New Marketing Concepts - Essay Example

?Introduction The internet has truly revolutionized the world and changed it for good. Almost all activities linked to human life have found new significance in the light of the world being linked to the internet. Obviously, as is known to us, marketers must respond to the changes in the macro environment and thus marketing strategies have also been channelized in tandem with these trends. Thus new concepts have been introduced in the fraternity of marketing. Some of these are e marketing, direct marketing, corporate websites, e advertisements, social media marketing etc. Given the degree of importance the internet holds in our day to day lives as well as to modern business, it is imperative that businesses should have some kind of a web presence in order not to trail behind the contemporary business practices. In the light of the scenario mentioned above, any business for that matter finds it relevant as well as an essential tool to have a website. The present study takes into consideration the hospitality business wherein a restaurant is planned to be set up. The restaurant is being planned to be set up in the rural areas of Western London, namely Norholt, an industrial estate. Thus the basic planning of a website catering to the needs as well as requirements of customers of such a restaurant is the purpose of the study. In this regard, it is imperative that the study take into consideration the various dynamics of the restaurant business as well as that of the role of internet in business. Also, since it is obvious that more than anything else, the proposed website is likely to cater to the marketing functions of the business, thus the literature would also focus on these aspects. Furthermore, the emerging areas in which the website can be used such as social media marketing and the like would also be included in the literature. The literature review section of the study would provide with inputs from what the leading academicians as well as theoreticians have to say in the areas of websites for businesses as well as other pertinent areas of marketing related to websites and the internet. This would directly help the proposed website in terms of giving inputs regarding the degree of involvement websites normally have in businesses and what is its contribution to the business as a whole. Also, points from how websites may give optimized results from the business may also be found out. Literature Review “A Literature Review is a systematic examination of knowledge available on a topic”. It is further opined that as far as academic literature review is concerned “it involves the use of appropriate peer-viewed articles” (Dawidowicz, 2010). Thus literature review of a paper analyses the existing body of literature present on the topic and tries to comprehend what has been said about the said topic and ultimately explore the possibilities of the said study through the analysis of the published literature. Bell (2005) has further been of the opinion that the literature review section provides the study with its academic structure in the context of the research. Lawfer (2004) is of the opinion that technology as well as the internet has changed the law of the game of marketing thereby referring to the increased importance of the internet in each and every aspect of human lives. In the words of Neuman (2007), a website is intended to “meet the needs and wants of the customers” who visit the website and that too in a way by which these activities augment the chances of attainment of the internet marketing goals of the firm. Neuman (2007) further opines that the customers who visit online corporate websites are as diverse as general customers visiting stores at any part of the world. Thus keeping in mind the basic objective of reaching out to a wider base of customers at various corners of the world and appeal to their interests as well as entice them to try out the products or avail the services available comprise the salient goals of corporate websites. Moreover, websites intend to create awareness as well as ensure better visibility of the products and services. Again, a website may help in many other ways – the website may serve as an online supply management system, as Kotler says about McKensson Corporation (2008). An interesting read in this regard would obviously be the research paper written by Xue, Harker and Heim (2000) wherein these authors mention that despite the meteoric rise of the internet as well as e commerce, most firms are unable to capture the markets through the use of the internet. One of the major reasons that has come up in course of their study is that the few firms that have succeeded in capturing the markets through the effective use of the internet have from the very first day focused on the customer and not on the technological aspects (Xue, Harker and Heim, 2000). Earlier authors, researchers as well as management practitioners like Ziethaml (1990) or Heskett (1997) have also echoed what has been already mentioned in the study that there are various determinants to coming up with the perfect proposition that make customers loyal for a firm in terms of the services offered by the firm both online and offline. Xue, Harker and Heim (2000) also mention that the focus on the customers is a must if the firm were to retain customer loyalty and even increase the same over the years. Corporate websites have been developed as per the common sense of the developers or even as per the common practices of the industry (Conallen, 2000). Thus it is imperative that most websites have not been developed keeping the customer in mind. As mentioned before, the websites in the chosen hospitality sector have been developed in order to project a web presence and nothing much more than that. Thus it becomes clear that whatever thought has been given on the development of the website has had to do with the technological aspects of the website and not much from the perspective of the users (Xue, Harker and Heim, 2000). Thus the resultant website, as noted by the authors, have turned out to be technologically efficient but not effective in carrying out the primary task that the website should have done or even exploring the possibilities of finding new customers or even retaining them, that these websites could have achieved. Obviously, in relation to that, various websites in other sectors have shot to fame. Websites like e bay or other websites that sell merchandise have been roaring successes in their fraternities. But in the hospitality sector (restaurants), the efforts have not been channelized to the best of what could have been done within the reach of the products and services that this particular sector has to offer. Hagel and Armstrong (1997) have noted that online communities are very likely to yielded positive results on the business. This is primarily due to the connectivity feature thereby resulting in customer loyalty as well as the authors have detailed four sources of generation of value within the communities. On the other hand, Liu and Arnett (2000) have opined that there are basically six criteria to be considered while designing a website so that the website so formed yields the intended results and helps to better business performance of the organization by primarily increasing the sales as well as revenues of the firm. These six characteristic features are as follows: the quality of information got from the website, the capability of learning from the website, playfulness thereby referring to the possibilities that the website offers, system quality, use of the systems, and the quality of system design. Another aspect of online marketing of one’s products and services is done through social media marketing. Social media has been defined as “places where people with a common interest or concern come together to meet people with same interest, express interest and vent” (Weber, 2009). On the other hand, Boyd and Ellison (2007) has defined social networks as “web based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”. Weber (2009) has further argued that marketing with the help of social media is not just for big multinationals – small and medium sized firms can take equal advantage of them. Further, the role of the modern marketer is no find groups of customers within the bigger markets who can be accessed and influenced through marketing and social media plays a big role in this regard. Harris and Rae (2010) have noted that organizations are realizing the importance of social networking sites such as Facebook in marketing and branding their products. They further note that social networks have thus become integral part of marketing networks of firms. After having gone through these features in details Currie (2004) is of the opinion that a proper website is indeed one of the tools that a business may have in order to generate more profitability and primarily create more value both for the customers as well as for the firm. As far as the elements of design of the websites are concerned, the author has mentioned that the factors of immediacy as well as the aspect of integrated elements are of chief concern. Again, additional information is also one of the features that is included in the aspect of integrated elements that the website should ideally contain. However, these features once again take us to the factor of connectivity that has been mentioned earlier in the research work. What these researchers are pointing at, is not just that a website is meant for creating web presence but may also help to connect with customers in a better fashion. The enhanced connectivity so created may help to form better bonding with the customers and this in turn is very likely to result in enhanced customer loyalty as well as satisfaction for the firm. It is obvious that a better level of rapport shared with the customers is likely to attract customers time and again so that these reiterating interactions with the same set of customers may result in repeat purchases thereby bettering business performance in accordance with the dictates of Aaker (1996) as well as the other proponents of relationship marketing. As far as customer loyalty in relation to corporate websites is concerned, Xue, Harker and Heim (2000) have noted that in order to develop a loyal customer base with the help of developing a customer friendly corporate website also requires that the website offers something really worth offering such strong loyalty on the part of the customer. These authors have further added that the key to building a successful website is one where customers can make frequent returns to the website for making purchases and that the product or service is delivered successfully every time the customer returns to make a purchase. Thus consistency also becomes an added feature of a website and that the corporate website should perform continually well so that the overall experience should ideally be such that there is hardly any room for the customer to look forward to switching over to other websites. SERVQUAL or the service quality model primarily intends to measure the gap areas of current services of the firm and the perceived service quality of the customer. Thus the needs of the customer can be found out in an exact manner so that these inputs can be worked on and the level of customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty can be improved. The service quality model also emphasizes on what needs to be done in order to address the areas that may have been hampering the performance of the service sector firms and hindering the attainment of customer loyalty as well as customer satisfaction by helping in finding a fitment between the perceived service quality on the part of the client and what is currently being offered by the particular firm. Figure: SERVQUAL Model Both the strategic as well as the operational models to measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction take into consideration the needs of the customer. Most of these models are not stand alone models that simply map the levels of customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty but also help improve the same by working on the insights provided by these techniques. Also, many of these models like the balanced scorecard or the service profit chain models help take care of not only the perspectives of the customers but also take a look within the firm as to what may help the firm perform better internally. In terms of the frameworks that these models to measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction use, most of these have been developed in order to survey the general level of customer satisfaction. Many of these like SERVQUAL are intended to cater exclusively to the service sector. Again, the models so described have always linked customer satisfaction with customer loyalty. As mentioned earlier in the study, various researchers have also found the same. Thus it once again becomes clear that customer loyalty is basically a result of customer satisfaction. Apart from the apparent synonymous aspects of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, it may be also noted that most of these models have tried to use scales in order to better objectify the measurements of customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty. This in turn seems to project these models in a light of practically techniques that are used to survey respondents. Thus this is yet another major feature of most of these techniques or models of measuring customer loyalty (Swzarc, 2005). Insights and Analyses of Literature Review In the light of the information as well as insights gathered from the literature review detailed above, it is imperative that websites are indeed a common feature in business today. However, alongside, it has also become clear that business houses are yet to utilize the benefits that may be offered through websites to the hilt. Thus the subsequent analyses based on the literature review of the present study on the setting up of a restaurant in the suburbs of western London would therefore focus on how to use the insights got to create a website that is of real help to the business. Among the major revelations that have come up are as follows: The characteristics of an ideal website The degree to which websites are currently being used The emerging areas of marketing related to websites and the internet The inherent features of websites that may be used by firms Given that the present study is based on setting up a website for a restaurant, a business that normally falls in the middle of the service continuum (Jauhari and Dutta, 2009), thus a restaurant business requires both product offerings as well as service quality. Thus, in terms of the value added services that it may offer to its clients and esteemed customers, one of the foremost can always be a website. Also, it may be noted in this regard that websites are accessible at any point in time thereby increasing the accessibility of its customers to the business. Moreover, apart from accessibility, the internet or for that matter the website offers the benefit of convenience to its potential customers who can order tables or even avail of the firm’s delivery services from home only without having to come physically. Furthermore, the website is likely to also offer the firm with the advantage of becoming another marketing channel. With a fully equipped website, a business can reach out to customers who are not only in the close vicinity of the area where the restaurant is being set up but also would become reachable or accessible from any part of the world via the world wide web. In this case, as mentioned in the literature review that corporate websites merely mark their web presence, are not being properly harnessed to give optimal outputs for the firm, it should therefore be specifically noted that a fully equipped website, would therefore refer to a website that takes into consideration all that is possible via the website. Some of the pertinent possibilities of a website designed for a restaurant are as follows: Marketing product offerings Table bookings Online payment acceptance Order delivery bookings Customer service and product offerings feedback and complaints Linking the website to social media pages created for the restaurant Enabling the prospective customers to experience the feel of the restaurant even before entering the place in reality Testimonials of both satisfied and dissatisfied customers It therefore becomes clear to us that a lot is possible through the setting up of a website designed to cater to the needs as well as requirements of a restaurant. Moreover, though the specifics of these characteristic features have not been discussed, it nevertheless becomes clear that a website designed on a restaurant offers immense scope for the firm. Thus, based on the potentials as well as possibilities the proposed website offers to the restaurant, the study may conclude the benefits that may be derived from these possibilities of websites, given as under: Any time accessibility for prospective customers Providing customers a chance to experience the place virtually Accessibility from any part of the world A new marketing channel for the firm A marketing tool that also links various other social marketing tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc A tool that does not only market the restaurant to its target audience but also publicizes its performance to customers A tool that can engage its existing customers so as to result in long standing relationships thereby underlying the focus on relationship marketing (Baines, Fill, and Page, 2010) Given the benefits that may be derived from a properly set up website for the restaurant, it is imperative that these points be kept in mind while designing the website and the benefits be used as inputs as well. Moreover, since the website is being set up in the rural areas adjoining western London, it requires all the more attention not only for those who frequent Norholt but also those who plan to travel to the place and want a decent place to have meals. References 1. Bell, J 2005, ‘Doing your research Project’, Berkshire: Open University Press. 2. Dawidowicz, P 2010, ‘Literature Review Made Easy’, USA: Information Age Publishing Inc. 3. Lawfer, M 2004, ‘Why Customers Come Back: How to Create Lasting Customer Loyalty’, NJ: Career Press 4. Neuman, J 2007, ‘The Complete Internet Marketer: A Practical Guide to Everything You need to Know about Marketing Online’, With-a-Clue Press 5. Kotler, P & Armstrong, G 2008, ‘Principles of Marketing’, Noida: Pearson India 6. Xue, M, Harker, P & Heim, G 2000, ‘Website Efficiency, Customer Satisfaction & Customer Loyalty: A Customer Value Driven Perspective’, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania 7. 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