E-Marketing
Looking back at the history of trading relationships, one must admit that marketing is one of the phenomena that have existed since the birth of the humankind. People have always wanted to gain some valuable possessions or services in exchange for something else.
Over centuries, marketing has developed into a powerful tool that influenced buyers’ choices and pushed the vehicle of commerce. However, with the creation of the Internet and the development of new technologies, people started expecting that the theorists of marketing would bring something new to the table – and, in fact, they did.
E-marketing has recently become the leading means of product promotion, because it incorporated all the innovations that the Internet brought and at the same time allowed much space for imagination.
Weirdly enough, even nowadays, when e-marketing is no longer a groundbreaking concept, the phenomenon does not have a single definition.
Probably because e-marketing is related to many other spheres apart from business, such as online communication, technological innovations and informational technologies to name a few, it has ample amount of definitions.
One of the few problems that do not allow to define e-marketing is that there are too many types of promoting goods online; therefore, to offer a full-fledged definition of e-marketing, one has to embrace all of them in a single sentence, which hardly seems possible.
Because of the vast amount of concepts involved, it is necessary either to provide a list of separate definitions of each kind of e-marketing, or to offer a general definition that coves all of the existing e-marketing types.
Though there have been a number of attempts to envelop all the e-marketing types, it is obvious that one cannot squeeze all of them in one paragraph. Some of these attempts, however, came quite close to actual success, which means that they are worth taking a look at.
To start with, it is necessary to mention that e-marketing has a number of other names; among the most popular, online advertisement/online advertising, internet marketing and online marketing must be mentioned.
According to some sources, e-marketing is a process of placing one’s business or product on a specific site in the Internet for public access to make the site a powerful tool for increasing sales rates and business potential (Lindsay 5).
While the given definition provides a decent explanation of e-marketing mechanism, it focuses solely on sites as marketing tools, while such significant element of e-marketing as e-mail advertising has been left out.
Among other attempts to nail down the phenomenon of e-marketing in the most precise way possible, the efforts of Tehrani should be recognized. According to Tehrani, e-marketing is a sum of “moving elements of marketing strategies and activities to a computerized, networked environment – such as the Internet” (Tehrani 14).
Tehrani offers a unique interpretation of e-marketing by acknowledging the fact that e-marketing incorporates all marketing strategies transferred into the realm of online world.
At first, it might seem that Tehrani offers the most comprehensible definition possible; indeed, electronic marketing presupposes using online technologies and applying already existing marketing strategies within this new environment.
However, it is necessary to keep in mind that in the internet, the peculiarities of the environment dictate specific rules for marketing campaigns, which the real-life marketing process may not involve, such as the necessity to address a specific user instead of its vague prototype.
Mirzaei, Jaryani, Salehi, Aghaei and Saeidinia come even closer to pointing out the specifics of e-marketing and defining it. As these people claim, e-marketing involves:
Applying digital technologies which form online channels […] to contribute to marketing activities aimed at achieving profitable acquisition and maintenance of customers […] through improving our customer knowledge […], then delivering integrated targeted communications and online services that match their individual needs. (Mirzaei, Jaryani, Salehi, Aghaei and Saeidinia 232)
Mirzaei, Jaryani, Salehi, Aghaei and Saeidinia, therefore, put the emphasis on the use of informational technologies and the improved knowledge of the customers’ preferences as the key differences between usual marketing and online advertizing.
Another definition for the phenomenon of e-marketing was provided by the Institute of Direct Marketing says that e-marketing is first of all the marketing activity that uses internet and online resources to achieve marketing goals. Gay, Charlesworth and Esen say that “E-marketing is described by the Institute of Direct Marketing as ‘the use of Internet and related digital information and communications technologies to achieve marketing objectives’” (Gay, Charlesworth and Esen 6).
Therefore, e-marketing in its broader sense can be interpreted as the use of informational technologies for marketing purposes. However, Gay, Charlesworth and Esen also provide other definitions of e-marketing that seem just as compelling as the previous one.
For example, they consider e-marketing as the fusion of marketing and knowledge-sharing ideas, defining it as “the process of building and maintaining customer relationships through online activities to facilitate the exchange of ideas, products and services that satisfy the goals of both parties” (Gay, Charlesworth and Esen 6).
The given definition seems the most complete, since it takes into account both the customer and the provider of the goods/facilities. In addition, the given definition does not focus on a specific internet tool that can be used as a means to market certain goods/facilities (e.g., a pop-up advertisement on the site, e-mail message service, etc.). Instead, it uses the term “online activities.”
Finally, the given definition obviously stresses such function of online advertising as building relationships with the clientele, instead of merely stating promotion of goods/facilities as the key objective of e-marketing. Therefore, the final definition provided by Gay, Charlesworth and Esen seems the most adequate as for specifying the current functions of e-marketing, as well as outlining its key features.
While the previously mentioned definitions narrow the subject down to another means of marketing, the one that Gay, Charlesworth and Esen provide also embraces the options that the IT-related features of e-marketing open to its users.
It stretches the idea of e-marketing to a global scale that involves not only advertisement issues, but also business in general, information technologies, latest technological developments and customer–provider relationships.
The latter is especially important, since it literally heralds a new epoch of economy development that revolves around “customer retention, customization and loyalty” (Gay, Charlesworth and Esen 6). In a more narrow sense, e-marketing is the marketing strategy that is based on relationships with customers.
With that said, it is reasonable to suggest that e-marketing is bound to develop further; and, expectedly enough, it does. In the present-day world, every single company tries to come up with a profitable e-marketing strategy that will allow it to defeat the competitors and appear at the top of the corresponding business charts.
As it has been previously mentioned, e-marketing incorporates business elements, recent technological innovations and the informational technology related ideas. The above-mentioned elements of e-marketing predetermine the speed of its development.
With IT theories development and technological revolution currently going on, it is reasonable to suggest that e-marketing evolves at a decent pace as well. Indeed, according to the recent researches, e-marketing grows very rapidly; and, which is even more important, it develops in several aspects, i.e., the IT and the technological ones.
To add up, e-marketing also expands in terms of providing more opportunities for communicating with the clientele. As Smith and Taylor explain, “E-marketing continues to grow rapidly in both sophistication and integration with mainstream marketing communications” (Smith and Taylor 620).
The above-mentioned presupposes that e-marketing not only increases the amount of advertisements among the potential customers, but also makes it more subtle, so that it would not become a negative irritant. E-marketing development is perfectly stable yet very rapid, and it provides increasingly more opportunities for both businessmen and their customers.
Although e-marketing faces serious challenges, it continues to grow and expand; according to the data provided by the WSI in their Internet Marketing Trends Report 2012 (UK and Europe), most of the modern companies rely on the Internet as the key element in improving their relationships with the customers and advertizing their goods.
As the report states, “The UK’s Internet is still on the rise, with a projected increase of 1.2 million people from 2011 to 2012” (WSI 3). Moreover, according to the report, it is expected that in 2016, the number of internet users will reach 50.4 million, i.e., a 9 million people increase over the five years.
The given data has a lot to do with e-marketing; since most people in the UK will become online users, they will presumably start using online services for shopping and buying products. Therefore, the internet users are the first to be considered as the possible customers and, therefore, are the target of modern e-marketing.
At present, e-marketing seems to be targeted at two issues, i.e., sending e-mail messages to the potential customers (direct e-marketing) and advertizing their goods on various social networking sites. Statistics says that 65% of the UK online users prefer Facebook to any other social network, which means that Facebook is going to become the main venue for e-marketing strategies implementation.
According to the report prognosis, the second most popular and, therefore, the best place for e-marketing to evolve in, is YouTube, with nearly 50% of the internet audience being the users of and the contributors to the given service (WSI 4).
The opportunities that latter provides, however, should be researched with due care, since, unlike social networks, YouTube works much like television; therefore, the messages must be visually attractive.
Spreading from Google (9.67% market share of visits) to Facebook (7.58%), to YouTube (3.41%), to eBay UK (1.81%), to Windows Live Mail, to MSN UK, to BBC News and to Yahoo! UK, e-marketing definitely has a potential (WSI 5).
There is no need to stress the significance of e-marketing in the context of modern business. The role of e-marketing, on the other hand, needs a concise and all-embracing definition, since it is often confused with the role of marketing in general.
To figure out what the role of e-marketing is, it is necessary to understand that the latter is not a thing in itself, but only a method of marketing in new environment and taking the relationships between the customer and the provider of the services to a new quality level.
Moreover, as the existing evidence shows, the role of online advertising is growing increasingly. Manzoor states that the influence of online advertizing on marketing values of a number of products has increased in 2000s: “The role of online advertising is growing rapidly.
Since 2003, online advertising is growing at a double digit rate outperforming the overall advertising growth significantly” (Manzoor 192). Analyzing the potential of e-commerce in 2000s, Manzoor even managed to predict the significance of online advertising in 2010 rather precisely: “It is predicted that in 2010 Internet advertising will account for about 15% of global advertising spending“ (Manzoor 192).
However, e-commerce has influenced not only global economics; with the help of online advertising, digital culture was enhanced as well.
Nowadays, e-commerce allows to promote new products all over the world and analyze the market tendencies, as well as get in touch with the customer to understand how to shape the production qualities in order to satisfy the customer’s demands.
Judging by the place that internet takes in people’s lives, one must admit that e-commerce plays a defining role in the development of modern business.
In addition, online marketing helps promote new brands to a much wider audience than the rest of the accepted media, mostly because nowadays, internet has become an alternative for live communication, watching TV programs and even working in the office, for many people use internet for work as well.
Likewise, old brands can also be reinforced with the help of e-marketing. Finally, one must remember that e-commerce offers a crucial opportunity of creating a unique efficient marketing mix.
As Helsen explains, internet offers a plethora of opportunities for developing marketing strategies and customizing the marketing approach towards the needs and wants of the target audience: “The Internet may also play an important role across a gamut of international marketing decisions. […] its most significant impact is perhaps on the formulation and effectiveness of international marketing mix decisions.” (Helsen 452).
If considering the role of e-commerce on marketing mix, one must remember, though, that, while boosting promotion and helping improve the relationships with clientele, e-marketing can also have certain negative effects on the rest of the marketing mix elements.
One of the most obvious negative sides of the e-advertising practice is the lack of necessary information concerning the product – one of the key ingredients of the marketing mix.
Indeed, when buying a certain product offline, one can evaluate such properties of the given product as its look, the way the product sounds, in case it does (e.g., when buying a device for recording/listening to music, etc.), the way it feels and in some cases, even the way it tastes.
When obtaining the information from an e-commerce, the customer cannot have most of the above-mentioned options, with the exception of looks and sometimes sound.
Nevertheless, the obvious positive aspects of e-commerce for the customer will definitely outweigh the drawbacks mentioned above. Hence, it can be concluded that the role of e-marketing is bound to peak very soon.
Small Business
When it comes to e-marketing as a great force for promoting goods and services, it should be mentioned that e-commerce also plays a pivoting role in the development of small businesses. Since the latter have relatively little financial resources to fund their own big promotion campaign, they resort to the least painstaking and by far the cheapest solution possible.
To define a small business, one has to consider several variables. To start with, the economical and political state of the country, as well as its status among the rest of the states is crucial. For example, in developing countries, such as the Philippines, a small business is typically a company with 10–90 employees in it (Abdullah and Bakar 3).
In Canada, for instance, a company is referred to as a “small business” as long as it has less than fifty people employed in it. Generally, one can assume that a company with fewer than 100 employees is a small business. However, the annual income of the company matters much as well when defining its status.
In most of the European and American states, the companies that have annual revenue below $400.000 are usually considered small businesses. However, even with that few employees and that little income, it would be a mistake to consider small businesses irrelevant to the state economy.
Although one might think that, when having several major enterprises that help raise the GNP as high as possible, small businesses do not play any significant role in the state economy.
The truth is, however, that most businesses are qualified as small (Longenecker 7). Though alone, they do not contribute much to the state, when one calculated their total annual income, the GNP rates rise considerably (Longenecker 7).
Marketing Problems Faced by Small Business
Even though small businesses define the state economy to a considerable extent, they still face many issues, especially when it comes to e-marketing. One of the most complicated problems for small businesses when it comes to e-marketing is the lack of resources.
A good advertising campaign requires a considerable amount of money, which small businesses seldom have at their disposal. Another problem with small enterprises that start their own e-marketing program is that they typically do not have enough technological knowledge and associated skills to promote their services efficiently.
E-commerce demands vast knowledge of what SEO is and how it actually works, as well as the information concerning the mechanics of the most popular search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, Aol., etc.). However, small businesses lack competence in the above-mentioned spheres and have problems with adapting towards the new environment, which e-commerce sets.
As a phenomenon that has not been inexistence long enough to have a proper definition of its own, marketing is evolving unbelievably fast and admittedly successfully. Using the opportunities that e-marketing offers, one can promote certain products several times more efficiently and much faster than with the help of usual means of advertising.
Even though now there are certain issues to fight, like the mean to advertise a product to the developing countries, the incredibly high rates of competition, and the fact that e-marketing has to be much more subtle than the typical commerce, e-marketing definitely has a future.
Works Cited
Abdullah, Moha A. and Mohd Bakar. Small and Medium Enterprises in Asian Pacific Countries: Development Prospects. Huntington, NY: Nova Publishers, Nova Publishers, 2000. Print.
Gay, Richard, Alan Charlesworth and Rita Esen. Online Marketing: A Customer-Led Approach. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.
Helsen, Kristiaan. The SAGE Handbook of International Marketing. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. Print.
Lindsay, Stephen. Techniques for Online Marketing. New York, NY: Digital Kindle, 2009. Print.
Longenecker, Justin G. Small Businesses Management. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.
Mirzaei, Hanieh, Ehsan Jaryani, Mehrdad Salehi, Mohammad Aghaei and Mojtaba Saeidinia. “Differences of ‘Traditional Marketing’ in Opposition to ‘electronic Marketing’.” International Proceedings of Economic Development and Research 29 (2012): 231–234. Print.
Manzoor, Amir. E-Commerce. New York, NY: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010. Print.
Smith, Paul Russel and Jonathan Taylor. Marketing Communications: An Integrated Approach. Sterling, VA: Kogan Page Publishers, 2004. Print.
Tehrani, Nik. Contemporary Marketing Mix for the Digital Era. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2009. Print.
WSI. Internet Marketing Trends Report 2012. UK & Europe. 2012. Web. <https://www.slideshare.net/anthonymburke/internet-marketing-trends-report-2012>.