Online Marketing Development: Example of Amazon.com - Case Study Example

Online Marketing Development: Example of Amazon.com By Table of Contents Introduction At the present, the internet is the major driver of the economic growth, because the innovation presented by the internet has revolutionized almost every organization (small to large). Also, almost, every organization now understands the importance of the internet in better dealing clients and entering into the global markets. Though, when an organization grows it needs to distribute its products or services to its target clients or consumers. Thus, in this scenario, the marketing through the internet provides greater benefits as well as reach to the global markets for marketing of products. In the same scenario, traditional marketing is less competent to overcome the need for more targeted and worldwide marketing. However, by using internet, the techniques of marketing can be changed and improved, and organizations can reach and communicate in worldwide markets (Summers et al., 2003, p.67; Watson et al., 2000; Rao et al., 1998). This paper presents a detailed analysis of two main areas of the internet marketing that are marketing strategy for the virtual world and online communication, with respect to a specific organization “Amazon.com”. Amazon.com is one of the most famous and successful e-online businesses nowadays. The aim of this paper is to analyze the marketing strategies and methods of online communication or Amazon.com and suggest various internet marketing related concepts to improve its business. 2- Amazon’s marketing strategy for the virtual world As discussed above, almost all the corporations are now making use of the latest tools and technologies to extract customers’ data and information in targeting their customers and discovering and reaching global marketplaces. In developing an internet marketing strategy a corporation needs to assess a lot of factors such as product profile development, sales objectives establishment, target marketing, etc. In this scenario, the internet based platforms provide many facilities regarding the effective policy development and fundamental metrics implementation for the business (Wu, 2002; Herbig et al., 1999). To develop a marketing strategy for Amazon.com, we need to collect customers’ information and business data. In the next sections I will discuss some of main initiatives we can take regarding the business of the Amazon: 3.1- Company Analysis Amazon.com is a huge and worldwide known web based business. This section analyzes some of its important business aspects: 3.1.1- Market Demographics Amazon.com is a web based business that deals in products like that CDs, DVDs, and Books etc. Additionally, this business has spread into the whole world and offers ecommerce support. In addition, Amazon.com market demographics involve major nations of world that support Visa, PayPal and some other web based money transaction systems (Amazon.com, Inc., 2010). 3.1.2- Market Growth The business of Amazon.com is spreading speedily. Since, now people are more interested in the web based commerce or shopping. And, web based business of Amazon.com is supporting towards the online shopping of books and other consumer electronics. Thus, the market size of Amazon.com is growing with the growing numbers of internet users (Web Transitions, Inc., 2004). 3.1.3- Market Trends The web based business market is going towards the more evolutionary trends and the adoption of web based business models like that B2B or B2C is happening readily. Thus, in such an evolutionary business state the Amazon.com is taking full advantage of web based ecommerce trends and facilities. In addition, it desires to enhance the business marketing standards to gain a competitive edge (Amazon.com, Inc., 2010). 3.1.4- Market Needs Amazon.com is one of the effectively established online businesses that are offering more enhanced business growth. However, Amazon.com needs to incorporate new business marketing policy that can attract and drive more customers toward the business. This can be done by increasing traffic through search engine optimization or email based business marketing (Amazon.com, Inc., 2010). 3.2- Customer Analysis The customers of Amazon.com are of all age groups. In this scenario the Amazon.com has targeted all types of the business customers. Since, Amazon.com deals in all kind of products like that consumer electronics, books, entertainment, literature and other technology based categories. Therefore, it can be said that Amazon.com is enjoying the interest of all types of customers. 3.3- Marketing Strategy Development According to Yang (2006), the internet marketing paradigm is speedily emerging. Since, the internet marketing has uniqueness that it is similar to both direct marketing like catalog marketing and indirect marketing like television, radio based marketing (Yang, 2004). To develop a marketing strategy for Amazon.com I will discuss some of the main initiatives that are necessary to implement. Below I have presented some of the main techniques and initiatives we will take regarding the business of Amazon.com: 3.3.1- New internet based techniques and platforms for marketing Amazon.com is an ecommerce web site that uses effective web based techniques and platforms for the marketing. However, to develop better business marketing strategy, Amazon business needs to implement decision-support system (DSS) that facilitates the management in the strategy development and decision making by integrating information, suitable logical models and techniques, and offer easy to use interface into a single commanding system that facilitates unstructured or semi structured decision making (Whitten et al., 2000, p.47). 3.3.2- Incorporating advanced technology for marketing To develop marketing strategy for Amazon.com there are a lot of new internet technology platforms available, and data mining is one of them. According to (Laudon & Laudon, 1999, p.52), data mining is analysis of huge sets of data to discover rules and patterns that can be utilized to take decision and forecast future behaviors. Additionally, the data mining is a recently developed paradigm that has gained very much recognition regarding the knowledge discovery from complex data sets. Thus, the implementation of the data mining technique in developing Amazon.com marketing strategy will offer a number of advantages to the business such as better customer tracking, buying behavior analysis, market segmentation, targeting customers and most especially in web based advertisement (Seifert, 2006). 3.3.3- Product profile development In internet working environment Amazon has a great facility to develop its business products profile. In this scenario the internet based working structure facilitate regarding the effective promotion and customer intentions analysis for the business products. 3.3.4- Target marketing In case of Amazon.com web based marketing strategy development we have better customer intentions awareness. In this way we are able to develop a better customer profile that offer greater facility to target the customers all through the world. The basic aim of the business marketing is to target the customers who are seeking for Amazon’s products. 3.3.5- Sales objectives establishment Through the internet based marketing Amazon can establish effective sales objectives. In Amazon.com business we can manage the products and promotional drives in much better way. Moreover, by using internet based marketing Amazon can be able to assess the potential business products sales and demand rates. 4- Online Communication Duffy (2005) stated that internet competencies and internet marketing strategies can be separated into different groups such as, profile, transactional, relationship, customer-oriented and knowledge strategies. However, selection and implementation of strategies depend on the level of internet communication and competencies (informational plus relational) thus Amazon.com has to take it to higher levels. However, when both are high, appropriate internet marketing strategy appears to be knowledge strategies; as well as when both are small, transactional internet marketing strategies would be the appropriate category (Duffy, 2005). To be mainly efficient, Amazon.com marketing strategies should be an element of its overall business marketing plan and communication. However, by aligning online marketing with effective communication strategies it will be able to effectively attain its objectives. As well, it should adopt a reliable style as well as messages across every points of contact by means of our target audience. The effective communication with business customers and clients offers business marketing strategies to bring a constant boost in online business traffic. However, by implementing new and innovative business communication techniques Amazon.com will be able to take extremely significant advantages. In this scenario I will propose following customer communication strategies for the Amazon.com (Lagrosen, 2005): Participating in Forums Purchasing Advertising Search Engines Distributing Emails Internet based marketing offers long-term marketing strategies that can carry Amazon.com into a stable stream of targeted traffic through effective communication technologies. In addition, these communication technology approaches will effectively support Amazon.com business. Moreover, Amazon.com needs to implement following communication platforms improving communication (Lagrosen, 2005): Giving Away Freebies Blogging Opt-in Lists Social Networking Sites Article Marketing Social Bookmarking Sites By creating and putting into practice reasonable internet communication platforms to support the Amazon.com marketing strategy, through both short-term as well as long-term strategies, Amazon will be able to take a steady stream of targeted business traffic to its corporate website (Lagrosen, 2005). 6- Part Three For this part I have to choose an article regarding the internet marketing, I have chosen “Integrated Internet Marketing” by Watson, Zinkhan, & Pitt (2000). In this research article Watson, Zinkhan, & Pitt (2000) discuss that integrated internet marketing (I2M) is a structured technique that unites marketing strategy and internet technology. Additionally, the integrated internet marketing proposes an approach that a company should make use of a variety of internet technologies (like that audio, text, video and hyper linking) to attain web marketing objectives. Here image given below demonstrates the main idea of the integrated internet marketing. In this scenario the new idea of the integrated internet marketing offers the combination of web technologies and tools to offer more enhanced business marketing services (Watson et al., 2000). Figure 1- Integrated Internet Marketing, Image Source (Watson et al., 2000) To implement the integrated internet marketing offered by (Watson, Zinkhan, & Pitt, 2000) at Amazon.com we have to naturally grasp the central idea of the integrated internet marketing model. However, to implement integrated internet marketing at Amazon.com we can use numerous internet technologies, through a special twist on integrated communication. In addition, we can make use of its website to communicate with a range of stakeholders (investors, customers, store owners and journalists). The most apparent feature we can implement reinventing signs that will offer distinctive ads that can be used to convey the purpose of a page. To implement the integrated internet marketing at Amazon.com we need to implement some financial report system and some information about the financial meeting, that offer the business customer better business information. In this scenario, a search engine can offer fast access to its information. As dealings are conducted more and more automatically, Amazon can make use of its web site to define image as well as the main point of interaction with other stakeholders. As a result, Amazon.com has to ensure they take complete advantage of the technology obtainable to maximize their impact. A systematic technique, via the integrated internet marketing matrix as well as modeling the behavior of others, will offer a structure for designing as well as implementing efficient web site by taking complete advantage of the internet tools. However, in this scenario, use of only integrated technology is not sufficient. Thus, Amazon needs to make use of a set of different page layouts as well as icons communicates disorganization. The combined image of the web site should be able to include as well as convey the message of the organization. Moreover, Amazon not just has to make use of internet tools; however a corporation’s entire web presence has to be cohesive so as to communicate a reliable message to stakeholders (Watson et al., 2000). 5- Conclusion This paper has presented a detailed analysis of the marketing strategies for the Amazon.com. This research paper has discussed two main elements of an internet marketing first is marketing strategies and other is communication with respect to Amazon.com. This paper has discussed the ways through which Amazon Company can be able to improve its online business and attract more customers. I hope this paper will be useful in understanding the role of the internet marketing strategies and communication in web based business. 6- Bibliography Adam, S., Mulye, R., Deans, K.R. & Palihawadana, D., 2002. E-marketing in perspective: a three country comparison of business use of the Internet. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, pp.243-51. Amazon.com, Inc., 2010. About Amazon. [Online] Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Careers-Homepage/b/ref=amb_link_5763692_1?ie=UTF8&node=239364011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-4&pf_rd_r=1NAAQREFSFMBRVM7DGSJ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=465323071&pf_rd_i=203348011 [Accessed 25 April 2010]. Anthony, J., 2010. What Is Internet Marketing? 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