E-Marketing as the Process of Promoting Services and Products - Essay Example

?E-MARKETING By: a) There various key stakeholders of HP. These stakeholders include the HP s who have been identified in the case study by Chakraborty and Govind (2008, p. 1) as the young and old, consumers and professional who the Executive Vice President, Personals Systems Group, HP refers to. In addition, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners who are the advertising agency of HP are the other stakeholders of HP. The customers and businesses are recognized as key stakeholders given the emphasis they received in the first HP advertising campaign as observed by Chakraborty and Govind (2008, p. 1). It is only when an organization considers a group as a key stakeholder that they can invest on a campaign targeting them. The other groups that seen as key stakeholders of HP are CIOs and IT executives who were targeted in the 2004 campaign, ‘change+ hp’. Celebrities and media houses are the other group identified as key stakeholders for HP as they were used to advance ‘The Personal Again Campaign’ while MTV collaborated with HP to develop the reality show ‘Meet or Delete’. According to Chakraborty and Govind (2008, p.5) HP decided to target some of its stakeholders in The Computer is Personal Campaign. These stakeholders include celebrities where as observed by Chakraborty and Govind (2008, p.5) the commercials featured Jay-Z and Shaun White. HP also targeted to harness the capability of media houses to reach out to its customers. Furthermore, the Campaign targeted different consumers but within the age bracket of 15 to 34 and middle sized businesses. b) Charlesworth (2009, p.49) explains internet marketing otherwise known as e-marketing is the process of promoting services and products over the internet. HP opted to use internet marketing given the obvious reasons that this marketing can reach to greater number of customers and is personalized. The issues that organisations need to consider when using e-marketing methods on an international basis include the concern that customers may not have an interaction with the product before they purchase it. The other issue is that of ensuring the security of the information of the customers when they are making on-line purchase. Moreover, Charlesworth (2009, p.49) argues that different nations have different considerations of what can be used in marketing campaigns which defined by their culture and morals. Another issue is explaining how the client can have the computer delivered to them after purchase. HP has to take into consideration the different cultures and morals of its target group when using e-marketing. This is given some of the celebrities in the Europe have no problem posing for a photo when nude but this is unacceptable in some societies and thus use of such photos should be discouraged. The company must also address the issue of customers not getting to interact with the product before they make the purchase. To deal with this, HP should offer support centres for its customers in different locations. The advertisement used must explain to the customers how the company will ensure the security of their information during transactions and how the computer can be shipped to the client after purchasing them. c) Viral marketing as described by Kaplan and Haenlein (2011, p. 253) refers to the technique of marketing that makes use of the already existing social networks to promote a brand by use of self-reproducing viral processes. Viral marketing may make use of video clips, advergames, eBooks, images, brandable software or text messages. Kaplan and Haenlein (2011, p. 253) lists three criteria critical in viral marketing including a messenger, message and environment. A messenger requires to have three components which includes market mavens, social hubs and salespeople as outlined by Kaplan and Haenlein (2011, p. 253). HP makes use of celebrities as the market mavens for effective viral marketing. HP also used fingerskilz.tv website created for fans to access information on the 2006 Fifa World Cup as their social hub where the background of this site had HPs computers as described by Chakraborty and Govind (2008, p.7). HP in its viral marketing never used salespeople who are supposed to receive message from the market and use it to make the advertisement more persuasive. 2. (a) HP needs to make the e-marketing more persuasive and target more stakeholders by implementing the recommendations below. HP can make their e-marketing more persuasive by showing how their products have turned out be of great benefit to the business who use them to do data analysis and storage of information. This should target businesses that use manual filing system and data analysis. In addition, HP should incorporate into their e-marketing campaign photos of students who use HP computers in learning. They should explain the various benefits of using computers in schools where students can read and save their notes in computers which improve organization. This is intended to target students and the professionals. Given that professional are key stakeholders of HP, they should incorporate photographs of professional who are using HP to enhance their work. b) Miller (2009, p. 124) differentiates legal and ethical issues. He observes that those issues that are backed by specific laws are referred to as legal issues and violation of these laws leads to legal implications. On the other hand, ethical issues have no legal implications but have a moral obligation depending on the nature they affect the society or the people involved in them. In The Computer is Personal Again Campaign there may emerge legal issues of copyrighting given that HP was using the sites of other companies to market itself. HP was using the fingerskilz.tv to do its marketing though the website created another copy. This can raise legal issues since websites are protected by intellectual property rights. The campaign could also elicit ethical issues given the comments that the bloggers could write about HP competitors. HP may not bear the responsibility of negative comments about its competitors by bloggers but this has an ethical implication to the company. 3. a) There are various issues that should be considered in the design of website. A good website should attract customers; it should contain the information about the company. Charlesworth (2009, p.49) further asserts that websites need to have an online catalogue where clients can compare the prices of they need to purchase. The HP.com (US) has been designed employing various principles. The site offers the visitors a support centre where they can seek the support they may require from HP. The site also shows some of the products offered by HP in animation. The site has also been design to allow visitors to make online purchases. The background colour is black which emphasizes the products that pop up. (b) The HP.com (US) website is not effectively serving the enterprise community. From my analysis of HP.com (US), I recommend that HP should increase the number of products that appear as pop- up on their front page instead of the printer and desktop that appears. There should be appearing the various laptops, desktops and printers that the company markets. As recommended by Charlesworth (2009, p.49), the HP.com (US) website should have an online catalogue where visitors can access the current prices of products on the front page. I recommend that the company provides more information on products relevant to the enterprise community. The site should provide information on super computers and other products that enterprise may require. I also propose that the site gives a chance for the enterprise people to collaborate with HP in marketing its products. d) Since the overall objective of the site is to help in marketing HP products, HP could do an analysis of the number of hits that the website receives in a given period. This will be an indication of whether the site is getting visitors. The company may also carry out an analysis of the average time that visitors stay on the site. The longer visitors stay on the site, the better the effectiveness of the site. Lastly, HP may analyze the number of purchases of its products done online. References Charlesworth, A 2009, ‘Internet marketing: a practical approach’. Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 49. Chakraborty, B. and Govind, S 2008, ‘The Computer is Personal Again’ A Global Marketing Communications Campaign Case Study. ICFAI Center for Management Research (ICMR) Ref No. 508-068-1: pp 1-16 Miller, C 2009, ‘The Conditions of Moral Realism’. The Journal of Philosophical Research, 34, 123-125. Kaplan A. M., and Haenlein, M 2011, ‘Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance’. Business Horizons, 54(3), 253-263. Read More