EBay's Overall Digital Marketing Efforts - Case Study Example

Description and Critical Evaluation of a Company's Overall Digital Marketing Efforts Case of eBay Executive Summary According to Marketing Week, eBay was established in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar’s in San Jose, California. From the beginning, its sole purpose was to act as a marketplace for individuals. Pierre brought in Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman, who made up an experienced team to form a strong and firm vision for the company (eBay is an organization that its mission is to help people connect and not just selling things). With up to 4.5 million likes on facebook and over 170 thousand followers on twitter, eBay is actively increasing its popularity all around the world. It has a modern website that is quite user friendly, it easy for one to find his or her way around the site be it to buy or sell a phone, a car or an accessory among others. Consequently, its default search engine gives results of all its networks; the item to be sold or bought, the price range and the even geographical location. Finally, eBay has a mobile application that allows e-mail and message notifications about specific services (O’Reilly, 1). The New York Times has featured news about eBay. Buying a few items on eBay guarantees one to be conversant with the mechanisms and operations of the site. More information and ideas were outsourced from other people who have used eBay before or are still using. Overall Marketing Strategy A marketing strategy refers to the process(s) or model(s) that a company employs to realize sustainable competition and maximize their sales, by optimally using their resources. This would include all the short and long term ideologies in the marketing area, strategy formation, assessment and selection of a good plan, hence to help the organization reach its goal. Marketing, therefore, entails the efforts used to get word out about a product. O’Reilly (1) claims that, no matter how big the brand, the products they have a need to be show cased to the rest of the globe to atleast get a hearing. These strategies include: spreading the news, using e-mail, allowing for customer feedback, using business cards, rewarding frequent customers and giving out freebies. These ideas enable one to make an overall marketing plan, but with a good website the number of these strategies can be doubled. Located all over Europe, eBay has got more than 90 million users worldwide. As a marketing plan, it launched daily email offers service, and is focusing to push fashion sales. With its slogan, ‘free shipping’, eBay has been able to significantly attract sellers and buyers from all over U.S. eBay. It redesigned its website into a super store. Recently, Sainsbury’s digital marketer, Tanya Lawler joined eBay to be the vice president in order to boost sales says O’Reilly, (1). Target Audience EBay is one of the largest online marketplaces all around the world. It allows trade to occur on local, national and even international scale. This trade happens through auction listings, buy it now basis or through the eBay stores. It has acted as a neutral intermediary between buyers and sellers, hence referred to as a market maker. EBay oversees trade between a number of goods and services namely; motors (cars, motorcycles, bicycles etc.), fashion, Electronics, collectibles or art, sporting goods, toys and hobbies, jewelry, health and beauty, deals and gifts and finally, home, outdoors and décor (Ebay.com, 1). A number of eBay users find it safer than other online marketplace, it is, therefore, considered a reliable online source for buying and selling of goods and services. EBay offers free shipping within the U.S while rival online marketplaces do not offer such service. EBay differentiate itself by getting involved or acting as a mediator between the two parties (buyers and sellers), hence the idea of auctioning goods and services. Furthermore, it has discounts and gives users the opportunity to win one or two items after a specific draw or buy. More so, eBay has proven to be a credible and trust worthy source for original and genuine goods over the years it has been in business (O’Reilly, 1). Only those above the age of 16 years are allowed to own an account with eBay. EBay targets American and European citizens who are ready to buy goods and services that are either new or have been used. It also targets those willing to sell their products to a worthier buyer. EBay has for a long time had its eye on high school, college students and teenagers particularly those that are just starting to live on their own (O’Reilly, 1). In special cases, those suffering from middle life crisis often find themselves turning to eBay for shopping purposes. Therefore, the primary market for eBay has always been the online auction and shopping communities. In addition, eBay targets one or two segments of these communities namely; motor, electronic, art and collectible lovers among others. However, eBay still faces the problem harboring cons in the sense that some sellers pass fake products to be genuine. Personally, eBay should pass laws and even pose strict consequences for such heinous acts. Today eBay does not target the whole world in that transactions cannot be made to countries in Africa. Internationalization of eBay’s services would help boost membership and increase the volume of sales realized in a particular period. From my point of view eBay does not clearly define its target population, simply because there are some communities that are willing to buy and sell products, but they cannot access services offered by eBay. Digital Marketing and Implementation EBay has over the past few weeks has improved in the area of digital marketing strategy. Recently they introduced daily and weekly e-mail with offers to its users. EBay has topped the list of social media as per the Yomego’s list. The website is more user friendly allowing users to easily navigate through it while trying to buy or sell a product. EBay has a modernized search engine and has been optimized for easy user. It is possible to set eBay search engine as the default search engine on an individual’s computer. EBay has also been able to start analyzing customer trends. Consequently, eBay has also developed a mobile application to enable users to access eBay at any time and anyplace. Website It is amazing how eBay’s website is arranged to detail (Ebay.com, 1). The website is user friendly in the most artistic manner. It is able to find what one is looking for with a simple scroll or click. Numerous users are able to view the particulars of an item before going into any dealings. The items are placed in categories to enable one to check the price, the condition the item is in and how the period the item is on display. To mean that it is easy to navigate in the website. Another aspect is that the website has pictures that come with the details. The site also allows users to find bank details and collection procedures that the user would follow for a successful deal. Pages on the website have been closely linked with incredible keywords to increase accessibility and easy maneuverability. Each item on the website has an image and details (text) about the product. The website has a number of keywords on the left hand side are the categories to use when browsing for products. Most of the key words are in a bold font or different colors, for instance the phrase ‘free shipping’. Search Engine Optimization Having taken the eBay search engine for a ‘test ride’, the experience was out of this world (Ebay, 1). The ability for one to browse for an item by category is simply awesome. A random search for an iphone 4 displayed a number of exceptionally good responses, the cheapest iPhone, the new, the used and so forth. To my surprise the other search engines like yahoo, Bing and Google also relayed the same results. The website is the real deal; it is possible for one to browse by price, location and even the condition of the phone. EBay has used excellent site maps and keywords (particularly the categories of items; antiques, art, motor and electronics) on its website with plenty of links to allow users to easily get through. They use fine key words especially in the main search area (I’m looking for….). Positioning of keywords is indeed fundamental. An intriguing fact is the way the discounts and free shipping information and tags have been placed on the website. Advertisements have been clearly positioned to allow easy identification by the crawler. Examples are, sign in, shop safely on eBay, customer support and shopping cart and the list continues. E-mail O’Reilly (1) asserts that, Royal mail partnered with eBay to help analyze and predict customer trend. Consequently, it launched a daily and weekly e-mail service that comes with exclusive offers for its users. Emails are used to provide information on goods and services that are new in the site. Social media EBay has integrated their site with facebook and twitter allowing one to access their website and make a number of purchases. Numerous transactions happen via twitter and facebook. It is easier to use facebook or twitter to purchase a good. Items are often displayed on twitter or facebook for the simple reason that, a number of people frequently use these services for social purposes (O’Reilly, 1). Mobile Application, Add-ons and Affiliate Programs During my many searches, one or two add-ons advertising products and coupons on eBay popped up, appealing to the user’s heart, mind and eyes. The mobile application allows users to easily access the entire website at any given time. It makes work easier in some way (Ebay, 1). As early as 200, eBay had started to venture in affiliate programs, from portals to discussion forums and even product review sites. EBay outsourced management of these programs to Santa Barbara-based Commission Junction. An example of an affiliate programs is the online music seller CDnow, who started BuyWeb later to be called Cosmic Credit. EBay also contracted affiliate networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare and Google Affiliate Network. EBay paid these programs commission for every new registered user. They also paid commission on transactions made. By the end of 2009 eBay had close to five affiliate profiles: TennisRacket.us, Freeipods.com, Thekneeslider.com, eBates and Digital Point Solutions. Conclusion Technology is fast growing in this day and age. Even though, eBay has efficiently and effectively used the tech available, it is essential that they also exploit the developing technology. It is not a bad idea if they could develop branded laptops, phones and so forth. The search engine can be optimized further to pre-guess searches. The development of holograms can be exploited by eBay to create a virtual store (in hologram form) that assists the user browse through the different products present. In my opinion the use of GPS tracking would come in handy in the case of counterfeit items. Finally, using web cameras or Skype to link to parties is also an excellent idea to ease transactions. It is critical to measure digital marketing in an organization. Speedy communication to masses would be one of the main indicators of an entirely successful marketing strategy. Next point is the relative cost, digital marketing can decrease cost to nearly zero. Needs less work load and finally this type of marketing pays rich returns in the future. All strategies in digital marketing are often directed towards these goals if not then the strategy has failed. A dynamic and modernized digital marketing strategy can differentiate businesses. The strategy is to increase sales, and grow the customer base. With digital marketing, consumer market is brought closer and communication of these products is hastened. Brand management within SEOs, blogging, social media and video marketing have enhanced the nature of business today and to improve this is to identify the appropriate location services (foursquare), develop new plans for advertisements, develop an integrated market and finally, apply user-generated digital curations. Works Cited Ebay.com. “Ebay”. 23 Jun. 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. O’Reilly, Lara. “Marketing Week: EBay.” 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 29 Nov. 2012. Read More