E-Commerce Marketing Concepts

1. E-Commerce Marketing Concepts

2. Basic Marketing Concepts • Marketing • The strategies and actions firms take to establish a relationship with a consumer and encourage purchases of its products or services • Internet marketing • Using the Web, as well as traditional channels, to develop a positive, long-term relationship with customers • thereby creating a competitive advantage for the firm by allowing the firm to charge a higher price for products or services than its competitors can charge

3. The Internet AudienceTraffic Patterns • Online Consumer Profile • Intensity of usage • Studies show there is an increasing intensity of Internet use • Scope of use • E-mail remains the most-used Internet service • Other popular activities • Using search engines • Researching products and services • Sending greeting cards • Catching up on news • Gathering hobby-related information • Seeking health information • Conducting work-related research • Reviewing financial information

4. The Internet AudienceThe Purchasing Decision • Types of offline and online marketing communications that support the buying process and seek to influence the consumers before, during and after the purchase decision – (IMC) • Offline • Catalogues, direct mail campaigns • Online • Community bulletin boards • Chat rooms • Listservs • Banner ads • Targeted permission e-mail • Search engines • Online product reviews

5. The Internet AudienceConsumer Behaviour • Clickstream behaviour • Refers to the transaction log that consumers establish as they move about the Web • Study by Booz Allen and Hamilton identified seven categories of user sessions • (1) Quickies, (2) just the facts, (3) single mission, (4) do it again, (5) loitering, (6) information please, (7) surfing

6. The Internet AudienceConsumer Behaviour • Shoppers • 40% of online users are “buyers” who actually purchase something entirely online • 40% of online users research products on the Web, but purchase them offline • 80% of consumers indicate that online product research either often or sometimes impacts their offline purchase decisions • E-commerce influence offline shopping, and offline brands and influence online shopping • Strategy • Build the information content of their sites to attract browsers looking for information, and offer products offline where some users feel more secure and comfortable (IMC)

7. The Internet AudienceConsumer Behaviour • What consumers shop for and buy online • Mostly involve small ticket items • Books, music, apparel and accessories, software, and toys • Common characteristics of popular items sold online • First-movers sold these items early online • Purchase price is small (reduce consumer risk) • Items are physically small (shipping costs are low) • Margins are high • Broad selection of products (merchants compete on scope)

8. The Internet AudienceConsumer Behaviour • Factors that would encourage more online purchases • Better prices • Easier to comparison shop • Ability to return merchandise easily • Better security for credit card and personal information • Easier to find • Ability to get answers to questions or advice from a merchant • Better information about products (description, reviews) • Faster delivery • Better presentation of products • Easier ordering procedures • Availability of loyalty points

9. Basic Marketing ConceptsProducts, Brands and the Branding Process • What makes products truly unique and differentiable in the minds of the consumers is the brand of the product

10. Basic Marketing ConceptsProducts, Brands and the Branding Process • Most important expectations created by brands • Quality • Reliability • Consistency • Trust • Affection • Loyalty • Reputation (bmbm3e)

11. Internet Marketing Technologies • Internet has three broad impacts on marketing • Broaden the scope of marketing communications (number of people that can be reached) • Increased the richness of marketing communications by combining text, video, and audio content into rich messages • Greatly expanded the information intensity of the marketplace by providing marketers (and customers) with unparalleled fine-grained, detailed real-time information about consumers as they transact in the marketspace

12. Internet Marketing Technologies • Developing customer profiles • Profiling is the technique to identify precisely who the online customer is and what they want • Examples of tools used to profile customers are databases, data warehouses and data mining • Source : Cookies

13. Establishing the Customer Relationship • Once a firm has chosen a market entry strategy, the next task is establishing a relationship with the customer • Permission marketing • Marketing strategy in which companies obtain permission from consumers before sending them information or promotional messages • Opt-in means a customer agrees to receive promotional messages • Opt-out means a customer do not want to receive such messages • Key component of permission marketing is e-mail • Affiliate marketing • One Web site agrees to pay another Web site a commission for new business opportunities it refers to the site

14. Establishing the Customer Relationship • Viral marketing (word of mouth) • The process of getting customers to pass along a company’s marketing message to friends, family and colleagues • Customers will be given monetary (get paid) incentives if those whom they referred to actually buy something • Leveraging brands • Using the power of an existing brand to acquire new customers for a new product or service • Use the offline brand and customer base to attract online consumers

15. Strengthening Customer Relationship Mass Marketing Direct marketing Micro Marketing One-to-one marketing