Now it is generally believed in the industry that 1994 is an important year for the development of online marketing, because at the same time as the birth of online advertising, the well-known search engine based on the Internet came from Yahoo! , web crawler, Infoseek, Lycos, etc. Also born in 1994. In addition, the "lawyer incident" that happened "making money from the Internet for the first time" prompted people to think deeply about e-mail marketing, which directly contributed to the formation of the concept of online marketing. Judging from these historical events, we can think that network marketing was born in 1994.

Lawyer incident:1April 2, 994, LaurenceCanter and MarthaSiegel, two lawyers in Arizona, USA, sent an advertisement letter of "green card lottery" to every news group they could find, which caused an uproar at that time. Their "mail bomb" paralyzed the services of many service providers. Interestingly, in 1996, the two lawyers also collaborated on a book "Making Money through the Internet", which introduced their brilliant experience: posting advertising information through the Internet attracted 25,000 customers and earned 654.38+million dollars only by spending 20 dollars on online communication.

Second, the stage characteristics of China's online marketing development

Before 1 and 1997: the legendary stage of online marketing in China

Because it is impossible to verify the historical data of China enterprises' earliest marketing activities using the Internet, we can only see some details that cannot be verified from some articles.

For example, the classic case of online marketing, "Shandong farmers sell garlic online", according to the available information, Li Jingfeng, secretary of Xili Village branch in Lingxian County, Shandong Province, spent1May, 1996 on the internet, and adopted the online marketing method of "registering his own domain name, putting the information of garlic, spinach, carrots and other products in Xili Village online and releasing them all over the world". The record of these "network marketing" achievements is: "1July, 1998, Qingdao Foreign Trade took the initiative to get in touch with Li Jingfeng through the website, and exported 870 tons of garlic twice, with sales of 2.7 million yuan. Li Jingfeng was full of confidence after winning the first battle.

In the legendary stage of network marketing, the basic characteristics of "network marketing" are: the concept and method are not clear, whether the effect is produced depends mainly on accidental factors, and most enterprises know almost nothing about surfing the Internet. Therefore, the value of online marketing mainly lies in its news effect on new technologies and applications, as well as its advanced understanding and experience on the reform of marketing means.

2. 1997-2000: The embryonic stage of network marketing in China.

The first Statistical Report on Internet Development in China (1997 10) released by China Internet Information Center (CNNIC) shows that at the end of 1997 10, the number of netizens in China was 620,000, and the number of WWW websites was about150. No matter the number of netizens or websites is negligible, some events around 1997 marked the embryonic stage of online marketing in China, such as the birth of online advertising and e-mail marketing in China, the promotion of e-commerce, the emergence of network services such as domain name registration and search engines. By the end of 2000, various forms of online marketing have been applied, and online marketing has shown a rapid development momentum and gradually moved towards practicality.

3, 20065438+0-the end of 2003: the application and development stage of network marketing in China.

After entering 200 1, network marketing is no longer an empty concept, but has entered a substantive application and development period. Its main features are as follows: the initial formation of online marketing service market, the rapid development of enterprise website construction, the continuous development of online advertising forms and applications, the urgent need to improve the e-mail marketing market environment, the in-depth development of search engine marketing, and the increasingly perfect online sales environment.

4.2004-2008: The online marketing service market in China developed rapidly.

5.20/200913: The socialization stage of online marketing in China.

The socialization of network marketing is the evolution of network marketing from the field of professional knowledge to the field of knowledge popularization, and it is the inevitable result of the development and evolution of Internet application environment. This trend reflects the essence of network marketing socialization, that is, the subject of network marketing must adapt to the network environment. It should be noted that the socialization of network marketing is not simply equivalent to the socialization of network marketing based on SNS, but only a phenomenon reflected by the socialization of network marketing.

6.20 13——20 18: Discussion on the development trend of network marketing.

From the analysis of the previous stage, we can see that online marketing has been developing at a high speed, and new online marketing platforms and resources are constantly emerging. Today's mainstream online marketing model may lose its core position in a few years. By summarizing the development history and stage characteristics of online marketing in China, it is reasonable to speculate that from 20 13 to 20 18, online marketing will present the following development trends:

1) Network marketing will move from closed to open.

2) From the enterprise's own website as the core to multi-platform comprehensive utilization.

3) The competition of online marketing among enterprises in the industry has intensified.

4) Traditional online marketing methods are constantly adjusted to adapt to the development of the Internet environment.