Internet marketing, simply known as e-marketing, refers to the act of selling or promoting services or products over the internet. As it would be observed, this is an upcoming trend of marketing products and services, which has promised to bring great changes to the modern business arena. Internet marketing indeed is a broad process that utilizes various technical and creative aspects of modern computer technology.
These aspects are certain to play a key role in the advertisement and marketing of products and services in ways that are more engaging to the consumers. This trend however has many outstanding benefits for both entrepreneurs and customers, compared to the traditional way of conducting business (Hill and Ciuba 56).
For one, the trend has proved to be more effective for the less period it has been in use, thus enabling businesses and promoters to reach their target consumers and audiences more efficiently and without having to incur many costs in the process.
This explains the reason why businesses across the world are making every effort to change with times, by conforming to the current transformations in the business world. This is an internet market analysis for Zappos.com as one of the many businesses globally that have found great value in making use of the Web to make more money.
Zappos.com, which is now a subsidiary shop of the Amazon, is an online retailer of shoes and other products such as watches, clothing, handbags and cosmetics, just to mention but a few. The store has over the time introduced diverse business locations allover the world, through the internet. The company’s main goal in business is to provide the best services possible in the industry, through good company-employee relationships and a loyalty business model.
Zappos.com is ever serious in reinforcing their strong corporate culture to each member of their diverse team, as one way of making sure they attain their business goals (Burkus 73). The company’s target audience is the fashion forward generation of young people as well as the middle-aged people who are frequent users of the internet, particularly the social media networking sites.
Technology has brought immense benefits to the modern generation of people who have turned into the internet as their biggest way of satisfaction in life. Some of the major reasons why people in the contemporary would frequently go online include research, social-networking, and business-related purposes such as seeking to sell or buy products and services via online marketing channels.
In order to reach and connect with their consumers across the Web, Zappos.com utilizes a number of effective internet advertising and marketing ways such as Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube. Understandably, Twitter and Facebook are arguably the most popular networking sites in the internet, known to attract large numbers of users everyday from across the world.
For instance, with over 800 million active users, Facebook is reputed to be the social networking site with the largest number of subscribers in the world. The more popular a media site is, the more advantageous it is for players in the rapidly advancing electronic commerce business. Obviously, popular media sites are more effective when it comes to advertisement of products and services, owing to their high nature of attraction.
Potential customers are likely to come into contact with their best choices of products through these media sites, thus getting incited to make the necessary move to acquire them, either directly from the store or through the designated marketing channels (Stubbs 34).
Another common online advertising method commonly applied by the company is the use of blogs to convey product information to potential consumers.
All these channels are effective ways of advertisement and promotion to any business that utilizes the internet to market and promote its products and/or services. The biggest advantage with them however is that, they don’t only serve as marketing or promotion sites, but also as important channels through which consumers can air their views and suggestions regarding products and services.
As one of the most advanced players in the e-marketing sector, Zappos.com applies one of the most effective business strategies in the market. The company’s initial idea of building brand awareness through word-on-mouth has over the past few years evolved to something more promising in the concept of search engine marketing (Kiang 389).
It is important to note that, behind the company’s great brand and excellent consumer service, there is a more assuring tactic which makes all the difference in the market; the search marketing initiative. As the company continues to advance its stability in the e-market, it utilizes every chance to ensure that the visibility of their website or business indicators are clearly modified in search engines, for the customers and other internet users who may be interested to know more about the products to identify them easily.
This consideration has over the years made search engines the most attractive and profitable marketing avenues for the company. Zappos.com is frequently viewed as a dominating power in the rampantly advancing world of e-business, owing to the high number of organic key words which the company has been using to drive traffic to its site. There is an estimated value of about 230,566 organic Keywords currently applied by the company and this gives it a higher competitive advantage compared to other e-commerce sites.
Considering the above analysis, it is clear that Zappos.com has the ability to focus and apply all the necessary efforts online. Another thing that the company does well is that it is able to adjust with the call and pressure of change, as it would be stipulated by modern trends of technology. All these are certain to place the company ahead of other e-commerce players.
However, there are other observable areas of operations where the company has not been doing so well in the past few years. Even though the number of online users has gone beyond limits nowadays, Zappos.com has been unable to acquire the majority of retail shoppers of its products, regardless of their outstanding reputation in the industry. This has the indication that there are other sites in the sector that are doing even better than Zappos.com in terms of customer attraction and retention.
Zappos.com really deserves a compliment for their strong and outstanding involvement in the e-market, which has been paying out. The company has already acquired what other companies in the sector can only wish and dream for. However, the company should fully utilize this potentiality coupled with all the opportunities brought by the internet, to focus for higher business ambitions.
Moreover, there is also a need for the company to revise its marketing strategies and try to adopt more effective policies and strategies that will appropriately address all weaknesses such as the one described in the previous chapter. Zappos.com should apply high management skills in business, to come up with results befitting its standards in all levels of production. The company utilizes the right approaches to connect with its consumers, but a slight improvement in those channels can make a difference worth it in the long term.
Works Cited
Burkus, David. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Why Culture Trumps Core Values in Building.” Journal of Values-based Leadership 4. 1 (2011): 73. Print.
Hill, Napoleon and Ciuba, Tedd. Think and Grow Rich: Brought to You by Ted Ciuba, America’s Foremost Internet Marketing Consultant, New York: Morgan James Publishers, 2005. Print.
Kiang, Melody. “Marketing on the Internet—who can benefit from an online marketing approach?” Decision Support Systems 27. 4 (2000): 383-393. Print.
Stubbs, Evan. The Value of Business Analytics: Identifying the Path to Profitability, New Jersey: Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.