In my country, Internet marketing started relatively late: 1997 was the birth year of Internet marketing in China. The development of Internet marketing in my country can be divided into four stages
1. The first stage: the legendary stage of Internet marketing (before 1997)
Before 1997, China already had the Internet, but at that time the Internet was mainly used by government agencies and scientific research institutions, and had not yet been used for business. It was not until 1996 that Chinese companies began to try to use the Internet. At that time, the characteristics of Internet marketing were: the concept and method of Internet marketing were unclear, and most companies knew nothing about going online. Whether it could produce results mainly depended on accidental factors.
Therefore, the network marketing events at that time were more legendary, such as “Shandong farmers selling garlic online” can be called a network marketing myth: the spinach produced by farmers in Xili Village, which is known as the “Garlic Capital of China” and “Garlic Hometown”, only costs two or three cents per catty, but no one is interested. Just when the farmers were at a loss, in May 1996, Li Jingfeng, a villager in Jinxiang County, Shandong Province, went to the Internet, registered his own domain name, and moved the product information of Xili Village’s garlic, spinach, carrots, etc. to the Internet and sold them all over the world.
2. The second stage: the embryonic stage of network marketing (1997-2000)
With the widespread use of the Internet in enterprises, e-commerce has shown a rapid development trend, and more and more enterprises have begun to pay attention to network marketing. Relevant statistics show that by the end of October 1997, the number of Internet users in my country was 620,000, and the number of World Wide Web (Www) sites was about 1,500. By the end of 2000, the number of Internet users in China had reached 22.5 million, and the number of World Wide Web sites had reached 265,405.
In the short three years from 1997 to 2000, several landmark network marketing events occurred in China: In February 1997, ChinaByte launched a free news email service, and by December of the same year, the number of news email subscribers was close to 30,000; in March 1997, the first commercial network advertisement (a 468-pixel x 60-pixel button advertisement) appeared on the ChinaByte website; in November 1997, the first professional online magazine publisher “Suoyi” began to provide the first free online magazine; in 1999, B2B (Business-to-Business) website Alibaba and B2C (Business-to-Customer) website 8848 were established.
During this period, more and more companies began to get involved in the Internet, and e-commerce began to move from myth to reality. The bursting of the Internet bubble in the first half of 2000 stimulated the application of network marketing.
3. The third stage: the application and development stage of network marketing (2001-2010)
During this stage, the network marketing service market was initially formed, the construction of corporate websites developed rapidly, and the degree of specialization became higher and higher; the forms of network advertising continued to innovate and the applications continued to develop; search engine marketing developed to a deeper level, forming search engine promotion methods based on natural retrieval and paid search engine advertising and other models; network media such as online forums, blogs, chat tools, and online games continued to emerge and develop.
4. The fourth stage: the social mobility stage of network marketing (2010 to present)
During this stage, social marketing is the leading direction, mobile network marketing, WeChat public accounts, and micro-marketing occupy a dominant position, blogs, forums and other marketing are supplemented, and the impact of Internet+ and O2O (Online to Offline, online marketing and offline purchase) e-commerce systems has driven the further development of the marketing industry.
In the second decade of the 21st century, online marketing has become one of the inevitable results of corporate marketing behavior requirements, especially Taobao, JD.com and other online shopping platforms have a huge impact, attracting a large number of companies and individuals to use them to open online franchise stores, allowing companies to combine online and offline sales (the emergence of the O2O concept) more closely, and the e-commerce environment is becoming more mature.