The chances of successful Internet marketing by Company X will be increased if Company X can set up a dialogue with the Internet community. Company X needs to be seen as giving something back to the Internet community in exchange for free advertising space. The following sites maintain commercial listings. It is essential that the Company X site can be located via WWW search engines. It should be noted that an application for a listing does not automatically result in inclusion in the search engines database.
Inclusion depends upon the policy of the search engine host and the quality of the site.
Depending upon the nature of the business, it is a good idea to locate sites which have already undertaken the exercise of identifying people who will be interested in the sector. For example, we shall discuss later the specific example of the market for soccer merchandise. Posting in Commercial Newsgroups There are several Newsgroups which are openly commercial. An announcement of the Company X site should be made in to each of the following newsgroups. As an indication of the activity within these groups the following table contains the name of the newsgroups and the number of postings within the newsgroup on the 14th July 1996.