Internet Marketing of Alison Hayes - Term Paper Example

Internet Marketing Part Branding It's futile looking for the Holy Grail if you don't even know what it looks like. Similarly, it will be impossible to tell whether a business is just a name, or a strong brand, unless we know what the elements of a brand are and how they are assessed. Elements of a Brand A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors (Kotler 2001, p.404) What this means is that a brand relates specifically to a manufacturer or distributor. It is distinguished from other similar products by a unique name and a distinct emblem or logo. It is a manufacturer's or distributor's promise of meaning and value that go beyond what is intrinsic to the product or service. Customers too see brands as something that is more than what is built into the product. But these values and meanings may be different from customer to customer or from one group of customers to another. However the real and perceived values of a brand are generally expressed and understood along four dimensions: 1) The brand as a product with features, quality, and uses. 2) As a business entity which is pioneering and dependable 3) As an individual with personality - friendly, caring and sincere 4) And as a symbol - supremacy, prestige, trendy etc. (Aaker 1996, p.79) 2 While Aaker is of the opinion that brand values are expressed along these four dimensions others like Jean - Noel Kapferer are of the opinion that this expression is along six dimensions: Physique, relationship, reflection, personality, culture and self-concept. (Kapferer 2000, p.127) Brand Identity Brand identity gives a business its direction. All the strategic decisions of a business are based on it. It defines the business. Brand identity should help establish a relationship between the brand and the customer by generating a value proposition involving functional, emotional or self-expressive benefits. (Aaker 1996, p.68) The value proposition - the principle benefit of a product or service - is a subset of brand identity and business definition. Core Identity Brand identity is made up of a core identity and an extended identity. A brand's core identity is fundamental to the meaning of a product. It is what a business will want its product or service to be perceived as. The core identity of a brand helps a business to specifically identify the essence of a brand, organizational values that drive the brand, and what the organization itself stands for. It is what gives a brand its uniqueness and "sets it apart from competition". It is something that is relatively permanent. 3 Extended Identity The extended identity of a brand includes aspects of the brand that complete the picture. This will normally be, aspects of the brand that a business will want its target market to associate with. Everything a brand stands for cannot be communicated merely by its core identity. This shortcoming of the core identity is made good by its extended identity. And the broader a brand's extended identity the more unforgettable it will be. (Aaker 1996, pp.85-9) Brand Position The concept of brand identity brings us to the concept brand position. Brand position is that part of a brand's identity and its value proposition that a business intends to repeatedly communicate to its target market. It is the brand position that communicates an advantage over competition. All advertising is centered on a brand's position. (Aaker & Joachimsthaler 2000, pp.41-2) Brand Image While a brand's identity is what a manufacturer or distributor may want its target market to perceive it as, a brand's image is what the actual market perception. In wanting to communicate a brand's identity companies send out messages; it is how the market receives these messages and interprets them that are important. Although brand image is a lagging indicator, it helps the marketing department make corrections to its communications strategy if its brand identity and brand image are significantly inconsistent. 4 Brand Equity Brand equity is created by the manner in which a company expresses the value of its brand along the dimensions of product, business entity, personality and symbol. Brand equity is usually expressed in terms of "awareness, loyalty, quality and associations". Brand equity is what all brand building effort focuses on. Brand Awareness Brand awareness refers to the extent to which a brand is present in the mind of a customer. It is sometimes thought of having three degrees: Recognition, recall and top-of-mind. Recognition alludes to some remembrance of the brand without being able to give details of the brand, or how it differs from other brands. Recall on the other hand refers to a state of mind where a mention of the product category brings to mind the specific brand. Top-of-mind refers to a situation where a mention of the product category brings to mind only one brand. Loyalty If a straight forward reason is required to emphasize the importance of a brand consider the fact that the cost of acquiring a new customer is far more than the cost of retaining an old one. The importance of customer loyalty has many marketers talk in terms of "customer lifetime value". This refers to how much a customer will buy throughout her association with a business entity. This concept seems to have more relevance to businesses on the Internet where till recently marketers used to think in relatively short terms. 5 Quality Not withstanding anything else that a brand may claim to have, if quality is not an intrinsic part of a product or service there is no way that it will succeed. In fact some marketing experts say that quality is a commoditized attribute - it is an entry-level necessity. Associations Brand association refers to what makes the link between a customer and a brand. It is the bond between a customer and a brand. (Aaker 1996, pp.10-25) The brand Score Card According to Kevin Lane Keller building and maintaining brands is the primary responsibility of all businesses, big and small. His concern is that only a small number of managers know how to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their brands. To assist managers do just that he has evolved a "brand score card". The score card lists ten traits that are common to the most successful brands. These successful brands 1) Deliver benefits that are of real meaning and value to customers 2) Stay appropriate over time 3) Their pricing strategy follows the principle of value for money 4) They occupy and dominate specific mind-space 5) They stay consistent. They do not get mired in advertising clutter or conflicting communication. 6 6) If the brand is part of a portfolio, it plays a truly complementary role to optimize overall equity. 7) The brand uses an assortment of tools to build equity. 8) Managers of these brands know exactly what their brand image is all about. 9) Managers of these brands do what ever is required to keep up the tempo. 10) The sources of the brands are constantly watched. To know if a business has just a name or a brand, and if it is a brand, whether it is a strong brand, it could be assessed against this score card. (Keller 2000) Part 2 Internet Marketing Strategy Alison Hayes claims to be a leading manufacturer of ladies' clothing in the UK. The company was established in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1962. It started operations in London in 1988. In the brief write-up the company states to currently have a network of reputed retailers. The company's primary offering is "soft women's clothing". Alison Hayes is said to use its website and the Internet as a communications medium. To better understand how things should be, it is necessary to first have an understanding of the internet market environment. The internet's biggest advantage can also be its biggest shortcoming. While it makes it possible for even small companies to address global markets, it makes competition all that more severe. This is the most important fact of the Internet. 7 The second most important fact is "cost of transportation" on the internet. It almost always involves no cost at all. If one does not find a particular site fulfilling a search objective, a simple click of the mouse takes the user to a different site. Some 30% of internet users go online on any given day for no particular reason. About 52% use the net to send or receive email. Around 31% use the net for news. About 38% use a search engine. (30% of Internet users go online without any specific reasons 2006) A Comparison of Attributes In comparing the website attributes of Alison Hayes with other websites we will actually be benchmarking sites in similar businesses. There is a risk in just benchmarking companies in the same market: It is possible that some of the best practices by companies outside the market may be overlooked. Therefore for our exercise we will make a comparison of the Alison Hayes website to a UK site and where possible to a website immaterial of the market it serves. The company owned website is http://www.alisonhayes.co.uk/. We are more concerned with the 38% of users who use specific search terms to locate sites of interest to them expect to find information on the landing page that is in sync with their search objectives. In many ways an ecommerce web page is akin to a point-of-purchase. At the least, it is a point where a favorable impression is intended to be created. More and more businesses are beginning to see a website as a way of increasing brand awareness. 8 People's eyes take in information in cycles referred to as eye fixations. That is the eye focuses on something for 200 - 300 milliseconds. And the angle of vision is 3-5 degrees with the centre of vision being 2 degrees. This means that the landing page must attract the visitor's attention to a specific part of the page and convey to the essence of the site almost instantaneously. It will be apparent that there is a link between visual attention and memory for a brand - that is, a proper landing page has the potential for visual equity in the form of creating higher brand recall. The greater the visual attention a landing page is able to get the greater is the recall for that brand. (Chandon 2002) The landing page of the Alison Hayes website conveys this almost immediately. But compare the landing pages of asos.com and neimanmarcus.com; it certainly does not have the visual equity of either. Neimanmarcus.com is at the top of "Forbes Best of The Web". Alison Hayes must give its page a makeover, ensuring that the eyes fix at a particular spot on the page which conveys the essence of the site. The company should decide on a brand position which should be central to all its communications. Driving Traffic to the Site When a search is made specifically for "soft ladies' garments UK" the Alison Hayes website turns up at the top. But this does not happen for other keywords and phrases. If manufacture of "soft ladies' garments" is the definition of its business, that fact is buried somewhere in the text. In order to drive more traffic to its site the company must highlight its 9 value proposition in such a way as to increase brand awareness. Alternatively the company must make use of more meta tags so that the website gets displayed for other search terms as well. A generic search term "women's clothing" does not list Alison Hayes. Probably the company will do better by expanding its search terms. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) It is a way of naturally attracting traffic to one's website by getting a top position with the major search engines/directories for specific search words and phrases. This is done by making a website search engine friendly. This means placing contextually relevant keywords or meta tags in the web pages of the site. When search engines index the pages of the site they associate the pages with those meta tags. The presence of meta tags on the web pages of a site is one way that search engines prioritize the serving of websites against searches. But the algorithm give pride of place to websites based also on the popularity of websites. One way in which they assess this is by the number of external link-backs to the site. Google is one search engine that employs this system of assessment. A careful examination of one's business definition and value proposition gives an indication of the kind of meta tags that the business should be using. A search of Yahoo's Overture and Google's keywordSandbox will give a list of search terms that people generally use while searching for what is central to a website. SEO is not as easy as it is normally made out to be. To do an effective job will require experience and knowledge of the nuances involved. In any case if immediate results are required 10 then SEO is not the tool. It could take anything from a year or more to get listed in the first ten websites a search engine serves. Since Alison Hayes is using its website as a medium of communication, it is advisable that the company optimize its cost per customer reached by engaging professionals to do its SEO. However it will be a year before the traffic picks up. Ad Banners Search engines like Google and Yahoo either carry contextually relevant textual ads or give a website priority positioning based on the highest bidding for the slot for a set of keywords. So if a specific keyword is searched a company's ad or website comes on top in case the company is the highest bidder. People searching for that specific keyword will click on the link and reach the advertiser's website. This is a solution that can bring traffic in a relatively short time. However this is a relatively costly proposition as no sales happens on the site. Every time a person clicks through the company's ad banner bill will keep going up. And if there is no reasonable sales conversion taking place the whole exercise could be a futile exercise. Opt-in Lists This is one way of buying traffic. There are scores of relevant list vendors from whom such lists can be bought. Such lists can be used for email marketing, multi-level-marketing, creating buzz or just give meaning to the concept "network externality". "Network externality" simply means that a typical prospect can get to more prospects in a larger network - traffic begets more traffic. 11 The Way People Search People may search for information relating to a current interest using keywords or phrases they think best describes their current goals. Or they may search for specific brands that represent their current needs and solve an immediate problem. Or in rare cases, where the power of a single brand is so strong, they will look only for that specific brand. Being in the Consideration Set At the mention of a product category the names of some brands come to mind. These names together form the consideration set. Thereafter the final decision about a product is made on the basis of the affect-referral rule, which is nothing but choosing a product that scores the highest when values on the basis of certain primary and certain secondary attributes. All these attributes together form the affect-referral. (Solomon 2002, p.213) Mentally, customers form an array of primary and secondary attributes, which they think are important to a purchase decision. A set of brands that represent these attributes make the consideration set. Investing in further learning about a new product is more than the value the customer will derive by adding one more product to the evoked list. Therefore customers non-consciously ignore products that are not already there in the consideration set, unless the new product brings in a new attribute that is of importance to the customer and temporarily upsets a relative equilibrium. (Schiffman & Kanuk 1995, p.575) 12 Being Top of Mind Being top-of-mind is a situation where a mention of a product category brings just that one brand to mind. This is a situation all marketers wish to achieve. But the reality is that situations are rare. Keeping in Touch Customer lock-in is important to retain customers and prospects. It gives a business the opportunity to develop a relationship with customers. In time this relationship could become so strong that the cost of switching to another brand in terms of emotional cost at least will be high. The most common way of keeping in touch with customers is through newsletters. Periodic newsletters with news from the world of fashion could be a clincher. (Buschken 2004) Alison Hayes has no customer lock-in. Compare asos.com. They have a Style Newsletter. To receive it people have to subscribe giving basic personal details. How companies mine such data is subjective. What counts is that this is one good way of regularly keeping in touch. In most markets there are one or two relationship leaders who outperform their rivals by staying more closely connected to their customers. (Day 2002) Interactive Websites Being interactive has two advantages: visitors can be engaged in a continuous dialogue and a company can leverage their competence as users, critics and get a feel for a market that is quite changeable - fashion is flighty business. 13 There is only one way to be current in such a market and get a feel for emerging trends: engage the customer in continuous dialogue. There are four ways in which to do this: Continuously engage customers, promote customer communities, deal with customer heterogeneity, and jointly create personalized experiences for customers based on customer feedback. This also helps a business to stay relevant over time. Experiments have shown that the mere fact of customer surveys have had a positive impact on sales because of the perception that the survey is because the company cares for customer feelings and feedback. Here we are talking about engaging the customer in the critical decisions of the business. Nothing creates greater loyalty than the feeling of belonging - the feeling of being a part of the business itself. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2000, p.78-79) Companies like neimanmarcus.com let its customers create wish lists. This is one way of keeping track of what's on people's minds. Alison Hayes will do well to create the scope for customer feedback. Engaging prospects in a continuous dialogue is one way of being top-of-mind. Building Brands through Publicity Probably no one has done this better than Sir Richard Branson. Most of Virgin's brand equity was created through publicity rather than through the use of full page ads and mass media. But this will however require for more than the average level of creativity. To build its brand through publicity Alison Hayes could engage the services of a professional PR firm. 14 Convenience Contrary to common belief, people shop on the net for convenience. Choice and price are secondary considerations. Other than a brief sketch of its history, Alison Hayes communicates little else. Even if an online customer should want to make a purchase there is little to help her to the next step. The least the company can do is give its list of retailers. Articles that count for hedonic shopping involve touch and feel and involve complex measurements are less likely to sell online. This makes it even more imperative that the address of brick-and mortar execution points be given. Customer rewards and Loyalty Companies like neimanmarcus.com have their own credit card. Other companies have stored-value cards. The two help enhance customer retention and perhaps even customer loyalty. The stored-value cards are a convenient and well accepted gift item. While it may offer the holder special discounts or bonuses, it gives the company "float money" and buyers often renew such cards to avail of small balances against their cards. The Starbucks stored-value card is an example. Alison Hayes could use this and other tools to build brand equity. Faceless on the Net With the exception of the stronger brands, most others on the Internet are faceless. Such companies can only to hope to build brands in customer experience. 15 Companies like Marks and Spencer also carry small ticket items. Online shoppers who are new to a company can try the low cost items before they gain the confidence to try the costlier items. This also helps to create higher awareness for the company. Alison Hayes could perhaps think of adding low cost complementary items to their existing line. Part 3 Online Consumer Behavior It would appear that consumers are quite trusting when it comes to sharing some personal details, and a significant number of net users are not very concerned about their privacy. For instance only 40% online consumers read privacy statements, only 30% find privacy statements easy to understand. An astounding 82% of online consumers are willing to part with personal details if they are offered a small exchange for some sort of benefit. Around 61% are willing to give their email address and some 49% are prepared to give their full names. (Privacy statements but who reads them 2002) Although online consumers are quite forthcoming in certain ways online, they are generally wary of online commerce. Recently Webwatch had reported that 53% of respondents have expressed that they are now reluctant to divulge personal information online. Some 30% said that they have reduced internet usage and 29% reported that they were consciously reducing online shopping. Can't say they are to blame. What with so much internet fraud, this is to be expected. On the internet most businesses are faceless. Only the better known websites are trusted. Although only 68% of web users trust online banks, 93% of the people who do online banking 16 trust banking websites. That is because these banks are well established and are subject to government regulations and constant scrutiny. That is not the case with the regular ecommerce websites. Unless a website is well known people do not wholly trust them. That is why the initial objective is to generate customer experience with the website. Customers are normally more willing to try out small ticket items. In addition to this your offering should be backed by a no-questions-asked money back guarantee. Another feature that can add to a site's credibility is third-party certification. For instance people doing online banking tend to trust online banks that bore a VeriSign seal. (Scarborough 2005) Online consumers are especially attracted to bonuses with every purchase. Limited- period bonuses create a sense of urgency. This is why it is common for companies to use limited-period bonuses as an effective marketing tool. Similarly, free-shipping seems to have a special attraction. For some inexplicable reason saving $5 in the form of free shipping is seen as more attractive than a discount that can translate to $10.This perception by online consumers is so intense that many retailers see conditional free-shipping as their most potent marketing tool.(The psychology of 'free' online shipping 2006) Another inexplicable truth of the internet is for consumers to accept prices that end with the number nine as a discounted price. For instance, just to prove a point, a regular price of $25 was raised to $29 and touted as the new discounted price and sales increased. 17 The order in which colours are processed are red first, then blue and then green. This fact may come in handy while designing a website. Building Credibility Being faceless on the net is the biggest drawback of most companies. Whatever claims a website may make, customers tend to non-consciously evaluate "source credibility". Therefore building credibility is one of the primary tasks of new and unknown sellers. One way of overcoming this is to create customer experience by initially offering small ticket items which buyers may not object to trying. As their experience in dealing with the site increases, buyers will eventually graduate to higher cost items. Another way of overcoming this is to have claims endorsed by a publicly accepted personality - an Oprah Winfrey endorsement for instance. This is an instance of the use of a formal source. An informal source would be the use of ordinary everyday people. (Schiffman & Kanuk 1994, p.288) Another fact of online b2c is that people buy things that do not call for too much attention or too much involvement. For all the more important things people use the internet only to gather information and make price comparisons. As such site content must be simple and crisp. Online consumers should not be involved in cognitive elaboration. Like TV the online medium is also considered to be a fleeting low-involvement medium. (Solomon 2002, p.113) Conclusion The Internet is a powerful communications medium. Alison Hayes could leverage this potential better. The company will do well to have a value proposition which it should 18 consciously use in all its communications. There are a slew of marketing tools and techniques which the company could utilize to create greater equity for its brand without having to use costly mass media. It must make its site more user-friendly by giving details of its retail network making it convenient for buyers to make a purchase. Alison Hayes could give its communications effort a big fillip by using some method of customer lock-in and engaging them in continuous dialogue. Reference List Kotler, P 2001, Marketing Management, The Millennium edn, Prentice Hall India, New Delhi. Aaker, DA 1996, Building Strong Brands, Free Press, New York. Kapferer, JN 2000, Strategic Brand Management, 2nd edn, Kogan Page India, New Delhi. Aaker, DA & Joachimsthaler, E 2000, Brand Leadership, Free Press, New York. 30% of Internet users go online without any specific reasons 2006. Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Solomon, MR, 2002, Consumer Behavior Buying Having and Being, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Keller, KL 2000, 'The Brand Report Card' Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Chandon, P 2002, 'Do we know what we look at An Eye-tracking study of visual attention and memory for brands at the point of purchase' Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Schiffman, LG & Kanuk, LL 1994, Consumer Behavior, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Buschken, J 2004, 'Why is customer lock in important' Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Prahalad, CK & Ramaswamy, V 2000, 'Co-opting Customer Competence' Harvard Business Review, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 78-9. Day, GS 2002, 'Winning the competition for customer relationships' Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Privacy statements but who reads them 2002, Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . Scarborough, I 2005, 'Consumers Still Don't Trust the Internet' Retrieved May 12, 2006, from . The psychology of 'free' online shipping 2006. Retrieved May 12, 2006 from . Read More