Is your company already engaged in electronic marketing? If not, why not?
‘E-marketing can identify, anticipate and satisfy customer needs efficiently’ Chaffey and Smith (2008)
‘E-marketing can identify, anticipate and satisfy customer needs efficiently’ Chaffey and Smith (2008)
Source: Rosetta and Alba (2005)
Internet marketing is a real turnaround for the marketing industry. The use of both online as traditional marketing methods and channels can really encourage the selling of products or services. Any business which leaves out this digital advertising path has a real loss in developing and growing. Not only can there be more information provided online compared to other media, also customer data can be generated and expanded.
Multinational companies as well as Small and Medium sized Enterprises can reach their targets worldwide using the e-marketing channel which is available 24/7. Furthermore customers can also be approached more personally e.g. personalized offers thanks to a fine-tuned profile. Whereas SMEs marketing budget is not that disposable as for big companies, e-marketing is really an opportunity for them to benefit from this emerging business. Because SMEs can significantly save on traditional marketing costs such as billboards, magazine advertisement and instead use Direct Marketing for example.
By using this one-to-one marketing it is also easy for tracking down the customer, like e.g. the customer is sent an e-mail, his reaction and response towards it will be known. Furthermore it can also be an enormous Return on Investment. Not necessarily in the short term, but it is a long term smart idea like the following successful e-marketing stories reveal.
Real-life case studies
Severn Partnership is a West Midlands company for chartered land surveyors. They wanted to grow and explore new markets, this by starting a website to attain many people in an easy way. Moreover they used Customer Relationship Management software to let the system work more efficiently. With this CRM system you can register and track detailed customer and prospects information and provide the analysis afterwards. In addition, every staff member of the company can have access to this. The customer service remains good in and out of office hours. e-commerce websites can also be combined with the use of a customer database. That gives the company a view on which customer bought which product. So it can be used to target the right person. This and so much other advantages, have lead to an enormous success.
Another SME company, Red Planet Guitars (RPG), specializing in left-handed guitars, also has a successful story to tell. Initially they had an online-store, but they wanted to gain more traffic to their website, this by implementing a website assessment, based on expert advice. To be easily found on the web, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) had to be applied. This was done by matching keywords and phrases read by this system. The use of SEO positively changed the e-marketing strategy for RPG in a way that online volume and traffic increased.
These illustrative case studies have discussed the importance of Internet Marketing. Although it is not just being online, but also how to do it effective and efficient like e.g. having your website on top of the search engines.
We still love our traditional techniques, however the digital marketing world is still not conquered enough.
Internet marketing is a real turnaround for the marketing industry. The use of both online as traditional marketing methods and channels can really encourage the selling of products or services. Any business which leaves out this digital advertising path has a real loss in developing and growing. Not only can there be more information provided online compared to other media, also customer data can be generated and expanded.
Multinational companies as well as Small and Medium sized Enterprises can reach their targets worldwide using the e-marketing channel which is available 24/7. Furthermore customers can also be approached more personally e.g. personalized offers thanks to a fine-tuned profile. Whereas SMEs marketing budget is not that disposable as for big companies, e-marketing is really an opportunity for them to benefit from this emerging business. Because SMEs can significantly save on traditional marketing costs such as billboards, magazine advertisement and instead use Direct Marketing for example.
By using this one-to-one marketing it is also easy for tracking down the customer, like e.g. the customer is sent an e-mail, his reaction and response towards it will be known. Furthermore it can also be an enormous Return on Investment. Not necessarily in the short term, but it is a long term smart idea like the following successful e-marketing stories reveal.
Real-life case studies
Severn Partnership is a West Midlands company for chartered land surveyors. They wanted to grow and explore new markets, this by starting a website to attain many people in an easy way. Moreover they used Customer Relationship Management software to let the system work more efficiently. With this CRM system you can register and track detailed customer and prospects information and provide the analysis afterwards. In addition, every staff member of the company can have access to this. The customer service remains good in and out of office hours. e-commerce websites can also be combined with the use of a customer database. That gives the company a view on which customer bought which product. So it can be used to target the right person. This and so much other advantages, have lead to an enormous success.
Another SME company, Red Planet Guitars (RPG), specializing in left-handed guitars, also has a successful story to tell. Initially they had an online-store, but they wanted to gain more traffic to their website, this by implementing a website assessment, based on expert advice. To be easily found on the web, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) had to be applied. This was done by matching keywords and phrases read by this system. The use of SEO positively changed the e-marketing strategy for RPG in a way that online volume and traffic increased.
These illustrative case studies have discussed the importance of Internet Marketing. Although it is not just being online, but also how to do it effective and efficient like e.g. having your website on top of the search engines.
We still love our traditional techniques, however the digital marketing world is still not conquered enough.
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R. (2008) E-Marketing excellence: planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
Rosetta Alba
eHampshire
Articlesbase
The National B2B Centre
7 comments:
Nice post, and I really love one sentence in it: "The use of both online as traditional marketing methods and channels can really encourage the selling of products or services". I also strongly believe in a synergestic effect when using online and offline advertising next to eachother. A very good example of this is the Monopoly campaign of Eurostar. --> http://www.cherryandcake.eu/cases/jemepaielondres/
Of course they had a large budget and could affort this expences. But I believe SMEs can do this also but on smaller scale. Offline as a teaser and online for the real message.
Very true in what your group has written about SMEs can utilize aspects of marketing research within e-marketing depending on their financial and human resource capability. Especially for small enterprises, e-marketing tools such as social networks (Facebook, Twitter etc) can be fully explored to promote and collect customer information, and at the same time, it is absolutely free (Casteleyn 2009).
Reference:
Casteleyn, J., Mottart, A. and Rutten, K. (2009) ‘How to use Facebook in your Market Research’. International Journal of Market Research 51(4), 439-447
Your last reference to the 'effective and efficient' optimisation of E-commerce tools is very apt. You will agree with me that there are zillions of companies on the web that we do not know of and may never no of. Perhaps they are satisfied with simply having a 'www' address next to their name. The whole point is for SMEs not just to be on the internet, it is to exploit it as a medium to transform their business. Thats were strategy comes to play, and there are cost-effective e-marketing tools to exploit to this end. The benefits are endless If properly utilised.
Very well written, in my own taught's believe e-marketing is product specific and its success depends on the internet penetration of the target customers. in 3rd world countries, with very low internet penetration it would be very difficult for e-marketing to succeed.
Based on your feedback and comments I feel we share the line of thought. In current times SMEs and multinationals can no longer afford to have an inefficient, undevelopped online strategy. However it must indeed be relevant to the target group and its region.
Floris, I like what you said about the use of both offline and online campaigns.
I don't think that SME's should only focus them on e-marketing because for some of them it isn't important as for others. E-marketing should be a help or a boost for other media being used to promote your product.
Thanks all for your opinion!
Yes good article,
And I think The E-marketing complet well the thraditional marketing tool.
As for e.g. for the communication when we see some advertisement to the television, on billboard or people do a video and all the end is on internet. As a objectives to create a ''Buzz''.
Thank you
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