UNIT 4 - EMERGING TRENDS OF
MARKETING
STRUCTURE
4.1 E-Marketing
4.1.1 Meaning of E-marketing
4.1.2 Importance of E-marketing
4.1.3 Activities of E-marketing
4.2 Relationship Marketing
4.3 Database Marketing
4.4 Keyword
4.5 Summary
UNIT OBJECTIVES
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Explain the concept of E-marketing
Discuss the importance and activities of E-marketing
Elaborate on the meaning and characteristics of Relationship Marketing
Describe the importance of Database Marketing in modern organisations
INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit, you studied the concept of marketing mix. The unit also
discussed 4 Ps of marketing mix that are product, price, place and promotion.
Further, the importance of pricing and distribution channels was described. At
last, the unit shed light on the significance of promotion and its tools.
In the modern world, technology has expanded the scope of marketing activities.
Accordingly, marketing has accepted the technology in its applications as it is
adding success to its basket.
Electronic marketing has emerged as a new attitude of modern organisations
which are involved in the marketing of goods, services, information and ideas
through the Internet and other electronic resources. Relationship marketing has
also evolved as a new type of marketing that focusses on building long-term
commitments with consumers.
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing which involves collecting
consumer data and analyzing that data to know about the expectations of
consumers by connecting with the ultimate consumers.
The opening section of this unit gives an overview of E-marketing and its
acceptance by modern organisations. The unit also discusses the importance and
activities of E-marketing. Further, the unit discusses relationship marketing. The
latter section of the unit explains database marketing and its relevance to modern
organisations.
4.1 E-MARKETING
E-Marketing (Electronic Marketing), which is popularly known as Internet
Marketing, Web Marketing, Digital Marketing or Online Marketing, is the
process of marketing a product or service using the Internet. It includes
marketing done through wireless media by using a range of technologies that
help in connecting organisations to their consumers.
4.1.1 MEANING OF E-MARKETING
E-marketing focusses on online communications, direct dialogue with
consumers, finding efficient methods to win consumers’ loyalty and ease their
decision-making process. E-marketing is the sum of activities that an
organisation performs with the objective of identifying, attracting and retaining
consumers in the long run.
Definitions of E-marketing by various authors are as follows:
In the words of Kotler and Keller, E-marketing portrays company efforts to
inform and communicate with buyers, and promote and sell its products and
services over the Internet.
According to Mark Scats, E-marketing is the marketing that uses the Internet as
manifestation channel.
In the global view, Electronic Marketing (E-marketing) mostly defines as a new
attitude of modern organisations who are involved in the marketing of goods,
services, information and ideas through the Internet and other electronic
resources. E-marketing uses electronic communication technologies including
the Internet, mobile phones and digital media to achieve its marketing
objectives.
In its broad sense, E-marketing is a form of direct marketing which connects the
brand with its current or potential consumer and sends commercial messages to
its target audience. It generally includes the following activities to connect with
its target audiences:
Sending emails to enhance the relationships with the current consumers
with an objective to gain consumer loyalty
Sending emails to potential consumers with the objective of acquiring new
consumers
SEO is the process of making organizational website more visible in search
engines to get more traffic from consumers who are searching for specific
products.
E-marketing is a boon to modern organisations. The importance of E-marketing
can be summed up in the following points:
E-marketing is convenient to use: It is convenient to use due to the
accessibility of consumers through the Internet. It provides consumers a more
comfortable shopping experience as they can place an order with a single click.
From the organizational point of view, it is easy to track the sales of the product
by keeping a record of the orders received via the Internet.
E-marketing is comparatively cheaper: It is comparatively cheaper than
traditional modes of promotion, such as newspapers, television and radio. It
saves time and cost by sending commercial emails to multiple consumers at the
same time. It can also send customized messages to the consumers depending
on their requirements.
E-marketing can easily track results: It can track and measure its results
effectively through various tools, such as Google Analytics, Hoot suite, Doppler
and Crazy Egg. It provides the proper direction for modifying the marketing
campaigns by providing information about the traffic in terms of leads, sales
and conversations.
E-marketing helps in demographic targeting: It can customize its
advertisements according to the demographic trends, such as age, gender, place,
education, race and religion of the consumers. It concentrates on its efforts by
shaping the needs and desires of the consumers as per the demographic factors.
E-marketing is used globally: It can easily reach any corner of the world
to offer the products and services to consumers worldwide. The ability to market
products and services across the globe is one of the biggest advantages of E-
marketing for any organisation. It can target audiences and cater to their needs
24/7 effectively from any place around the world.
E-marketing enhances better consumer relationships: It can enhance
consumer relationships by forming a direct relationship with the consumers. It
can provide valuable information to the consumers about the product, special
discounts and other benefits.
4.1.3 ACTIVITIES OF E-MARKETING
Google sends notifications for mention in Web pages, newspaper articles or
blogs that match the frequently searched items.
E-marketing uses different types of activities to connect with its consumers.
The types of activities are discussed as under:
Social Media: E-marketing makes the best use of social media through
organization’s online community. It effectively manages all the three major
social media platforms, i.e., Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to reach its
potential consumers. Social media platforms are accessible to the target
consumers and, hence, play a vital role in building trust with them.
Social media is widely accepted in the present world for marketing activities. It
is the youngest and the most innovative way to build and maintain the brand
image. It involves using various social networking sites including Facebook,
WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Following are the benefits of
using social media in marketing:
Social media helps in continuous engagement with the consumers.
Social media saves the cost and time of marketers.
Social media helps in increasing brand awareness in the minds of
consumers.
Social media is an effective way to reach a younger audience.
Viral Videos: E-marketing uses viral videos like a Trojan horse for
promoting products. These videos can evoke humor, inspiration or amazement
in the consumers depending upon the purpose of marketers behind creating these
videos. These are shared on social platforms very easily and exhibit dispersion
among the targeted consumers.
Directories: E-marketing displays organization’s contact information
through paid or free directories. It helps in building links with the organizational
website and increasing online exposure with the consumers. For example,
Google uses PageRank to display the quality of websites which helps in
determining the worth of the website.
Blogging: E-marketing uses blogging to attract consumers on social
media. A blog plays the role of a trust builder and also adds to the popularity of
the organisation.
Search Engine Optimization: E-marketing ensures to make the
organizational website more visible in search engines. It requires a sound
technical structure of the website and an effective strategy. SEO (Search Engine
Optimization) ensures that the organization’s website is properly indexed on the
search engine.
SEM: Search Engine Marketing is a type of Internet-based marketing
which involves keyword search, competitive analysis and paid listing. It helps
in increasing traffic to the marketer’s website.
Digital Marketing: Digital marketing refers to the marketing done using
digital media tools. It involves digitized content, including text, audio, video
and graphics, that is transmitted on any formal device using digital signals.
PPC: PPC refers to Pay Per Click. It is a model of Internet marketing. In
pay per click, advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked on.
PPM: PPM refers to Pay Per Mile which is also known as PPI (Pay Per
Impression). In PPM, when a user visits a page where the brand advertisement
is displayed, it automatically counts it as an ‘impression’.
4.2 RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
The concept of relationship marketing was introduced by Leonard L. Berry in
1983. Relationship marketing can be defined as the practice of building long-
term relationships with various parties that are connected to an organisation.
These parties include employees, suppliers, financial institutions, regulatory
institutions and society at large. In relationship marketing, marketers mainly
focus on clients who are more aligned with the organisation through the
application of various marketing strategies. Relationship marketing is defined
by various authors as follows:
In the words of Philip Kotler, Relationship marketing is the practice of long-
term satisfying relationships with the key parties including consumers, suppliers
and distributors in order to retain their long-term preference and business. The
ultimate outcome of relationship marketing is the building of a unique company
asset called a marketing network. A marketing network consists of the
organisation and all of its supporting stakeholders, consumers, employees,
suppliers, distributors, retailers, ad agencies, university scientists and others
with whom it has built mutually profitable business relationships. Increasingly
competition is not between companies, but rather between whole networks, with
the prize going to the company that has built a better network. The operating
principle is build a good network of relationships with key stakeholders and
profits will follow.
According to Berry (1983), Relationship marketing is the process of attracting,
marinating and in multi-service organisations, enhancing ‘Customer
Relationship’.
According to Greenrooms (1990), Relationship Marketing is the process of
establishing, marinating, and enhancing relationship with the customers so that
the objectives of the organisation are met. This is achieved by fulfilment of
promises.
Relationship marketing is depicted in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Relationship Marketing
Source: https://printingshark.com/relationship-marketing-ottawa/
Following are the channels used by relationship marketing to communicate with
its consumers:
Social media: Social media is a channel of direct communication with
consumers.
Relationship marketing uses various social media platforms, such as
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to enhance the relationship with the ultimate
consumers.
E-mail relationship: E-mail relationship is a valuable communication tool
in relationship marketing. It generates new opportunities for the organisation to
connect with the existing and potential consumers.
Relationship marketing is the process of building and maintaining sound
relationships with consumers in the long-term by providing them satisfactory
products and services. The employees also play a vital role in tailoring the
production efforts to meet the needs of consumers and to improve the reputation
of the organisation. The objectives of relationship marketing can be summed up
as follows:
Enhancing consumer satisfaction: Relationship marketing aims at building
a chain of loyal consumers who provide a valuable word-of-mouth advertising.
It ensures consumers’ engagement through various social networking sites and
mobile platforms.
Improving efficiency in the organisation: Relationship marketing helps in
eliminating reduction in the marketing campaigns by considering the
consumers’ expectations. A sound platform of Relationship Marketing will
collect a wealth of data pertaining to the needs of the consumers. It seeks to
improve the overall efficiency leading to an improved consumer satisfaction
level.
Expanding the consumer base: Relationship marketing aims at managing
existing consumers in the long term. It links its marketing programs to a high-
quality management platform that helps connect with prospective consumers as
well. A larger customer base will allow for increased continuity in profits for
the organisation in the long term.
Enhancing the sales volume: Relationship marketing aims at increasing
the sales volume by making a connection with new consumers while retaining
old consumers. Existing consumers also play a major role in increasing sales by
word- of-mouth publicity to new consumers.
In modern times, organisations require higher employee involvement with
consumers and increased consumer participation in production. Leading
organisations including Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, Barclaycard (UK),
Cisco Systems, IKEA, Toyota and Starbucks have achieved consumer long-term
loyalty by applying relationship marketing in their organisations. Benefits of
relationship marketing are discussed as follows:
Understanding consumers’ characteristics: Relationship marketing helps
an organisation understand consumers in a better way. Marketers can segregate
the consumers into various segments on the basis of their characteristics like
purchasing power, frequency and volume of sales transactions. It also helps get
valuable feedback from the consumers and to understand their needs and
expectations. This subsequently helps in producing products based on these
demands resulting in happier customers.
Word-of-mouth publicity: Happy consumers will always promote the
product by telling other people about the amazing service that they received
from the organisation. They will be excited to recommend the product to people
around them so they can try it too. Relationship marketing is an effective
strategy for advertising campaigns that create product awareness.
Reduced marketing costs: A satisfied consumer will be ready to pay more
for the product, especially in the case where after-sales services are provided
with the product. The organisation will gain repeat sales from its existing
consumers in the long term. This will reduce the marketing costs of the
organisation.
4.3 DATABASE MARKETING
Database marketing is the kind of direct marketing that involves collecting
relevant consumer data in order to cater to individual consumer needs. The
collected information is analyzed and used to create a personalized experience
for each consumer and to attract potential consumers. Some relevant definitions
of database marketing are as follows:
In the words of Kotler, Database marketing allows organisations to provide
much more accurately what customers are looking for and can this way increase
customer value.
In the words of Jobber, At the heart of every direct marketing activity is a
marketing database, and its effectiveness depends on the amount and quality of
customer information held by organisations. Database Marketing can be defined
as the effort of organisations in compiling, analyzing, using and maintaining
data held about customers. This effort can assist organisations in contacting,
transacting and building relationships with existing and potential customers.
The activities of Database Marketing are depicted in Figure 2:
Figure 2: Activities of Database Marketing
Creating consumer database involves the following activities on the part of
marketers:
Identifying consumer groups: Database marketing system identifies the
most loyal, high-value and first-time consumers as well as occasional
purchasers.
Creating consumer segments: Database marketing creates consumer
segments based on demographics, behavior and personal interests.
Designing highly personalized messages: Database marketing designs
personalized messages for both the current and the prospective consumers. It
also determines the best channel and the best time to engage consumers.
Building effective loyalty programs: Database marketing builds effective
loyalty programs with an objective to provide the right incentives for repeat
purchases by consumers. It also improves consumer service by providing the
support staff with a 360° view of the consumers’ interactions with the
organisation.
Database marketing is a boon to modern organisations.
It involves a series of steps to be followed which are discussed as follows:
1. Identifying the target consumers: The first step in database marketing
involves identifying the age, income, job title and location of the present and
prospective consumers. A detailed ideal consumer profile is built for the product
and this profile is used to decide about the information that marketers need to
include in their database.
2. Collaborating with other teams: Marketing, sales and support have direct
contact with consumers and prospects. The next step is to collaborate with the
other teams of the organisation.
3. Finding the right software: Software serves as a tool that makes it easy to
include different kinds of information, customer types and even organize
consumer information to match different product categories.
4. Keeping data up-to-date and backed-up: Building a customer database
requires a lot of time and efforts from the organisation. Therefore, it is very
important to protect it by safeguarding it against power outages and technical
glitches. Backup software automatically updates profiles when consumers enter
new information and online tools can protect the database against data decay.
4.4 KEY WORDS
Social media: Social media is a channel of direct communication with
consumers that includes social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn
and Twitter.
Leads: Leads occur when the consumer buys the product that appeared
over social media and he got the information about this product over this
platform only.
Clicks: Click occurs when the consumers open any external marketing link
through social media posts on platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Database marketing system: The software which is used to manage
consumer data is called database marketing system.
4.5 SUMMARY
E-Marketing (Electronic Marketing), which is popularly known as Internet
Marketing, Web Marketing, Digital Marketing or Online Marketing, is the
process of marketing a product or service by using the Internet. It includes
several platforms including social media channels to identify its customers,
communicate with them, amplify its voice and build brand loyalty over its
competitors.
The ability to market products and services across the globe is one of the biggest
advantages of e-marketing for any organisation. It can target audiences and cater
to their needs 24/7 effectively from any corner of the world.
Relationship marketing can be defined as the practice of building long-term
relationships with various parties that are connected to an organisation. These
parties include employees, suppliers, financial institutions, regulatory
institutions and society at large.
Relationship marketing aims at building a chain of loyal consumers who provide
a valuable word-of-mouth advertising. It ensures consumers’ engagement
through various social networking sites and mobile platforms.
Database marketing system identifies the most loyal, high-value and first-time
consumers as well as occasional purchasers.
