GIS & E-Marketing Presented by: Dr. Mark R. Leipnik & Dr. Sanjay Mehta Dept. of Geography & Dept. of Marketing Sam Houston State University
Presentation is based on a chapter in the fourth-coming book: Advances in Electronic-Marketing, T. Flaherty, Ed. The field involves growing and synergistic interaction between technologies; like GIS, the Internet, and increasingly wireless communication, mobile computing and GPS & various marketing channels, modalities & methods ; including B to C, B to B, and market research.
Myriad B to C Applications:! Interactive-mapping as a component of web sites promoting/selling goods & services.! Accessing geospatial data on the internet as a component of sales presentations.! Serving or updating maps & directions on mobile devices (PDA, WI/FI, GPS, etc). Recently: Geographically pertinent search responses from search engines like Google.
Two Exemplary Applications: I will discuss examples of leading sites from two applicatio 1. Tourism. 2. Real-Estate. Each area has B to C, B to B and market research applications, but I will focus on interactive web-based mapping as a method to reach and influence consumers. These are ideal areas because spatial factors are critical, costs are substantial and vary widely and info needed for decisions is hard to obtain and involves multiple facets. Both the GIS and the Internet are critical & synergistic, Since users want maps but do not have their own GIS.
Effective Market Research Applications: eb-based access to interactive maps. Web-based access to geospatial data. Web-based services such as geo-coding customer addresses/zip code information. Web-based data sales (GDT, Claritas, ESRI). Mapping/analysis of web-site visitor IP address locale. Internet-based update of customer/service locations.
Tourism Site: Virtual Malaysia
An early on-line travel map
Identify a hotel and contact info and in most cases hot links are provided.
Malaysian GIS data is available for down-load on a linked site for use by mobile devices fitted with GPS for use by travelers.
Real-Estate Site: Realtor.Com
Maps of available property like this one have been an integral part of real estate marketing for over 150 years.
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S.B. County in Southern California on this map"
Click on Southern California Region & zoom to it & SBC is gone.
Many design and content problems with maps on this site. The Intermediate scale maps mostly did not exist before site was built, so developers are doing a poor job putting them together for first time.
More detailed county level map, also has numerous flaws: Cartographic exaggeration makes Gaviota (Pop. ~ 100) appear to be the same size as Goleta (Pop. ~87,000).
Search for listings in Santa Barbara with criteria under $500,000 yielded only 30 properties. I selected the least expensive and then hit map it, site rapidly responded with this map.
Lowest priced listing in Santa Barbara: a 12 foot wide storage shed.
Priced to sell at only $50,000. Of course at that low price the contents are not included and most of the meager property is in the 25 year flood zone, I think.
One of the lowest priced actual homes, a $420,000, 2-1-0 on 1/8 acre near the railroad tracks, But it can be mapped on Realtor.com site.
Highest priced home in Huntsville, Texas. A new 6-5-3 on 11 acres for $395,000. It cannot be mapped on Realtor.com site. Many rural and newer properties cannot be mapped, since addresses do not match enhanced TIGER address data.
Ongoing Issues:! Bandwidth inadequacy: magnitude of data and number of functions on many sites causes glacial access times, frequent unavailability.! Content completeness: trade-off between ease of access & extent of data, & range of functions. Most effective sites often have a narrower focus.!cartography 101: Poor cartographic design of intermediate scale maps. Are web-techies in Mangalore doing the map design and compilation?! Dull Tools: Limited range of analysis tools on most sites. Radial search, identify, distance measurement, shortest path & time all exist, zoom and pan & search can do with improvement on most sites. But which functions are most necessary given user needs?
Conclusion: GIS & the Internet are mature technologies, both have numerous applications in marketing. The combination of these powerful technologies is a recent development. This nexus is continuing to evolve in interesting, awkward and hopefully profitable ways. Synergy between GIS & the Web are exemplified by international tourism and real-estate applications. Valuable lessons about limitations and opportunities can be learned examination of these application areas.
Myriad B to C Applications:! Interactive-mapping as a component of web sites promoting/selling goods & services.! Accessing geospatial data on the internet as a component of sales presentations.! Serving or updating maps & directions on mobile devices (PDA, WI/FI, GPS, etc). Recently: Geographically pertinent search responses from search engines like Google.
Evolving B to B Applications:! Determination of closest available suppliers of bulky, heavy, dangerous or highly specialized products.! Use of Internet-based mapping and GPS to tract widely distributed/mobile equipment for clients.! Serving data on available industrial sites & amenities for economic development/redevelopment. Frequently involves higher level spatial analysis (users are more sophisticated and committed than consumers).
Effective Market Research Applications: eb-based access to interactive maps. Web-based access to geospatial data. Web-based services such as geo-coding customer addresses/zip code information. Web-based data sales (GDT, Claritas, ESRI). Mapping/analysis of web-site visitor IP address locale. Internet-based update of customer/service locations.