e marketing course work

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E- Marketing Concepts, Strategies andApplication

[ This Document is prepared and furnished as a completionof the Electronic Marketing course at the Arab Academy]

Presented by: Sherif Karem Mahmoud

Contents:



I. Introduction

( What is E-Marketing and why is it important)

II. The 4 P's of e-marketing mixIII. Building an e-marketing Strategy

Introduction :

What is eMarketing?

Very simply put, eMarketing or electronic marketing refers tothe application of marketing principles and techniques viaelectronic media and more specifically the Internet. The

terms eMarketing, Internet marketing and onlinemarketing, are frequently interchanged, and can often beconsidered synonymous.

eMarketing is the process of marketing a brand using theInternet. It includes both direct response marketing andindirect marketing elements and uses a range of technologies to help connect businesses to theircustomers.

By such a definition, eMarketing encompasses all theactivities a business conducts via the worldwide web withthe aim of attracting new business, retaining currentbusiness and developing its brand identity.

Why is it important?

When implemented correctly, the return on investment(ROI) from eMarketing can far exceed that of traditionalmarketing strategies.

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The benefits of eMarketing over traditional marketing:

Reach

The nature of the internet means businesses now have atruly global reach. While traditional media costs limit thiskind of reach to huge multinationals, eMarketing opens upnew avenues for smaller businesses, on a much smallerbudget, to access potential consumers from all over theworld.

Scope

Internet marketing allows the marketer to reach consumers ina wide range of ways and enables them to offer a widerange of products and services. eMarketing includes,among other things, information management, publicrelations, customer service and sales.

With the range of new technologies becoming available allthe time, this scope can only grow.

Interactivity

Whereas traditional marketing is largely about getting abrand's message out there, eMarketing facilitatesconversations between companies and consumers. With atwo-way communication channel, companies can feed off

of the responses of their consumers, making them moredynamic and adaptive.

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Immediacy

Internet marketing is able to, in ways never beforeimagined, provide an immediate impact.

Imagine you're reading your favourite magazine. You see adouble-page advert for some new product or service,maybe BMW's latest luxury sedan or Apple's latest iPodoffering. With this kind of traditional media, it's not thateasy for you, the consumer, to take the step from hearingabout a product to actual acquisition.

With eMarketing, it’s easy to make that step as simple aspossible, meaning that within a few short clicks you couldhave booked a test drive or ordered the iPod. And all of this can happen regardless of normal office hours.Effectively, Internet marketing makes business hours 24hours per day, 7 days per week for every week of the year.

By closing the gap between providing information andeliciting a consumer reaction, the consumer's buying cycleis speeded up and advertising spend can go much furtherin creating immediate leads.

Demographics and targeting

Generally speaking, the demographics of the Internet are amarketer's dream. Internet users, considered as a group,have greater buying power and could perhaps beconsidered as a population group skewed towards themiddle-classes.

Buying power is not all though. The nature of the Internetis such that its users will tend to organize themselves into

far more focused groupings. Savvy marketers who knowwhere to look can quite easily find access to the nichemarkets they wish to target. Marketing messages are mosteffective when they are presented directly to the audiencemost likely to be interested. The Internet creates theperfect environment for niche marketing to targetedgroups.



E-pricing can also easily reward loyal customers. Technology allows repeat visitors to be tracked, easilyallowing loyalty incentives to be targeted towards them.Payment is also easy online credit cards use allows foreasy payments. One of the biggest changes to themarketing mix is online purchasing. Consumers canpurchase direct from manufacturers cutting out retailerstotally. The challenge for online retailers is to insure thatthe product is delivered to the consumer within areasonable time. Location is important within our placestrategy.

Online location can refer to where links are placed on otherwebsites. Promoting products and service online isconcerned with a number of issues. Having a recognizabledomain name is first stage towards e-promotion. Most

organizations today have some form of webpage used inmost if not all advertisements. Placing banneradvertisements on other web pages is a common form of e-promotion. Banner ads must be placed where potentialcustomers browse. Web public relations are anotherapproach to promoting online. News worthy stories basedon product or service launches can be placed on thecompany's webpage, or WPR articles sent to review sitesfor consumers to read. Hopefully this form of onlinepromotion will pull the consumer in. Direct email is apopular and common form of e-promotions, althoughslowly becoming the most hated my many consumers.Organizations can send e-leaflets to hundreds andthousands of respondents, hoping a small percentage willreply. E-promotion includes: Banner promotion, Web publicrelations (WPR), E-leaflets and having a domain name. Thee-marketing mix must work together and support eachother if the company is to have a successful onlinemarketing strategy.

Product.

The product should nowadays be redefined as: all the benefitsthrough time that the user obtains from the exchange ;

This definition applies to the digital context. From the supply side,product policies can gain great benefits from the capability of Internet to engage the consumer in long term relationships that

lead to the development of new products. The interactive and



connective potential of Internet leads to a new product concept:the“virtual product” .

The virtual product is seen as the union of tangible and intangibleaspects, which is adapted and personalized according to thevariety and variability of individuals’ preferences by customizingthe product with the active help of consumers.

A product can be delivered from producer to consumer in digitalform (mp3 for music, avi for movies, pdf for books andmagazines, and so on) thus contextualizing their fruition in thedigital framework. From the demand side, the capability of retrieving information plays a key role.

Andreini (2006) underlines the effectiveness of Nelson’sclassification (1970) which divides products in two categories:

“search”, when it is possible to obtain complete informationbefore the purchase and “experience”, when it is not possible, ortoo expensive, to gather information before the use of theproduct. Internet has been of great help for the purchasingprocess of “search” products, thanks to the easiness andaffordability of retrieving information online, that, together withthe increasing quantity of information and the interactivity of Web2.0, has made it also possible to transform experience productsinto

search products .

Price.

The price should be redefined as everything given by the acquirer in terms of money, time and effort given to obtain the product .

From the consumer’s perspective, the main benefits of the Webconcern the reduction of information asymmetries that allow theconsumer to compare prices in real time and gain more

transparency .

Moreover, the implementation of Artificial Intelligent Agentsenable to make automatic and tailored comparisons of prices andfeatures, reducing the price in terms of time and effort.

From the producer’s point of view, Internet makes it possible tomodify prices in real time; this could lead to dangerous pricecompetitions with the consequent reduction of profit margins.



To avoid this, online communication must be directed towardsqualitative aspects and differentiation attributes of the product.

Place

Place - Can be defined today as: everything that is done and necessary to smooth the process of exchange.

The application of this definition to the digital context urges toadd the element of purchasing process as a key feature of placewithin the mix. The process must be smooth and easy, whilebuilding relations with customers at the same time. The physicalplace becomes virtual and includes intangible aspects of transaction.

Bhatt & Emdad (2001) underline that the main contribution of Internet to business is not the mere possibility of selling productsonline, rather its capability of building relations with customers.

The interactive capabilities of Internet allow the implementationof more efficient and effective systems of digital CustomerRelationship Management (e-CRM). Internet enables to obtain

information which can be used to manage customers, thanks tothe data gathered through the registration of users to thecompany’s Web page and the online purchase data for eachcustomer. This helps to maintain the service level and improvethe management of the customer portfolio.

The aim of online communication is not just to advertise aproduct, but to build a purchase relation and create a perceptionof trust in the customer. Interaction, multimedia and relationshipshould be included as elements of the P of promotion.



II. Building an e-marketing Strategy

Based on the new perspectives of the application of the4P’s in the electronic world,we shall discuss hereblowconcepts of building an e-marketing strategy.

i. Differentiating Traditional Marketing and e-marketing strategies

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and bui lt uponthe principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing- the well-known 4 P's (Product - Price - Promotion -Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add theextra 3 P's (People - Processes - Proof) and you got thewhole extended Marketing mix.

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-

Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline:the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P's) is built around theconcept of "transactional" and its elements performtransactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm.What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can besynthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization,Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security,Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderatingcharacter, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprisessituational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon allsituational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and uponeach other.

1. Personalization



The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing,identifying a certain customer in order to establishrelations (establishing relations is a fundamental objectiveof Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify ourcustomers on individual level and gather all possibleinformation about them, with the purpose of knowing ourmarket and be able to develop customized, personalizedproducts and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the websitevisitor's computer can let us know vital informationconcerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up)we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, withreduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash

applications. This will ease our customer's experience onour website and he will be prevented from leaving thewebsite on the reason that it takes too long to load itspages.

Personalization can be applied to any component of theMarketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected tothe previous one - personalization. When we gather andstore information about our customers and potentialcustomers (therefore, when we perform the personalizationpart of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. Amajor task to do when implementing an e-Marketingstrategy is that of creating and developing a policy uponaccess procedures to the collected information.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer toconsider all aspects of privacy, as long as data arecollected and stored, data about individual persons.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legalaspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

3. Customer Service



Customer service is one of the necessary and requiredactivities among the support functions needed intransactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer serviceprocesses to the inclusion of the "time" parameter intransactions. When switching from a situational

perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostlybased on a relational perspective, the marketer sawhimself somehow forced into considering support andassistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, overtime.

For these reasons, we should consider the CustomerService function (in its fullest and largest definition) as anessential one within the e-Marketing mix.

As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from theclassic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by theexistence of this impressive network that the internet is.

The merely existence of such a network implies that

individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. Agroup of entities that interact for a common purpose iswhat we call a "community" and we will soon see why it isof absolute importance to participate, to be part of acommunity.

The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states thatthe value of a network is given by the number of itscomponents, more exactly the value of a network equalsthe square of the number of components. We can applythis simple law to communities, since they are a network:we will then conclude that the value of a community riseswith the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.

The customers / clients of a business can be seen as partof a community where they interact (either independent orinfluenced by the marketer) - therefore developing acommunity is a task to be performed by any business,

even though it is not always seen as essential.



Interactions among members of such a community canaddress any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it canbe placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions

take place on a digital media - the internet. But suchinteractions and relations also need a proper location, tobe available at any moment and from any place - a digitallocation for digital interactions.

Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the mostwidespread name for it. It is now the time to mention thatthe "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should notbe mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can takeother forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handhelddevice, for example.

This special location, accessible through all sort of digital

technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing - it is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performedthrough internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are thefollowing two issues on security:

- security during transactions performed on our website,where we have to take all possible precautions that third



parties will not be able to access any part of a developingtransaction;

- security of data collected and stored, about ourcustomers and visitors.

A honest marketer will have to consider these possible

causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with thecompany's IT department in order to be able to formulateconvincing (and true, honest!) messages towards thecustomers that their personal details are protected fromunauthorized eyes.

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotionswhen we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotionsare widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we allknow this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy toachieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This function counts on the marketer's ability to thinkcreatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in orderto find new possibilities and new approaches for

developing an efficient promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuouslykeep up with the latest internet technologies andapplications so that he can fully exploit them.

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies

new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited

from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolvearound the concept of relational functions and they are amust to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in orderfor it to be efficient and deliver results.

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