E-marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions To Consider
(The E-marketing Mix)
Otilia Otlacan
What is e-Marketing?
e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk
about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories
around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no
doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of
various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their
products via the internet in the early 90's.
The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by
e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a
new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing
(electronic Marketing).
There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest
and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is
Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A
working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO
specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a
business conducts through the internet with the purpose of
finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.
e-Marketing Strategy
The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the
principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the
well-known 4 P's (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning)
that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's
(People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended
Marketing mix.
Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate
e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline:
the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P's) is built around the
concept of "transactional" and its elements perform
transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What
gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific
functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the
2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service,
Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.
These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any
e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character,
unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational
functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the
quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of
the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.
1. Personalization
The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the
e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a
certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing
relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is
crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual
level and gather all possible information about them, with the
purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop
customized, personalized products and services.
For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website
visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning
the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the
visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer
a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic
content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease
our customer's experience on our website and he will be
prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes
too long to load its pages.
Personalization can be applied to any component of the
Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.
2. Privacy
Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the
previous one – personalization. When we gather and store
information about our customers and potential customers
(therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the
e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this
information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when
implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and
developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected
information.
This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to
consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected
and stored, data about individual persons.
Privacy is even more important when establishing the
e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal
aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such
information.
3. Customer Service
Customer service is one of the necessary and required
activities among the support functions needed in transactional
situations.
We will connect the apparition of the customer service
processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in
transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to
a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a
relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced
into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level,
permanently, over time.
For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service
function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an
essential one within the e-Marketing mix.
As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you
wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's,
hence its moderating character.
4. Community
We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the
existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The
merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as
well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities
that interact for a common purpose is what we call a
"community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute
importance to participate, to be part of a community.
The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the
value of a network is given by the number of its components,
more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the
number of components. We can apply this simple law to
communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude
that the value of a community rises with the number of its
members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have
to be a part of it.
The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a
community where they interact (either independent or influenced
by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to
be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen
as essential.
Interactions among members of such a community can address any
of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next
to other moderating functions.
5. Site
We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take
place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions
and relations also need a proper location, to be available at
any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital
interactions.
Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most
widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the
"website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be
mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms
too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for
example.
This special location, accessible through all sort of digital
technologies is moderating all other functions of the
e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.
6. Security
The "security" function emerged as an essential function of
e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through
internet channels.
What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two
issues on security:
- security during transactions performed on our website, where
we have to take all possible precautions that third parties
will not be able to access any part of a developing
transaction;
- security of data collected and stored, about our customers
and visitors.
A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes
of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT
department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and
true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their
personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.
7. Sales Promotion
At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions
when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are
widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this,
and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate
sales goals in terms of volume.
This function counts on the marketer's ability to think
creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order
to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an
efficient promotion plan.
On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up
with the latest internet technologies and applications so that
he can fully exploit them.
To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new
dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the
traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the
concept of relational functions and they are a must to be
included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be
efficient and deliver results.
About The Author: Otilia is a certified Marketing consultant
with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business. She developed and
teach her own online course in Principles of Marketing
You can contact Otilia through her Marketing resources portal at
http://www.teawithedge.com
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