Management.docx
Management, Strategies, Tools, and Practices in eMarketing Sirous Tabrizi University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada Mohammad Kabirnejat Islamic Azad University, Hashtrood Branch, Iran Abstract Globalization has resulted in significant changes in the way business is conducted all over the world. For instance, outsourcing specialist jobs, alliances among large multinational companies, and high degree of government involvement in markets have all forced companies to adjust their structures, practices, and policies. For marketers, two major changes have influenced their practices: increasingly global demographic and deeper customer engagement. Since “push” advertising is becoming increasingly irrelevant, companies need to do more outside the traditional marketing approaches. emarketing is one of the new approaches towards marketing that shows significant promise, especially given the increasingly dominant role played by the Internet in society and popular culture. This article discusses some of the changes necessary to take an e-marketing approach in a business, and focus specifically on several important instruments (the SOSTAC and SMART frameworks) that can help develop consistent strategies. Some conjectured examples are presented to help understand the main argument. Keywords: Globalization, eMarketing, SOSTAC, SMART, branding, marketing mix, emarketing management style 70 Tabrizi and Kabirnejat: eMarketing Introduction Globalization has resulted in significant changes in the way business is conducted all over the world. For instance, numerous companies including such as IBM, Microsoft, and Philips have started outsourcing specialists from various parts of the world, enabling global movement of people for jobs and requiring structural changes to the company (Engardio, Bernstein, & Kripalani, 2003). In addition , globalization has had a positive effect on the economic situation of many developing countries, such as China, India and Bangladesh. However, companies all over the world have to take the practical marketing strategies to give better services to customers. Philip Kotler, who is considered as the father of modern marketing, by many, defines marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures, and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services” (Kotler, 2005; p.10). In the specific case of e-marketing , a more comprehensive and practical definition is provided by specialists at CISCO: “Electronic Marketing (E-Marketing) is a generic term utilized for a wide range of activities -advertising, customer communications, branding, fidelity programs etc. - using the internet” (Otlacan, 2007). In other words, E-Marketing is the process of finding, attracting, winning, and retaining customers through electronic means (Stokes, 2008). Primarily this is accomplished through the Internet but also through e-mail, social networking, and various forms of wireless media. Hence, it is not just producing a website but through facilitating online dialog between consumers and the company (Stokes, 2008). “E-Marketing is also known as Internet Marketing, Web Marketing, Digital Marketing, and Online Marketing” (Levinson & Neitlich, 2011, p. 89). It includes both direct response marketing and indirect marketing elements, and is a continual process rather than something which is executed only once. The messages and 71 Journal of Knowledge Globalization, Volume 8, Number 2, 2015 stories developed through traditional marketing can be improved through technology and electronic means in a variety of ways. eMarketing adds new dimensions and meaning to traditional marketing. Such as reach, scope, interactivity, immediacy, demographic, supply chain, value chain, and financial chain. Reach: Due to the nature of the Internet, E-Marketing can have a global reach and access potential customers from all over the world. This can also be performed on a much smaller budget than what was normally necessary for a comparable reach (Dann & Dann, 2011). Scope: E-Marketing allows a variety of methods for reaching customers and enables a wide range of products and services that can be offered. Therefore, the marketing of a product is combined with other areas such as brand formation, public relations, customer service, and information management in a way that was traditionally not possible (Dann & Dann, 2011). Interactivity: Since E-Marketing is a dialog between customers and companies, there is a degree of interaction between the two that does not exist in traditional marketing. Companies can use the responses, complaints, and commendations of customers to further develop their brands and better their own image (Krishnamurthy, 2006). On the other hand, customers feel more engaged with the company and can become empowered to promote the product through their own actions and discussions. The marketing landscape thus becomes more dynamic, adaptive, and capable of achieving faster and deeper growth. Immediacy: The Internet, being pervasive and always accessible, provides a constant and continual means through which customers can be engaged and view and buy products. E-Marketing effectively closes the gap between providing information, advertising, and buy opportunities and eliciting a reaction from customers (Krishnamurthy, 2006; Dann & Dann, 2011). 72 Tabrizi and Kabirnejat: eMarketing Demographics: Generally speaking, Internet users have a significant buying power, as they are skewed towards the middle-classes, and are often capable of organizing themselves into focused groupings and sub-populations (Krishnamurthy, 2006; Dann & Dann, 2011). As such, savvy marketers can find access to desired niche markets in addition to being able to easily and effective target such groups (Parsons, & Maclaran, 2009). Literature From the very beginning, marketing in the 21st century has been different. Marketers today have a greater number and variety of choices in support, media opportunities, and methods of communications but they also face increasing competition due to the Internet facilitating virtual competition (Andreasen, 2006). E-marketing is the application of marketing techniques, principles, and practices using electronic media, especially the Internet (Pride & Ferrell, 2011). It encompasses all the activities which a company conducts through the Internet so as to attract new business, retain current business, or develop its brand identity. In an analysis of e-business components and accepted marketing concepts, Albert and Sanders (2003) developed this definition: “E-business marketing is a concept and process of adapting the relevant and current technologies to the philosophy of marketing and its management. Focused attention on the areas of e-commerce, business intelligence, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and enterprise resource planning provide a framework for effective adaptation. Although the electronic environment experiences rapid changes, the reliance on proven marketing models, in these areas, ensures continuity of the marketing process both online and off-line.” (P. 10) Management for E-Marketing Management plays an important role in E-Marketing, one which establishes the system for decision making, improving customer knowledge, efficient targeting of advertising, and so on (Chan, 2005). The style of management is an important 73 Journal of Knowledge Globalization, Volume 8, Number 2, 2015 consideration when attempting to implement any E-Marketing plan (Chan, 2005). Generally speaking, there are two kinds of management styles - centralized and decentralized - though there is a range of styles between those two values (Albert & Sanders, 2003). Although the approach style depends on the size of the company and the management context, for E-Marketing it is generally better to use a decentralized approach. In a decentralized approach, decision making authority is distributed throughout a larger group such that lower level individuals have higher authority than they would in other contexts (Daft & Marcic, 2005). For E-Marketing, this is valuable for adapting to customer feedback, responding positively to emerging trends, and providing opportunities for individual employees to engage with customers in a more natural manner. Given that decision making is distributed across the group, it also enables customers to be part of the decision-making process without jeopardizing the authority of the company. Hence, companies can learn the desires and interests of the customers, so as to better market products to them, while customers can feel as though the company takes them seriously and are able to form stronger attachment to company brands (Pride & Ferrell, 2011). However, a decentralized management style can be problematic in terms of cooperation. Since all individuals in the decision-making process have similar authority, they may refuse to cooperate or may go in completely different directions for solving some problem (Daft & Marcic, 2005). Hence, the role of a manager becomes one who guides other employees with common vision, goals, and objectives so that there is cooperation in terms of results. Each individual should be able to use their own strengths to accomplish the goal. In order to accomplish this , managers need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and be able to create objectives that can be tailor to specific strengths. Managers cannot do this unless they have the desire to know and understand others: other employees and the customers (Daft & Marcic, 2005). This desire to know others, for the purpose of cooperation, is part of what is commonly called a social-justice leader. Hence, the role of management in EMarketing is to provide leadership in cooperation, in understanding the desires and strengths of others, and being able to guide by objectives and by example. 74 Tabrizi and Kabirnejat: eMarketing Management for emarketing needs different kind of skills set and leadership style than in-person marketing. In marketing most leadership functions are exerted through technology rather than face-to-face. There is an absolute need to have a clear and well defined system of management control for feedback and motivation. A manager must have online communication proficiency, comfortable with tools and techniques and must follow etiquette of online communication. Managers and the employees mush have real-time access to reports, feedback, updates and guidelines. Strategy Once good objectives have been identified it is time to develop a strategy. For example, consider a company with a 40% market share with their phone card. A possible objective would be to increase that market share to 45% or to 60%, either of which will have different hurdles to overcome. What strategy would be developed? It could be through increasing sales, through building a better brand, through reducing the price of the product, and so on. However, some strategies may not be appropriate for the objective. For instance, improving the quality of the product may not increase market share but instead would be better for an objective of maintaining a hold on the existing 40%. As well, some strategies may be more time intensive than others. For instance, consider a brand name of this phone card as the CC Phone Card. Improving the brand of CC may be difficult in an English context due to the similarity of the name with the English word “sissy”, an already derogatory and insulting name. It may be easier to use a different name of the card in an English context, and keep the name for a context where the sound does not have the same connotation. For instance, in Spanish CC is similar to saying “Yes Yes”, which may have a positive connotation. Hence, the calling card could be marketed as CC in Spanish areas but something else in English areas. Tactics Once the overall strategy has been developed, it is necessary to make that strategy achievable in a practical sense. Since a strategy is very general and may be meant for years, it is difficult for individual employees to determine how they can be involved in accomplishing it. Thus, a series of tactics will be useful. These are 75 Journal of Knowledge Globalization, Volume 8, Number 2, 2015 short-term or small-scope sets of actions that employees can perform so as to accomplish the strategy. While still somewhat general, so that each employee can apply their own strengths to it, these are far more focused in intention and may be directed to specific groups of employees or even specific employees. For instance, consider the strategy of improving the brand name. Some tactics could involve advertising campaigns, engaging with customer groups, providing information for blogs to get the name out there in the Internet, monitoring the response of different groups, and so on. No employee would do all of these things; they would only focus on one or two while others would engage in the remaining tactics. Similarly, tactics are meant to change regularly as the strategy is put into action. Action Once the tactics have been identified, employees engage in daily and weekly actions for implementing them. Therefore, the actions are the realm of each employee. However, monitoring these actions to identify problems and measure progress is important. One effective means for doing so is through using Gantt charts. These charts are meant for identifying how long certain actions may take, and can be updated regularly by employees so that progress in accomplishing an action is easily identifiable. Similarly, by allowing employees to monitor their own progress, it reduces the likelihood of managerial interruption and the negative aspects of managerial control. Control The SOSTAC framework is a continuous one, which involves a cycle of steps. The final step of control is there to allow reflection, monitoring of results, and a means of adapting to new circumstances. As progress in implementing an EMarketing plan occurs, it is important to identify markers of progress and problems. In doing so, it becomes possible to take advantage of positive circumstances for a company (such as a new fad being developed around the product) and to quickly respond to problems (such as a viral video depicting the product as bad). Hence, this step is meant to continually monitor the environment
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