The growth of web directories and search engines in the nineties prompted Yahoo to begin a series of business acquisitions including Four11, Rocketmail, and eGroups and Classic Games.com. Subsequently, Yahoo also obtained other competing search engines, including Overture, Altavista and AllTheWeb.

Today, Yahoo is a company earning over 6.4 million in revenue and employs 13,900 people and its various websites are visited up to 300 million times per month.

Product

Yahoo! (Yahoo) is a leading global internet businesses, which provides internet services to individuals and businesses worldwide.
Yahoo! Home Page – including My Yahoo, Yahoo Toolbar, Yahoo Local and Connected TV.
Communities & Services – including Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Answers
and Flickr.
Search Services – including Yahoo Search, Yahoo Local, Yahoo Yellow Pages, and Yahoo Maps.
Communications Services – including Yahoo Mail, Zimbra Mail, and Yahoo Messenger.
Connected life – including Yahoo Mobile, Yahoo Go, Yahoo Broadcast, Yahoo Digital Home, and Yahoo Desktop.
Audience Services – including Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Autos, Yahoo Food, Yahoo Games, and Yahoo Health.
Major Products and Services – including Yahoo Kids, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Music, Yahoo Personals, Yahoo Real Estate, Shine, Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Tech, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Travel Yahoo! Kids and Yahoo TV.

Price

Yahoo Search employs quality-based pricing, which measures the quality of traffic coming from its distribution partners i.e. web publishers that display your paid ads.
Yahoo Ecommerce rates for small business range from $39.99 (starter) to $129.95 (Standard) on up to $299.95 (Professional) in monthly costs.
Yahoos Build Your Own Search Service (Boss) employs a “pay for what you use pricing approach rather than a one size fits all for its developers customers. The rate is calculated by number of queries and how deep they go.
Yahoo domain service prices range from the length of term, i.e. 1 year costs $9.95, two years $19.90, 4 years $29.85 and 5 years $49.75.
Yahoo Web Hosting prices range from $9.95 per month (if the term is 1 year) to $12.95 if the term is on a monthly basis.

Yahoo Marketing Mix

Introduction

Yahoo originated in 1994 as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” (a directory of other websites). The name was then changed to Yahoo. The value of the directory created by David Yang and David Filo soon became apparent after receiving over 900,000 hits. The company held its initial public offering in 1996. Would you like to take a lesson on the marketing mix?

Place

Yahoo operates an affiliate program whereby online marketers can promote its Hosting Services, Yahoo Mail Plus, Yahoo Games, Yahoo Hot Jobs and Merchant Solutions for commissions ranging from $10 to $90.
Yahoos online Search Marketing Distribution Network includes AllTheWeb, MSN, Info Space, Net Zero, DreamWiz, HP and AltaVista.

Promotion

Yahoo has developed a new ad campaign which uses the slogan “your favorite stuff all in one place “, and takes a swipe at its competitor, Google.
The Yahoo logo has remained essentially the same since its inception with color changes being the biggest difference over time. Its brand is rated in the top 100 by Rate the Brands.
Yahoo has run radio and television ads comparing itself favorably over Google.
Yahoo has entered into partnership with Gannett in which all of Gannett’s 81 local publishing organizations and seven of its Broadcasting Division sites will sell Yahoo! advertising inventory as part of Gannett’s local advertising solutions.

People

Carol Bartz replaced Jerry Yang as CEO.
Jerry Yang, Chief Yahoo
Roy Boystock, Chairman of the Non-executive Board
Patti S. Hart, Director of the Non-executive Board
Michael J. Callahan, General Counsel
Tim Morse, Chief Financial Officer
Yahoo is expanding its customer service operations to add more call center employees who can speak more languages.

Physical Evidence

Yahoo has subsidiaries located in Singapore, Beijing, Hong Kong and India.
The company offers localized versions of Yahoo! in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, and Italy.
Yahoo News http://news.yahoo.com/ is a website that gathers up to date information on business, entertainment, health and politics, etc.
Yahoo operates an online Real Estate site – http://realestate.yahoo.com/Homevalues where prospects can search home values and recent sales in their locality.
Yahoo! Safely is an online resource located at http://safely.yahoo.com/ that caters to kids, parents, and educators which provides relevant, up-to-date strategies and tools to help foster safer online experiences.
Yahoo! has partnered with Facebook to allow both Yahoo! and Facebook to link accounts, view and share updates with friends across both networks. Additionally, people who create and share content on Yahoo! sites – including Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Flickr, and many Yahoo! entertainment sites, such as omg!, Yahoo! TV, and Yahoo! Movies – can easily share their actions with friends back on Facebook.

Process

Yahoo recently implemented a new Google AdWords Importing Tool that allows advertisers to easily take their exported Google AdWords campaigns and import them directly into their Yahoo! Search Marketing account.
Yahoo regularly recruits out-of-the-box thinkers which increases their capability to produce new products and services.
Yahoo has enhanced its global reach by creating more targeted advertising and country specific services.
Yahoo has recently bolstered its role in the online community niche by acquiring Flickr, del.icio, and Web Jay. The goal is to build internet communities that interact and assist each other in information searches.
Yahoo employs a delayed deployment strategy which delays new service launches until the product is more “robust” and undergone testing.
In 2008 Yahoo held a “Open Hack Day” during which I invited developer to experiment with different utilities from existing Yahoo sites. The goal was to facilitate innovation.
Yahoo seeks to use site features to achieve the “sticky” affect, i.e keep visitors on its sites
Yahoo uses Joint Ventures to achieve recurring income.

Disclaimer:
This case study has been compiled from information freely available from public sources. It is merely intended to be used for educational purposes only.