can be easily reached through mass mailing.

  IS UNSOLICITED ADVERTISING PERMITTED?

  Unsolicited advertising does indeed take place
  every day on the Net, and there even exists one
  company that sells access to over one million
  Internet addresses for direct e-mail advertising.
  Unsolicited advertising is a gray area of Internet
  culture, and therefore requires very careful
  planning and execution to avoid the wrath of an
  extremely vocal community.

  Unsolicited advertising has been taking place on
  the Internet for quite some time, but must be done
  with extreme caution. There is no one to tell you
  not to send unsolicited commercial e-mail on the
  Internet, but if you send out 10,000 annoying
  advertisements, be prepared to receive 10,000
  complaints. Also, companies that disregard
  Internet users' wishes are likely to find that the
  Internet community has a long memory (as any
  "oral" culture does) and is quite capable of
  engaging in anti-advertising campaigns and
  boycotts.

  In this new interactive, digital, wired-to-the-
  bellybutton world, bulk unsolicited advertising is
  unnecessary, bad netiquette, and simply lazy --
  particularly when there are so many creative
  alternatives. The author has no wish to support
  the rise of "door-to-door" salespeople in
  cyberspace and therefore is intentionally
  censoring contact information from this FAQ on
  firms that sell Internet e-mail addresses and
  consult in bulk unsolicited e-mail advertising.

  CAN I SEND AN E-AD TO EVERY INTERNET USER?

  As Editor of THE INTERNET BUSINESS JOURNAL,
  Aneurin Bosley is frequently asked if it is
  possible to send an electronic mail advertisement
  (E-Ad) to every user on the Internet. I always
  find it somewhat disturbing that there are
  companies out there who would want to do this.
  Fortunately for the Internet, it is not possible
  to send an E-Ad to every person on the Internet.
  Unfortunately for the Internet, it is probably
  only a matter of time before some sick mind
  figures out a method of simultaneously annoying
  every Internet user. For now at least, there is no
  way to post an e-mail message to every Internet
  user, nor, in this writers opinion, should such a
  tool be developed.


  INTERNET ADVERTISING TIPS

  FIND OUT WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE

  Within some Internet forums, any commercial
  activity, no matter how subtle, is unacceptable
  and will be met with a strong negative response
  (usually called "flaming"). Take the time to
  "listen in" to the forum to which you intend to
  post. Notice what other people post and what the
  grouprquote s reaction is to commercial messages.
  If a press release or product announcement is met
  with intense flaming, then do not risk alienating
  this group of Internet users with your commercial
  message.

  POST ONLY TO APPROPRIATE FORUMS

  Begin your market research by identifying the
  appropriate online conferences (also called
  forums, lists, or newsgroups). If you are a
  selling purebred dogs, do not post your message to
  the cat lover's list. Some forums have FAQ files
  (Frequently Asked Questions). Read these files to
  determine the nature of the forum and acceptable
  use policies.

  KEEP IT SHORT

  Avoid posting long e-mail messages. Your product
  or service announcements should never exceed two
  screens in length (about 50 lines long). Many
  individuals on the Internet receive a considerable
  amount of e-mail, so your message must be short
  and to the point if it is going to be read at all.
  You can note in your posting that further details
  are available upon request.

  AVOID SENSATIONALISM

  The Internet community is content oriented,
  whereas most advertisers deal in style, metaphor,
  image, and hype. Traditional advertising copy will
  not go over well at all on the Net. The Internet
  community appreciates quality, filtered
  information, so find a way to add value to your
  message. Coach your message within a commentary on
  industry trends, create an electronic newsletter
  that provides a range of related information,
  enter into dialogue with the forum about
  surrounding issues. Remember that nothing is more
  obvious in low ASCII than empty hype.

  CREATE YOUR OWN FORUM

  It is possible to create a Usenet newsgroup for
  discussion of your products (Usenet is received by
  most Internet users and contains over six thousand
  newsgroups). Many companies have already done so,
  such as ZEOS, which has a newsgroup called
  biz.zeos.general. This is a form of passive
  Internet-facilitated marketing. Passive
  advertising allows a business to create a forum on
  the Internet and invite the rest of the Internet
  to join in. By creating your own forum, moderating
  the submissions (filtering out irrelevant
  postings), and providing high quality information,
  not only about your products but about your
  particular commercial sector, you will establish a
  growing readership in much the same way that
  newsstand magazines function.

  INTERACT WITH THE INTERNET COMMUNITY

  For the immediate future, the costs of Internet-
  facilitated advertising will not be associated
  with expensive visual productions (at least until
  the domination of Mosaic and similar tools), but
  with the labor required to dialogue with the
  desired market areas found within over seven
  thousand discussion forums. This labor factor for
  truly responsible, responsive, and effective
  Internet advertising will become a critical
  consideration as the staggering Internet growth
  rate pushes these numbers to tens of thousands of
  forums and hundreds of millions of users over the
  next decade.

  The business world is going to have to learn a new
  language when it communicates to the Internet
  community -- the language of content-based,
  interactive, community-oriented dialogue.
  Unidirectional pontificating coming from the lofty
  heights of corporate sales and marketing offices
  will only alienate the typical Internet user. To
  be fully accepted by the majority of Internet
  users, a business will need to participate in the
  virtual communities they wish to reach. This means
  that business must be willing and prepared to
  enter into dialogue in an appropriate manner on
  the appropriate forums. Unlike any other medium
  familiar to advertisers, the Internet is fully bi-
  directional -- be prepared to answer for your
  product or service if it is less than 100%
  satisfactory. The Internet user will not hesitate
  to tell you otherwise, as well as tell the rest of
  the Internet community!

  A WORD OF WARNING

  Most advertisers will fail at their initial
  attempt at Internet-facilitated advertising. This
  is not at all surprising in light of the fact that
  most advertising in any medium is woefully
  ineffective, mind-bogglingly boring, and
  uncreative at best -- deceptive and annoying at
  worst.

  Why will advertisers fail when they succumb to the
  seduction of the virgin fields of the Internet?
  Traditional advertising will fail to achieve
  results on the Internet because this virtual
  community is oriented towards content. In
  contrast, advertisers usually focus on image and
  style -- broad archetypes delivered to mass
  audiences. But the language of the Internet, for
  the majority of its population, and for some time
  to come, is low ASCII (Aa-Zz, 1-9 text plus a few
  miscellaneous characters). More than being a
  mainly text-based environment, the Internet is
  first and foremost an oral culture, were the
  keyboard mediates the spoken word to a complex
  matrix of subcultures among users numbering in the
  tens of millions. Sensitivity to Internet culture
  will define success for any business entering into
  this global matrix. Remember that today's Internet
  arose out of a non-commercial environment. Be
  forewarned -- The Internet is not television, not
  the post office, and certainly not yours to do
  with it as you please.

  IN THE NEXT EDITION:

  The next edition of this FAQ will feature
  questions and answers about the ultility of Mosaic
  as the first "killer app" for
  the Internet-facilitated advertiser.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael Strangelove ([e-mail]) is
  founder and CEO of Strangelove Internet
  Enterprises, Inc., publishers of THE INTERNET
  BUSINESS JOURNAL, Internet Advertising Review, and
  ELECTROPOLIS: Government Online. Michael writes a
  regular column about the Internet in ONLINE ACCESS
  and has coauthored, with Diane Kovacs, The
  Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and
  Academic Discussion Lists (Association of Research
  Libraries, 1993, Third Edition). Michael is also
  author of the new book, How to Advertise on the
  Internet: An Introduction to Internet-Facilitated
  Marketing. Sample copies of THE INTERNET BUSINESS
  JOURNAL are available upon request. In his spare
  time, Michael is completing a Ph.D at the
  University of Ottawa. Stay tuned for the return of
  Dr. Strangelove, coming to an Internet near you.

.