The ‘Soft-Push’: Mining Internet Data for Marketing Intelligence

This paper examines the challenges that on-line shopping and other commercial transactions on the Internet pose for marketers in the retail industry. The Internet constitutes a whole new marketplace in its own right, and evidence exists that the traditional manipulation of the marketing mix has to be modified for this new environment. To place this paper in context, the authors describe the potential growth of electronic commerce on the Internet, how traditional marketing strategies can be adapted for the Internet and current Internet marketing techniques. This paper highlights how marketing professionals and retailers can exploit the tools of the Internet to move closer to their customers and add value to their products. It outlines the potential for applying data mining technology to the data that is collected as consumers browse and purchase goods and services in on-line shopping malls. The authors introduce a variation of the push promotional strategy - ‘the soft-push’ - a sales promotion strategy based on the navigational and purchasing behaviour of on-line shoppers. Data mining allows marketers to reveal customer profiles, helping to identify appropriate market segments. Different data algorithms are described and the data mining process is explained. A comparison is made between the ‘soft-push’ approach and other web mining approaches. In conclusion, key ethical questions are posed and the implications of data mining for marketers are summarised.