e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (e-Marketing Mix)

What is e-Marketing?

e-Marketing is still a controversial subject to talk about, since no one was able to unify the various theories surrounding it, but there is something on which there is no doubt - that e-Marketing first appeared in the form various techniques used by companies pioneered selling their products via the Internet in the early '90s.

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 easiest and shortest formulated by Mark Sceats: e-marketing is marketing that uses the Internet as a means of expression. 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 in order to find, attract, win and retain customers.

e-Marketing Strategy

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and founded on the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing - the well-known 4 Ps (Product - Price - Promotion - Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P (People - Processes - Proof) and you have the whole extended Marketing mix.

So far, there are aspects to differentiate much from traditional marketing e-Marketing performed offline: the extended marketing mix (4 + 3 P), is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform the functions transaction defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, which can be summarized in the formula 2P + 2C + 3S: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and 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 on all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P) and on each other.

1. Customization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of e-Marketing mix lies in the need to recognize, identify a particular customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It 'important to be able to identify our customers on an individual level and gather all possible information about them, in order to know our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the visitor's computer can let us know vital information on the access speed available: consequently, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg dial-up) that will offer a low variation the volume of our site, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash. This will facilitate the customer experience on our site and will be prevented from leaving the site on the grounds that it takes too long to load its pages.

The customization can be applied to any component of the mixture Marketing, therefore, is a function moderate.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very connected to the previous - customization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (and therefore, when performing the personalization of e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of how this information will be used and by whom . An important task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is to create and develop a policy on procedures for access to the information collected.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, provided that data are collected and stored data on individuals.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal issues to consider regarding the collection and use of such information.

3. Customer Service

The customer service is a necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

You connect the apparition of the customer service processes the input parameter "time" operations. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, marketing is seen in some way forced to consider the support and assistance on a non-temporal level, so permanent 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 one can easily understand, the service (or care if you like) can be performed on any element from classical 4 P, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this network that the Internet is impressive. The mere 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 law Metcalf (as Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more precisely the value of a network is equal to 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 increases with the number of its members. This is the power of community, this is why we have to be a part of it.

Customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community in which they interact (independent or influenced by marketing) - hence the development of a community is a task that must be performed by any business, even if it is not increasingly seen as essential.

The interactions between members of a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Place

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media - Internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper position, to be available anytime and from anywhere - a digital location for digital interactions.

This position is what we call a "site", which is the most popular name for this. It 's time to remember that the "site" is just a form of a "site" and should not be confused or seen as synonyms. The "site" may also take other forms, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

This special location, accessible through any sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of e-Marketing - is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The function of "security" has emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we must keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

- Security during transactions performed on our web site, where we must 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 must cooperate with the IT department to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) Messages to customers that their personal data are protected from unauthorized eyes.

7. Promotions

Last but not least, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional marketing, we all know, and is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This feature relies on the ability of marketers to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an effective promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer must always keep in with the latest technologies and Internet applications so that it can fully exploit.

Finally, we saw that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered part of those inherited from traditional marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy to be effective and produce results....