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Let’s have a brief look at these four factors: Product: It is the product or service what you target customer exactly need. Marketers should be considering all the product related aspects like quality, functionality, packaging and style. Price: Price strategy is very important in marketing of any product or service. This refers process of setting the price of a product. This includes any available discounts. Promotion: Promotion has wide range of activities like advertising, selling, sales promotion, public relations etc. Place: It refers to that how product or service is going to get to customer. This factor has revolutionized the marketing, just think about internet, from retailing to e-tailing. Place actually refers that how customer is buying the product, scope of this P is constantly shifting with the growth of new media and technology.

The extended marketing mixed is of 7 factors or 7Ps. Other 3 factors are people, process and physical process. People: it is about any person who comes in contact with customer during the sale or marketing of a product/service. These people must be well trained and we presented as they reflect the whole image of product/ service. Process: all the processes involve in providing a service are very important. Any minor mismanaged process can effect on customer satisfaction. Physical evidence: to convince a potential customer about a product or service is very significant. Marketers must provide physical evidence that how service/ product is going to be like, it could provide in form of free trials, case studies or testimonials.

2.2: The Digital Age

We are living in the Digital age. Internet, digital TV, handheld gaming consoles, satellite mobile phones and other amazing gadgets are all around us. Internet is the one of the most influential blessing of modern science. "what is internet?" most of the people already know the answer of this most common question of nineties but to be very precise we can say, "The Internet ("Net") is a network of computers reaching every country in the world" (Strauss and frost: 1999). Dann and Dann agree with above definition of internet but say that internet can be considered in two ways, one as ‘network of networks’ and the other is a ‘mechanism of information exchange’. They explained that the difference between two views is whether you focus on the technological side of internet or on the use of the system. The technological side of internet involved technicalities of network infrastructure (e.g. bits, bytes, TCP, IP, Protocols). The other focus of your attention would be that how people use the internet to exchange information (e.g. online shopping, e-marketing, chatting, and self-publishing) (Dann and Dann, 2004).

The question arises that if Internet can be used as marketing tool? Strauss and Frost (1999) say that in the early 1950s marketers discovered something innovative: If you give customers what they want, and do it better than the competition, sales will grow. Further some, if a firm can do this while making a profit, life is sweet indeed. These ideas gave birth to concept of the use of internet in marketing: An organization exists to satisfy customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objectives and with the arrival of new technologies customer demands have been changing. With the introduction of the Internet, marketers have the technology to mass customize communication and products to increasingly smaller targets: taken to its natural extension, a target market can now be one person. For Example, at the Dell computer web site, a customer can enter exact specification for a new computer and Dell will ship it within 5 days (http://www.dell.co.uk, 2006).

Strauss and Frost in book (Principle of online marketing: 1999: page 6) explain that the Internet is firmly established as a marketing tool. Marketers use the Internet to gather data for marketing planning. The net has become an integral piece of marketing mix, spawning new products and serving as both a digital distribution channel and an electronic storefront. The net is also a strong medium for communication with target audiences. In this function it is similar to a magazine or a television except that the net allows two-way communication. People are connecting to the net at a phenomenal rate, and the number of unique web pages now number 320 million. No medium in history, including television, has reached the 50 million-user mark as fast as the internet. The web passed the 50 million-user mark in 4 years; it took television 13 years to do the same. The Internet is a medium for communication and electronic commerce whose time has come (Strauss and Frost, 1999). The following figure shows the sharp increase in internet users during the 1995-2000 times.

Next : Literature review Part 3

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