The Role of Website Marketing Strategy to Boost the Sustainability of Business - Assignment Example

E-Marketing Introduction E-marketing is the mechanism of directly marketing commercial products through messages to a group of targeted people through the use of email. Generally, each email sent to current customer or potential customers are considered email marketing. E-marketing involves the use of emails to request business, send ads, solicits donations, or sales, and is aimed at building loyalty, brand awareness or trust (Jelassi and Enders, 2005). Email marketing can generally be done to either current customer database or cold list of customers. In a broader sense, e-marketing is used for sending email messages in order to the relationship of a merchant both with its previous and current customers in order to repeat business and encourage customer loyalty. E-marketing can also be used to send email messages in order to convince current customers or acquire new customers to purchase products or services of the business immediately. A merchant may also use email messages to add advertisements that are sent to their customers by other companies. This paper seeks to discuss the concept of e-marketing (Doyle and Stern, 2006). E-Marketing harmonizes the overall strategy of marketing perfectly, and provides advertising campaign with proven results that are measurable, which can take the company’s current marketing campaign to a higher level. For example, where e-marketing involves product promotion, query responses, event invitations, and newsletters, an all in one solution is provided by emails (Doyle and Stern, 2006). E-Marketing provides an easily customized and efficient form of marketing to advertising organizations and other businesses that complements their current strategies of advertisement and close in on the interactive and profitable market. In addition, e-marketing is beneficial to such organizations and other businesses because it allows them to target particular group of recipients and reach out to an engaged and defined audience. E-marketing also penetrates and overcomes any geographical parameters that may be a constraint to the other methods of communication. Efficiency is high in e-marketing. This is because the messages can be sent and distributed to many recipients by just one click. E-marketing is also cost effective and requires minimal investment in order to have an appropriate system set up to function. In addition, e-marketing is fast and the commercial messages are delivered to the inboxes of the recipients straight away and instantly (Tapp, 2005). E-marketing can be regarded as a form of e-commerce since it is carried out through the internet. Electronic commerce, also known as e-commerce, is the buying and selling of either products or services over the internet, computer networks or any other electronic systems. E-commerce is associated with technologies like supply chain management, electronic transfer of funds, online transaction processing, internet marketing, inventory management systems, electronic data interchange, and data collection automated systems. The modern e-commerce technically uses World Wide Web at some point in its life cycle of transaction. It may also encompass a broad technology range like mobile devices, e-mail, and telephones. Generally, e-commerce is considered the sales aspect of the e-business. It is composed of data exchange in order to facilitate the payment and financing aspects of business transactions. This is what e-marketing is based on because both are done via the internet (Tapp, 2005). An e-marketing business is based on the invention of powerful online tools and fast and quick internet connectivity has brought about new arena of commerce that will ease access to the target recipients. When starting up an e-marketing business, one stands to gain various benefits due to the nature of online businesses. The following are reasons why starting up an e-marketing organization would be easy: Easy to begin and manage the business Easy access of the products as well as faster selling and buying procedures Selling and buying is done twenty four hours No costs of company set ups are incurred Better quality products and services as well as low costs of operation There are no geographical limitations Product or service selection is easily done without physically moving around to providers The visibility of search engine makes it easy to get more customers Cost effective marketing and advertising through social media Virtual store visits by customers eliminating travel cost and time Facilitates comparable shopping by customers Provide for coupons, bargains, deals and group buying Provision for abundant product and service information Targeted communication is created between stores and customers enhancing customer service Niche products can easily be located by the customers Economical in terms of infrastructure and insurance investment Creation of knowledge markets (Jelassi and Enders, 2005) On the other hand, e-marketing organizations also face significant limitations. As a form of e-commerce, e-marketing organizations are likely to face the following limitations: Customers have had bad experience with fraudulent site and may not be willing to buy products online. Customers fear lack of guarantee of the quality of the products E-commerce is prone to attack by hackers There may be poor customer loyalty due to minimum company to customer direct interaction Total business processes may be negatively affected by mechanical failures Lack of personal touch with customers and other businesses Delays in products delivery to customers and may result into customers demoralization Customers do not get to experience goods before delivery after purchase Financial security concerns are likely to be experienced by customers paying via credit cards Computer viruses may cause delays, storage problems, and file backups leading to customer inconveniences Stiff competition with the large scale businesses that have brand loyalty may lead to constant losses There may be need for electronic malls as intermediaries to guarantee the legitimacy of transactions since the business will be new online. Poor customer relations leading to poor customer loyalty Corporate vulnerability due to the availability of details and catalogs as well as information regarding the business to the competitors (Jelassi and Enders, 2005) E-marketing faces various issues as it is considered an international commerce regardless of size. Issues to do with trust, language, culture, infrastructure, and government are likely to be faced by organization engaged in e-marketing. E-marketing needs to build trust with their recipients through offering real information in the ads and quality products to them and discounts on sale. The organizations also need to provide genuine websites with http to assure trustworthiness. E-marketing must appreciate international culture and diversity of its customers (Herrmann and Sulzmaier, 2001). All the business information and product details are also put in a common international language, English, which is understood by majority of customers. The government laws and regulations will be observed and complied with so as to avoid issues relating to non-compliance that may lead to legal problems with the government. E-marketing and infrastructural systems are synonymous. Therefore the implementation of valid computer networks and search engines that are easily noted the target customers are mandatory in e-marketing (Herrmann and Sulzmaier, 2001). E-marketing is guided by various laws and regulations that e-marketing organizations needs to comply with when sending commercial messages to their target groups. It is therefore in order that e-marketing firms observe the regulations governing international businesses. Cultural diversity and language is an important aspect in e-marketing due to the likely impacts on the culture of other people (Doyle and Stern, 2006). Due to the increased efficiency and speed of business communications by the web, e-marketing organizations has introduced a live chat option with their target customers and a customer support team in order to avoid ineffective communication that may result from too many clients trying to access information on the products being promoted. Electronic crimes are continually committed through information technology. E-marketing is today facing various cyber crimes which demoralize the target customers. Some of the e-crimes include financial crimes where customers credit cards are targeted and either overcharged or completed emptied by fraudsters (Doyle and Stern, 2006). E-marketing organizations needs to ensure loyalty and confidentiality in charging customers’ credit card and keeping their credit card details confidential in case of any online purchases of the marketed products. Another e-crime likely to be faced is piracy. There is a probability of other businesses adopting copyrighted materials and trade mark of my business. E-marketing organizations need to ensure that their trade mark cannot be reproduced due to the unique items they are promoting through emails. The organizations also need to issue stern legal warnings on the suspects attempting to copy their business copyright (Doyle and Stern, 2006). E-marketing has integrated actively into the day to day lives of consumers. According to the Radicati Group Email Statistic Report, there were approximately 1.4 billion email accounts active by 2009. The number is anticipated to increase to 1.9 billion by 2014 (Devine and Egger-Sider, 2009). E-marketing offers businesses, organizations and brands a unique opportunity to take advantage of the established channels of communication in a non intrusive, convenient, and uncomplicated fashion. In addition, the statistics of e-marketing campaigns are easily tracked through and with the available read and click rates. Click through from one email to another in the website can be monitored to measure the actions of the recipients’ email. An E-marketing solution meets the business needs including template development, database management, and content creation (Devine and Egger-Sider, 2009). Through tailoring a solution to specific requirements of individual businesses, e-marketing strategy aligns the technology with the business goals in order to produce the most desirable outcome any business organization may hope to have out of it (Chaffey, D. et al. 2003). Tailoring a solution to your individual business requirements, our strategy will align our technology with your goals to produce the most impressive outcome you could hope for. E-marketing as mentioned earlier, is associated with advantages and disadvantages as well. The following are some of the advantages experienced in e-marketing:  E-marketing has an extreme low risk High service and product exposure A universal accessibility Low costs through the use of electronic media and automation Response is fast to both the end user and the marketers Increases the possibility through personalization to the market of organizations The ability to collect and measure data is increased Increased level of interactivity (Chaffey, D. et al. 2003) On the same note, the following are some of the disadvantages facing e-marketing:  Technology dependability Experiences vast privacy and security issues Increased price competition and higher transparency of pricing Globalization leads to a worldwide competition High cost of maintenance to the constantly evolving environment In addition, effective Email Marketing services are among the most valuable elements in online marketing tactics. As mentioned earlier, e-marketing is cost effective, highly customized and targeted. The progressive use of emails in e-marketing allows business organizations to develop virtual relationships with their prospective and existing customers. Nevertheless, this aids the organizations to maximize the value and retention of the customers, which leads to greater profitability ultimately. E-marketing is hence an effective mechanism of building relationships (Bodenstein &Spiller, 2001). Apart from e-marketing, there are other types of internet marketing that complements email marketing in helping business organization cover their intended target groups (Bodenstein &Spiller, 2001). Some of these types of internet marketing include: display marketing which involves the use of banner ads or web banners placed on blogs or third party websites to increase awareness of the services and products; search engine marketing which involves increasing visibility in search engines through contextual advertising, paid placement, and paid inclusion; search engine optimization which involves increasing website visibility through unpaid or natural search results; social media marketing which involves gaining attention or traffic via the social media; referral marketing which is a way of promoting services and products through referrals to customers by word of mouth; affiliate marketing where business organizations rewards affiliates for every customer or visitor brought by the efforts of the affiliates; content marketing which involves the creation of specialized content like blog articles to attract more customers; video marketing which involves creation of videos which engages the viewers into the state of buying through presenting information and guiding them to the service or product; and inbound marketing, which involves freely sharing and creating informative content in order to convert prospects into clients and clients into repeat customers (Bishopinck and Ceyp, 2008). E-marketing requires an effective website marketing strategy in order to increase the sales in the internet (Bishopinck and Ceyp, 2008). The following are some of the web marketing strategy that business organizations can use; Begin with a plan of web promotion, web design and development strategy Optimize search engine techniques and then get a way to be at the top of the major search engines (Bishopinck and Ceyp, 2008) Use email marketing efficiently and effectively Have associate programs, affiliate, and reseller to dominate my marketing niche Get an analysis from a internet marketing consultant Have my articles published in order to get listed in emerging stories I will build opt in email list that is responsive Publish my written online press releases I will blog and have an interaction session with my customer Run and facilitate giveaways and contests through my website Through the above mentioned website marketing strategy, business organizations can boost the sustainability of their business via increased sales. The market segment is internet users shopping online. These users can be reached via the website marketing strategy mentioned above. Blogging and social networking is the best way to reach the target customers (Barowski & Müller, 2000). Advertising on the web can be conducted using the website marketing strategy mentioned in the above paragraph. Conclusion E-marketing requires a creation of an effective presence on the Web. This helps business organizations to meet business objectives. It is important that such organizations increase the Website usability in order to improve their Web presence when marketing their products. Some of the ways e-marketing firms use to improve their web presence include: optimizing search engine so as their Website is easy to locate; increasing their social networks, this will make the website more available to interact with the customers; creating a blog for the business, this will allow them to update information about products as well as customers, this will link their customers to the website of the organization; applying to directories in order to make the name of the business and information about the products available and easy to locate. This will increase the Web presence of such businesses (Barowski & Müller, 2000). Their website should also be effective. This means that in order to have e-marketing functional, the business organization needs to implement the principles of a user centered web design, and ensure that their website be friendly to search engine. Creating a web presence is based on mastering how to ensure customers are engaged on the website. The organizations therefore need to increase usability of their website to increase their web presence. This can be done through improving on their website mundane things like font readability, color, and compatibility of the browser, and ensuring clean graphics and layout of the business website, as well as improving the visibility of the website content (Arden, 2009). Bibliography Arden, L. 2009, Start your own e-business. Madison: Entrepreneur Media. Barowski, M., Müller, A. 2000, Online Marketing. Das professionelle 1x1. Berlin: Cornelson. Bishopinck, Y. and Ceyp, M. 2008, Such machine and marketing. Berlin: Springer. Bodenstein, G., Spiller, A. 2001, Marketing. Strategies, Instrument and Organization. Landsberg: MI. Chaffey, D. et al. 2003, Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. Harlow: Pearson Education. Devine, J and Egger-Sider, F. 2009, Going beyond Google: the invisible learning and teaching. London: London Facet Publishing. Doyle, P. and Stern, P. 2006, Marketing, Management and Strategy. Harlow: FT/Prentice Hall. Herrmann, C. and Sulzmaier, S. 2001, E-Marketing. Erfolgskonzepte der dritten Generation. Frankfurt: Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch. Jelassi, T. and Enders, A. 2005, Strategies for e-business.Harlow: Pearson Education. Tapp, A. 2005, Principles of direct and database Marketing. Harlow: Pearson Education. Read More