"The Internet is about information. Success on the Internet is about aggregating that information so that people can use it. Broad site offerings capture mindshare, making the site one of the first places a net surfer thinks to go." (Source : The Motley Fool) Marketing in the Net has a tremendous communication power; a single exposure can generate increases in advertisement awareness, brand awareness, product attribute communication and purchase intent.

But Net Marketing is not that easy . Advertisers need to develop a set of best practices around what to build and what to pay. The products that can be sold online and shipped economically or delivered digitally eg books, software etc can use a destination site to support everything from brand awareness and consideration, through post sales support. But if the Net doesn't enable your company to offer a product faster, cheaper or better, rule out a destination site. For sellers of complex products like computers can use a website, allowing prospects to check specifications and get product support online but if your customers are more likely to ask their friends than you about your product, then you don't need a Web site. These are only few of the dilemma of getting into Net Marketing.

"The key to successful operation on the Internet remains mindshare. Those companies that bought mindshare early still have it, although some paid too dear a price. Nevertheless, they have created an extremely valuable intangible asset for themselves." (source : The Motley Fool)

Here are four of the top dot.com companies who build their ideas and made their names in different areas i.e. advertising, selling books, hosting auctions and content selling. Let's take a look on their strategies in reaching their target market --- some have been successful but others failed.

Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a Website where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. This company started and made its name in selling books. Now this Company lists millions of unique items in categories such as books, music, DVDs, videos, consumer electronics etc. Through its Amazon Marketplace, Auctions and zShops services, any business or individual can sell virtually anything to the Company's approximately 30 million cumulative customers, and with Amazon.com Payments, sellers can accept credit card transactions.(source: amazon.com)

On Sept. 29 , 1999, they took the big step of opening the doors of its popular Web site to any manufacturer or retailer--even a rival--that wants to sell on its popular Web site. For a monthly fee of $9.99 plus 1.25% to 5% of revenues, a merchant can offer up to 3,000 products to Amazon's 12 million customers through a new service called zShops. And for a 60 cents fee and a 4.75% cut of sales, Amazon will let small merchants and individual sellers on its auction site accept credit cards.(source : business week)

After four years in business, Amazon remains unprofitable. One reason is spending $300 million to build 5 million square feet of warehouse space. Note: zShops alone offers 500,000 products--in all, 19 million items in inventory and if something's not available there, All Product Search will comb the Web for it.

"The problem with Amazon is that it has endangered its sustainability by investing in weak companies such as drugstore.com and unprofitable product lines. It will have to work hard just to continue operations. That opens the door for other companies ready to attack its potential markets by offering even more aggregation of products." (source: The Motley Fool).

And while the catalogue of products remain huge, outside of the US the fulfillment of orders due to shipping costs, payment options, etc. drastically negates all consumer savings generated by the Net.

YAHOO
The most successful portal in the world is Yahoo! The site that popularized search engines and website directories among netsurfers. Deriving its income solely from advertising. .By becoming a portal Yahoo! attracted even more surfers to its site by offering free services such as email, chat etc. By acting as a one-stop-shop starting point for Net-users portals are not only generate a lot of traffic, but encourage surfers to stay longer on the site and the potential of converting all those users into online shoppers. Yahoo is the world's leader in interactive advertising. The rates charged for online advertisements, depend on how popular and targeted the website is.

"But the dot-com bubble in 2000 rapidly called into question the strategy of basing Yahoo!'s fortunes primarily on advertising. With the stock market in turmoil and dot-coms unable to raise money, the cash that had flowed into Yahoo! in the form of advertising revenue began showing signs of weakness. Now Yahoo is increasingly focused on its non-advertising revenues." (source: business week)

America Online (AOL)
America Online, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Time Warner Company, is engaged in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and electronic commerce services. Their business is mainly on subscription & content selling. Although it rivals Yahoo as a destination point for Content, given Time Warner's vast array the only real source of revenue remains the monthly subscription fee charged to subscribers. As a further refinement of this, AOL recently unveiled a strategy wherein they will sell Content on a subscription based model.

e-Bay
eBay is the world's largest online trading community. EBay has developed a Web-based community in which buyers and sellers are brought together in an auction format to buy and sell items such as antiques, coins, collectibles, computers, memorabilia, stamps and toys.

"With the recent acquisition of Half.com, eBay's community now benefits from a marketplace combining traditional auction style trading and Half.com's fixed-price trading. Founded in July 1999, Half.com offers people an organized online marketplace to buy and sell high quality, previously owned mass-market goods. Unlike auctions, where the selling price is based on bidding, the seller sets a fixed price for items at Half.com at the time an item is listed." (source: ebay.com)

"Electronic middleman online service eBay is a cyber-forum for selling more than 8,000 categories of merchandise, from Beanie Babies to fine antiques. The company, which generates revenue through listing and selling fees, boasts some 34 million registered users." (source: msn money software) . eBay's source of revenue is a percentage of the selling price. It also derives revenues from advertisers on the site.

Of the four models, eBay and AOL subscription were the only ones profitable from day one.

"Net Marketing is not just a matter of having a name people know. The site has to be regarded as a destination. The Internet is an enormous, loosely connected agglomeration of attractions. The destinations are the places that offer the most return for the least effort, the places that simplify the experience." (source: The Motley Fool)