Marketing of Internet-Distributed Products and Services

1. Viewpoints on the marketing of products and services distributed on the Internet • Services produced by Statistics Finland’s Database unit distributing statistical information to end-users can be divided into three groups. • 1. Services used via a WWW browser (html only) • 2. Products to be downloaded to the customer’s workstation via the Internet • 3. Tailored client applications using the TCP/IP connection

2. File transmissions operating on the FTP connection to distributors • I will not deal with services to distributors in detail in this presentation. • Statistics Finland has several years’ experience of ftp push technique based services for distributors (database hosts outside Finland also) • In practice, customer relationships have been created at the customer’s initiative.

3. Special requirements involved with the Internet and how to respond to them • Statistics fits well to internet dissemination because • - large number of publications are produced typically with a small edition • - the freshness of information is important. • Internet means also new customers who are not previously familiar with statistical topics. • Professional information users are now more impatient and busier • Information has to be processed into a more easily absorbable form than before

4. Marketing of browser applications • Metadata fields on the HTML pages must contain the necessary key words for search machines. • International marketing with conventional measures (campaigns, advertisements in papers, etc.) is not economically possible. • Often a purchasing decision requires that the customer has personally seen how the application functions or, at best, has even tested it. • During the whole existence of the Bulletin of Statistics we have given it into one month’s trial use.

5. Applications to be downloaded from the network • Applications to be downloaded from the network are extensions of conventional diskette and CD-ROM products, which are now increasingly distributed via the Internet. • In the case of Kuntafakta, for example, distribution on the net started in 1997. After that only about 10 per cent of all subscribers have been diskette or CD-ROM subscribers. • Orders are mostly received through customary marketing measures (fairs, adverts in trade magazines, etc.)

6. Tailored applications using the TCP/IP connection • The non browser applications made visible on the net also • From 1996 Statistics Finland has given complete and daily updated descriptions of the contents of the regional and time series databases on the Internet. • The completely revised time series database (FinSeries) on NT-server was opened at the start of 2000. Its up-to-date content description, about 1,200 html pages, is still on Statistics Finland’s free WWW service as during the mainframe operation.

7. The revised version of the FinSeries marketing will start in summer 2000 • Marketing will be mostly made in personal presentations to representatives of potential customers and by giving restricted trial use rights • The test use of the FinSeries can be restricted in three ways: • - by giving the user right until a certain date, • - by giving the user right until a certain number of searched data cells, • - by restricting the use to a certain number of connection times

8. Summary • The Internet can be used in many ways for information distribution. Different methods suit different product types. • For some products in Internet distribution conventional campaigning works well, especially when connected with marketing via the net. • As purchases of electronic products are often made after getting familiar with the product or service, we intend to devote much time and effort to presentations and above all to trial use options of our products in future.