E-Commerce Cyber Marketing Strategies - Essay Example

? E-commerce Cyber Marketing Strategies Introduction Over the past few years, the advancement and popularity of computing has becomephenomenon, with emphasis on the internet. Consequently, this has had an impact on the contemporary business, organization, and society in general. To remain competitive in their market niches, business organization need to able and ready to adapt to the consistently changing technological world, harnessing these technological tools and techniques to harness competitive advantage. Internet has become of the most phenomenon technological factor to most modern organizations, tapping the cost-effectiveness and affordability of the factor to achieve their objectives and goals (Krishnamurthy, 2006). As such, the internet has ingrained itself in the modern commerce and trade. Moreover, despite its rapid growth, analysts expect the internet to growth and advance further. The central goal of most organizations is to realize future threats and opportunities, and accordingly design a strategy. Commoditization of the internet has led to the development and evolution of electronic commerce, or E-commerce as commonly known (Hanson, 2000). Essentially, E-commerce refers to the concept of selling and buying services and products over computer networks or the internet. It incorporates technologies such as internet marketing, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, inventory management, systems, electronic data interchange, online transaction processing, and automatic data collection systems. E-commerce has led to the revolution of traditional marketing concepts, initiating strategies to enhance marketing strategies referred to as network marketing (Miletsky, 2000). This paper seeks to discuss and analyze four main E-commerce cyber marketing strategies: viral marketing, online advertising, permission electronic mail marketing, and search engine management and optimization. The paper also provides an analysis of their pros and cons, as well as a comprehensive comparison of the strategies. Lastly, the paper provides a decision-making criterion for selecting the best strategy. In marketing strategies, the most important factor to consider is to shorten the distance between consumption and production as well as reduce the lengthy circulation of commodities through numerous links. As such, the internet provides an ideal marketing platform, allowing consumers and producers to conclude their transaction in a click of a mouse button. This is the foundation of cyber marketing. Essentially, marketing is the communication between firms and customers with the intention of persuading the customer to purchase the goods and services of the firm. The increasing growth and popularity of the internet makes it an ideal target for marketing, supported by other significant factors such as cost effectiveness, reliability, speed, and accessibility (Bhusry, 2005). Consequently, marketers have come up with innovative strategies to tap the potential opportunity of E-commerce cyber marketing, including viral marketing, online advertising, permission electronic mail marketing, and search engine optimization. Viral Marketing Viral marketing essentially refers to the online word-of-mouth advertising. In this marketing concept, the firm provides something interesting that encourages others to spread marketing information about the product or service, cost effectively and quickly without much effort from the firm. Consequently, this potentially creates an exponential growth in the effect and visibility of the marketing message (Bhusry, 2005). In other words, the message spreads like a common cold virus form one person to the other. Cyber virus marketing is a very effective marketing strategy, and a successful campaign may present an opportunity of obtaining thousands of new every year. A prime example of a phenomenon viral marketing strategy is Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com), the first provider of free E-mail services (Krishnamurthy, 2006). The firm began offering free accounts, attaching a thread at the end of each message that linked back to Hot Mail. Thus, all the messages sent by its customers spread the news of their services like a virus, with all customers playing the role of virtual carrier of the viral message. Nonetheless, viral marketing strategies work better than others do. The result of a viral marketing strategy depends largely on the criteria of implementation. A standard and effective viral marketing strategy includes six important elements, but not every strategy may incorporate all the elements. The first element is to give away free services and products. The term “free” is the most influential vocabulary in a marketer. The main purpose of offering free products and services is to attract attention. A common strategy is to give away free information, free E-mail, free software, and free cool buttons that perform exceptionally well, but not as well as the pro version (Bhusry, 2005). While “inexpensive” and “cheap” may do the trick, “free” just woks magic. Nonetheless, viral marketing strategy delays gratification. Thus, firms may not plough profits instantly, but the generation of a firm groundswell of interest will reap profits for them for the rest of their business cycle. Free services and products attract eyes, enabling them to see other desirable other things on sale. Eyes bring valuable advertising revenues, sale opportunities, and E-mail addresses. The second element is to simplify the marketing message in order to enhance effortless propagation to others. Moreover, the medium of transmission must be able to replicate and transfer website, E-mail, software download, or graphic. Viral marketing strategy works effectively because the internet provides a media of easy, cheap, and instant communication. Moreover, digital formats enhance the simplicity of copying. Marketing messages must be short and simple to enhance transmission without the risk of degradation (Miletsky, 2000). The third element is scalability. The method of transmission must be able to scale from small to extremely large. Thus, there is need to plan and add mail servers as multiplication of the viral message will only kill the host without any benefits. The fourth element is capitalizing on common human behaviors and motivations. People are driven by greed, and the desire to be understood, loved, and popular. As a result, they urge to communicate, creating billions of E-mails and millions of websites. The most effective marketing strategy is that which incorporates common behaviors and motivations in its transmission. The fifth element is utilizing existing networks of communication. Majority of people have networks of around eight and twelve people as friends, associates, or family. A broader network of an individual may have far more people, raging in hundreds or thousands, based on her position in the society. Similarly, people on the internet have networks too. They store and collect URLs for websites and E-mail addresses. There are affiliate programs and permission E-mail lists that exploit such networks. Placing the marketing message into such existing communication network improve the chances of multiplication and diversity. The sixth and last element is to take advantage of other people’s resources. For instance, affiliate programs position graphic of textual links on other websites (Krishnamurthy, 2006). Here, another website is relaying the marketing message, depleting their resources rater than yours. Viral marketing has many advantages, including cost effectiveness, high speed, free advertising, automation of marketing methods, increased web traffic, easy to develop, and combining other marketing methods. The most significant challenge of viral marketing is controlling the target audience and market. Online Advertising Online advertising simply refers to advertising over the internet. It entails presenting the website of a company before the potential customers interested in its services and products. The main factor is to design key phrases and terms those potential customers are likely to search for in the web. Achieving this would bring successful results to the firm. The integral part of online advertisement is the keyword. There are different packages in the online advertising market, including the most common pay per click accounts with Microsoft and Google (Hanson, 2000). Online advertisement incorporates three important marketing solutions: online display advertising, online retail promotion, and social media advertisement. Online display advertising using banner ads may sound old, but it is actually becoming interesting in advertising due to recent trends. First is the enhancement of local ad targeting. Many companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Local.com provide keyword targeting and geography-based advertising (Bhusry, 2005). This is addition to the domination of local advertising in search engine marketing. The other trend is recent development of cost-per-action pricing rather than cost-per-click. In essence, cost-per-action policy means that the advertising firm does not pay the publisher until they get the desired action from the ads. Several companies are already implementing these pricing mechanisms, including Hydra (http://www.hydragroup.com/) The conventional selling of physical goods often incorporates directing traffic to the E-commerce store to show and encourage customers to buy the services and products. However, current advancements may soon encourage small-scale retailers to sell their services and goods to potential consumer websites. A prime example is Milo.com (http://milo.com/), which announced that it would enable all people to obtain the real-time availability and information of all products in all business across the American nation. Another important online retailing strategy is that of Pixazza (http://www.pixazza.com/), which allows consumers to browse and purchase services and products appearing in online photos (Miletsky, 2000). For instance, a person may be reading an online entertainment article on a recent fashion show and notices an item they would want to buy. As they hover over the photo, Pixazza presents recommendation of similar items at indicated prices. Essentially, this enables the potential customer to view the information of the service or product, perhaps increasing the sale volumes. The increasing popularity of social media provides a great marketing platform for businesses. However, the greatest challenging in social media advertising is getting people to notice the ads while they are chatting or uploading their photos. Nonetheless, some companies have introduced innovative social media advertising tools that are fun and relatively engaging, providing a plethora of choices even for small businesses. One of these companies is Fan Appz (http://fanappz.com/) that provides a variety of application that are engaging and attracting for a certain monthly subscription (May, 2000). Advantages of online advertisement includes low cost, relatively trouble free, easy update, and an effective market presentation (especially in social media advertising). However, it has disadvantages, including limited market scope and inefficiencies and additional costs in poorly managed campaigns. Permission Electronic Mail Marketing The collection of client E-mails is the foundation of online marketing strategy. Client contact and E-mail information are the pillars of building marketing systems that enhance customer relationship. There is sufficient proof that opt-in E-mail marketing systems to the existing customer base establishes lasting credibility and promotes a competitive edge for businesses. However, the concept of permission E-mail marketing is diverse to many marketers, thus taking varied forms (Krishnamurthy, 2006). Some of the common formats of permission E-mail marketing include opt-in E-mail list rental, unsolicited bulk E-mail marketing, opt-in series E-mail marketing, E-mail newsletter network advertising, E-mail newsletter solo mailings, and E-mail newsletter sponsorship and classified advertising. Unsolicited bulk E-mail (UBE) marketing involves sending E-mail to a group of recipients with their permission. However, majority of UBE recipients may have requested for the service at one time or another in their internet usage (Bhusry, 2005). Nonetheless, majority of UBE may irritate recipients if they incorporate poor design and implementation standards, or consistent messages without relevance. Moreover, statistics indicate that less than one percent of eth recipients respond positively to the marketing messages. Opt-in E-mail list rental is a cleaner and better version of UBE. Here, a company rents E-mail addresses under their management to firms wiling to send marketing messages to people based on per E-mail address charges. This format may work as if the recipients are genuinely interested in receiving offers and they do not receive payments to read mails. However, this format tends to be expensive in the sense that a marketing firm has to send messages to many addresses to achieve the desired marketing impact. An example of a site that provides good opt-in E-mail lists rental is Postmaster Direct (http://postmasterdirect.com/). The other formats include E-mail newsletter sponsorship and classified advertising with effective solutions such as enzine advertising (http://www.ezinehub.com), and solo and html E-mail newsletter solo mailing that promotes sales and traffic (Bhusry, 2005). Others are opt-in series E-mail marketing with the phenomenon pop-up or pop-under freebies that requests for your name and E-mail address, and E-mail newsletter network advertising where a marketer pays newsletter management sites to run their sponsorship across their newsletter network. Advantages of permission E-mail marketing include cost effectiveness, speed, high response rate, and attract intended audience. Disadvantages include restraining of creativity, short length, and the impacts of spam. Search Engine Marketing and Optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing is the concept of harnessing the correct methods that will improve the quality and volume of a website’s traffic through organic search results. In other words, SEO is the art of strategically positioning a marketer’s website such that it pleases that the algorithms directories edited by humans and search engines. When potential customers perform a web search for services and products from the marketer presents, the directories and search engines select the marketer’s website over the competitors, listing the marketer’s website at the top of the search result. There are various techniques of SEO, including Natural SEO, Search Engine Submission, Paid Inclusion Services, and Pay per click advertisement (Hanson, 2000). Various companies provide this service, including Netmark (http://netmarkcom.topseos.com/) among others. For companies marketing through the internet, web promotion is an integral part of welcoming and attracting potential customers. SEO promotes the online visibility of a company, producing strong search results positions and a significant number of new visitors (May, 2000). Among the pros of SEO, include branding of products and services, increased website traffic, reliable, durable, flexibility in customizing, and easy to measure effectiveness. Its cons include lack of guarantee of traffic conversion, limits website design, different search criterion for different search engine, takes time, and may result to waste of time if the keyword misses some target. Comparison All the four-E-commerce marketing strategies discussed above are effective. Cyber marketing strategies aim to achieve three main goals: increase traffic quality and quantity, increase visitor conversion to volume of sale, and improve effectiveness through analytics. All the above four strategies seek to increase traffic volume to the website of the marketer, but this barely the first stage (Hanson, 2000). Moreover, these visitors must incorporate a large portion of the target and potential customer of the services and products for sale. The next step is to convert as many visits as possible to sales. Consequently, the conversions analytics are important in improving the effectiveness of marketing strategy for more sales. However, the performance of these strategies depends on various factors concerning the setting of the business as well as the marketing strategies set forth by the company. Different organizations adopt different marketing theories. The implementation of these theories is differently in practice. Viral marketing and online advertisement share the same problem of not effectively limiting or controlling the target audience. The manners in which these two strategies function leave no room for targeting a particular market niche, as all recipients are potential virtual carrier of the marketing message (Bhusry, 2005). Thus, the spread of the marketing message is beyond the control of the firm. This may prove disadvantageous if the services and products of the firm are of a particular degree of sensitivity meant for a certain group of consumers, such as luxury goods like expensive vehicles or fashion items. On the other hand, search optimization and permission E-mail marketing provide a marketer with the opportunity of target a particular market niche with some degree of certainty. For instance, a company manufacturing expensive vehicles like the Lamborghini or fashion companies selling expensive fashion accessories like Louis Vuitton handbags may require an E-mail list of the world richest celebrities rather than attaching an ad banner to E-mails from a web-based E-mail services provider, as this may be irrelevant and a waste of time and resources (Hanson, 2000). The four strategies also use different concepts. Viral marketing capitalizes the positive impacts of the spreading nature of viral information. Online advertise predominantly uses the concept of pay per click and pay per action, emphasizing on the number of potential visits to the marketing website. Permission electronic E-mail marketing utilizes the concept of spreading product and services information on potential customer, while search engine optimization capitalizes on the availability and position of information. Criterion The best E-commerce marketing strategies follow the traditional marketing principles of the four P’s: price, product, promotion, and place. The best E-commerce marketing strategy is the one that has a combination of several factors, including cost effectiveness, high rate of return on investment (ROI), effectively reaches the target market, and converts a significant volume of visits to sales (May, 2000). The ideal strategy incorporates appropriate targeting, significant brand recognition, low prices that rely upon high sales volumes and cost advantage, and a unique direct-to-customer mechanism. The cyber world provides an array of benefits, but it also has numerous drawbacks, including language and cultural barriers and reputation of companies. The marketing mix also presents some challenges E-commerce cyber marketing. Companies cannot sell some products and services over the cyber world due to their nature, and promotion should align to the language and culture of the target population (May, 2000). Moreover, the prices of goods and services should correspond to the prices that the customers are willing to pay in real stores (brick-and-mortar). Additionally, the internet user should be able to reach the distribution channel. These challenges thus stipulate that cyber E-commerce marketing needs to focus on a certain group of potential customers, or perhaps bias the advertising and use multi-lingual communication. Conclusion The internet world is a potential marketing channel that advertisers and marketers may tap to find the right marketing mix combination that suits the needs of their customers. The development and advancement of computing and internet technology may dominate the marketing world, replacing the traditional marketing strategies. However, E-commerce marketing requires other media to form a stronger and more effective marketing tool. The numerous challenges present in E-commerce reflect the need to manage efficiently and effectively the four faces of marketing mix. Businesses may ultimately fail if they focus on place and product branding, as this may not attain a significant competitive advantage required for a long-term success in the market niche. Periodical evaluation and effective management of each component of the marketing mix is paramount to the success of the marketing strategy. This is because the internet and the technological world as a whole is prove to constant changes (Krishnamurthy, 2006). Businesses are continuously embracing E-commerce as a strategic option, thus further developments in E-commerce marketing are on the way. At the end of the day, a business is only as effective as its weakest links, and all areas are equally important, thus integration of the four areas is of utmost importance. References Bhusry, M. (2005). E-commerce. New Delhi: Firewall Media. Hanson, W. (2000). Principles of Internet Marketing. Massachusetts: South-Western College Publishing. Krishnamurthy, S. (2006). Contemporary Research in E-Marketing, Volume 2. Hershey, PA: Idea Publishing. May, P. (2000). The Business of E-commerce: From Corporate Strategy to Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Miletsky, J. (2010). Principles of Internet Marketing. Boston, MA: Course Technology Cengage Learning. Read More