MASTER'S THESIS

Attracting Customers Online

Effectiveness of Online Marketing Tools

Abdulkadir Efendioglu
Fabiola Igna

Master of Arts, Master programme

Electronic Commerce

Luleå University of Technology

Department of Business, Administration, Technology and Social Sciences
Abstract
Recent developments on internet have created new possibilities of doing business and communicating
with customers. And these technology developments have led to the foundation of e-commerce. E-
commerce sales kept growing in the recent years and it has been foreseen by researchers that this growth
will continue even more in the next years.

Consumer behavior online has changed as well and online users have become all-powerful, due to large
numbers and promiscuous – consumers visit a lot of websites, but purchase from just a few. Also, the new
social consumer uses the internet to be connected and receive information.

As a result, internet became a new intermediary between companies and their customers. It is already
acknowledged as an important marketing communication channel competing with the traditional ones,
such as TV, Magazines, and Radio. Internet provides different ways of online communications with
different communication tools that need a better judgment of their effect on consumer communication.

The purpose of our thesis is to provide a better understanding on the effectiveness of each online
marketing communication tools. In order to reach the purpose of this study our conceptual framework is
designed based on earlier studies. A mix of qualitative and quantitative method and case study was
chosen. In order to collect data face-to-face semi-structured interviews are held with sixteen students of
Luleå University of Technology.

The findings of this study showed that customers are conscious about online marketing communication
activities and efficiency of the online marketing communication tools are effected by the attributes
towards this tools. These tools can be successful at leading for positive outcomes and attracting new
visitors to the website if adopted correctly. We have discovered that „entertaining‟ and „trustworthy‟ are
the most important attributes in online communication and will make any B2C communication successful.

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Preface
Firstly, we would like to thank our supervisor Håkan Perzon at Luleå University of Technology for all his
support and guidance during the writing of our thesis. Secondly, we would like to thank the students of
Luleå University of Technology, who participated in our interviews, for their sacrificed time and pertinent
answers.

On a personal level, I would like to thank my Mum, Dad and Sisters for their love and continual support
throughout my life. I would also like to thank the Swedish Institute for supporting my studies here in
Sweden.

- Abdulkadir EFENDIOGLU

On a personal level, I would like to thank first of all my mom for the financial and moral support to finish
my education. Second, I would like to thank my friends for their advice and thank my boyfriend for
encouragement to go on. Last, but not least, I dedicate my work to my father.

- Fabiola C. IGNA

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Table of Contents
List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... i
List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... ii
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Background .............................................................................................................................. 1
1.1.1. Development of the Internet and E-commerce ................................................................... 1
1.1.2. Online Marketing .............................................................................................................. 1
1.1.3. Online Customers ............................................................................................................. 2
1.1.4. Effectiveness .................................................................................................................... 3
1.2. Problem Discussion .................................................................................................................. 3
1.3. Research Problem.......................................................................................................................... 4
2. Literature Overview ......................................................................................................................... 6
2.1. E-Commerce and B2C .............................................................................................................. 6
2.2. Online Marketing ..................................................................................................................... 6
2.3. Online Marketing Communications .......................................................................................... 7
2.3.1. Search Engine Marketing .................................................................................................. 7
2.3.2. Online PR ......................................................................................................................... 8
2.3.3. Online partnership............................................................................................................. 9
2.3.4. Interactive Ads ................................................................................................................ 10
2.3.5. Opt in e-mail ................................................................................................................... 10
2.3.6. Viral Marketing .............................................................................................................. 11
2.4. Online Customer..................................................................................................................... 11
2.5. Effectiveness in communication.............................................................................................. 12
3. Frame of Reference ........................................................................................................................ 14
3.1. Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................... 14
3.2. Conceptual Definitions ........................................................................................................... 15
4. Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 17
4.1. Research Purpose ................................................................................................................... 17
4.2. Research Approach ................................................................................................................. 17
4.3. Research Strategy ................................................................................................................... 18
4.4. Sample Selection .................................................................................................................... 19
4.5. Data Collection....................................................................................................................... 19
4.6. Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 20

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 4.7. Research Quality; Validity and Reliability .............................................................................. 21
5. Data Presentation ........................................................................................................................... 22
5.1. Online Behavior ..................................................................................................................... 22
5.2. Online Communication Experience......................................................................................... 22
5.3. Online Marketing Communications ........................................................................................ 24
5.4. B2C Communication ................................................................................................................... 32
6. Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 33
6.1. Cross Case Analysis ............................................................................................................... 33
6.2. Within-Case Analysis ............................................................................................................. 35
6.2.1. Search Engine Marketing ................................................................................................ 35
6.2.2. Online PR ....................................................................................................................... 35
6.2.3. Online Partnership .......................................................................................................... 36
6.2.4. Online Ads...................................................................................................................... 36
6.2.5. E-Mail Marketing ........................................................................................................... 37
6.2.6. Viral Marketing .............................................................................................................. 37
7. Conclusion, Further Implications .................................................................................................... 38
7.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 38
7.2. Further Implications ............................................................................................................... 39
References ............................................................................................................................................. 41
Appendix A - Questionnaire................................................................................................................... 44
Appendix B – Findings of the Interview Part 3 ....................................................................................... 59

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List of Figures
Figure 2-1 Digital marketing framework and levers ................................................................................ 13
Figure 3-1 Conceptual Online Marketing Communication Framework to Attract visitors........................ 14
Figure 5-1 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Easy to reject .................................... 24
Figure 5-2 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Enjoyable ......................................... 25
Figure 5-3 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Trustworthy...................................... 25
Figure 5-4 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Informative ...................................... 26
Figure 5-5 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Convenient ....................................... 26
Figure 5-6 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Acceptable ....................................... 27
Figure 5-7 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Entertaining...................................... 28
Figure 5-8 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Reliable ............................................ 28
Figure 5-9 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Appropriate ...................................... 29
Figure 5-10 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Objectionable ................................. 29
Figure 5-11 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Annoying ....................................... 30
Figure 5-12 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Time Consuming ............................ 30
Figure 5-13 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Difficult to Ignore........................... 31
Figure 5-14 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Disruptive ...................................... 31

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List of Tables
Table 3-1 Conceptual Descriptions of Attributes for RQ1 ....................................................................... 15
Table 3-2 Conceptual Definitions of Online Marketing communications for RQ2 ................................... 16
Table 4-1 Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies ............................................................. 18
Table 4-2 Use of differenet types of interview in each of the main research categories............................ 20
Table 5-1 Results from the second part of the interview questionnaire .................................................... 23
Table 5-2 Top 5 attributes of the interview results .................................................................................. 24

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1. Introduction
The present research paper is looking into effectiveness of online marketing communication tools on
attracting visitor to the B2C website. In this section, a background on internet, e-commerce, online
marketing and online customers is provided in order to give the reader an introduction.

1.1. Background
1.1.1. Development of the Internet and E-commerce
According to Internet World Stats1, total number of internet users reached to approximately 2 billion,
which equals 28.7% penetration rate of world population. Today, the internet has become an important
part of our daily routines. We use internet to make shopping, to socialize, to access information, for
entertainment or many other purposes.

These developments have also brought changes in the way of doing business and led to the foundation of
electronic commerce. Chaffey (2006) defines e-commerce as “both financial and informational
electronically mediated transactions between an organization and any third party it deals with”. By the
nature of business transactions, e-commerce is classified into business-to-business (B2B), business-to-
consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), consumer-to-business (C2B), and intra-organizational e-
commerce (Dou and Chou, 2002) B2C, the focus of our research, is defined by Chaffey (2006) as,
“commercial transactions between an organization and consumers”.

E-commerce took the attention of companies and in the past years many companies were present online
and made investments on e-commerce. In the same time, advancements in information and
communication technologies also enabled customers to use internet wherever and whenever they want. E-
commerce easily got accepted by users because of latest developments on internet and internet enabled
devices such as mobile phone, computers, and tablet computers. Oppenheim (2006) states that one of the
main reasons for the growth of B2C e-commerce is increasing number of internet users. And also there
are other effects that shouldn‟t be underestimated such as e-commerce made it easy to shop and
convenient to find more information about products.

All of these factors led to growth on e-commerce transactions in recent years and it is foreseen that the
development will continue in the next year. According to research done by eMarketer 2, US retail e-
commerce sales reached to $144.1 billion in 2009, and with an increase of 14,8% it has reached to 165.4
billion in 2010 and it is been predicted to reach $188,1 billion in 2011 and $209.3 billion in 2012.

1.1.2. Online Marketing

Besides, being a new platform for buying and selling, internet has also become a new intermediary for
companies to promote their businesses. Because of its characteristics and the high numbers of users,
internet has become as powerful as traditional communication channels, such as TV, magazine, and radio.

There is no common term to describe marketing through online medium and terms such as hypermedia
marketing, digital marketing, online marketing and e-marketing, are used by different researchers

1
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
2
http://www.emarketer.com/Reports/All/Emarketer_2000770.aspx

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(Dholakia, 2005). The term “online marketing” will be used in our research. Elley and Tilley (2009)
described online marketing as online communication activity which can be in different forms and can
include different online techniques, such as Search Engine Marketing, online partnership, social media,
online advertising, email marketing. These online marketing techniques have become vital communication
tools for the marketing department of a company to promote its websites, services and products in the
online environment. Ab Hamid (2008) states that, internet offers many opportunities for companies and it
can be a useful platform for their marketing activities, such as to spread information, attract new
customers, retain existing ones and even to improve relationship with existing customers by online
customer relationship management.

Today, most of the companies adopted internet as a part of their marketing communications in their
marketing strategies. According to Adegoke (2004 cited in Jensen, 2008) “online marketing
communications has grown to be an important part of a company‟s promotional mix”. This view is also
motivated by Shankar and Batra (2009) and they state that companies are using online medium as a new
marketing communication channel and marketing through internet is growing rapidly.

1.1.3. Online Customers

The Internet is no longer a novelty in the minds of today‟s population as it is the availability of having
internet connection. In fact, the Internet and digital information have taken over many aspects of our lives
from communication to information consumption, to new ways of doing business. It has reinvented our
vocabulary and gave new meanings to words in cyberspace, for example surfing, visitors, hits or navigate
(Nicholas and Dobrowolski, 2000). These changes in meaning can be discovered as well in the word
„user‟; it can mean a surfer or a visitor.

Now, in the 21th century, borders represented by gender, occupation and education in using or navigating
the Internet and other digital mediums have been sponged away by habit, supported by changes in system
technologies. So surfing the Internet, texting a mobile message or reading an online magazine is available
to and even used by elderly, children or unemployed and technologies have become more mobile, real-
time and interactive to support those behaviors (Nicholas et al., 2003).

By now, it is a common knowledge that consumers of all ages shop online, but as Silverman (2000 cited in
Seock and Norton 2008) point out, college students aged between 18 and 22 are the „hottest‟ market and
can be the main customers to generate revenue and growth for online sales. They are interested in the
latest products and developments, are very easily accepting and adopting new trends. The common trait of
this age group is that although college students are avid information seekers though the internet, the
conversion rate to online buyers is very low, only 4,9 % from general online visitors buy also the products
online (Kerner, 2005 cited in Seock and Norton, 2008). With short attention spans and high number of
choices, marketing communication has to be more efficient.

Internet World Stats shows that, in 2010, 92,5% of Sweden‟s population was using the Internet, making it
„one of the most developed Internet and broadband markets in the EU‟, a so called „online nation‟ 3. All
members of the age group of 15 to 24 year old are using the Internet on a daily basis with an average of
155 minutes online per day4, but it is only the 3 rd biggest age group that is actually shopping online. 72%

3
http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/se.htm
4
http://www.internetstatistik.se/content/2495-15-24-aringar-agnar-mest-tid-at-internet.html

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of Swedish males aged 16 to 24 have purchased online in 2010, whereas 82% of the 25-34 female users
have purchased in the last year 5.

The trends in connectivity and being online also differ with age group. According to Internetstatistik.se,
15 to 24 year olds are more involved in communication through social media (66%), such as Facebook,
Twitter, and YouTube rather than communication through e-mail (44%)6. This emphasizes even more the
need of new insight into social commerce as Shop.org named it.

1.1.4. Effectiveness
“New technologies have changed the ways customers and companies relate to one another and „has
challenged the traditional process of transactions and the way communications between consumers and
companies are managed” (Ozuem et al., 2008). When evaluating these new technologies, it is important to
consider the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and new channels as well as translating them into
effectiveness, from a manager‟s point of view (Danaher and Rossiter, 2011). Companies are not using the
whole potential of online marketing tools although they perceive them as effective (Teo, 2005).

However, measuring marketing effectiveness poses numerous challenges due to the “multitude of possible
metrics for assessing effectiveness” (Gray, 2006 cited in Martin, 2011). Chaffey (2009) translates
effectiveness as “doing the right thing‟ and from a practical point of view „producing the required outputs
and outcomes”. Kierzkowski (1996) expresses five wanted outcomes from a marketer‟s point of view
attract customers, engage customers, retain customers, learn about customers and relate to customers.

It is critical for companies to know; how do they attract customers to their website, engage them to turn
into paying customers and also retain them to keep returning to your website. Chaffey (2009) states
“Online communications techniques used to achieve goals of brand awareness, familiarity and favorability
and to influence purchase intent by encouraging users of digital media to visit a web site to engage with
the brand or product and ultimately to purchase online or offline through traditional media channels such
as by phone or in-store”.

As Teo (2005) has established in his research, effectiveness does not have to translate necessarily only
into revenue, but it can be measured in building customer relationships, traffic on the company‟s website
or another outcome that satisfies management. Our research will refer to the same five points outcome
from Kierzkowski et al., (1996) and will explore the different ways customers reach companies via
internet.

The problem arises into how to blend new social media and other new technologies into an effective
online marketing strategy in order to obtain the wanted conversion from online visitors to online
customers. What comes after building a Facebook company account, twittering about the new promotion
and optimizing your website?

1.2. Problem Discussion

Today, companies realized the potential of e-commerce and most of them already started to get into this
new business environment. Ščeulovs and Gaile-Sarkane (2010) state that, “E-commerce has now become

5
http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____281500.aspx
6
http://www.internetstatistik.se/content/1435-stora-skillnader-i-internetanvandningen-mellan-olika-
generationer.html

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a key component of many companies in the daily running of their businesses”. Thus, the online marketing
component of a company‟s marketing strategy has grown in importance; Baker (2007) states that, “In a
short period of time, e-marketing has become a facet of marketing that cannot be ignored”. New
developments on internet technologies enables new ways of marketing, communication, gathering
customer opinions and experiences about products, services and firms, and also allows personalized one-
to-one marketing (Li and Bernoff, 2008 cited in Mangold, 2009).

It has been already mentioned by the earlier researchers that internet is a new and important channel for
companies to promote and strengthen their businesses. Andrews, et al. (2007 cited in Ab. Hamid, 2008)
point out that “for firms the increased importance of Internet channels can be seen in its contribution to
disseminating information, enhancing consumer value, improving consumer satisfaction, loyalty and
retention as well as consumer perception which in turn leads to better profitability and expanded market
share”. All of the above mentioned abilities of internet are making it a must for the companies to
implement new online marketing plan for their marketing strategies.

Baker (2007) notes that, “marketers need to carefully assess the significance of e-marketing and assimilate
it, as appropriate, into all aspects of marketing from strategy and planning to marketing research,
objectives setting, buyer behavior, marketing communications and the marketing mix”. For these reasons
we became interested in effectiveness of online marketing communication.

1.3. Research Problem

Given that the Internet has not only changed the way companies do business, but as well consumer‟s
behavior to shop or to look for information, the matter of effectiveness of online tools arises. Online
marketing tools need to be identified well by the companies and marketers should validate the economics
of their promotional activities against their effectiveness (Kierzkowski et al., 1996).

Starting from an existing study on online marketing (Kierzkowski et al., 1996), online marketing effort
consists of five processes: Attract, Engage, Retain, Learn, Relate and in our study, we have chosen to
focus on the attracting side of the online marketing efforts which lead to bringing new customers to the
websites. Chaffey (2009) states to attract customers and bring them to the companies‟ website there are six
different online communication tools.

While searching for relevant cases, researches and articles we have discovered that companies are using
internet as a marketing communication channel but that brings another challenge to them. Online
marketing communications is a broad term and consist of many tools as mentioned earlier such as Search
Engine Marketing, online PR and Viral Marketing. And there might be comparatively difference between
each tool and some of them maybe more effective in some situation while others not. Thus, we started to
search for earlier studies and we noticed that this has not been studied before especially from the user
perspective. Therefore, we think that further research needs to be done in order to provide better
understanding to the effectiveness of online marketing communications to attract new customers to
company‟s B2C website.

The purpose of this research is to assess the effectiveness in attracting customers by using online
marketing communication tools that‟s why we have developed the following research problem:

How effective are online marketing communication tools in attracting customers

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In order to study this problem we will try to describe the online marketing communications from the
users‟ point of view. And finally, we will focus on the comparison of each online marketing
communication tools.

1. How online marketing communications can be described?

2. How online marketing communication tools can be described as a way of online marketing
communication.

The limitation of this study is to focus only on the attracting effort of online marketing strategies. That‟s
why the main focus of this research will be on the marketing communication efforts to bring new
customers to company‟s B2C website. And, online marketing communication tools will be limited to the
six tools listed by Chaffey (2009): Search Engine Marketing, Online PR, Online Partnerships, Interactive
Ads, Opt in e-mail and Viral Marketing.

Our research revolves around the internet as a communication channel from companies to visitors and
potential customers. From a company‟s point of view, the internet is used as marketing channel and
companies expect to get return form their e-efforts, but there is little research that takes the customer‟s
point of view. Starting from Danaher and Rossiter (2011), who have formulated attributes that describe
and compare different communication channel, this research tries to describe the internet marketing tools
from a customer point of view.

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2. Literature Overview
This section will present review of relevant literature relating to our research. We will identify the
theoretical base on which our study will be built.

2.1. E-Commerce and B2C

According to Chaffey (2009) e-commerce defined as “all electronically mediated non-financial
transactions and financial transactions between an organization and any third party it deals with”.

Internet enabled users to pay lower transaction costs and it provided an easy way of access on information
and details; and internet provides more alternatives and more competitive prices about the products or
services rather than traditional environment (Chun and Kim, 2005). Huang (2010) expresses that, internet
has changed the way of business and created new marketplace where companies and customers come
together and create communication with each other more efficiently. Similar to this view, Pries et al.,
(2006) states that internet enabled easy access to a global marketplace where information of products,
prices and distribution are equal for all.

Chaffey (2009) states “Business-to-consumer (B2C) markets have made a significant contribution to the
commercial development of the Internet encouraging wide-scale use of computer networks by a diverse
and increasingly global range of consumers”.

2.2. Online Marketing

Development of internet led to new changes in businesses and created a new, interactive and social
communication platform for companies to interact with customers. Shih and Hu (2008) states that, Internet
is an important channel for companies and it must be used wisely by marketing departments to attract new
customers and retain the existing ones. Nowadays, companies started to use the online medium as a new
effective way of marketing communication. Bush et al., (2000) supports this view by stating “The
astonishing growth of the Internet coupled with its unique capabilities has captured the attention of the
marketing community”.

All these changes and developments brought up a new activity which is marketing through internet.
Chaffey et al., (2009) states that “E-marketing is focused on how a company and its brands use the web
and other digital media such as e-mail and mobile media to interact with its audiences in order to meet its
marketing goals”. In addition to this view, Shih and Hu (2008) states that if companies expects to get
return from their e-commerce companies and online efforts, they must develop their marketing activities
well to be able to reach new customers and to be able to keep current ones by providing good online
customer service.

Kierzkowski et al., (1996) states that there are several digital marketing success factors for companies to
succeed in the online market, these five factors are; attract users, engage users‟ interest and participation,
retain users and ensure their return to an application, learn about their preferences, and, lastly, relate back
to them to provide the sort of customized interactions. Similar to Kierzkowski et al., (1996), Chaffey
(2009) states that there are three main operational processes of e-marketing: customer acquisition
(attracting site visitor), conversion (engaging site visitors), and retention (encouraging the continued use
of digital channels).

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2.3. Online Marketing Communications
Kierzkowski et al., (1996) expressed “the current clutter on the Internet virtually ensures that the „build it
and they will come‟ model is insufficient to draw consumers, marketers need to actively attract users in the
first place” online marketing is much more complicated and planned communication activity rather than
just putting an online advertisement.

Companies may have great content, dynamic and attractive design on their website, but the customer may
not be aware of that website because of wrong or inadequate online marketing. That‟s why companies
must start their online marketing strategy by focusing on attracting visitors to the company‟s website in
first hand. Similar to this view Chaffey (2009) states: “before an organization can acquire customers
through the content on its site, it must, of course, develop marketing communication strategies to attract
visitors to the website”.

Online marketing communications defined by Chaffey (2009) as “Online communications techniques used
to achieve goals of brand awareness, familiarity and favourability and to influence purchase intent by
encouraging users of digital media to visit a website to engage with the brand or product and ultimately to
purchase online or offline through traditional media channels such as by phone or in-store”.

Marketing communications through the online medium started to take active role in marketing activities of
companies. Shankar and Hollinger (2007) state “the role of online marketing communications in the
marketing mix is constantly evolving.”

There are different online marketing communication tools for companies to adopt to promote and increase
the visits of their websites. Chaffey (2009) lists those acquisition tools, which are Search marketing,
Online PR, Online partnership, Interactive Ads, Opt in e-mail and Viral Marketing, under the operational
process of online marketing. Now, we will take a closer look to each acquisition tools which are listed by
Chaffey (Ibid).

2.3.1. Search Engine Marketing

According to Ho (2010), Search Engine Marketing aims to increase page ranking of a website to be seen
in the top of the results and by doing so attracting new users and increasing the visits of the webpage.

Wu et al. (2005) expresses that searches are getting more important day by day and more than half of all
visitors come from search engines. For these reasons search engines play vital intermediary role between
companies that wants to be seen in the internet and their target users. Gefen and Straub (2000, cited in
Dou, 2010) state “Online information search is a ubiquitous and critically important activity in e-
commerce”. Skiera et al., (2010) states Search Engine Marketing is the most popular online advertising
method among advertisers. Dou (2010) finds that search engines can be useful tool for e-commerce
companies to create brand positioning in the virtual market.

According to Gruhl (2005) online information searching is an essential process of online buying and the
most popular information access tool is the online searching for online buyers. Google is the most popular
in the search engine choice of the users in the western countries when compared with the other popular
engines such as Bing, and Yahoo! (Skiera et al., 2010).

There are two different types of Search Engine Marketing; Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay
per Click (PPC)

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2.3.1.1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a technical background process to leverage the visibility and the positioning
of a website among the search results. Hernández et al., (2009) states that “SEO tool tries to capture users
who are actively looking for information about a product related to the firm, which converts them into
potential clients openly expressing their needs”.

Highest ranking in search engines can attract more visitors to the website. The ultimate goal of SEO is to
bring more visitors to your website by improving the search engine ranking (Ledford, 2009). SEO is a
great tool to create brand awareness and increase the website visits. Virtually, SEO is a must for every
business to promote their website and they must be successful at implementing it (Odom, 2011).

2.3.1.2. Paid search Pay-per-click (PPC)

Pay-per-click enables companies to list their website in the first page of the search results. Chaffey (2009)
defined PPC as “a company pays for text adverts to be displayed on the search engine results pages when
a specific key phrase is entered by the search users”.

Companies can decide for which keywords or phrases their advertisement will appear and company will
be charged for every click search engine users make on the advertised links.

Grzywaczewski et al., (2010) states that “Google‟s pay per click (PPC) AdWords model consists of
allowing businesses to choose keywords and create adverts that relate to their site and bid (against
competitors) how much per click their business is willing to spend in order to generate traffic direct to
their site”.

2.3.2. Online PR
Online PR defined by Chaffey, (2006) as “maximizing favorable mentions of your company, brands,
products or web sites on third-party web sites which are likely to be visited by your target audience”.

Ryan and Jones (2009) states that “online PR distils down to two key things: raising the online profile of
your business, products and services by contributing positively to the online community; and managing
your reputation by monitoring, assessing, responding to and influencing online conversations about you”.

According to Chaffey (2009) blogs, RSS, podcasting, link building, social networks and online
communities can be categorized as Online PR activities.

2.3.2.1. Social media and online communities

“Social media is defined as a group of Internet-based applications such as blogs, social networking sites,
content communities, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds and social worlds that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user
generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

“„Social media‟ is the umbrella term for web-based software and services that allow users to come
together online and exchange, discuss, communicate and participate in any form of social interaction”
(Ryan and Jones, 2009).

Social media helps companies to spread messages easily to millions of people. Frick (2010) states that,
“When you share content on social profiles and your network of friends in turn share it as well, the

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potential for reaching huge numbers of people with little effort and in a small amount of time could be
construed as a tangible business transaction, at least in terms of its marketing potential”.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr are the most known examples of social networks. Today, Facebook
has more than 500 million active users7, and Twitter has more than 106 million users 8. These networks are
tools for companies to reach customers. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) state that “each Social Media
application usually attracts a certain group of people and firms should be active wherever their customers
are present”.

2.3.2.2. Blogs, podcasting, and RSS

Scott (2010) states that many of the marketers and PR managers are using blogs to access the information
what others say about their companies and large number of the people are using blogs for their marketing
purposes in their marketing strategies.

“Organizations use blogs to measure what‟s going on with their stakeholders and to understand
corporate reputation,” Glenn Fannick (cited in Scott, 2010).

Ryan (2009) express that companies also tries to encourage and persuade the blog writers to write about
their brand and products and it is been seen that especially the high profile bloggers can increase the
online traffic of the website, brand and helps to create an effective online profile.

Frick (2010) defines really simple syndication (RSS) as “an easy way to spread your content to many
people across multiple locations, including social networks that support the format in its many flavors”.
He also stated that within the latest developments and increases on blog writings, RSS became very
valuable tool for the marketers to reach many people.

2.3.3. Online partnership

Ryan (2009) states that online partnership refers to a win-win agreement between two or more parties for
the desired outcomes. According to Chaffey (2009) online partnership is an important part of online
marketing mix and can be managed through link building, affiliate marketing and sponsorship.

2.3.3.1. Affiliate marketing

Chaffey (2009) defines affiliate marketing as “a commission based arrangement where referring sites
(publishers) receive a commission on sales or leads by merchants (retailers or other transactional sites)”.
Akçura (2010), “Affiliate marketing programs help firms to increase their reach and acquire other firms”
customers when the firms agree to refer their customers to the third parties‟ Chaffey (2009) states that
affiliate marketing is one of the useful tools of online partnership to create website traffic.

According to Duffy (2005) affiliate marketing provides win-win opportunity for both websites and the
publishers and it has a potential to be mainstream marketing tool for e-commerce companies in the next
years if there will be enough publishers and affiliates.

7
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
8
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1982092,00.html

9
2.3.3.2. Sponsorship
Ryan and Whiteman (2000, cited in Chaffey and Smith, 2008) define online sponsorship as: “ the linking
of a brand with related content or context for the purpose of creating brand awareness and strengthening
brand appeal in a form that is clearly distinguishable from a banner, button or other standardized ad unit” .

According to Schumann and Thorson (2007) similar to the traditional sponsorships, online sponsorships
take the advantage of an event or activity and create traffic or maybe positive tendency towards the
sponsor company‟s website.

2.3.4. Interactive Ads

“The Internet has become a proven medium for advertising and has become a viable alternative to
traditional media such as television and billboards” Wang et al., (2002).

Chaffey (2009) states that display ads help websites to build a traffic and it is used to create brand
awareness, familiarity, favourability and purchase intent. Interactive ads can be in graphical, text, or rich
media forms such as banner, pop-up, pop-under ad, streaming media or text ads.

There is a going on discussion whether Online Ads are effective or ineffective. McCoy et al., (2007) states
that recent advertisements through internet described as nonsensical, uninformative, forgettable,
ineffective, and intrusive. Wang et al., (2002) states that online advertisements more suited for the goal
oriented customers.

Chaffey (2009)expresses that many ads demands an interaction from the user such as rolling over the
video to play or hear the sound, clicking on the ad to go to mentioned website, filling form or maybe
playing a game.

2.3.5. Opt in e-mail

Merisavo and Raulas (2004) states “e-mail offers a promising tool to enhance brand loyalty as it helps
marketers keep in touch with their customers on a regular basis at low cost.”

Opt in e-mail is a permission based e-mail communication which is widely used among e-commerce
marketers. DuFrene et al., (2005) states that “A wide variety of e-commerce marketers are using
permission-based e-mail communications to notify prospects of promotions and services, acquire new
customers, increase sales, and, most importantly, develop and nurture an ongoing dialogue and
relationship with their customers”. According to Martin (2003) e-mail marketing is popular because it is
cheaper than traditional mail and it has faster response time from consumers.

According to Martin (2003) companies can create awareness and “generally simplify customer‟s life” i.e.
websites may full of content and opportunities for the customers but they may have not a time to visit their
website everyday so companies can send permission based e-mails to inform them about the updates and
opportunities they may have.

Ryan (2009) states that although spam mails are one of the most important problems of email marketing in
the way of being irrelevant communication, emails can still be seen as beneficial and effective marketing
tool which can provide real value for both customers and companies. Similar to this view the findings of
Merisavo and Raulas (2004) show that; opt-in emails has positive effect in many ways and especially on

10
brand loyalty and he states that e-mails increase the visits of the website of the company even it motivates
them to visit their retail stores and buy their product.

2.3.6. Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing defined by Chaffey and Smith (2008) as a tool which “harnesses the network effect of the
Internet and can be effective in reaching a large number of people rapidly in the same way as a computer
virus can affect many machines around the world”. Viral Marketing communications can be in form of a
video clip, song, link, picture or text formats.

Cruz and Fill (2008) expresses that Viral Marketing transferred the form of Word of Mouth
communication to the online environment by enabling people to share news, information or entertainment
in the online network to another person. “With viral techniques, traffic is built either through using e-mail
(virtual word-of-mouth) or real-world word-of-mouth to spread the message from one person to the next”
(Chaffey and Smith, 2008).

Viral Marketing has an important potential to reach many people online. Cruz and Fill (2008) states that
people like to share their experiences, ideas, involvements regarding products and services for a variety of
reasons. Frick (2010) expressed that if the content of the company is good enough to attract users to share
it, social media website such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter could easily help companies to reach
thousands or even millions of views in small amount of time.

2.4. Online Customer

Starting with the term of „end-user‟ which was pushed by scholars in the late 1970s to define the persons
that would finally benefit from the usage of information, the growing number of users, we refer to tens of
millions, in the coming 20 years after that have given birth to the term “consumers‟ which recognizes their
economic power of purchase (Nicholas et al., 2003).

Nicholas and Dobrowolski (2000) argue the over-usage of the term ‟user‟ in reference to the Internet and
introduce the new term of „player‟ to explain the interconnectivity between a person and today‟s
interactive information systems. The term offers a new name for the information consumer and
characterizes information seeking behavior as interactive, recreational, social and competitive with
nuances depending on individual online engagement.

According to their following research in 2003, the digital player‟s characteristics are:

a) Enormous and unprecedented numbers; we have gotten used to see and speak of website traffic in
millions.
b) All-powerful; power given by numbers, by huge choice possibilities and backed-up by
governments.
c) Personal characteristics; they cover all age groups, education groups and gender. More than that,
the research has revealed that the Internet is no longer dominated by male consumers, but is
balanced spread thought general population that needs a new demographic profiling in consumer
behavior.

11
Huge choice in information and sources is causing:

d) Promiscuous users – short attention spans and short visits; Nicholas et al., (2003) refers to users as
„bouncers‟.
e) Promiscuous behavior; consumers visit a lot of sites online, but purchase from just a few.
f) Untrusting; all electronic media is two-dimensional and the information provider can be everyone.
g) Unpredictable; for example in e-commerce, new brands as EasyJet, Amazon and new ways of
delivery can give birth to world leaders in a very short time.

All these characteristics are obvious in a digital players‟ online behavior as pointed out by Nicholas and
Dobrowolski (2000):

 They don‟t like paying directly for information;

 They do not stay long enough to notice all information, even less for advertising;
 Online consumers bounce from website to another due to short attention spans, running against
homepages they do not like or huge choice of websites;
 Dependent on the search engine. More, they total delegate trust to the search engine, not
questioning how and why search results are given.
 Download and print data for later use;
 They find surfing a leisure activity, as window-shopping offline;
 They are more brand conscious, but less brand loyal.

This new generation of digital players or, more popular called, online consumers precedes what Rowlands
et al., (2008) calls, the „Google generation‟: those born after 1993 that have no recollection of life before
the web. They present all of the above characteristics, plus total dependency and trust in the search
engine, no analytical skills for the information presented. They have a poor understanding of their
information needs and are not more skilled then the previous generation in handling the information given
to them.

Although untrusting and promiscuous(Nicholas et al., 2003), there is a new social consumer that is
connecting daily via internet or other mobile devices to do business and get informed.

“They expect information to be available to them on demand and at the same time have the tools and the
desire to share and socialize that information with those same trusted peers – whether they actually know
them or not” (Ibid). Nicholas et al (Ibid) calls them transactional consumers that involve much more
interaction and engagement from the company then just the ability to download a few pages.

To sum up, today‟s online customers are provided, even bombarded, with a lot of information and
communication messages that has changed their online behavior into a promiscuous and demanding user
that is all-powerful in his choice.

2.5. Effectiveness in communication

According to Lasswell (1948, cited in Danaher and Rossiter, 2011) communication has 4 main
components: a source or initiator, a message, a channel of transition or media and a receiver. Effective
communication is seen as the sender‟s ability to properly anticipate and transmit, through a certain media
or channel, a message that mirrors receiver‟s needs. (Ibid)

12
Danaher and Rossiter (2011) put a lot of emphasis on the media that the message is transmitted through
and the important role of that media in the communication effectiveness. To test channel and
communication effectiveness they have established a list of 14 attributes that describe and measure
channel effectiveness in communication: easy-to-reject, enjoyable, trustworthy, informative, convenient,
acceptable, entertaining, reliable, appropriate, objectionable, annoying, time-consuming, difficult to
ignore, disruptive.

Cho and Huh (2010) linked „enjoyable‟ and „entertaining together‟ and discovered the importance of these
two attributes in the form of multimedia features that can increase effectiveness of customer interaction.

Seock and Norton (2007) divide attributes into direct, indirect, positive and negative attributes that can
influence students‟ online purchase intentions. Positive attributes were linked directly to positive attitudes
to purchase from B2C websites. „Fun to visit‟ was also mentioned as a big plus for favorite websites and
„utility‟ of a website.

They also connect intention of purchase directly to security and trustworthiness of websites and data
presentation. But they argue an increase in positive meaning of this attribute to repeated purchase. Also
Nicholas et al., (2003) point out that obtrusive advertising is a directly link to reduction in brand
trustworthiness.

For marketing managers, the problem of effectiveness is more complicated as there are numerous ways to
quantify data and the results can be as many as the possibilities, all with different meanings. Adam et al.,
(2009) showed that traditional marketing efforts (TME) and online marketing efforts (OME) are separate
marketing performance elements and they need different tools of measurement. Even more, their results
showed that OME are predicting marketing performance, while TME are predicting financial
performance.

Traditional expressions of effectiveness refer to return of investment, which can be influenced by market
orientation (Adam et al., 2009). Marketing performance can be expressed in non-financial results as
attracting the consumer, engaging, retaining, learning and relating to the consumer (Kierzkowski et al.,
1996).

Figure 2-1 Digital marketing framework and levers

Source: Adapted from Kierzkowski et al, (1996)

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3. Frame of Reference
Selected research and references are presented and explained in order to offer logic and deductible
picture of the frame in with we will conduct our research. This section will help to a better understanding
of the research questions we are putting and the model used to investigate the research problem.

3.1. Conceptual Framework

Kierzkowski et al., (1996) states that, companies must build a new model for online marketing to be
successful in the new developing online environment and he developed new model which is called digital
marketing framework. Digital marketing framework consists of five efforts which are followed by one
after another. These efforts are attracting new customers, engaging attracted customers, retaining by being
sure they are returning back to website, learning from attitudes and behaviors, and lastly relating by
offering personalized service or products. Hence, our research question is focused on attracting new
customers to the website we will take attracting as a targeted marketing effort in our study. Other
marketing efforts will be excluded in our conceptual framework which are engage, retain, learn and relate.

Figure 3-1 Conceptual Online Marketing Communication Framework to Attract visitors

Source: Adopted from Kierzkowski et al., (1996) [1] and Chaffey (2009) [2]

Chaffey (2009) classifies online marketing communications, which are used to attract visitors, in six
different tools in the operating process of online marketing. These six tools are: Search Engine Marketing,
Online Partnership, Online PR, Interactive Ads, Opt-in Email, and Viral Marketing.

Figure 3-1 presents our modified framework adopted from the research of Kierzkowski et al., (1996) and
Chaffey (2009). This framework presents our research flow. Firstly, we will try to describe internet as a
marketing communication channel to attract new visitors. Secondly we will try to describe and assess each
communication tool form the users‟ point of view.

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3.2. Conceptual Definitions
RQ1: How online marketing communications can be described?

To answer this question we have selected the research of Danaher and Rossiter (2011) where they listed
fourteen attributes that have been tested on different types of offline and online communication channels.
And we will use the same list to be able to describe online marketing communications. The attributes have
been extensively tested by the previous research (Danaher and Rossiter, 2011) and have been understood
to have a positive or negative effect on the customer interpretation of different offline and online
communication channels. By our own understanding and judgment, the attributes have been singled out
and awarded a positive or negative perception on the internet as a B2C communication channel.

Table 3-1 Conceptual Descriptions of Attributes for RQ1

Attributes Description Perception Source

Reject Do not receive communication - Roach (2009)
Enjoyable Pleasant to read and receive + Danaher and
Rossiter (2011)
Trustworthy True information + Roach (2009)
Informative „find out what I want to know‟ + Danaher and
Rossiter (2011)
Convenient Suits communication channel + Danaher and
Rossiter (2011)
Attributes

Acceptable Proper channel and media for + Roach (2009)

communication
Entertaining „fun to visit‟ + Seock and
Norton (2007)
Reliable The correlation of a message + Roach (2009)
with a message just like it

Appropriate Suited communication - Danaher and

message Rossiter (2011)
Objectionable Questionable communication - Danaher and
Rossiter (2011)
Annoying Disturbing communication. - Danaher and
Time and message dimensions Rossiter (2011)
Time-consuming Cost of time. Relative - Danaher and
attribute. Rossiter (2011)
Ignore Refuse to acknowledge - Danaher and
communication Rossiter (2011)

15
RQ2: How online marketing communication tools can be described as a way of online marketing
communication.

In order to answer this research question, latest researches and books are reviewed and we tried to obtain
list of online marketing tools which are used to attract customers to the website. We have selected the
online acquisition tools list which has been presented by Chaffey (2009).

Table 3-2 Conceptual Definitions of Online Marketing communications for RQ2

Tools Conceptual Definitions Source

Search Engine Marketing “SEM is an internet marketing method that - Ho (2010)
increases the ranking of the website in search
engine and brings more users and the
bandwidth”
“More than half of all visitors come from a Evans (2007)
search engine rather than from a direct link
on another web page”
Online PR “Maximizing favorable mentions of your Chaffey (2006)
company, brands, products or web sites on
third-party web sites which are likely to be
visited by your target audience”
“Each Social Media application usually Kaplan (2010)
attracts a certain group of people and firms
should be active wherever their customers are
present”.
Attract

Online partnership affiliate marketing is one of the useful tools of Chaffey (2009)
online partnership to create website traffic
“Affiliate marketing programs help firms to Akçura (2010)
increase their reach and acquire other firms‟
customers when the firms agree to refer their
customers to the third parties”
Interactive Ads “Display ads help websites to build traffic and Chaffey (2009)
it is used to create brand awareness,
familiarity, favourability and purchase
intent.”
Opt in e-mail “A wide variety of e-commerce marketers are DuFrene et al.,
using permission based e-mail (2005)
communications to notify prospects of
promotions and services, acquire new
customers, increase sales, and, most
importantly, develop and nurture an ongoing
dialogue and relationship with their
Customers”
Viral Marketing Viral Marketing harnesses the network effect Chaffey (2009)
of the Internet and can be effective in
reaching a large number of people rapidly

16
4. Methodology
This chapter presents the research design and methodology planned to be used in this study. Diverse
alternatives for research approaches, designs and strategies are discussed, and the specific choices made
in this research proposal are clarified.

4.1. Research Purpose

There are three different types of research purposes: exploratory, explanatory and descriptive. The purpose
is chosen depended on the type of research questions and research interest.

“Descriptive study is designed to obtain data that describes the characteristics of the topic of interest in
the research” (Hair et al., 2011). It is performed to describe situations and events. Descriptive researches
aim to “portray an accurate profile of persons, events, or situation „and‟ there is an extensive need of
previous knowledge of the situation to be research or described” (Robson, 2002). Descriptive purpose is
used when research problem is well structured. Similar to this, Arbnor and Bjerke (2008) states that “The
problem of a descriptive study is to come up with as detailed a map as possible of some fictive reality”.

Since, our thesis is more interested in finding out the effectiveness of the online marketing tools rather
than making accurate descriptions we don‟t think descriptive study is appropriate for our study.

Robson (2002) states that explanatory study “seeks an explanation of a situation or problem, traditionally
but not necessarily in the form of causal relationships”. Explanatory study is more interested in explaining
relationship between variables through studying a situation or a problem (Saunders et al., 2009). Arbnor
and Bjerke (2008) states “The problem of the explanatory or hypothesis-testing study is to explain the
connections between causes and effects of some characteristics or events”.

Our study is more focused on attributes towards different marketing communication tools rather than
finding and explaining causes of them. That‟s why we think our study is not suitable for our thesis.

Robson (2002) states exploratory studies aim “to find out what is happening; to seek new insights; to ask
questions and to assess phenomena in a new light”. Exploratory study is valuable when trying to find out
what is happening and Saunders et al., (2009) state “It is particularly useful if you wish to clarify your
understanding of a problem, such as if you are unsure of the precise nature of the problem”. “The problem
for the explorative study is to come up with a more precise statement of the problem, which can be
brought forward in further efforts of creating knowledge” (Arbnor and Bjerke, 2008).

According to Kolb (2008) “companies should use exploratory research when a research question deals
with finding information on consumer attitudes, opinions and beliefs”. Hence our study aims to find an
insight on effectiveness of different marketing communication tools by asking question about attributes
and we decided on exploratory research in our thesis. Regarding aspects of consumer behavior, our work
can be regarded as explanatory, but we believe that the exploratory approach describes better this research.

4.2. Research Approach

There are two sub categories for research approaches. First category is deciding between deductive or
inductive approach and the second category is deciding between qualitative or quantitative approach.

17
Deductive or Inductive Approach

According to Saunders et al., (2009) a deductive approach is “a research approach involving the testing of
a theoretical proposition by the employment of a research strategy specifically designed for the purpose of
its testing”. Saunders et al., (Ibid) defined an inductive approach research as “an approach involving the
development of a theory as a result of the observation of empirical data”.

In general speaking, the deductive approach starts from theory to facts and the inductive approach
research develops theory from observations.

In our thesis, a deductive approach is adopted. First, we use existing theories and models to develop our
research question and then analyze our collected data.

Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

“Quantitative is predominantly used as a synonym for any data collection technique (such as a
questionnaire) or data analysis procedure (such as graphs or statistics) that generates or uses numerical
data”(Saunders et al., 2009).

“In contrast, qualitative is used predominantly as synonym for any data collection technique (such as an
interview) or data analysis procedure (such as categorizing data) that generates or uses non-numerical
data” (Ibid).

Hence our interview questionnaire is designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from
respondents; mixed method is adopted in our thesis. Saunders et al., (Ibid) defines mixed method as “the
general term for when both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques and analysis procedures
are used in a research design”

4.3. Research Strategy

According to Yin (2003) there are five different types of research strategy: Experiment, Survey, Archival
Analysis, History, and Case Study.

Table 4-1 Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies

Form of Research Requires Control Over Focuses on Contemporary

Strategy
Question Behavioral Events Events?
Experiment How, why Yes Yes
Who, what, where
Survey No Yes
how many, how much

Who, what, where

Archival Analysis No Yes/No
how many, how much

History How, why No No

Case Study How, why No Yes
Source: Adapted from Yin (2003)

18
All of our research questions belong to how and why questions. Therefore our possible strategy choices
could be experiment, history and case study. In our thesis, it‟s not possible to control over behavioral
events so we can‟t choose experiment. History is not suitable in our thesis because history strategy does
not focus on contemporary events. We found that case study is most suitable strategy choice for our study.

Robson (2002) states that “the case study method allows investigators to retain the holistic and meaningful
characteristics of real-life events-such as individual life cycles, organizational and managerial processes,
neighborhood change, international relations, and the maturation of industries”.

4.4. Sample Selection

There are two possible sample selection options: Probability and Non-Probability.

“Probability methods are based on the premise that each element of the target population has a known, but
not necessarily equal, probability of being selected in a sample” (Hair et al., 2011). “Probability sampling
is most commonly associated with survey-based research strategies where you need to make inferences
from your sample about a population to answer your research question(s) or to meet your objectives”
(Saunders et al., 2009). “Non-Probability is where the inclusion or exclusion of elements in a sample is
left to the discretion of the researcher” (Hair et al., 2011).

Our sample selection method is non-probability and we used subjective criteria to select our respondents,
such as their availability for questioning and fitting to our age group. Our research aimed to make
interviews with university students in Sweden. Respondents of our research are aged between 20 and 25
years old who are in the age group of most active internet users as we stated in the online consumer
(Chapter 1.1.3). Sixteen respondents are chosen to collect data from which consist of eight male and eight
female students in Luleå University of Technology.

4.5. Data Collection

According to Saunders et al., (2009) there are two types of data: primary and secondary data. Primary data
refers to collection of required data by the researcher specifically for their own purpose and study.
Secondary data refers to the data that has been collected by other researchers for some other purposes.
According to Hair et al. (2011) “when the research objectives cannot be achieved with secondary data,
primary data must be collected”.

Primary data can be collected through interviews, questionnaires, or observations. According to Yin
(2003) there are six types of data collecting for case study: documents, archival, records, interviews, direct
observation, participant-observation, and physical artifacts.

We think interview is the most suitable collection method for our research purpose. Yin (1994)
supportively states “The most significant source for obtaining case study information is interviews”.

Saunders et al., (2009) express that there are three types of interviews: structured, semi-structured, and
unstructured.

19
Table 4-2 Use of differenet types of interview in each of the main research categories

Exploratory Descriptive Explanatory

Structured More frequent Less frequent
Semi-structured Less frequent More frequent
Unstructured More frequent
Source: Adapted from Saunders et al., (2009)

In our thesis Semi Structured Interview data collection method is adopted. We want to ask open ended
questions to be able to get the views of the respondents rather than asking direct yes or no question. And,
we also think that semi structured interview provides more flexibility rather than structured interviews.

Our interview consists of four parts, in the first and second parts we intended to learn more about the
respondents‟ online surfing behavior and their online experiences. The questions are designed as open
ended and we used example keywords to simplify the questions. These first two parts of the questionnaire
are intended to find an answer for our first research question. In the third part of the questionnaire, we
presented examples for each question to make it easy for the respondent to understand, then we asked
them to scale and comment online marketing tools according to fourteen different attributes. The third part
of the questionnaire is intended to find an answer for our second research question. In the fourth part
multiple choice and open ended questions are asked to learn about their opinion about online marketing
communications.

We chose Luleå University of Technology as the primary focus in finding our respondents and the
university‟s library as the place to hold the interviews.

A total of 18 students have agreed to fill in the questionnaire, but due to the length of the questions and
time, 2 have not finished answering and 12 chose only to fill in the responses and not give a full interview
and interact with the researcher.

Our research questionnaire has been divided into four parts, looking more closely and asking our
respondents of their online behavior, online communication experience, several online marketing tools
and finally B2C communication though the Internet.

4.6. Data Analysis

According to Miles and Huberman (1994), data analysis consists of three steps: data reduction, data
displaying and conclusion drawing.

1. Data reduction reflects the process of exclusion of unnecessary data to simplify the collected
data for the display.

2. Data display is the process of assembling or organizing the collected data into diagrams or
visuals.

3. Conclusion drawing is the final step where researcher needs to decide what different findings
mean by noting regularities, patterns, explanations, possible configurations, causal flows, and
propositions

20
Our study follows these three steps. First of all we collected data through semi-structured interviews, an
example of the questionnaire can be found in the Appendix - A. Then, we simplified the raw data we
collected by excluding the unnecessary data in terms of relevance and significance. Secondly, for the first
question of our research, collected data is listed in a table 5-1 in the order from the most important to the
less important. For the second question, collected data is displayed in column charts by showing mean
scores of male, female respondents. Collected raw data can be found in the Appendix - B. Both within
and cross case analysis is conducted to be able to answer our research questions. Finally, we drew a
conclusion from findings.

4.7. Research Quality; Validity and Reliability

According to Saunders et al., (2009) “Validity is concerned with whether the findings are really about
what they appear to be about”.

Our data collection is gathered through semi-conducted interviews. To avoid validity problems in our
study we have taken measures to avoid confusion. First of all, we chose only respondents who have earlier
experience on online shopping and all of the respondents were university students who are actively using
internet and online services. Secondly, we predicted problems in using marketing terminology and have
prepared sample prints for each marketing tools to eliminate misunderstandings and to simplify the
technical terms. If the respondents didn‟t find prints useful; we have our computers ready to show
different examples of the marketing communication tools.

“Reliability refers to the extent to which your data collection techniques or analysis procedures will yield
consistent findings” (Saunders et al., 2009). It can be assessed by posing the following three questions
(Thorpe et al. 2008:109 cited in Saunders et al., 2009);

1. Will the measures yield the same results on other occasions?

2. Will similar observations be reached by other observers?
3. Is there transparency in how sense was made from the raw data?

To answer the first question, due to the ever-changing nature of online business and online consumer
behavior, the data collected can suffer changes when applied to different subjects or in a different period
of time. In our research, we have conceptualized a digital framework and structured a list of attributes that
can be seen as the constant parts of this research, but of course the results may vary in time or place.

The chances for other researchers to reach the same results are improbable due to the subjective nature of
respondents and type of interview that we chose to conduct. But the conceptualization of the theoretical
framework can help in formulating the same questions. In that aspect, we have attached a model of the
interview questionnaire in the Appendix - A to serve as an example for future research.

As for the third point of transparency to be reached, detailed data presentation and quotations are given to
convey an image of the students‟ responses and to enforce our own observations. By doing this we
transmit the exact language used by students and we show the mood of the interviews. Plus, explicit and
centralized tables and graphs show the results of our interviews. So, we consider our research to confirm
with the necessary levels of validity and reliability in order to offer good results that can also be referred
in future works.

21
5. Data Presentation
This chapter will present the data that we have collected. The data was obtained from interviews with
sixteen students in Sweden. While making the data presentation, we believe it‟s more appropriate for our
study to follow the path of our interview questionnaire rather than presenting the data in the order of
research questions. Thus, we will present the collected data under each heading of our questionnaire.

We chose Luleå University of Technology as the primary focus in finding our respondents and the
university‟s library as the place to hold the interviews.

A total of 18 students have agreed to fill in the questionnaire, but due to the length of the questions and
time, 2 have not finished answering and 12 chose only to fill in the responses and not give a full interview
and interact with the researcher.

Our research questionnaire has been divided into four parts, looking more closely and asking our
respondents of their online behavior, online communication experience, several online marketing tools
and finally B2C communication though the Internet.

5.1. Online Behavior

Our respondents have stated that they use Internet on a daily basis with time ranging from one hour to 8
hours. The most common response involves around 3 to 4 hours/ daily.

When we asked about their internet routine, all students have said that they first check their e-mail account
and their social networking profiles. All of them have named Facebook as a common website for
interaction and their private personal e-mail as primary source to communicate and stay informed.
Information search for school or for hobbies is also mentioned as an option in their surfing routine.
Entertainment purposes and buying online have been also mentioned.

“First, I usually check my Facebook and my e-mail and then, depend on… I could do school
things or I could watch television like online. ….then I could do research for school in scientific
articles. I could check dog breeders‟ websites. …I don‟t think I buy anything other than that
(travel tickets), maybe books online...” (Physiotherapist, 23, F)

If we make a classification of the answers received, personal e-mail and social networking, in the shape of
Facebook account, live messaging, are the first places to visit online. Then, information search comes for
school, hobbies or news.

5.2. Online Communication Experience

As a participant in online communication with the companies, an overwhelming majority see themselves
as not taking part and not answering to different ways of communicating.

Asked freely about the Internet as a way of communication with the companies, respondents gave
attributes as follows „effective‟, „annoying‟, „useful‟, „indifferent‟ or „impersonal‟. Most of the
respondents thought of Online Ads or spam e-mail when asked about this sort of communication.

22
 “I think some companies over do it, in the sense of sending e-mail every day, or pop-ups. I do not
pay attention and usually ignore them. They are time consuming, complicated as the e-mails are
too long and don‟t give you all the information”. (Engineer, 21, M)

“It‟s ok to communicate through internet. Maybe it is more useful/ effective for the company.”
(Teacher, 20, F)

“Both useful and irritating. Depends on what they are making advertising to.” (Teacher, 21, F)

We asked participants to choose five attributes from the list and rate them from 5 (most important) to 1
(less important). Below you can see the answers of the 16 participants for each attributes:

Table 5-1 Results from the second part of the interview questionnaire

23
To be able to measure scores and order the attributes from the most important to less important we have
summed up rating scale, we have assigned zero point for the unpicked attributes. Table 5-2 represents the
top 5 most important attributes according to interview results:

Table 5-2 Top 5 attributes of the interview results

Top 5 Attributes
1- Informative 43
2- Enjoyable 40
3- Entertaining 36
4- Convenient 32
5- Easy to reject 25

Results show that according to our respondents the most important attribute of an online marketing
communication tool is being informative. It is been followed by being Enjoyable, being Entertaining,
being Convenient, and being easy to reject.

5.3. Online Marketing Communications

All respondents have been then asked to judge different online marketing communication tools in
correlation to our choice of attributes. A closer look and analysis will be presented in the next subchapter.

Figure 5-1 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Easy to reject

Easy to reject Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female
7
6 5,25
4,88 4,755,004,50 4,81 4,754,884,63
5 4,38 4,38 4,194,254,13 4,314,384,25
3,88
4
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

When we asked to participants of our interviews: “How easy do you find to reject communication received
through communication channels?” Our interview results show that respondents have neutral view
towards all communication tools. Results show that male and female respondents have similar
understanding for these tools. The only noticeable difference was in Search Engine Marketing (4,88 to
3,88) and Online Partnership (4,38 to 5,25)

24
Figure 5-2 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Enjoyable

Enjoyable Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6 5,25
5 4,38 4,444,254,63 4,63
3,88 3,75 4,00
4 3,443,253,63 3,38 3,25
2,75
3 2,38
2,00
2 1,63
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Our second question was related with being enjoyable. We asked participants: “How enjoyable do you
find communications you receive from companies in the following ways?” It can be easily seen from the
results that Online Advertisements received the lowest mean scores from our participants in terms of being
enjoyable communication tool. Viral Marketing and Online Partnership has an important dominance
against Online Ads and E-mail Marketing tools. According to our interview results Viral Marketing is the
most enjoyable communication tool with 4.17 rates, and it‟s followed by Online Partnerships with 4.00
mean score. When we look at the difference between male and female participants female participants
finds email marketing and Online PR more enjoyable than male participants and male participants enjoy
receiving communication through Viral Marketing.

Figure 5-3 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Trustworthy

Trustworthy Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6
5 4,444,754,13
3,75
4 3,133,382,88 3,133,003,25 3,38
3,00 3,253,253,25
3 2,50
2,06
2 1,63
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Third attribute in our interviews was about trustworthiness of online marketing communication tools. We
asked: “How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive from companies in the following

25
ways?” Gathered results showed that Online Partnerships has slightly more advantage against the other
tools and it is been followed by e-mail marketing. Online Ads received lowest trustworthiness mean score
with 2.06. For this attribute it can be seen there is not much difference in the answers of male and female
respondents.

Figure 5-4 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Informative

Informative Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6
5,005,005,00
5 4,444,134,75 4,38
3,81 3,883,754,00 3,693,384,00
4 3,25
2,883,132,63
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

For our question; “In general, how informative do you find communications you receive from companies
via…” Our respondents answered that Online Partnership is more informative than others and it is been
followed by Search Engine Marketing. Female and male participants have the same mean score for Online
Partnership and they think that it is moderately informative communication tool. The lowest informative
tool is Online Ads with 2.88 mean score.

Figure 5-5 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Convenient

Convenient Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6 5,255,135,38
5 4,444,384,50 4,134,254,00
3,693,503,88 3,813,883,75
4
3 2,442,502,38
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

26
Answer of respondents to “How convenient do you consider communications you receive from companies
via …” show that it is convenient to receive messages through Online Partnerships this tool has received
4.72 mean score from our respondents and it is being followed by Search Engine Marketing with 4.44
mean score. According to results the most inconvenient tool is Online Ads with 2.22 mean score. For
convenience attribute our respondents have very similar view towards the tools. Results also showed that
answers of male and female participants are very close to each other.

Figure 5-6 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Acceptable

Acceptable Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6 5,38
5,00 4,754,754,75
5 4,63 4,63
4,19 4,13 4,134,134,13
3,75 3,69
4 3,25 2,943,252,63
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Our respondents think that it is acceptable to receive communication through Online Partnership when we
asked “How acceptable to you are communications you receive from companies via…” and Online
Partnership is followed by Viral Marketing. Online Ads have received the lowest acceptance mean score
from our respondents when compared with other tools. Answers of male and female participants were
almost similar. Female participants think that it is more acceptable to receive through Online Partnership
and Online PR when compared with male respondents.

27
Figure 5-7 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Entertaining

Entertaining Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6 5,135,384,88
4,75
5 4,384,254,50 4,31
3,563,383,75 3,88
4 3,313,003,63
3 2,192,382,00
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Seventh attribute in our interview was entertainment. We asked participants; “How entertaining are
communications you receive from companies via ... “. According to answers the most entertaining tool is
Viral Marketing with 5.13 mean score and it is followed by Online PR and Online Partnerships with close
mean scores. The lowest is given to Online Ads; both female and male respondents agreed that it is not
entertaining to receive communication through Online Ads.

Figure 5-8 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Reliable

Reliable Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6
5 4,194,134,25
3,88 3,63
4 3,50 3,193,00 3,38 3,25 3,383,503,25
3,13 3,13 2,88
3 2,56
2,00
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

“How reliable do you consider information you receive from companies via …” was our eighth question.
Results show that the most reliable tool is Online Partnership according to our respondents and the most
unreliable tool is the Online Ads. Search Engine Marketing, Online PR, Email Marketing, Viral Marketing
has very close mean score to each other.

28
Figure 5-9 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Appropriate

Appropriate Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6
5,004,885,13
5 4,384,254,50 4,564,384,75 4,444,254,63
4 3,563,383,75
3,13
2,75
3 2,38
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Ninth question was related with being appropriate and our question was “How appropriate do you
consider communications you receive from companies via …” Online Partnership, Online PR, Viral
Marketing, and Search Engine Marketing has received high mean score from respondents. Online Ads has
the lowest mean score with 2.75. It can be seen that female and male respondents have given almost the
same reaction and has similar view to marketing communication tools.

Figure 5-10 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Objectionable

Objectionable Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6
5 4,38
4,00 4,00 4,00 4,00
4 3,63 3,56
3,13
3,63
3,25 3,443,133,75 3,63
3,25 3,503,503,50
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

We asked participants “Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a company, how
objectionable would you find it if that company communicated with you through the following way…” Our
respondents had neutral view towards the online marketing communications in terms of being
objectionable. All the tools have received almost the same reaction from the participants and mean scores
very close to each other. There is also similarity between the results gathered from both male and female.

29
Figure 5-11 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Annoying

Annoying Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
5,695,505,88
6
4,88
5 4,314,634,00 4,31
3,75 3,884,003,75
4 3,50
3,062,883,25 3,06
3 2,63
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

When we asked “How annoying do you consider communications you receive from companies in the
following ways …” Online Ads have received high mean scores our respondents find it very annoying to
receive communication through Online Ads. The lowest mean scores are given to Online Partnership and
Viral Marketing and we can see that our respondents have more positive attitude on Online Partnership
and Viral Marketing against Online Ads. Male respondents find Online PR more annoying when
compared with female respondents. On the other hand, female respondents find Viral Marketing more
annoying in comparison with male respondents.

Figure 5-12 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Time Consuming

Time Consuming Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female
7
6 5,38
4,38 4,50 4,69
5 4,314,13 4,25
3,88 3,81 4,00 3,753,883,63 4,004,253,75
4 3,38 3,38
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

Question of “How personally time-consuming do you consider communications you receive from
companies in the following ways” asked to the respondents and gathered results show that our respondents
have neutral view towards online communication tools in terms of being time consuming. The most
noticeable point is that Female respondents think that Online Ads is more time consuming against the

30
others there is also slightly big difference when we compared the answered of male and female
respondents towards Online Ads.

Figure 5-13 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Difficult to Ignore

Difficult to Ignore Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female
7
6
5
3,693,503,88 4,00
4 3,563,383,75 3,38 3,443,633,25 3,313,383,25
3,133,003,25
2,75
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

We asked respondents to score “How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you receive from
companies via...” Gathered results were close to each other and it can be concluded that respondents were
neutral for the difficult to ignore attribute. There is one important difference between female and male
respondents where Female respondents think that it is neutrally difficult to ignore communication Online
Ads but on the hand male respondents think that it is easy to ignore.

Figure 5-14 Results from third part of the interview questionnaire - Disruptive

Disruptive Mean Score Mean Score Male Mean Score Female

7
6 5,50
4,63 4,63
5 4,193,884,50 4,19 3,943,884,00 3,88
3,75 3,75 3,50
4 3,193,003,38 3,13
3
2
1
Search Engine Online PR Online Online Ads Email Marketing Viral Marketing
Marketing Partnership

•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely

The latest attribute was about being disruptive. We asked “When you receive a communication from a
company, it can interrupt what you are doing at the time. How disruptive do you consider communications
you receive from companies via…” Conclusions from our results show that our respondents find Online

31
Ads moderately disruptive against other tools. Lowest mean scores are given to Online Partnership and
Viral Marketing. The major difference between male and female respondents can be seen in Online Ads.
While female participants find it very disruptive to receive message through Online Ads, Male
respondents thinks it is as disruptive as Search Engine Marketing, Online PR and Email Marketing.

5.4. B2C Communication

In the final part of the interviews, we have asked our students to choose their preferred way of online
communication and tools to receive information from companies.

Most of them have crossed as preferred ways of communicating through e-mail and social media. Also
communication through entertaining video or commercials has been a popular choice of response.

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6. Data Analysis
In this chapter, empirical data that we presented in the previous chapter will be analyzed in the order of
online marketing tools. Firstly, a cross case analysis between fourteen attributes will be done to find an
answer for our research question one. Then, a within case analysis will be conducted to compare the
empirical data with our conceptual framework to be able to find an answer of our second research
question.

As an overall observation gained through our interviews, customers between the ages of 17 to 24 are avid
users of the internet and have already a daily routine that includes at least 2 hours of being on the Internet.

All of our respondents have at one time purchased something online, most common answers were books
and travel tickets, but have not expressed a wish to remain connected to the vendor or receive follow-ups
on commercial offers. From our observations, users are more inclined to receive information related to
their hobbies or things of interested.

Internet as a communication channel

The most common use of the internet is for information search and private communication. Although the
respondents are aware of B2C communication, they have little understanding of it and usually regard it as
pop-up commercials that often „irritate‟ (Physiotherapist, 24, M). They do not see the internet as a
channel to communicate with companies, but at the same time they look for information about companies
online. So, having a website is crucial for any company and online presence is self-understood in the form
of commercials.

Our respondents have shown a low level of interaction with companies via online. The most common
cause of interaction was hobby related, information search or intention to buy products (in this order).
These three reasons have been then followed through known sources, for example search engines, already
known and visited websites and referral or third-party information. Third-party information sources are
mentioned as referrals from a friend via social media and established brand-websites

6.1. Cross Case Analysis

Our research has ranked the most common attributes that describe the opinion and image of students about
internet as a communication channel for B2C communication. From our choice of 14 attributes five stand
out, as presented in the previous chapter, and those are:

1. Informative (43 total points)

2. Enjoyable (40 total points)
3. Entertaining (36 total points)
4. Convenient (32 total points)
5. Easy-to-reject (25 total points)

With a total of 12 nominations, the attribute „informative‟ is the first one to describe the internet as a
communication channel, in our respondents‟ opinions. It has been often placed on the second position in
the ranking, as the internet is seen as a fast and good information source. Even more, supported by the
research of Rowlands et al., (2008) the students today can‟t imagine a world without internet and the

33
World Wide Web is the first stop in their search of information., the „Google generation‟ as he puts it. To
support their own motivation of choosing informative, students have argued that:

“Everything I want to know is there. I just go and look for what I want.”

„Enjoyable‟ is the second favorite attribute to describe internet as a communication channel, but also as a
way to receive information. Most of the respondents have ranked this attribute on 3rd or 4th place.
According to Danaher and Rossiter (2011) „enjoyable‟ is linked also to „entertaining‟ as this two stay
close together when it comes to communication channels. Fair enough, our respondents support this
theory and ranked 3rd „entertaining‟. With a small difference of only 4 points between these two (due to
different ranking positions) we can state that indeed „enjoyable‟ and „entertaining‟ are very important
advantages for internet as a communication channel. Cho and Huh (2010) have also discovered the
importance of these two attributes in the form of multimedia features that can increase effectiveness of
customer interaction.

„Convenient‟ is seen as a suitable attribute to describe the internet as well. What should be pointed out is
that although it has gathered only 7 nominations in our ranking, the positions were always 1st or 2nd. Four
students have chosen this attribute first in their mind when they think of the internet as a communication
channel. This can be easily understandable, as internet is offering the liberty of non-stop surfing and
flexibility to the reader to find out exactly the information he or she wants. Also, „convenient‟ can be seen
as a description of „easy-to-reject‟, last place on our ranking. In many cases, while interviewing our
respondents, we have noticed that convenient is related to time availability and willingness to receive the
communication message. Respondents see internet as a flexible and easy-to-reject source of information
and communication. But, as argued by Rowlands et al., (2008) the „Google generation‟ does not possess
more skilled insight into critical and analytical interpretation of the information transmitted to him or her
though this media. So we can deduct that our students‟ description of the internet as a „convenient‟ tools
of communication refers more to the time flexibility and also ease to receive or ignore the communication.

Another point that captured our attention was a clear preference of the female students for certain
attributes from our 14-attributes list. It appears that „enjoyable‟ and „informative‟ have been chosen very
often as describing the internet. Also, what does not appear in our ranking, but is important for our female
respondents, is time-consuming as a negative attribute of the internet. So, it is clear that women see the
internet as rich in information and a pleasant way of receiving that information, but they seem to be
stressed by the amount of time that it takes out their routine.

Taking a look at the other attributes that were just rarely used to describe the internet, their absence does
not mean that they are not important. For example, „objectionable‟, ‟appropriate‟ and „trustworthy‟ have
been scored only once. This can be translated into lack of confidence of the information that is presented
through this channel, but in the same time by not selecting „objectionable‟ we see that respondents are
very used to this communication and even if they do not trust it, they receive it.

The issue of trustworthiness has been widely brought up every time internet communication is discussed
and it represents the biggest challenge in online communication. Danaher and Rossiter (2011) believe that
the only reason for which internet has not taken over the first position in communication channels is
because traditional channels still retain trust and reliability of information as main description attributes.

34
The lack of selection of „appropriate‟ can be understood as consumers‟ feeling of disturbance while
surfing. Nicholas et al., (2003) point out that obtrusive advertising is a directly link to reduction in brand
trustworthiness.

The general overview of internet as a communication channel has been described in positive attributes as
„entertaining‟ and „convenient‟. In the same time, „informative‟ resulted on the top position, show that
consumers see the internet firstly as unilateral information channel and their first activity online is to
search and read information.

6.2. Within-Case Analysis

As our main concern is how to attract customers through different marketing tools and which ones are
more effective, we will divide the analysis into 6 parts, each part referring to one set of online marketing
tools.

6.2.1. Search Engine Marketing

Based on earlier researches (Green 2003, Sen 2005, Dou 2010) we can conclude that high percentage of
internet users visit search engines to get more information about goods and services to inform their
purchase decisions. The search engine is presented as a popular choice of channel to look for information
for almost every occasion and according to Dou (2010) “More than half of Internet traffic begins with a
search engine”. Similar to theory our results show that Search Engine Marketing is chosen as the second
most informative tool by our respondents right after online partnership. Respondents said that they find
communications they receive from companies via search engines are informative and one of the
respondents says that;

“It is very convenient, since what I‟m looking for is right there and not just any ads.”
(Physiotherapist, 21, F)

Respondents stated that it is trustworthy to receive messages from companies through search engines.

“The search engines examine the ads before putting them on the top. The ones on the side are
trustworthy because usually I know about the companies, they are often well known.”
(Physiotherapist, 21, F)

As a communication channel, results generated by this method are very likely to be followed up by users
and are regarded as referral from an authorized person. However, we can make a distinction in
effectiveness regarding SEO marketing and Pay-per-click results. Whereas SEO results have scored
highest to be followed up and so to attract customers, Pay-per-click ads are not noticed and so, not
attracting customers.

As a hole, Search Engine Marketing tools have scored the favorable attributes from our 14 respondents
they expressed SEM as trustworthy, reliable, and not time consuming and informative.

6.2.2. Online PR
Online PR media has proven to be a favorite way of communication privately and B2C because it delivers
a visual or close perspective of the communication message. This set of tools has been mentioned to
attract the customers especially to events and opinion interaction. Mangold and Faulds (2009) states that

35
“Social media tools become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior including
awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, and post-purchase
communication and evaluation”.

Our respondents states that Online PR is entertaining and this was not a surprising result, regarding the
popularity of social networks and blogs of today. Students are one of the most active users of the social
networks and our respondent students stated that they find it entertaining to receive communications from
companies through online PR tools. One of the respondents says that;

“If it‟s something I am interested in, I follow it.” (Architect, 22, F)

Results show that, online PR tools are seen as easy-to-reject, time-consuming and entertaining (mean
values over 4) and the companies must always be the initiators of this way of communication. In terms of
being time-consuming one participant stated that;

“It is not very convenient, because it tends to get in the way of what I really want to do on the
internet; it is usually not for something that I‟m interested in.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

6.2.3. Online Partnership

Online Partnership includes affiliate marketing and online sponsorships. According to Goldschmidt et al.,
(2004) users trust the information or links provided by the affiliates. Our research findings were
supporting this decision. Our participants choose online partnership as the most trustworthy online
marketing communication tool. Most common example of online partnership for participants was the price
comparison websites such as; pricerunner.se, prisjakt.nu, and kelkoo.se. One of the respondents says;

“I think it is pretty trustworthy, most companies on ex. Pricerunner.se is known to me I trust them
so why wouldn‟t I trust the rest; however I wonder sometimes how they make their profit and I
should just be so naïve to just accept their information.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

Online Partnership has received highest mean scores from many attributes in our interviews, those are;
easy to reject, trustworthy, informative, convenient, acceptable, reliable and appropriate and lowest from
negative attributes such as annoying, difficult to ignore, disruptive.

These ways of communication are „very convenient‟ (Architect, 22, F) because they save time (lowest
mean value 3,81) and present „clear and easy information‟ as mentioned by one of our respondents. .
Another respondent says that

“It is very convenient to use online partners, stores are right there; I don‟t have to make the extra
effort of finding every specific website.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

Communication presented in this manner is seen as easy to read, informative and appropriate and so it is
attracting the visitors to follow up the information and check it

6.2.4. Online Ads

Wang et al., (2002) states that studies show there is a negative view towards advertisements and
sometimes these efforts of companies can be annoying to the customers. Our study results were supporting
these findings. Results showed that Online Ads has the highest negative mean scores for almost every
attributes. Most of the students had a very negative reaction and responses related to Online Ads. And the

36
common response was „annoying‟ in regards to this way of communication. According to participants of
our interviews, they find Online Ads annoying, untrustworthy, unacceptable, time consuming,
objectionable and disruptive. One of the respondents state;

“For example pop-ups, they get in the way of what I‟m doing, usually watching a movie, which is
very disrupting.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

According to Wang et al., (2002) traditional advertisement differs from online advisements and he states
that online advertisement can be interactive and can be suited according to user‟s needs thus it can provide
better opportunities for customers. Our research showed that today Online Ads are designed attractive and
they are even suited according to user needs but our participants think that the Online Ads are
objectionable and inappropriate online marketing communication tool.

“Find this type of advertising easy to reject because it is so obvious advertising, and my eyes are
so used to it that I just skip it.” (Architect, 22, F)

The ads did not attract any of the respondents and were said to be very easy to ignore, but not disruptive.
These can be a sign of saturation though common online advertising; users are annoyed by it, but have
learned to accept and ignore it.

6.2.5. E-Mail Marketing

As e-mail is an ancestor of online communication it is natural that our respondents feel natural to use it in
both private communication and B2C communication and it is see as trustworthy and informative by most
of them. The remark that we have to make here is their separation between spam mail and subscribed e-
mail. The above description refers to subscribed communication from companies that they have visited
online more than once.

“Yes when I didn‟t ask for them but mostly I know that I did so I just try to ignore them, and some
I even enjoy.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

Morimoto and Chang (2006) states that people are more likely to reject communication through email
because they do not have the control of the mail and they are not completely involved in the
communication. Similar to this theoretical view our respondents think is hard to reject and email
marketing has the lowest mean score in terms of being easy to reject.

“The company that I order make-up from I find hard to reject because I love to shop for make-up
but other than that I just delete the e-mail, I never read them at all.” (Physiotherapist, 21, F)

6.2.6. Viral Marketing

According to our interview participants Viral Marketing is the most enjoyable and entertaining way of
online communication tool. Viral Marketing has a more fun component that informative one and is, in the
same time, able to create the wanted outcome of viral referral or very easily be ignored. As stated from
one of our respondents

“I usually find these clips as boring and just another commercial…I remember that I like one of
them. It was fun.” (Engineer, 21, M)

37
7. Conclusion, Further Implications
The final chapter sums up conclusions that we have made by comparing literature and observations from
our own research. It will answer our research questions and formulate recommendations for theoreticians
and practitioners.

7.1. Conclusion
This paper has tried to look into the effectiveness of the internet as a communication channel and also into
the effectiveness to attract customers with means of numerous online marketing tools.

To answer our first question: How online marketing communications can be described? We had to look
into online customer behavior and characteristics of communications through internet. Our research has
confirmed presented theory on this topic and supports the portrait of a new social consumer (Nicholas et
al., 2003) that is always connected via internet to get informed or connect with others through social
media.

In spite of this need to be connected, consumers do not see the internet as a channel for company
communication. They rarely use this channel to communicate with companies and it is mostly for hobbies
or personal interests. They see themselves as passive in B2C communication, but they are aware of it. It is
very important for marketers, as communication initiators, to mention that most respondents understand
advertising as communication received from companies. They feel bombarded with information, but are
happy when they receive something they are interested in. Because of the frequency and quantity of
information received via internet, consumers are very mistrusting towards these channel and do not find it
appropriate for direct B2C communication.

As to describe internet as a communication channel: informative, enjoyable, entertaining, convenient and

easy-to-reject have been the first attributes to stand out. These only strengthens the available theory of a
user that sees internet surfing and communication as leisure activity (Nicholas and Dobrowolski, 2000)
that has to be „fun‟ and „easy‟. These two adjectives have been mentioned very often even in our second
part of the research; trying to find out: How online marketing communication tools can be described as a
way of online marketing communication?

In our frame of reference, we have divided online marketing communication in six different tools (Search
Engine Marketing, Online PR, Online Partnership, Online Ads, E-mail Marketing and Viral Marketing)
and asked the respondents to describe them.

The Search Engine Optimization tool has scored high in respondents‟ opinion. As theory mentions and our
research confirms it, online users use and trust the Search Engine for any information search. Search
Engine Marketing can attract customers through trust and convenience.

Online PR is favored in B2C communication because of its‟ entertaining factor and also because it is not
seen as direct communication with companies, but more as a socializing activity and being involved in
events.

Online partnerships tools have scored the highest in positive attributes: trustworthy, informative,
convenient, acceptable, reliable, appropriate and lowest in negative attributes such as annoying or

38
disruptive. These set of tools are the one with the most favorable in attracting customers due to a third-
party website/entity that mediates the communication and delivers clear and accurate information.

Now to come to our lowest scored online tool, the interactive ads which are not favored at all by our
respondents, due to the obvious association with commercials this B2C communication from companies to
consumers in any form of advertising (pop-up, banners, text ads, etc.). These methods of communication
are ignored by online users. They are seen as very annoying, untrustworthy, and disruptive and are not
attracting online users in any way.

As an alternative to online ads, Viral Marketing can be used which has been found „entertaining‟ and
„enjoyable‟ by our respondents. As the referral component is present in spreading this type of marketing,
trust and convenience can attract users into communication with companies.

Last but not least, e-mail marketing is mentioned as the favorite way of receiving B2C communication,
but in the same time it seems to annoy receivers because of the load and frequency of information sent this
way.

Summing up our observations, the internet is seen as a B2C communication channel, but not favored by
online consumers. It possesses attributes that can lead to a positive outcome in communication and can
attract customers when used correctly. For practitioners, this means that consumers are aware of B2C
communication, but they try to avoid it. Internet presence should definitely be strengthen, but with the
right mix of onlıne marketıng tools.

The online marketing tools that have scored high among most of the positive attributes are Online PR,
SEM and Viral Marketing, but we will not limit our recommendations to these three, as the company‟s
environment, budget, and customers and so on, have to influence any marketer‟s decision. Instead, we
have observed important attributes that should be present in to any kind of B2C communication.

Our respondents have put a lot of emphasis on entertainment and trustworthy source of information, when
referring to communication and this emphasis has led to our above mentioned top three online tools.
Respondents do not seem to trust direct B2C communication unless it is mediated through a third party
filter – user, referral or independent website. This might be because of the huge amount of information
that is available to them – they use a search engine to filter it, or short attention-spans that are directed
more to recommendations from known sources.

In any sort of online marketing strategy attributes as entertainment or enjoyable have to be present and
communication should be made through customers trusted sources in these manner, no matter the set of
online tools, attracting the customer will be made easier.

7.2. Further Implications

We can conclude that the research has confirmed most of the theory available. Our contribution sits
mainly in testing a set of attributes to describe the internet as a communication channel together with
online communication tools. We have singled out important attributes that should be present in any online
communication as entertaining and trustworthy in attracting customers.

In our research, trustworthiness has risen as a very important factor in effective communication. As our
research has treated all of the attributes as equal, we encourage further research into different connections

39
between trustworthiness, or lack of it, and the other attrıbutes. Also, as our paper refers only to attract
customers, it represents a good starting point for other investigations into all the five steps of our digital
framework – attract, engage, retain, learn and relate to customers.

We have treated communication as being initiated by companies and directed to consumers, but an
interesting question presents itself when consumers get involved and even initiated this communication
and help spread the message, as it could happen in Viral Marketing. Further research can investigate what
are the attributes of this communication and how or why do users get involved.

40
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Appendix A - Questionnaire
Thank you for participating in our research.

Based on some pictures featuring examples of internet communication with customers, you will be
asked to answer a few questions about your attitudes regarding this process, from your point of view.

1. Online Behavior

1. How much time you spend on the internet daily?

_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

2. Can you please describe your online surfing routine?

(Ex. e-mail, communicating and socializing (skype, facebook…) information search)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

2. Online Communication Experience

1. Today, companies are using internet to reach and communicate with you as a customer. How do you
feel about this way of communication through internet?
(Ex: useful, annoying, time consuming, effective, entertaining, fun, actual, easy etc.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

2. How would you describe your involvement to this communication?

(Ex.: active, passive surfer, like to socialize through the internet, like to order through the internet,
etc.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

44
3. If you would have to choose from five of this attributes, how would you describe the internet as a
way of communication?
[Please rate from 1(most important) to 5(less important)]

a. Easy to reject 
b. Enjoyable 
c. Trustworthy 
d. Informative 
e. Convenient 
f. Acceptable 
g. Entertaining 
h. Reliable 
i. Appropriate 
j. Objectionable 
k. Annoying 
l. Time consuming 
m. Difficult to ignore 
n. Disruptive 
o. Other __________

45
3. Online Marketing Communications

3.1 Search Engine Marketing

Companies try to increase their visibilities in search engines by doing so they can attract new customers
to their businesses. These efforts of the firms are called Search Engine Marketing.

For example; Assume that you are searching for a new 32” led TV in google.se. At the top of and in the
right corner of the page there are list of companies who are willing to pay money to be seen by new
customers. And in the green marked part of the webpage there are list of websites that optimized their
websites to the search engine so they can be seen first on the list.

46
According to given example and definition of Search Engine
Marketing Please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through search engines:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through search engines:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through search engines:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through search engines:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through search engines:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through search engines:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through search engines:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through search engines:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through search engines:       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through search engines:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through search engines:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through search       
engines:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through search engines:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through search engines:       

47
3.2 Online PR
Companies try to maximize favorable mentions of their website on third party web sites which are likely
to be visited by you. This is called Online PR technique.

Spotify is a good example for effective Online PR. As you can see from the snapshot below, company
uses all online social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and they are actively blogging
about the recent news to keep in contact with customers.

48
According to given example and definition of Online PR,
please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through Online PR activities:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online PR activities:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online PR activities:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online PR activities:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online PR activities:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through Online PR activities:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through Online PR activities:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through Online PR activities:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online PR activities       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through Online PR activities:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online PR:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through Online       
PR activities:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through Online PR activities:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online PR activities:       

49
3.3 Online Partnership
One of the most known types of Online Partnership is price comparison websites. As you can see from
our snapshot, pricerunner.se helps customers to find the right seller they are looking for.

50
According to given example and definition of Online
Partnership, please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through Online Partnership:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online Partnership:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online Partnership:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through Online Partnership:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through Online Partnership:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through Online Partnership:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through Online       
Partnership:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through Online Partnership:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Partnership:       

51
3.4 Interactive Ads
Interactive ads (banners) are one of the well-known online communication techniques. Companies use
banners to attract visitors to their websites. In our snapshot; you can see aftonbladet.se has different
ads from different companies in all over the homepage.

52
According to given example and definition of Online Ads,
please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through Online Ads:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online Ads:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through Online Ads:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through Online Ads:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through Online Ads:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through Online Ads:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through Online       
Ads:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through Online Ads:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       

53
3.5 E-mail Marketing
Companies try to reach as much as customers they can. And companies can send you an e-mail even if
you don’t have an account in their website. They can also use e-mails to send information about offers,
news to their customers. In our snapshot, Cdon.com tries to convince their customer come back by
offering free delivery.

54
According to given example and definition of E-mail
Marketing, please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through E-mail Marketing:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through E-mail Marketing:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through E-mail Marketing:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through E-mail       
Marketing:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through E-mail Marketing:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through E-mail Marketing:       

55
3.6 Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing uses the internet to reach large number of people; it can be in form of a video, funny
picture, or song etc. The main idea is to create a content that will attract attention of the people and
make them to share.

In our snapshot; Tipp-Ex uses an interactive video so the user can change the scenario. This video has
almost 46 million views in YouTube and it’s still increasing.

56
According to given example and definition of Viral Marketing,
please answer following questions;

How easy do you find to reject communication received from

companies through Viral Marketing:       
In general, how enjoyable do you find communications you
receive from companies through Viral Marketing:       
How trustworthy do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Viral Marketing:       
In general, how informative do you find communications you
receive from companies through Viral Marketing:       
How convenient do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Viral Marketing:       
How acceptable to you are communications you receive from
companies through Viral Marketing:       
In general, how entertaining are communications you receive
from companies through Viral Marketing:
      
How reliable do you consider information you receive from
companies through Viral Marketing:       
How appropriate do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Viral Marketing:       
Assuming you did not directly provide any personal details to a
company, how objectionable would you find it if that company       
communicated with you through Viral Marketing:
How annoying do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Online Ads:       
How personally time-consuming do you consider
communications you receive from companies through Viral       
Marketing:
How difficult to ignore do you consider communications you
receive from companies through Viral Marketing:       
How disruptive do you consider communications you receive
from companies through Viral Marketing:       

57
4. B2C communication
Imagine that an online book store wants to communicate to you for their special discounts for students
for course books …

1. How would you prefer to receive online communication messages from this company? What about
information or ads? [Multiple answer possible]

Alternatives resulted by using a search engine (ex. Google.se) 

Through social media (ex: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube..) 
Recommendations through websites that you trust 
Personal e-mail sent to you 
Subscription e-mails sent to you 
Online Ads, Banners 
Entertaining, informative, clever idea in form of a video, funny
picture, or song etc. 

2. What would be your first action when you see the message thorough …
(i.e. reject, accept, read, watch, ignore, follow, click on more information, etc.)

Alternatives resulted by using a search engine (ex. Google.se)

___________________________________________________________
Through social media (ex: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube..)
___________________________________________________________
Recommendations through websites that you trust (pricerunner.se, aftonbladet.se etc.)
___________________________________________________________
Personal e-mail sent to you
___________________________________________________________
Subscription e-mail sent to you
___________________________________________________________
Online Ads, Banners
___________________________________________________________
Entertaining, informative, clever idea in form of a video, funny picture, or song etc.
___________________________________________________________
Thank you very much for your time.

58
 59
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Appendix B – Findings of the Interview Part 3

Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 4 6 4 2 7 7 5 4 4 4 4 2 6 2 7 2
Enjoyable 3 4 5 2 3 1 5 3 4 2 6 2 4 1 4 6
Trustworthy 3 2 5 2 3 3 4 5 2 2 3 1 3 1 4 7
Informative 4 5 6 1 4 3 4 6 5 6 5 4 4 2 5 7
Convenient 5 7 4 2 5 2 3 7 6 4 4 4 4 2 5 7
Acceptable 3 5 3 4 5 3 3 4 5 5 5 3 4 4 4 7
Entertaining 4 5 4 3 2 1 5 3 5 5 4 4 3 1 5 3
B.1. Search Engine Marketing

Reliable 4 3 5 2 3 2 3 3 4 2 5 4 3 2 4 7
Appropriate 3 5 5 4 4 3 5 5 4 3 6 3 4 6 4 6
Objectionable 3 5 4 2 3 4 4 4 5 1 3 3 4 7 5 7
Annoying 5 3 6 4 4 6 3 6 5 5 3 2 4 5 4 4
Time consuming 4 2 4 4 1 3 4 5 4 4 6 2 5 4 6 4
Difficult to ignore 5 4 5 4 1 4 3 2 6 5 1 6 5 4 2 2
Disruptive 4 4 4 5 2 3 5 4 6 4 3 6 4 5 4 4
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely
 60
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 4 2 5 6 6 6 5 6 4 5 4 5 5 5 2 6
Enjoyable 3 3 4 2 5 1 3 6 5 5 6 4 4 2 5 4
Trustworthy 3 3 2 1 3 2 5 5 3 3 4 4 4 2 4 2
Informative 3 4 5 1 3 3 2 5 5 5 5 5 5 2 4 4
Convenient 3 4 5 1 3 3 5 4 5 5 6 3 4 2 4 2
Acceptable 2 3 5 3 3 2 2 6 5 5 2 4 4 4 5 4
Entertaining 4 4 7 1 5 1 5 7 5 4 6 6 5 1 6 3
Reliable 3 4 3 2 3 3 2 4 3 3 5 3 3 2 3 5
Appropriate 3 4 4 4 6 3 5 6 5 5 6 4 4 6 4 4
Objectionable 3 3 4 2 3 5 2 3 4 4 5 4 4 4 4 3
Annoying 5 6 6 7 4 4 5 2 5 3 4 6 3 1 3 5
Time consuming 4 5 6 5 1 5 2 5 4 3 5 6 3 4 6 5
B.2. Online PR

Difficult to ignore 5 6 4 2 2 1 5 2 6 1 1 6 5 4 5 2
Disruptive 3 4 4 6 3 4 2 4 4 2 4 6 4 6 6 5
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely
 61
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 2 4 4 5 6 6 2 6 4 7 5 3 5 7 5 6
Enjoyable 4 5 4 5 5 1 4 6 5 6 6 4 5 1 4 6
Trustworthy 5 6 5 5 6 3 3 5 5 2 4 2 6 5 4 5
Informative 5 6 7 5 6 3 4 4 5 5 4 5 6 5 5 5
Convenient 5 6 4 6 6 2 5 7 6 6 5 2 6 6 5 7
Acceptable 5 5 5 5 5 4 2 6 5 5 4 4 6 7 5 7
Entertaining 5 5 2 5 4 1 5 4 5 6 6 6 6 1 4 4
Reliable 5 6 4 5 5 3 2 3 5 2 3 1 6 6 4 7
Appropriate 5 6 4 5 6 2 5 6 5 5 4 3 6 7 4 7
B.3. Online Partnership

Objectionable 4 5 5 5 4 4 2 3 5 2 4 3 6 1 2 3
Annoying 2 3 1 3 2 5 5 2 3 5 3 6 3 1 2 3
Time consuming 4 4 3 2 2 4 2 6 3 5 5 6 4 3 5 3
Difficult to ignore 2 3 3 5 2 2 5 2 5 2 1 6 4 1 5 2
Disruptive 4 4 4 3 2 3 2 2 4 2 5 6 2 2 4 2
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely
 62
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 5 6 4 2 7 6 2 7 5 5 5 1 6 3 5 7
Enjoyable 2 3 3 2 2 1 5 1 1 3 4 1 1 1 1 1
Trustworthy 2 2 4 1 2 3 2 4 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 2
Informative 2 2 5 1 3 4 5 3 3 4 6 1 1 2 2 2
Convenient 2 4 4 1 4 2 2 1 2 4 5 1 1 3 2 1
Acceptable 3 3 5 3 3 3 5 1 2 5 4 1 1 4 2 2
Entertaining 2 4 1 2 5 1 2 2 2 3 5 1 1 1 1 2
Reliable 2 2 3 1 5 3 5 4 1 3 3 1 1 2 2 3
Appropriate 2 2 4 1 3 3 4 6 1 5 2 1 2 6 1 1
Objectionable 2 4 4 1 5 4 2 3 3 3 5 1 1 4 7 6
Annoying 6 6 6 7 3 5 4 7 7 3 3 7 7 6 7 7
B.4. Online Ads

Time consuming 2 6 3 5 2 4 4 6 7 4 5 7 7 4 2 7
Difficult to ignore 6 1 2 3 3 2 4 1 7 2 2 7 5 4 4 1
Disruptive 2 4 4 5 1 3 4 7 5 2 5 7 7 6 5 7
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely
 63
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 5 2 4 2 7 6 1 7 4 4 2 1 7 5 5 5
Enjoyable 3 2 4 3 1 1 5 3 5 5 3 1 1 4 5 6
Trustworthy 4 2 5 3 4 3 4 5 4 2 2 1 3 2 4 6
Informative 4 3 4 4 4 3 3 5 5 5 3 2 3 3 6 5
Convenient 3 4 4 5 5 3 4 6 5 4 4 2 2 4 5 6
Acceptable 5 2 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 6 2 1 1 6 5 7
Entertaining 4 4 2 4 3 1 3 3 5 6 3 1 1 2 5 6
Reliable 4 1 4 3 5 3 5 4 4 2 2 1 1 3 4 6
Appropriate 3 1 4 5 4 3 2 5 5 4 2 1 1 7 4 6
B.5. E-mail Marketing

Objectionable 3 3 3 5 3 4 5 6 4 4 3 2 1 1 4 7
Annoying 5 5 6 5 2 2 4 3 2 2 2 7 7 5 2 3
Time consuming 3 5 5 5 3 2 3 5 3 2 3 7 4 4 4 2
Difficult to ignore 5 7 3 5 1 2 4 2 4 2 1 7 3 3 4 2
Disruptive 3 5 4 6 3 3 4 3 4 3 2 7 7 4 3 2
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely
 64
Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Gender Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female
Age 24 21 22 22 22 24 23 25 22 21 20 20 20 21 20 22
Attributes
Easy to reject 5 4 4 6 5 6 2 3 4 4 5 2 3 6 4 6
Enjoyable 5 5 7 6 7 1 4 7 5 4 2 3 5 5 4 4
Trustworthy 4 2 2 5 4 2 2 5 4 2 4 3 4 4 3 2
Informative 3 3 2 5 5 2 4 3 5 3 6 4 3 5 3 3
Convenient 3 4 4 6 3 2 2 7 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 2
Acceptable 4 5 4 6 4 3 5 7 4 5 6 4 4 7 5 3
Entertaining 5 6 7 6 7 1 4 7 5 4 5 4 5 6 6 4
Reliable 4 3 4 4 3 2 3 5 4 2 3 3 4 4 4 2
Appropriate 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 6 5 5 3 5 7 4 4
Objectionable 4 4 3 4 4 3 3 3 4 4 5 4 2 1 4 4
B.6. Viral Marketing

Annoying 3 5 2 2 1 2 4 2 3 2 3 5 4 4 3 4
Time consuming 4 6 6 2 2 3 4 7 5 4 3 5 4 2 5 2
Difficult to ignore 3 4 6 2 4 2 2 4 4 2 4 5 4 2 3 2
Disruptive 4 3 4 2 1 3 2 6 4 2 2 6 4 5 4 4
•1 – Not at all • 2 – Low • 3 – Slightly • 4 – Neutral • 5 – Moderately • 6 – Very • 7 – Extremely