Coca-Cola Company Online Marketing - Essay Example

Online Marketing Introduction Online marketing refers to the activities done through the internet to advertise business’s goods and services. It entails online interaction with clients, the art of delivering information to the customer through an interactive internet platform. It is incomplete to talk of online marketing without referring to search engines, email, social media and web design marketing (Miller, 2008). In the modern world online marketing as extended to mobile application advertisements. Many companies are currently embracing the technique of online marketing and they are attaining marketing expansion at rapid rate. One of the major companies that are currently practising online marketing and doing perfectly in the business is the coca cola company for soft and non-alcoholic drinks (Blum, Sandholm, & Zinkevich, 2002). Coca-Cola Company Coca Cola Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia in United States under the management of Muhtar Kent. The company manufactures, retails, and markets non-alcoholic drinks all over the world. The company was launched by Griggs Candler in 1892 and has been in the business since then making tremendous steps and achieving great success (Hartogh, 2007). Coca Cola Company has been very successful in the market due to its quality drinks that differentiate its products from those produced by the competitors. The company’s great success is not only attributed to quality products but also to recent advertisement techniques such as online marketing and other forms of advertisements such as social media. The company’s high market penetration can be attributed to its ability to respond to customers taste and preferences depending on their geographic area. The company serves and distributes its drinks to over 200 countries all over the world currently. It has its headquarters in every country where bottling and distribution strategies take place (Ba, Whinston, & Zhang, 2003). The company provides a drink that offers a refreshing and comforting feeling upon its consumption. At this time, the company is campaigning for a double increase in its sales by the end of year 2020. Coca Cola’s Web Design and Marketing Coca Cola being a giant company in the field of beverages has taken many steps in the business expansion. The best strategic decision taken by the business is online marketing. The company launched internet websites many years ago (Tian, 2006). Website plays a major role in the field of marketing by improving the relationship with the customers and better customer services. The company is currently running its website that can be accessed by using www.coca-cola.com. Apart from this website the company has several other websites depending on the country of interest. A website fulfils many purposes for an organisation. A website design serves as a brochure ware to provide electronic information to the public. The website communicates to the customer through use of text, images and diagrams. The brochure part of the website is just the same information that can be provided by print outs, but the difference is the electronic form can reach more people and spread all over the world for a matter of seconds (Gertner, Gertner, & Guthery, 2005). Many websites currently are providing more than just giving information to the customer; they are performing real business online. Transaction can now be done through the internet by ordering and paying for goods and services via the internet. Other enterprises offering online transaction apart from coca Cola are a tourism sector, the banking system and online selling of clothes and electronics by companies like Zappos and Amazon respectively. To make a website more interesting to customers, the administrators are integrating entertainment techniques in their websites such as games, music listening and video watching as well as download links (Miller, 2008). The whole idea is to attract more customers to the website and keep them there for a longer time. More customers and more time spend on the website the increases the chances of a customer looking at the company’s products and services. By capturing the customer’s attention, it is easy to convert their interest to buying the products. Website design improves the customer to the business relationship since this interface enables the business to get customer’s interest and respond to them immediately. Most website designs have an interaction interface and the customer can be responded to online by the administrators instantly without waiting for a reply after long time. This instant messaging builds the trust of the customer towards the business (Mich, Franch, & Inverardi, 2004). For a website to offer the above stated roles it must be specifically designed by an expert to meet the customers’ needs and desires. The website is made to act as centre position for connecting both the business and the client and it should, therefore, display this picture to the client. Carefully designed website like that of a Coca Cola company is made to provide a forum where people with similar minds can connect and create an online community. In this notion, the website does not provide facts to the public only but also public creates ideas among themselves. The website forum, therefore, is a focal point for all people with similar thoughts or attitudes towards a given product or company (Otim & Grover, 2010). An excellent website design should incorporate other websites to its website. This website linking facilitates consumer to consumer interactions and, therefore, more customers will visit the business website. For example, Coca-Cola Company has added a blog to its website has a collaborative element to create communication traffic towards it website. The most critical aspect of the website design is its compelling nature (Miller, 2008). The website should capture the customer attention and thoughts. A website such as that for Coca Cola attracts strong interest and attention from the visitor. This compelling nature is brought by superb web design that has attractive images and smartly formatted texts. The information provided in the websites includes most recent news, new products, new prices and new services (Thomas, 2010). The company can provide different brands of its products and prices. The company should have a website designed to its business strategy and plans. The Coca Cola company website is aligned with its current campaign of doubling its sales by the end of 2020. The websites of any business should play an integral p0art in their business conquering strategy (Scott, 2007). A website must break the business into related segments such as similar products segment and similar services category. The online practice should also boost traditional marketing and enhance the delivery of services at retail outlets following online experience. A smart website design should focus on the customer’s needs and wants by rewarding loyal customers handsomely and creating promotion over the online sales from time to time. Online marketing of soft drinks by Coca Cola Company is made successful by their credible, accessible and navigable websites (Tian, 2006). Accessible websites imply that it can be accessed by different browsers available and from any location globally. With the increased use of smart phones in the modern world, companies are currently developing phone application that are installed in the mobile device and accessed anytime (Scott, 2007). Marketing websites are accessible even by the cheapest mobile devices in the market at present. The website should also provide a sense of credibility, browsing through the Coke’s website feels one with a sense of reality and practicality of the company’s services and products. Their use of filled coke bottles images that are similar to the one in the real business make the website trustworthy. The most valuable parameter in a website design is the simplicity to navigate through the different categories of tabs provided on the internet. Items should open by less than three clicks on the link (Miller, 2008). Navigating through the coke’s websites is exciting as all the items displays sub-titles by just pointing at their links and open by just one click. A good website should be error free. This means that all the content is clear, all the images are visible and there are no broken links. The information on the website must be kept up to date, by adjusting prizes, remove items online when they are out of stock and adding new products to the website immediately they are available in the market. This is the case with Coca Cola, Zappos and Amazon companies as well as many other online enterprises (Sheehan, 2010). Coca-Cola’s Social Media Marketing Online marketing is enhanced greatly by social media marketing. Social media is a web based public interaction through communication, sharing pictures and video clips. It can be done over the computer software or mobile phone applications. Coca Cola is exploiting these social media websites by advertising and spreading its popularity all over the world. Some of the leading social media websites are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs among others. Currently, Coca Cola has a Facebook page and Twitter account and YouTube group. At the present coca Cola Facebook has almost 100 million likes, this portrays how the beverage has spread its reputation through the social media. It also has several followers in their twitter account. The company frequently uploads advertisement clips to the internet that goes viral within a short time. The social media websites provide a platform where people meet and interact freely by exchanging ideas and knowledge (Sheehan, 2010). The interface helps the business to analyse general public feelings about their products and services. Social media have general characteristics like interactive nature, collaboration, defined content for the user and technologically advanced. The main advantage of social media advertisements is the ability to offer not only one to one information but also one-to-many communication (Miller, 2008). The website should be based on trust and involves engagement with known people as friends and relatives. In this method, one becomes freer when revealing his or her emotions. The business post a message in the social media site then individuals who have common ties or connection with the company’s official page can see and correspondingly respond to the business. All the people who will visit that particular page will also see the comments of others and can comment too. With this capability, the enterprise can bring attention of its presence to the unexpected customer. In a matter of fact, most of the information in these social media is generated by customers or potential customers themselves. As an example, Coke Company can communicate a simple message as requesting people to buy a coke drink and then these users can give back their responses in an orderly manner (Thomas, 2010). This means to some extent the customers are also communicating to themselves about the quality of the product and giving suggestions on the relevant improvement. The types of social media are many; there are those for media sharing, virtual community, blogs and information websites. Business doing online marketing should appropriately choose their form of social media to use depending on the audience targeted and goals of the business (Sicilia & Palazón, 2008). The business success following implementation of social media networks depends on its creativity to develop appealing contents and the size of the community created. Coca Cola has achieved much success from its quality and magnificent drinks that offer absolute refreshments. Search Engine Marketing Online marketing similarly means use of search engines to make the public aware of the company and its products and services. Top search engines at present are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, and AOL. When a person conducts an engine search different results are usually displayed on the search engine websites. The customer most often pays attention to the top results only without even looking at the rest of the issues (Sicilia & Palazón, 2008). The listing criteria of the search engine depends on the rating of a given website depending on the references made to that website and the number of other prominent websites linked to this particular web address. The companies are always fighting to get the highest ranking by the search engines (Miller, 2008). The product at the first rank after every search means it is seen by almost all users and by so doing it enlarges its popularity and expands its business further. In this sense, most companies embark on search engine optimisation by applying different techniques like use of directories, advertisements and use of free application and content. Another factor considered by the company is the use of keywords to help crawlers capture their websites easily. Search engines are targeted by organisations because it is almost guaranteed that most internet users access their interested pages by passing through search engines first (Sicilia & Palazón, 2008). Top ranked web pages are, therefore, assured public attention compared to low ranked web pages. Conclusion Online marketing is the current trend in the current world and it is gaining much attention especially with the increasing internet usage. Organisations like Coca Cola are employing online marketing techniques to increase their sales and fulfil their 2020 vision of doubling their total sales. Most popular methods of online marketing are website design, social media networking and search engine optimisation techniques. Online marketing does not necessarily mean online transactions but also passing vital messages to the public such as new products, prize adjustments, new business ventures and improving customer relationship with the business. It is there justified to argue that online marketing facilitates faster business and product development, additionally it speeds up globalisation. References Ba, S., Whinston, A. B., & Zhang, H. (2003). Building trust in online auction markets through an economic incentive mechanism. Decision Support Systems. Blum, A., Sandholm, T., & Zinkevich, M. (2002). Online algorithms for market clearing. Gertner, D., Gertner, R., & Guthery, D. (2005). Coca-Colas marketing challenges in Brazil:Thunderbird International Business Review. Hartogh, M. (2007). The real thing: a profile of the coca cola company. Mich, L., Franch, M., & Inverardi, P. N. (2004). Market research for requirements analysis using linguistic tools. Requirements Engineering. Otim, S., & Grover, V. 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