E-marketing in the library of Birmingham Report - Essay Example

?Contents E-Marketing in the Library of Birmingham Report 2 Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Situation Analysis 5 Objectives 7 Strategy definition 8 Tactics 9 Risk assessment 11 Control 12 Recommendations and key objectives 13 Action plan 14 References 16 E-Marketing in the Library of Birmingham Report Executive Summary E marketing, the use of digital technologies on the internet to achieve marketing objectives such as customer relationships, understanding market needs and satisfying consumers through value formation, is the rule of the day, and not the exception. The internet platform offers a massive potential for marketers to market their products and services to global populations in the most efficient and effective way, therefore, reducing business costs incurred in direct traditional advertising option. This paper presents a report on the E marketing in the Library of Birmingham, using the SOSTAC e-marketing analysis model, with an aim of establishing the library of Birmingham’s online marketing current situation, objectives of the online marketing strategies, online marketing strategies, online marketing tactics, online marketing actions, and the control metrics. In addition to that, this report will evaluate the effectiveness of online marketing strategies of the library, goals of online marketing, and recommendations for the future strategic direction of the library. E marketing offers great opportunities for the library of Birmingham, which if explored to the maximum have an incredible capacity of enhancing the library experience and increasing attendance accordingly. For instance, e-marketing increases the library’s visibility to the general population in Birmingham thus creating awareness of the library and its services to the prospective service consumers. Besides creating awareness, e-marketing strategies create value for the library and its services by highlighting its major attracting features such as online catalogues, online search services, and exciting web contents, among others. Exciting content displays, and organization offers the readers enhanced ways of finding books in the library and evaluating particular resources in the library through reviews through an interactive online channel. Overall, e marketing is a crucial strategic management decision for the library of Birmingham because it will fit the library in the modern library situation that has changed drastically due to technological advancements (Von and Jung, 2003). E marketing has the potential of enhancing not only service delivery, but also creating value for the library in terms of increased library visitation, increased market access and enhanced returns on investment. Introduction E-marketing has emerged to be one of the fast growing revolutionary concepts in the business world today (Chaffey et al, 2008), with many global businesses and corporations, in response to the pressures of a fast changing global environment, seeking to provide value that meets customer expectations (Palmer, Cockton and Cooper, 2007). E-marketing is the use of digital technologies of the internet to achieve marketing objectives, to establish close, good and everlasting relationships with customers, understand their needs, satisfy these needs both effectively and efficiently, and to keep them happy while online (Chaffey, n.d). The main purpose of marketing is to communicate information, and to increase awareness of products and services to the prospective customers in the market (Housden and Thomas, 2002). The crucial role of e-marketing in today’s business world cannot be underrated, especially given the statistics that UK E-Commerce sales reached 121 billion pounds in 2010, while according to eMA, UK B2C E-Commerce reached 4.2 billion pounds by the end of 2012, and are further expected to rise to total value of ?221 billion by 2016. Overall, the internet has gained massive recognition as a dominant business platform (Linh and Tung, 2008), and literally transformed the expression ‘global village’ into a reality by revolutionizing and transforming the way of communicating and transacting business in today’s corporate world. According to the Internet World Statistics, the internet population rose from about 16 million users in 1995 to about 360 million users in 2000 and to about 2268 million users, which is about 32.7% of the world population, in 2011. In the UK alone, the number of internet users reached 51,442,100 users in 2011 (82% of the total UK population), with Facebook having around 30,470,400 users. In view of these remarkably enormous populations, it is with no doubt that e-marketing enables businesses to reach a large number of business markets, to access millions of people connected to the internet and to conduct business on 24/7 bases. Strategic marketing is a focal point in organizational management today (SWAM, 2002); the need to explore the internet option as a strategic marketing approach is not only essential, but also mandatory for businesses in the highly competitive and fast changing global business environment today. E-marketing has a number of advantages to the traditional routine marketing strategies that are now archaic in the presence of the internet and the World Wide Web (Klopper,n.d); for instance, it is fast to establish, flexible and easy to manage or change, it does not require a big number of employees, and has little overhead costs (NAPA, n.d). This report will appraise the e-marketing strategies of Birmingham library with an aim of highlighting the libraries’ situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactic, action and control; this report is crucial to the library because it will provide a feedback that is relevant in strategic management planning for the library of Birmingham. For instance, this report aims at proving the effectiveness of E-marketing in facilitating business transactions at the library of Birmingham, and establishing the practicability of an investment in e-marketing. Situation Analysis The city of Birmingham has a culturally and ethnically diverse population of about one million people, out of which about 44% are under 30 years of age, 30% are lone parents and about 13000 babies are born every year. Birmingham is a diverse city, composed of over 42% of residents from ethnic groups other than the white, 46.1% Christians, 19.3% Muslims and about 22% of the population are immigrants (Birmingham City Council, 2013). Currently, the Library of Birmingham has over 900,000-catalogued items, over one million pieces of microfilm, over 30,000 archival documents, 400,000 photographs, primary materials dating to the 1700s, and more than 100 online databases. Insofar as e marketing is concerned, the Library of Birmingham has a functional website and weekly e-newsletters (Birmingham Public Library Online.org), in addition to regular email services for updating the existing customers about new developments and service enhancements. However, these e marketing strategies are not adequate especially considering that the city of Birmingham alone has over 40 community libraries including the library of Birmingham, all targeting the same audience synchronously, amid stereotypical media reports and negative public perceptions of Birmingham public libraries. Interestingly, primary research into the current situation of Birmingham Libraries indicate that about 21% of the city population does not even know the names of their local libraries, while about 33% of the youth below 25 years does not know what kinds of resources are available in the libraries. Apart from the low awareness of the public libraries and their resources, there is a low awareness of other services offered by the libraries such as the free internet services, and resources on the study of family history. There is need for a strategic e marketing approach to raise both the Birmingham city’s awareness of the library and its diverse resources including other services such as the free internet. The use of e marketing as a business strategy for the library of Birmingham will yield a number of competitive advantages that will streamline research and provide library users with a more seamless and rewarding reading experience than before. There are a number of e marketing best practices that all libraries can adopt, insofar as online infrastructures are concerned; for instance, libraries can use the e marketing strategy for membership registration, conducting surveys, regular bulletins, forms and templates, and maintaining a dynamic homepage (Agha). Additionally, other e marketing strategies for libraries include making available book talks and other lectures, creative use of pop-up windows to advertise library products, managing and advertising events, image building, online reference services, and online library tours, among others. Unlike the traditional library situation, where stacks of books gather dust on the shelves and readership takes place under the watchful eye of stern librarians (Travis, 2012), e-marketing offers an alternative way of doing business that rules libraries today. The role of the library is fast changing due to the advancements in technology, and libraries must adapt in order to remain relevant or to be rendered absolute in the face of intense competition (Martey, 2000). E-marketing has an incredible capacity to increase library attendance because the large online population provides a potential readership population and market for the library, thus increasing returns. Library technologies can offer specialized online research services, which go beyond the simple services offered by search engines such as Google, as they make it easier for readers to discover books, evaluate their relevance, place orders for books, experience and enjoy library research. Objectives E-marketing objectives define what businesses can achieve through online marketing strategies; justify the need for going online, besides providing a benchmark for assessing the success and progress of online activities. Like other businesses, the library of Birmingham can achieve a number of objectives through online marketing; for instance, most businesses use the internet to sell their products and services, serve the customers, and communicate with the customers (Etela, 2010), among other things. Like in other firms, the objectives for e-marketing for the library of Birmingham include but are not limited to, creating awareness, creating desire, and motivating transaction (Digital-media-lab, 2011): To increase awareness by 60 %in the first quarter of the first year into the e-marketing strategy by increasing the traffic into the library site; getting as many visitors as possible onto the library online databases and stores is the first crucial step in raising awareness of the library’s services and a wide range of books and research resources and how to access them (Alcock, 2011) To increasing library attendance by 50% in the second quarter after launching the e-marketing strategy; a majority of readers no longer go to the physical libraries in search of books anymore, and would appreciate an online reading experience that is much easier and convenient because it enables readers to find books easily, and to review them before they can order To increase transaction by 60% in the third quarter of the first year through the e-marketing strategy; this entails inducing the customers to utilize the library services through online visibility; without marketing, it is not possible to promote products and services to potential users (Donovan and Henley,2010);therefore, e-marketing is a brilliant way of enhancing visibility that will eventually familiarize the library of Birmingham to the prospective readers Strategy definition Investment in e-marketing for the library of Birmingham is not a matter of choice, but a mandatory requirement for the success of the library because the prevalence of new technologies today has transformed the concept of marketing to encompass broad marketing strategies (Baines, Fill and Page, 2008). The library’s commitment to e-marketing can yield many competitive advantages that will ensure its relevance and sustainability in today’s highly competitive and dynamic global environment that largely relies on information technology (Malcolm,n.d). The library can commit to online strategies such as creating social media accounts, creating SEO articles that mention popular features of the library or guidelines to library users, buying ads on sites related to the library services, sending emails to customers concerning library services (Nguyen, 2009), among other things. The e-marketing strategy will also entail establishing the Birmingham library as a brand in the market, by highlighting its remarkable features such as online search databases, diversity of research resources and library services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, among other attractive features that will interest readers. The library should identify its market needs and the market characteristics to serve them efficiently and effectively by providing diverse services that are personalized to meet specific tastes and preferences for the customers (Perlstein, 2008). For instance, the library should develop rich content that outlines its features and services to the internet population; this will not only attract traffic to the library services, it will also position the library at a strategic position as a preferred research centre in the public library services industry (Blythe, 2005). The library will have to develop an effective change management strategy to deal effectively with the new challenges of e-marketing, and the employee anxiety and change of roles that accompanies such radicle changes in the structure and operations of the library. Tactics Intangible Products: establish subject portals by converting the books in the library of Birmingham into digital formats, thus allowing readers to find titles that are available in the library, besides allowing customers to quickly assess and evaluate their relevance before ordering. In addition to that, the digital format of resources will allow the library to review its content constantly and to adapt new changes in knowledge by making relevant corrections in its databases. Promotion: use pop-up windows on the library website to advertise library resources and services, thus the library will be able to reach a large audience of readers in Birmingham through e-marketing strategy by familiarizing the library products and services in the Birmingham neighbourhood, thus increasing library attendance, and return on investments. Price: Firms with low marketing costs have a competitive advantage over rivals because they can offer competitive prices but remain profitable (Russel, 2010); the library will be able to offer affordable and competitive prices because e marketing is more cost effective compared to traditional advertising. With lower marketing costs and competitive prices, the library will appeal to the economic consumers thus promoting the library products and services in Birmingham through increased transactions. Place: People need to be informed about the library and its products and services for then to visit the library and without extensive promotion, no one would know about its existence, leave alone its products and services; in this regard, online marketing will popularize the library services and extensive learning resources to the prospective consumers, thus increasing attendance as well. Actions: The Library of Birmingham must undertake a number of actions in establishing an online marketing strategy, for instance, the library must specify a number of things in relation to its services, tasks, resource, collaborating and outsourcing, budget (includes cost for development, promotion and maintenance, and staff). Some of the tasks in online marketing strategies include restructuring website designs and updating content, setting up directory and social media profiles, and promoting content through bookmarking, local press releases, email lists, videos on You Tube, among other things (Banks, 2011). The resources at the library’s disposal are the internet platform including all the social cites and digital tools that can yield content that is relevant to the library such as e-texts and e-books for online interaction. The library must collaborate with search engines such as Google and other online bookstores such as Amazon to create awareness of its services and to enhance access to its vast content over the internet. Apart from collaborations, the library must outsource for professionals in various capacities such as content development, to develop appropriate content that is relevant to its services and market niche. Risk assessment There are potentially damaging risks in online marketing and these include the following: Security issues- security of information is undermined through online marketing strategies as crucial information concerning the library may easily be leaked to the public through hacker activities that are increasingly becoming a threat to information systems around the world. Privacy issues- privacy issues concerning online marketing involve the restrictions that constrain access to some online databases and websites, thus limiting the scope of online marketing activities. Technological problems-technological hitches such as a breakdown in servers and problems of that nature may impinge on the effectiveness of online marketing. Trust issues - trust issues between consumers and the library may also affect the effectiveness of online marketing; the integrity of information is always in doubt because only the positive sides are given. Inadequate feedback - lack of face-to-face communications restricts interaction between the library and the consumers of library services, and this in turn inhibits credibility of feedback from consumer experiences. Lack of negotiation- the online marketing experience offers rigid and inflexible choices to consumers and there is no room for negotiation even on prices. Access problems-it may be difficult for some people in areas where there is poor or no internet coverage to access library resources. Language problems–language barriers may hinder effective communication between the library and the end consumers thus leading to ineffective communication that impinges on the library’s goals and objectives of online marketing. Legal issues and statutory requirements that may impinge on the library’s online marketing strategy include compliance with Website statutory requirements, email marketing statutes, blogging and social media statutes, and copyright policies (Hallam, 2010). The online marketing team organization and responsibilities must be clear and hierarchical to facilitate flow of information between the various departments and ease of communication. The team formulates the best search engine optimization and marketing practices, develops the website and its content, in addition to carrying out online advertising. The library online marketing strategy entails development and maintenance of site by enhancing and updating content regularly, updating consumers on services and products, and enhancing interactivity. Control E-marketing should be tempered with effective controls to ensure the key objectives of the library are met in the most effective and efficient way (Ward); the first step in online marketing will be to understand market needs specific to the Birmingham population and work towards satisfying these needs. Establishing a global presence via the net will be crucial to achieve the desired outcomes such as easy discoverability and visibility (Lurie, 2012)- library visitation and access to the library services to the general population, in addition to offering services to wider range of customers and enhancing experience of consumers in new and more exciting ways. Control measures entail continuous monitoring of the outcomes of online marketing to ensure that the desired outcomes are being achieved (Kaushik, 2013); in this respect, proper online marketing controls are necessary in evaluating the online marketing strategy and optimizing its effectiveness accordingly. Marketers employ certain metrics to measure interactive marketing performance (Ambler, 2003), and similarly, the library has to implement a measuring process based on the following metrics: Generate 1000 new through(s) per month to reach a target of 60% new visitors in the first quarter of the first year into e-marketing Generate 30 % lead/ user opt-in and page views every month to achieve a target of 60 % increment in sales in the third quarter of the first year Retain/reactivate 90% of all the library clients annually to reach the 60% increase in sales Generate 20% offer response rates and requests for more information every week to reach a target of 50% library attendance and 60% increment in sales An evaluation of the library based on these metrics will reveal the marketing performance across digital channels; for instance, online marketing is more likely to generate a lot of traffic to websites, which in turn will generate leads/user opt-in, thus increase in sales accordingly. The library can further evaluate its marketing performance through the percentage of customer retention rates and offer response rates. High returns in terms of profitability, reduced operational costs, return on investment, increased sales, positive consumer feedback, are positive signifiers of the marketing effectiveness; online marketing effectiveness for the library can be measured through an analysis of the web traffic (Wilson, n.d). Recommendations and key objectives It is imperative that the library of Birmingham adopts both an intensive and extensive e-marketing strategy; the library’s investment in a serious online marketing strategy will seek to achieve the library’s objectives such as promotion of its products and services, increasing attendance, and motivating transaction, among other things. Firstly, the library should develop exciting site content to increase the target traffic to its site, increase site usability, and enhance interactions with prospective consumers of information. In addition, The library should increase the percentage of visitors who care about its services to its site and who would remain to be regular visitors rather than bouncing off (Singh and Shukla, n.d)Increase consumer confidence and trust in its resource authority both on and offsite The library should also establish the brand in local search because the library must be visible on local listings and maps, news, review sites, social media and other platforms for easy interactivity; in this way, the library will increase online visibility by strategically growing digital footprint off-site through setting clear marketing goals. The library should also establish the brand in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and the rest; despite the fact that, social media is an exciting and powerful platform that needs a strong SEO foundation for efficacy and the library must ensure its SEO content is up to date. Finally, the library must review and analyse level of competition to effect positive changes in the marketing strategies and manage online reputation by responding to consumer concerns and criticism through discursive forums Action plan The library of Birmingham can achieve its objectives and enhance its operations through undertaking a strategic e-marketing investment through the following action plan. Carry out an overhaul of the existing website design and update its SEO content within three months’ time and increase online site activities for all services offered by the library by 15% in the second quarter of the first year after launching online marketing campaigns and online marketing strategy to Conduct a thorough 12 months online marketing campaign to raise awareness of both the library and its resources to achieve 20% online visitation within the third quarter of the first year after launching online marketing campaigns and online marketing strategy Grow email coverage up to 50% above the existing regular library customers email list by the end of the third quarter of the first year after launching online marketing campaigns and online marketing strategy by acquiring new customers Increase both onsite and offsite marketing activities by 60% in the fourth quarter of the first year after launching online marketing campaigns and online marketing strategy to reduce the annual costs incurred by the library through direct marketing over three years Conducting PR activities on the library’s homepage to improve brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchase intent and surveying 300 online customers after every 30 days to establish their satisfaction levels and perceptions concerning the library services and resources References Alcock, J., 2011, Strategic marketing in academic libraries: An examination of current practice. 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