The appearance of the Internet has not only changed the face of worldwide trade and opened a lot of business opportunities; but also become an important source of information, entertainment and communication tool for people, especially for young people. However, this market is gradually becoming fierce compare with traditional forms of the business; marketing becomes indispensable to promote the business. This article will analyze the case study of Napster uses of marketing mix is 7P's (People, Place, Prices, Product, Promotion, Process, and Physical Evident) in order to compete with traditional markets and other online music provider.

Product

Product is the first element in the 7P's. In the first period, Napster entirely offers technology products and services. The advent of it has solved the pain is music search, download music more easily online in MP3 format. Shawn Fanning- the founder of Napster has created a huge online player and completely free. However, Napster got in big trouble about copyright in the music market. The first 2 years has built a strong brand for Napster with the users. Until 2003, with the start of the new owner, Napster once more time come back in the field of online music. Napster provides to customer the proactive in music. That means the customer have power to control the content and right to access their own account any time they want. Besides that, they also give customer a chance to hear trial before they purchase their product which do not happened with the bigger competitor is Apple. With the flexible and differentiation in developing product, Napster have more competitive advantages than other.

Prices

After come back, Napster sales the music with $1/song, as same as Apple. However, after that, they bring the other offer to customer whom customers only have to pay $10/ month and they can hear unlimited song call “Napster to go”. They also offer subscribes base on the need of customer which can access up to 2 million tracks. In addition, with a large volume of purchase, customer will get discount from Napster. Finally, there is more convenience to customer because they can pay download fee via credit card. By this way, customers are always proactive with their account and payment.

Promotion

Only with the first 2 years, the customer cannot forget the Napster name in the online music market. It's a great premise when Napster continues the next step in this market. They have done a lot to promote their brand name, such as: Continue to promote Napster brand image with consumers, investing in new technology, looking for strategic partners, and continue to pursue strategic acquisitions and complementary technologies (Chaffey 2009).

Places

Excepting bundle with major brands like Dell, Samsung, iRiver, Creative Labs and Gateway, the Internet is the largest distributor of Napster. They provide services directly to consumers. Customers can visit the homepage of Napster and download music at home, anytime there 24/7-with the internet, people can listen and download music. This saves a lot of distribution cost for Napster; it also gives customers the convenience and comfortable. Instead of looking to the retailer, now people have all the music in the world at home.

People, Process and Physical evidence

With 135 employees in 2005, Napster has working effective in managing, marketing and providing customer care. Providing online music has many different aspect of user’s experience. This can be a good documentation for Napster to developing future trend.

Reference

Chaffey, D 2009 ‘E-Business and E-commerce Management: Strategy, implementation and Practice’, 4th edn, Pearson Education Limited, England.