Unit 30 Internet Marketing Mix Assignment

LO1

1.1 Explain the elements of internet marketing 

Internet marketing is becoming a popular option among buyers and sellers because with the advent of smart phones, portable devices, and easy internet access buyers are buying the goods and services online very easily and on the go. One of the biggest examples of how internet marketing is impacting on Commerce industry is E-Bay. E-bay is an E-commerce site having total revenue of $49 billion US dollars for the fiscal year 2012 – 13. In this 19% of shopping is done through smart phones (Reddy, 2003).

Different elements of Internet Marketing: Internet marketing has different elements that make it a good weapon for marketers. Some of the main elements of Internet marketing are: -

Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is a kind of marketing that makes use of digital devices like smart phones, computers, laptops, palmtops, tablet, and other digital devices. It also includes some technologies like E-mail, Websites, and social networking sites. We are living in the era where we can’t neglect the use of digital marketing for our products and services (Strauss.et.al, 2010).

E-commerce: E-commerce is now has become so much popular that even a small child would tell you its benefits. E-commerce stands for Electronic commerce. A company or a website like E-bay who involved in E-commerce provides you to buy their products and services online and deliver you the product at your home.

Closed Loop Marketing: Another very useful and effective element of Internet marketing is closed loop marketing. In closed loop marketing the customer’s data can feed your marketing campaigns and boost your sales. The very good example of closed loop marketing is Facebook posts (Reddy, 2003). The customer posts a good review about your product and this post become viral and because of this the other Facebook users buy your products and services that increases sales.

1.2 Evaluate the internet marketing mix

There are various E-marketing mix and strategies which a marketer can use online to increase his sales and revenue. To understand internet marketing mix let us take an example of very popular site E-bay; think that you have an e-commerce store on E-bay and you have a listed your products on E-bay. In this case you can use cross-promotion strategies to increase your revenue. In cross-promotion when a buyer shows interest in one of your items then eBay will show your other items to the buyer also. Another useful feature you can use for increasing your sales is Auction. E-bay is famous for its auction sales and you can also put your products on auction. Estimate the price of your product, put your product on auction, and ask the buyers to bid. This way you can sell your goods at a reasonable price (Hariharan, 2003).

1.3 Compare internet marketing tools – e-tools

There are many internet marketing tools that need a little bit of investment. Some of the main internet marketing tools are: --

Search Engine Marketing: SEM or Search Engine Marketing is one of the best tools for internet marketing because of its worldwide reach to the users and consumers. The giant of search engine Google got 320 million searches on a single day. It is understood from this figure that how effective SEM could be for marketing. Usually you have to do some optimization of your site to show your webpage on the first page of the search results of Google and other search engines (Hariharan, 2003). This way you can get high traffic of niche customers to your site.

E-mail Marketing: E-mail marketing is also a good option for online marketers. Though it’s not effective like SEM but still you can get some niche visitors for your site. But if SEM and E-mail marketing can be used wisely than they can give you a lot of sales. Marketers generally give a sign up page on their website for visitors and asked for their E-mail. Then they mail them some messages and information about their products and services. When the visitor is interested he visits your site and buys your products and services.

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is also another very effective and useful tool for both marketers and website owners. Affiliate marketing is like an outsourcing of your marketing needs. A website owner ask the online marketers to promote their products and services on the internet on marketers blog, website, or social networking page and give a commission when someone buys that product from the marketers site. This way both marketer and website owner can gain a good amount of profit.

1.4 Examine interactive order processing

Let us understand step by step what happens in an Interactive Order Processing: --

1. A user visits a search engine and search according to his choice e.g. he searches for black shoes.
2. Search engine shows relevant web links to the user. Suppose that user clicks on the first link which is from E-bay having a list of various kinds of black shoes in different price range.
3.  User refines his search result by looking for a shoe which must be under $30 to $50.
4. Finally he chooses one shoe and click on the check out button.
5. E-bay should ask for signing up on their site.
6. Before placing his order E-bay asks him to add his shipping address. He adds the shipping address and place the order.
7. He got an order confirmation mail having his order number to track his order.
8. Finally his shoes arrived at his home and he signed the invoice.

So this way a transaction happens for a particular product on internet E-commerce site (Mullarkey, 2003). One very nice feature the user should get from his account that next time when he login into his account the site would show the listings according to his choice and the products he bought.

LO2

2.1 Demonstrate the mechanics of search engine marketing

On the basis of SEO practices, there are a few areas for flight 001 website, which may need to be improved. These areas include:

On-Site SEO

• The wireframe contains meta tag as highlighted with Keywords being Luggage Safety, Flight001 and Safe Flights
• The images are given tooltips with their respective link locations.
• The images are also given Proper Alt-Text with appropriate description of the images.

Wire Frame of the website

Off-Site SEO

• Website branding can be improved, this will make the website more Search engine friendly
• The URL  can be restructured for improving the SEO rankings

2.2 Write the copy for a suitable opt-in email marketing newsletter

2.3 Follow guidelines for best practice in online public relations

The web has fundamentally redefined information sharing and has been a strong impact on the marketing strategies. Over the recent years, organizations are trying to utilize the online medium to advertise their items. Online advertising have likewise turned into one of the critical angles for advertisers build a strong and loyal customer base. Customers often ask questions on a website about the product or service. If these queries are not answered on time, the customers may not visit the web again and may discourage others to do so.

A business can improve its online public relation for improving its sales. In the current context, the best way to do so is by using the social media interaction. Websites like Facebook could be used to connect with the potential customers and communicate with the customers.

2.4 Demonstrate how businesses can use new digital media communities, e.g. file-sharing sites

Digitalization and virtualization have evolved the working of various businesses to value their goods from their physical appearance to their social appearance. This way has proved quite efficient with regards to preparation of the platform of demand for the commodity. On the internet a framework of socialization initiate the process of creation of demand for the products.

The digital media communities involved for the promotion of the products are

• File sharing communities: These serves as the means of sharing of product related information in the form images, Video, documents and electronic books to facilitate its popularity. Different forms of file sharing include Peer to Peer marketing where large files can be fragmented and circulated between multiple peers and File sync and sharing services where information can be synced to be accessible to the wider audience (Armstrong and Hagel, 1995). These services have gained popularity with the advent of Dropbox and Google drive.
• Experience sharing communities: In this model the beforehand experience are          estimated and shared in reference to a particular commodity. The flow of information triggers the process marketing through generalized facts. Sites like Amazon help to promote this involvement of consumers.
• Knowledge sharing communities: These serve as the basis of the information that better illustrate the working of the products and the way customers can customize it to suit to their needs. This also raises an opportunity ground for the designers to cater to the needs of the people by clearing their constraints in relevant fields.

These virtual communities act as a fundamental structure to increase the involvement of the customers by weak ties of data in the information web. Thus a user is accessible to the information which is centered on the product and can explore more regarding the specifications, thus its promotion by self-involvement.

LO3

3.1 Conduct secondary market research

Candles have been in demand all the year round for past 3-4 years. As opposed to going out to restaurants, individuals are making nice environment at home with candles of value £42 each. Last year sales figures have shown that the sales have grown up to £90 million, an overall increase of 60 per cent. Candle makers have reported enormous request as Britain gets used to investing more time at home due to the slow economic growth. Deals have hopped in the course of recent years and figures are likely to climb further as individuals with less disposable salary make candles a peculiarity of supper gatherings and night parties

3.2 Design an online survey

Following is the questionnaire with the answers of a customer:

1. How often do you by candles?

Once in three months

1. What is the number of candles you buy

2

1. What is the max price you would spend to buy a candle

$ 2.00

1. Does the promotional offering affect your buying pattern?

Yes

1. Does internet marketing affects your buying pattern?

Yes

1. Rate the following on scale of 1 to 5

1. Color:  3
2. Shape: 2
3. Eco friendly: 3
4. handmade: 3

3.3 Demonstrate the use of electronic customer relationship marketing

Electronic customer relationship marketing (e-CRM) is defined as a means of telecommunication and the use of internet to organize the relationship between the organization and the customers. There are various CRM programs that are executed and managed through different technology channels (Hoffman and Novak, 1997). Though there are number of challenges that an organization has to face while implementing the e-CRM project. Establishing metrics of the program and its success and high cost are just few out of many issues involved. Usually, it’s the responsibility of top management to transmit the importance of e-CRM to the lower level management and make them accountable for the implementation of the programs.

Benefits of E-CRM are:

• Promote relationship with the customers- It’s the trust of the customers that keeps the functioning of the company going so; it’s significant to obtain it. Earlier, the businesses just had to concentrate on the customer preferences and taste but with the cutthroat competition today, the organizations need to initiate proactive programs to make the customers aware and encourage one-to-one communication. E-CRM enables the organizations to achieve absolute customer satisfaction and create trust on them.
• Transaction and speed of processing- With the help of e-CRM, enterprises have today been able to cut down the time consumed in solving the customers’ queries, process the payments and acknowledge the orders. This gives more time to the company to put focus on the other important issues which result into higher efficiency. The establish e-CRM platform is a backbone of the company offered by the internet.
• Service quality and delivery- Customers are now becoming more and more particular regarding the quality of the products and the services. The quality of service possesses 5 proportions which precisely include reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance and satisfaction.
• Convenience- E-CRM provides the customers with a better option to browse through the services of the organization. There are many cases of customers being stressed out while accessing the services of the company so; e-CRM proves to be the best option for this.

Besides these aforementioned benefits, e-CRM can be used for tracking customer behaviour. Effective e-CRM programs provide personal service to the customers and support the organization to provide more information about its purpose to them. The system also enables the customers to organize their own data for instance, updating preferences or contact details. Further, customer database can be conveniently segmented with e-CRM as it’s efficient and inexpensive. Segmenting the data actually makes the promotion and marketing cheaper yet very effective (Romano and Fjermestad, 2009).

Customer’s behaviour can be matched with the existing offers with the help of e-CRM. For instance, a customer can be treated and handled on the basis of his/her previous purchase patterns. He/she can be offered with similar type of services that was availed by him/her last time. The only aim here is to providing the right information and right products/services to all the customers. So, it is relevant to see that e-CRM has become a very influential and strong tool for the organizations to deal with the customers and expand its network

LO4

4.1 Produce an outline internet marketing plan

Internet marketing has today become the most effective instrument to promote an organization’s products and services to millions and billions of customers around the globe (Mehta and Sivadas, 1995) A Retail Candle store can increase its profits by preparing an effective marketing plan and implementing it. A plan that targets the demands of the customers must be drafted.  The plan would focus on Social Media marketing and will create a page on popular social media sites like facebook and myspace. This will help customers in knowing about the products. The plan also targets the popular blogging sites where the details about the products can be given

SWOT Analysis

Strength Handmade candles Strong social media campaign Eco friendly	Weakness Since the products are handmade, supply will be less and cost would be more.
Opportunities Candle market has grown by 60% last year. Thus it presents lot of scope for the business strategy	Threats Business requires less investment, hence new competitors can join the market

Customer email marketing will help in reaching towards more customers through their email. Customers can be given discounts on email. Customer feedback will also be shown on the website and the action taken against them will be highlighted on the website. This will help in winning customer loyalty.

References

Hariharan, S (2003) ,”Marketing through Internet & E-commerce”, Indian Journal of Marketing , Vol. XXXIII No.8, pp-101-112
Hoffman, D., and Novak, T.(1997): A New Marketing Paradigm for Electronic Commerce. The Information Society, Special Issue on Electronic Commerce13 (Jan-Mar), 43–54
Mullarkey, W (2003),”Factors Affecting Onlilne Advertising Recall : A Study of Students”- Journal of Advertising Research, pp 123-130
Mehta, R and Sivadas (1995) Eugene: Direct Marketing on the Internet: AnEmpirical Assessment of Consumer Attitudes. Journal of Direct Marketing9, 21–32 (1995)

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