The Internet presents an immense opportunity for marketers to develop a marketing strategy online, build communities and develop online channels for communication and delivery. The focus of this article is to evaluate how the special characteristics of the electronic environment alter traditional marketing tactics and dictate a need to create new forms of product and service delivery. It also views how technology can be leveraged to improve marketing function in the virtual world.

The Internet is expected to play a very pivotal role within a traditional marketing effort; it may serve as the foundation of a firm's marketing effort. It is a technology that is spreading faster than any other technology. It is totally changing the way people work and live. It is developing into another mass medium as users are logging on more often and spending more time on the Internet (refer Exhibit 1). Rail ticketing is an example of successful application of the Internet led by a strong convenience-driven benefit for the user. The Internet has become important for businesses as it has changed traditional marketing paradigms. Information has become all-pervasive, multichannel, multidirectional and multi-user. Distance has died a natural death. Exhibit 1 highlights the growing importance of Internet in India. Exhibit 1 also reveals the increasing penetration levels of the Internet in India and how it is spread across urban as well as rural India. An off-line survey `India Online 2008' of over 12,500 households across 40 cities and 160 villages countrywide conducted by online research and advisory firm Juxt Consult's to gauge the online behavior of Indians reveals that India's net user demographics cuts evenly across Socio-Economic Class (SEC) A, B and C, and extends beyond metros (which account for under a third, 30%, of all users).

Internet marketing is a generic name for a range of technologies that allow electronic exchange of information across multiple platforms and multiple channels. It includes a whole host of elements such as mobile phones, SMS/MMS, display/banner ads and digital outdoor besides Internet. It is a hypermedia which has the potential for personal communication, personalized service and easy access. The customers have more control over the communications they receive. These customers are no longer contented with being passive recipients of marketing messages and they want to play a more active role. In other words, the Internet has truly put the customer in charge and has created a fundamental shift in the dynamics of marketing. The hard fact is that the digital environment has turned many business models upside down. Nicholas Negroponte (1995) asserted that the difference between a television screen and a computer screen becomes one of more size. The screen on mobile phones offers opportunities for interactivity, hitherto unprecedented in the physical world. Creating C2C networks or social networking sites puts the customer more in charge. Therefore, creating and designing a virtual community of customers becomes very important for the marketer as sales, distribution and service functions become more closely linked. Exhibit 2 highlights the illustrative characteristics of the networked world.

Advertising Express Magazine, Marketing Strategies, Online Channels, Internet Marketing, Traditional Marketing Paradigms, Online Networks, Computer-Mediated Environment, Marketing Tools, Virtual Business Models, Mobile Advertising, Customer Relationship Management, CRM, Search Engine Marketing, Internet Service Providers, ISPs, Social Networking.