Electronic Marketing Plan - Research Paper Example

Running head: E-MARKETING PLAN E-marketing Plan s Introduction: The world today has shrunk so much;people don't hesitate to say they carry it in their pockets (this refers to the not-so-new pocket PC). While the technological advancements have been great for many, they have proved to be very beneficial to entrepreneurs and businessmen. Ages ago, marketing was considered impossible without face to face interaction, today the concept has changed for good. This is where the concept of e-marketing appears to the scenario. Electronic marketing or e-marketing means making use of digital technologies to help sell your goods, products or services to the customers. These technologies are an important addition to traditional marketing techniques no matter what the size of your company or your business model is. The basics of marketing remain the same as normal marketing; that is - creating a strategy to deliver the right messages to the right people. What has changed is the number of options you have, in this case the options are numerous for sure. Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing mix. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small businesses (Fiore, 2000). This plan deals with a new product and its business plan, utilizing e-marketing strategies. Product: The theme behind most products is modification these days, whether it is cars or your personal computer. A touch of uniqueness and personalization is always loved by the owner, the product intended to be marketed here is 'customized laptop skins'. A laptop skin is an adhesive cover that can be attached to the top of a laptop computer. Skins are available in hundreds of colors, designs, and motif. Laptop skins allow customization of your computer, and can be uniquely personalized to fit your own design aesthetic. It is scratch resistant, splash resistant and static resistant. Most laptop skins are made out of a thin sheet of adhesive vinyl or plastic. By removing the backing from the skin, you can attach it to the cover of your laptop computer. Most laptop skins are removable and can be attached and reattached repeatedly. For the true individual, we offer completely customized skins. By uploading a photo onto our website, you can create a personalized skin with your favorite image or photograph. This can make a wonderful gift for the busy laptop owner; providing them with a skin featuring a family portrait or vacation destination can help remind them of the people and things they love while they are hard at work. With this idea in mind an e-marketing plan is made to promote and sell the product. Target Market: The fact that most people are using laptops and net-books (sub-notebooks) these days, makes up a good market for the product. The target customers range from businessmen to the young generation. Since most people believe in being unique, the same concept applies to their computers too. Most people would love to sport a new look on their laptops; since the changeover is not only cheap, it's fully customized too. The age range can easily be from 16-60 years. This includes the average teenager and the busy businessman. For a better picture, the target market must be divided in age groups and professions. He focus would be on the younger generation, as it is more dynamic and the product suits it better too. E-marketing Plan: The e-marketing plan depends on the following: Identify target audience - if we identify multiple targets, then we have to rank them in order of importance so that we can allocate resources accordingly. The skins have to be designed keeping in mind the age ranges. A major portion o the product range must be dedicated to the younger audience. We need to profile each target group and understand their requirements and expectations so that we can pitch our costs and benefits at the correct level. The skins need to be based on the interests of the customers, they might include categories including, football fans, video games and abstract art. This would allow the customers to select from a wide range of products. Setting objectives - possible objectives could include awareness raising (of our'business or disseminating information about our products or services), entering new markets, launching a new product, focusing on sales (building Internet sales of a product or increasing the frequency of sales from regular customers), or internal efficiency (decreasing marketing costs, reducing order-taking and fulfillment costs, or improving customer retention rates). The objectives set, must be realistic in nature. They must not be over estimated. (Business support, information and advice, n.d.) Deciding the marketing mix - we should choose a mix of e-marketing activities that will help you achieve our objectives and fit with any existing traditional marketing activities you already have planned. Agree a budget - careful budgeting allows preventing costs getting out of control. By identifying the returns one expects to make from investment in e-marketing activities can compare these with the costs in order to develop a cost/benefit analysis. Action planning - identify the tactics for implementing the selected e-marketing activities. Measuring success - build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to enable us to assess the success of our e-marketing activities, particularly as e-commerce is such a dynamic and fast-changing area (Kennedy, 2006). Marketing Techniques (In Depth): Numerous ways of marketing electronically some are: Email - great for building relationships and keeping customers up to date with offers, and is less intrusive than telephone marketing. However, growing concerns about spam mean we need to make sure we adhere to government regulations. More and more people have an email address that allows them to receive documents or other files electronically. It is a fast, flexible and effective way of getting marketing messages through - such as newsletters or special offers - without the time lag and costs associated with printing. It's essential not to overuse email marketing. What makes it so effective - the personal, time-sensitive interaction - can also irritate people if it is irrelevant or unwanted. We should also consider compatibility. Different programs will display email differently. An email with images or an HTML component could look messy on a different set-up, or even cause the program to crash. The solution is to profile customers and understand what the best format is for them. Some may like high-tech e-marketing, others might prefer a plain-text email. (Perlman, 2009). SMS (short messaging service) - almost everyone has a mobile phone these days, so marketing via text messaging is a viable option for any business. However, the personal relationships people have with their phones means marketing needs to be carefully considered. Text messaging is increasing at an enormous rate. One of the primary reasons behind this growth is that text messaging has become increasingly used as a business tool. Text messaging enables information to be sent to groups of people quickly and conveniently in much the same way as email, making it an increasing popular e-marketing channel (Sreenath, 2004). Websites - a hugely flexible option to meet any marketing need. However, with so many other websites, we need an approach for getting our noticed and used. There are three main ways that people arrive at websites - direct navigation, web referrals and search engines. Direct navigation The best way of generating web traffic is to make sure our web address is included on all printed material - business cards, letters, flyers, etc. A simple web address (URL) which avoids hyphens or other punctuation is a better choice as it will be easier for people to remember. Web referrals Web referrals are an important means of attracting visitors to the website. There are a number of they can be generated. Include web address'in all email footers. Email marketing - targeted electronic newsletters and offers to customers can be very effective. If the offer is interesting it is easy for people to pass the email on. Online advertising - the use of banner and pop-up adverts on other websites to drive people to ours. Reciprocal marketing - finding sites with complementary content and agreeing to have links or banners to each other's sites. Forums - we can set up your own, or monitor others, join the discussion and point people towards website. Search engines Few'web users will look past the second page of results on a search engine that is a fact. This means that if a website isn't rated among one of the 20 best matches for someone's search, you are unlikely to pick up passing trade. There are lots of things which can be done to improve rating. Include the right keywords or metadata when building website and submit it to a search engine. Update keywords regularly using the search engine reports to help identify the words that are generating the most hits and those which are not performing. Register with online directories, both general and those specific to industry and the markets we serve. This will generate links to our site from highly ranked sites which will boost our page rank. Many directories are free but it is also worth considering paying for highly relevant directories. Exchange reciprocal links with related trade associations, consumer forums and sites selling related (but not competing) goods or services to boost your ranking on sites that measure a site's popularity. Pay search engines to include our website as a sponsored link. Sponsored links appear at the top or on the right-hand side of the search results. Use the web tools provided by the search engines to help improve website's ranking. Many of the main search engines - such as Google, Ask, Yahoo and MSN - provide tips, advice and tools to help you improve your website's usability. Banner adverts Banners and buttons occupy designated space for rent on web pages. They are similar to the print advertising model used by newspapers and magazines, except they can include video, audio and interactive capabilities in just a few square inches of space. Most banners work on the basis of click-throughs, the user clicks on the banner and is linked through to the website that is paying for the advert. Banners can be useful for brand awareness, but response rates tend to be very low. Website analysis tools A website analysis tool is a'piece of software that you can use to measure the usage patterns of your site. It does this using statistics such as the total number of visitors, the number of new and returning visitors, which search engines they are finding the site through, and which parts of the site they are making particular use of. Analog and some other website analyst tools are available free from the web. Other well-liked packages include Wusage and WebTrends. Google Analytics is a free of charge tool too that provides a tremendously detailed view of how visitors have found your site and what'they do when they get there (Business support, information and advice | Business, n.d.) User surveys The only other way of checking how visitors reach us and whether we are really providing what they want is to ask them. Daniels & Mullen, (2008) explain that, short surveys and Pop-up surveys are a good way of gathering this type of information - but users may simply ignore them, particularly if you ask too many questions. Ideally, you need to know how they found the site, whether it is their first visit and why they're visiting. Therefore they need to be precise and targeted to what information is to be gathered. However one must not depend totally on them. Conclusion: A good marketing plan also needs to consider a lot many other factors, both internal and external. The fact that these laptop skins can be copied and more competition can increase, is not unreal. Moreover, a financial analysis must run parallel to the strategy. This would help check if the cost is reciprocated or not. References Brown, B. C. (2007). The Complete Guide to E-mail Marketing: How to Create Successful, Spam-free Campaigns to Reach Your Target Audience and Increase Sales. Miami, Florida: Atlantic Publishing Company (Fl). Business support, information and advice | Business Link. n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2009, from http://www.businesslink.gov.uk Daniels, D., & Mullen, J. (2008). Email Marketing: An Hour a Day. New York: Sybex. Fiore, F. (2000). E-Marketing Strategies. U.S.: Sams. Group, I. (2008). The 2009-2014 World Outlook for Text and Short Message Service (SMS) Systems. New York City: Icon Group International. Hanson, W., & Kalyanam, K. (2006). Internet Marketing and e-Commerce. Mason, OH: South-Western College Pub. Jr.., Mullins, J., Walker, O. C., & Boyd, H. W. (2007). Marketing Strategy: A Decision Focused Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Kennedy, D. S. (2006). The Ultimate Marketing Plan: Find Your Hook. Communicate Your Message. Make Your Mark. Avon: Adams Media Corporation. Perlman, C. (2009). E Boot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business. New York, NY: Wiley. Sreenath, K. (2004). SMS Marketing for Mobile Generation. 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