11.3 Questions: Gaining an Online Presence

eMail Marketing

1. Explain the advantages of email marketing.
2. How do you legally obtain email addresses?
3. How do list managers differ from list brokers?
4. Describe the step-wise approach of an email marketing campaign.
5. How would you stay within the law pertaining to email marketing?

Merchant Services

1. What are the pros and cons of merchant services?
2. Model the profit margins of two hypothetical products to find when it would be wise to move from merchant services to Internet payment providers and/or an Internet merchant account.

Mobile Applications

1. Why are mobile applications important?
2. What needs to be done prior to creating the application?
3. List some applications and say why you like them.

Newsletters

1. How do companies use newsletters?
2. How are subscription lists built up?
3. Describe, with suggested software, how you would manage a 15,000 subscriber company newsletter.
4. Compare newsletters to webzines.

Selling on eBay

1. Describe the eBay model. How do you set up shop on eBay?
2. What sorts of things sell on eBay, and how do you source supplies?
3. How do you get a positive ranking as an eBay seller?
4. What can be done to improve sales?

Marketing Platforms

1. What are the three most commonly used marketing platforms on the Internet?
2. Name the platforms available for marketing
a. software,
b. music and videos,
c. community services,
d. games and virtual worlds.
3. What advantages do such platforms offer?

Free services

1. Give ten examples of free Internet services and indicate where they could be useful.
2. Compare free and commercial services in
a. document sharing,
b. video hosting and
c. social media.

Social Media

1. What are social sites? Give some examples and their popularity.
2. Why do businesses currently find social media a 'hot topic'?
3. Give a short history of social media in the USA.
4. Why are social media companies difficult to value?

Websites: Introduction

1. What would your brief to a web designer cover?
2. You get three quotes for a website build. How would you assess them?
3. What aspects must be covered by an ecommerce site?
4. Your chief has decided to adapt the company site for the Chinese market. Describe how you'd manage the project.

Building a Website: Technical

1. What alternatives are there to building your own website?
2. List the seven ways in which websites can be built.
3. Describe the basic layout of a web page.
4. How can sound, Flash and order pages be added to the website?
5. How would you choose a hosting service, and why?

Mobile Web Pages

1. What challenges do mobile web pages present to the designer, and how are they overcome?
2. Outline the seven steps in building web pages for mobile phones.
3. How can the designer ensure that the web page viewed is suitably designed for the mobile phone in question? What alternatives exist?
4. Provide some statistics for thinking mobile commerce is the next big frontier.

Professional Pages

1. What in general should web pages aim to do, and how?
2. What overriding matters should the web designer bear in mind?
3. List the things to be avoided in web page design.
4. How would you improve the conversion rates of a website?

Shopping Carts

1. Give the pros and cons of the various ways of attaching a shopping cart to an ecommerce site.
2. What would you take into account when selecting third party shopping cart software?
3. Why can using the hosting company's 'free' shopping cart software be a false economy?

Payment Systems

1. How does an online merchant account differ from a normal retail one?
2. How would your company obtain an online merchant account?
3. Explain how payment gateways work.
4. In what circumstances may an online merchant account be difficult to obtain. What are the alternatives?
5. Give some examples of Internet payment service bureaus and how they work. What are their advantages and disadvantages?

Site Hosting

1. In what circumstances would you hand over the hosting of the company website to a third party hosting company?
2. How would you select the appropriate hosting company?
3. What security measures would you expect your hosting company to have in place, and how could you check?

Webzines

1. Explain how you would set up and market a webzine.
2. How could a webzine be made to pay its way?
3. Investigate subscription services available from Internet payment service providers. What looks best with 15,000 overseas subscribers?

Auctions

1. Why do companies use auctions?
2. Describe the main auction types.
3. What facilities does online auction software provide?
4. Why do some companies hand over the running of their auction system to third parties?
5. Compare the features of some popular auction software packages.
6. Describe the activities of three online auctions.

Blogs

1. What technical advantages do blogs have over web pages?
2. How are blogs used in business?
3. How do blogs differ from content management systems?
4. Your boss wants a blog that fits neatly into the company website. Even those with no IT skills will take their turn in writing posts. She is most concerned about spam and derogatory comments from rival companies. What would you recommend, in terms of procedures and software?

Content Management Systems

1. How do content management systems differ from blogs and business intelligence systems?
2. Under what aspects would you evaluate a content management system?
3. Look at examples of clients' sites illustrated by content management systems. What would be attractive if you were
a. a local community center,
b. a commercial expatriate tax advice center, or
c. a publishing house?

Web Portals

1. What is a portal? List the common types.
2. What, listed in order of difficulty, are the options in setting up a portal site?
3. What features would you expect from a commercial package?
4. Suppose you wanted the full facilities of a commercial portal, but also something with a 'human face' like social media. How would you find / develop such a system?

Wikis

1. What features characterize a wiki?
2. Describe three different wikis and their use.
3. Outline the legal and security issues that affect wikis, and how they are sensibly dealt with.

Selling Content

1. What advantages has the selling of content over selling physical goods on the Internet?
2. What sort of Internet content will people pay for? How could you find out?
3. You are marketing slimming and health advice. Would you choose distance learning courses, newsletters, ezines or ebooks? Why?
4. What should you look out for if selling through an ebook publisher?

ePublishing

1. What are the advantages of epublishing?
2. Why aren't ebooks cheaper (compare costs of traditional and epublishing)?
3. What does a publishing contract cover?
4. Why could writers be a vanishing breed?
5. Explain copyright and libel. What measures should be taken to avoid legal actions?

Distance Learning

1. How and why has distance learning become popular?
2. What features would you look for in selecting something for
a. technical training of staff, and
b. a university course leading to an accredited degree?
3. Describe some developments worldwide in distance learning.
4. Anyone can teach themselves to degree level today. Discuss.

Selling Advertising

1. How do you get companies to advertise on your site?
2. What are banner ads? What is their metrics terminology?
3. What does a media kit include?
4. Compare sponsorship with banner ads.
5. In what circumstances would you employ a banner ad agency or network?

Becoming an AdSense Publisher

1. Describe the main features of the Google AdSense program.
2. How do you find the high-paying keywords? Realistically?
3. What is an acceptable AdSense site to Google?
4. What constitutes an unacceptable AdSense site to Google?
5. List the important do's and dont's when using Google AdSense.
6. How should companies experiment? Give a few of Ecommerce Digest's findings.
7. List several alternatives to AdSense. Why don't they compete effectively?

Becoming an Affiliate

1. How does selling through affiliate work? What do the two parties look for?
2. What are the advantages of working with an affiliate solution provider?
3. What sort of company would act as an affiliate? Is it worthwhile doing so today?

Selling Physical Goods

1. What, in terms of increasing outlay, are the best ways of selling physical goods over the Internet?
2. Describe your unique selling proposition: i.e. how you will beat the existing competition in some market sector of your choice.
3. How will you fulfill orders? Give the options. 4. List and explain fulfillment company terminology.

Corporate eCommerce

1. What problems do staff in large corporations commonly face in implementing ecommerce?
2. Suggest some practical measures for managing such projects.
3. Compare three popular corporate ecommerce solutions. How far is an objective appraisal possible?

eCommerce Servers

1. You've been asked to manage the ecommerce implementation for a large company. What questions would you ask of available software? How would you obtain a second opinion?
2. What is system build? What questions does it attempt to answer?
3. Give an example of logical design. What contingencies would you factor in?
4. The allocated budget is $2 million over two years. How would you allocate funds, and why?

Staying Safe

1. What information must the emerchant keep safe?
2. Briefly describe the other security matters the emerchant is responsible for.
3. How would you evaluate the security measures of your hosting company?

Customer Relationship Management

1. What is customer relationship management? Give examples of where it could be useful.
2. Describe a typical crm system.
3. What are the pros and cons of customer relationship management?
4. Give a short history of customer relationship management implementation in the USA.

Supply Chain Management

1. Explain how supply chain management systems work.
2. Outline supply chain management systems' eight areas of application.
3. How did supply chain management systems evolve: give a short history of the US development.
4. What the advantages and disadvantages of supply chain management systems?

Digital Exchanges

1. Distinguish between eprocurement, digital exchanges, industrial consortia and private industrial networks.
2. Under what keywords would you undertake a search for eprocurement systems on the Internet?
3. Explain how digital exchangesork. What are their advantages?

eProcurement

1. Distinguish between eprocurement, digital exchanges, industrial consortia and private industrial networks.
2. Under what keywords would you undertake a search for eprocurement systems on the Internet?
3. Name and briefly describe the seven types of eprocurement systems
4. Explain how eprocurement systems work. What are their advantages?

Industrial Consortia

1. Distinguish between eprocurement, digital exchanges, industrial consortia and private industrial networks.
2. What are the aims of industrial consortia?
3. How did industrial consortia develop in America?.
4. Describe some US industrial consortia, with financial data as available.

Private Industrial Networks

1. Distinguish between eprocurement, digital exchanges, industrial consortia and private industrial networks.
2. Under what keywords would you undertake a search for private industrial networks on the Internet?
3. Explain how private industrial networks work. What are their advantages?
4. Provide three examples of their commercial use.
5. What legal challenges could private industrial networks face?