E-commerce and Marketing

E-business describes the use of electronic means and platform to conduct a company’s business. The advent of Internet has greatly increased the ability of companies to conduct their business faster, more accurately, more timely with reduced cost, and with the ability to customize and personalize customer offerings. E-commerce and E-marketing are new strategies to meet the demand of consumers in new economy.

E-commerce is more specific than e-business, it means that in addition to providing information to visitors about the company, its history, philosophy, product and job opportunities, the company or site offers to facilitate the selling of product and services online.

          E-purchasing means companies decide to purchase goods, services and information from various online suppliers.

E-marketing describes company efforts to inform, communicate, promote and sell its products and services over the internet.

There are four major internet domains through which E-business take place.

1.                 Business to consumer ( B2C)

2.                 Business to Business (B2B)

3.                 Consumer to Consumer (C2C)

4.                 Consumer to Business (C2B)

SETTING UP WEB SITES

A key challenge is designing a site that is attractive on first viewing and interesting enough to encourage repeat visit. Early test-based web sites have increasingly been replaced by sophisticated sites that provide text, sound and animation.

7 Cs as essential elements of effective web site

1.                 Context-layout and design

2.                 Content – Text, picture, sound, and video

3.                 Community – How the site enables user-to-user communication

4.                 Customization – site’s ability to tailor itself to different users or to allow users to personalize the site.

5.                 Communication – site to user, user to site communication

6.                 Connection – degree to site is linked to other site

7.                 Commerce – capability to enable commercial transactions.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MARKETING (CRM)

In addition to e-marketing, CRM is used to improve quality of service and to meet the requirement of consumer successfully. CRM enables company to provide excellent real-time customer service by developing a relationship with each valued customer through the effective use of individual account information.

Customer relationship marketing holds that a major driver of company profitability is the aggregate value of the company’s customer base winning companies are more productive in acquiring, keeping and growing customers through various strategies as:

• reducing the rate of customer defection

• increasing the longevity of the customer relationship

• enhancing the growth potential of each customer through share-of-wallet, cross-selling and up-selling.
• Making low profit customers more profitable

• focusing disproportionate effort on high value customers.

ONE-TO-ONE MARKETING

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers have popularized the concept of one-to-one marketing. In rationalizing their approach, they cite a number of trends in the marketing environment such as shift from transaction based marketing to relationship marketing, advances in communication technologies and a continued fragmentation of mass media.

One-to-One marketing is based on several fundamental concepts. Focus on individual consumers through consumer data base Response to consumer dialogue via interactivity Customize products and services.

PERMISSION MARKETING

The practice of marketing to consumers only after gaining their express permission, is gaining popularity as a tool with which company can break through the clutter and build customer loyalty. Today consumers are bombarded with large number of marketing communications every day, kif marketers wants to get a attention of consumer, they first need to get his/her permission with some kind of inducement like a free sample, sales promotion or discount, a contest, and so on. By eliciting consumer cooperation in this manner, marketers can potentially develop stronger relationships with consumers so as they will wish to receive further communication in future.

These various new approaches help to reinforce a number of important marketing concept and techniques. From a brand point of view, they are particularly useful means of thinking how to both elicit positive brand responses and create brand resonance to built customer based brand equity. One-to-One, permission and experiential marketing are all potentially effective means of getting consumers more actively involved with a brand.

EXPERIANTIAL MARKETING

After economic reforms, marketing has changed the entire consumer behavior; it has intensified more competition in brands. Now we are in net revolution. We have left behind traditional marketing concepts. Earlier we

were using product, feature based brands to induce consumers. Now we have new differentiator in marketing. This is called EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING. This new marketing mix is trying to bring brands to life through experience. Experiential marketing is to stimulate in active manner, to engage consumer in a personal life experience, to allow them to be receptive with the brand in a personalized environment. Experiential marketing is to create and add the value of life; they are to be involved in the product development process. We have seen lots of marketers are doing this experience like Indica, Pepsodent, NIIT, Pepsi, and Dish net. Experiential marketing is also about choosing customers, selling your dreams. Here dreams are not a product it is about experience. Take the case of PEPSI they are in business of creating experiences for consumers through events, placement of visicoolers, everything.

Experience marketing is having mind shift approach in its delivery system it has creative rules and frame work. It has to be viewed as scientifically. It has the following objectives, these objectives; these objectives can be used as new marketing mix strategy.

a)       The company's core business activity

b)      Marketing communication strategy

c)       Consumer research

d)      Promotional strategy

e)       Integrated marketing strategy

f)  All marketing tools, Advertising, Media interactive, Promotion, On site promotion, direct response from consumers.

Experiential  marketing  focuses  on  customer  experiences.  Traditional marketing fails to gauge sensory, motional, Cognitive behavioral relationship needs. But in the case of experiential marketing it has philosophy neurobiology, psychology and sociological theory of the consumer.