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DEVELOP AN E-MARKETING PLAN

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 DEVELOP AN E-MARKETING PLAN

Dr. S. Sudalaimuthu P.SenthilKumar

Lecturer M.Phil Scholar
Department of Commerce Department of Commerce
Bharathiar University Bharathiar University
Coimbatore- 641046 Coimbatore- 641046
senspv@gmail.com

Abstract
E-marketing means using digital technologies to help sell your goods or services.
These technologies are a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods whatever
the size of your company or your business model.

The basics of marketing remain the same - creating a strategy to deliver the right
messages to the right people. What has changed is the number of options you have.
Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as
advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing
mix. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and
cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small and medium-sized
businesses.

This guide will describe how to develop an e-marketing plan and provide
guidance on implementing that plan and monitoring its effectiveness.E-marketing gives
businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or
print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing.

Stages in developing your e-marketing plan is important to recognise that

planning for e-marketing does not mean starting from scratch. Any online e-
communication must be consistent with the overall marketing goals and current
marketing efforts of your business. If you are planning to use email as an integral part of
your e-marketing plan then you need to make sure the technology you choose is right not
only for the message but for your customers.
 DEVELOP AN E-MARKETING PLAN

1.INTRODUCTION:
E-marketing means using digital technologies to help sell your goods or services.
These technologies are a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods whatever
the size of your company or your business model.

The basics of marketing remain the same - creating a strategy to deliver the right
messages to the right people. What has changed is the number of options you have.
Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as
advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing
mix. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and
cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small and medium-sized
businesses.

This guide will describe how to develop an e-marketing plan and provide
guidance on implementing that plan and monitoring its effectiveness.

2.THE BENEFITS OF E-MARKETING:

E-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable
price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Specific
benefits of e-marketing include:

 Global reach - a website can reach anyone in the world who has Internet access.
This allows you to find new markets and compete globally for only a small
investment.
 Lower cost - a properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign
can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing
methods.
 Trackable, measurable results - marketing by email or banner advertising
makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain
detailed information about customers' responses to your advertising.
  24-hour marketing - with a website your customers can find out about your
products even if your office is closed.
 Personalisation - if your customer database is linked to your website, then
whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers. The
more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and
market effectively to them.
 One-to-one marketing - e-marketing lets you reach people who want to know
about your products and services instantly. For example, many people take mobile
phones and PDAs wherever they go. Combine this with the personalised aspect of
e-marketing, and you can create very powerful, targeted campaigns.
 More interesting campaigns - e-marketing lets you create interactive campaigns
using music, graphics and videos. You could send your customers a game or a
quiz – whatever you think will interest them.
 Better conversion rate - if you have a website, then your customers are only ever
a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which require
people to get up and make a phone call, post a letter or go to a shop, e-marketing
is seamless.

Together, all of these aspects of e marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.

3.STAGES IN DEVELOPING YOUR E-MARKETING PLAN:

It is important to recognise that planning for e-marketing does not mean starting
from scratch. Any online e-communication must be consistent with the overall marketing
goals and current marketing efforts of your business.
The main components of an e-marketing plan will typically include the following stages:

Set your
Identify your
objectives
target
audience

Decide upon Stages in

the Measure
marketing developing e- your success
mix
marketing plan

Agree a budget
Action planning

 Identify your target audience - if you identify multiple targets, rank them in
order of importance so that you can allocate resources accordingly. Profile each
target group and understand their requirements and expectations so that you can
pitch your costs and benefits at the correct level.
 Set your objectives - possible objectives could include awareness raising (of
your business or disseminating information about your products or services),
focusing on sales (building Internet sales of a product or increasing the frequency
of sales from regular customers), or internal efficiency (decreasing marketing
costs, reducing order-taking and fulfilment costs, or improving customer retention
rates).
 Decide upon the marketing mix - you should choose a mix of e-marketing
activities that will help you achieve your objectives and fit with any existing
traditional marketing activities you already have planned. For an outline of the
 range of e-marketing options, see our guide on generate business from your e-
marketing plan.
 Agree a budget - careful budgeting allows you to prevent costs spiralling out of
control. By identifying the returns you expect to make from your investment in e-
marketing activities you can compare these with the costs in order to develop a
cost/benefit analysis.
 Action planning - identify the tactics for implementing the selected e-marketing
activities. The plan should also cover other non-Internet marketing activities that
are being undertaken.
 Measure your success - build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to
enable you to assess the success of your e-marketing activities, particularly as e-
commerce is such a dynamic and fast-changing area.

4.GETTING THE TECHNOLOGY RIGHT:

If you are planning to use email as an integral part of your e-marketing plan then
you need to make sure the technology you choose is right not only for the message but
for your customers. The set-up and performance of people's computers varies
tremendously. Some office computers don't have soundcards, which means music or
video files won't be any use.

Firewalls, which protect networks, are also common these days. Often these will
limit the size or type of file that customers can receive. One solution to these problems is
to host large files on your website and simply send an email with a link.

Another important consideration is the connection speed. Do most of your

customers access email at work with a fast connection or do they use a modem at home?
If it's the latter, then large attachments or images will make the email frustratingly slow
to download.

Finally, there's an issue of compatibility. Different programmes will display email

differently. An email with images or an HTML component could look messy on a
different set-up, or even cause the programme to crash.
 The solution is to profile your customers and understand what the best format for
them is. Some may like e-marketing with whistles and bells, others might just like a plain
text email.

 Data privacy
Technology gives you the opportunity to collect lots of information on your
customers. This doesn't mean you should use it carelessly though. It is very important to
ensure that any data you collect about your customers is handled carefully, and in line
with the principles of the Data Protection Act. You must also keep it up to date and not
needlessly reveal information about customers.

5.IMPLEMENTING E-MARKETING:
There are three stages to implementing an e-marketing campaign.

Evaluate the marketing options:

 Email is great for building relationships and keeping your customers up to date
with offers, and is less intrusive than telephone marketing. However, growing
concerns about spam mean you need to make sure you adhere to government
regulations. For more information, see the page in this guide on legal
considerations in e-marketing.
 SMS (short messaging service) - almost everyone has a mobile, so marketing via
text messaging is a viable option. However, the personal relationships people
have with their phones means marketing needs to be carefully considered.
 Websites - a hugely flexible option to meet any marketing need. However, with so
many other websites, you need a strategy for getting yours noticed and used.

Plan the rollout phase:

 Look at training implications, especially of building and running a website and

think about the costs involved.
 Decide which staff will require training and allow time for them to adjust to the
new system.
  Do you need to review your customer contacts database? Before beginning a new
marketing campaign it can be a good time to reorganise your data.
 If you're building a website, how are you going to promote it? Will you submit it
to search engines? Is it worth paying an agency to boost your rating? It might be
wise to start with a soft launch - perhaps just to existing customers to see how the
website beds down before you begin to give it stronger marketing support.

Implement e-marketing:

 Roll out any necessary training.

 Encourage staff involvement and feedback. This will help to smooth
implementation, as staff buy-in can make or break a technology project.
 Consider setting up a cross-departmental taskforce to manage the implementation
process - it will help with staff buy-in and ensure that implementation works
business-wide.
 Continually review your practices against e-marketing regulations.

6.MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR E-MARKETING CAMPAIGN:

Unless you can find out why people visit your website, you won't know which
marketing campaigns have been successful or where to invest more money.

 Tracking and site analysis tools

A number of suppliers sell tracking tools that can tell you where visitors come from,
what they do while on your site and where they go when they leave.If you search the
Internet you might come across a free trial - but bear in mind that you'll need a large
amount of data for the results to be significant.

You - or whoever has access to the server hosting your website - will also be able to
access a log file - a recorded history of all requests for pages on your site. It includes
details of the page requested, the time and source of the request.

The problem with monitoring a log file is that it grows so quickly that you need
software to glean anything useful from it. A website analysis tool is a piece of software
that you can use to measure the usage patterns of your site. It does this using statistics
such as the total number of visitors, the number of new and returning visitors, which
search engines they are finding the site through, and which parts of the site they are
making particular use of.Some website analysis tools, such as Analog, are available free
from the web. Other popular packages include Wusage and WebTrends.

 User surveys
The only other way of checking how visitors reach you and whether you're providing
what they want is to ask them.Ideally, you need to know how they found the site, whether
it is their first visit and why they're visiting. Pop-up surveys (new pages containing
surveys that open in separate windows) are a good way of gathering this type of
information - but users may simply ignore them, particularly if you ask too many
questions.

7.LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS IN E-MARKETING:

You need to be aware that there are a number of regulations that relate
specifically to e-marketing. You need to keep abreast of developments in this area to
ensure that you are complying with the various rules.

 Email and SMS marketing - regulations

There are rules covering marketing e-mails and SMS messages to individuals.The
Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations introduce an opt-in consent
procedure for commercial emails - which means you can only target people who have
agreed to be contacted.

To save having to contact all your existing customers to get consent, the rules apply
only to new customers. You can continue marketing to your current customers provided
they can opt-out of future messages and the messages cover similar products and
services. You must also clearly mark your emails with your contact details and include a
valid return email address.
  Using cookies
Cookies are small pieces of software that websites store on users' computers. They
have a very wide variety of uses, but an important one is to track the movements of
visitors to websites, counting clicks, establishing how people arrived at the site and how
they navigate around it. In short, cookies can be a very useful marketing tool.

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, businesses have to

inform their customers that they use cookies, and provide an opt-out facility for those
who do not wish to accept them. In practice this will mean providing the user with a
"privacy" or "cookies" statement that explains how they are being used and how they can
be switched off. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has set up a specialist team to
develop a practical approach to the rules on cookies.

8.COCLUSION:
The overall objective of any marketing initiative is to help sell your goods or
services. So, as part of your e-marketing plan you need to consider which techniques you
should adopt in order to attract potential customers to your e-commerce website and keep
them coming back.There are a variety of different approaches that you can take, and your
e-marketing plan will usually include a mix of different strategies that are best suited to
help you meet your overall objectives. Some of these will be innovative, while others will
be automated versions of traditional marketing techniques.Used successfully, e-marketing
can enable you to enhance customer relationships and increase your business
profitability.
 Reference:

 Business Information Systems: Technology, Development and Management

for the E-Business (Paperback).
by Simon Hickie (Author), Paul Bocij (Author), Dave Chaffey (Author), Andrew
Greasley (Author)

Websites
 www.emarketingassociation.com
 Www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm
 An overview of e-communications on the dti website.

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