Unit 15 Internet Marketing Assignment

Unit 15 Internet Marketing Assignment

Introduction

In this Unit 15 Internet Marketing Assignment we discuss highly digital world, each and every task of a human being’s life is getting linked with the virtual world. Not only the business organizations but also the individuals are becoming more and more dependent on internet in the present scenario. Internet, in the present times, has revolutionized the ways of marketing and selling the products and is considered one of the best methods to promote company’s products and services. Due to the increased usage of internet, a large number of innovative elements have been added in the marketing which include search engine marketing, pay per click, ad words and many more. Nowadays, companies and professionals have understood the power and significance of internet and the major role played by internet in the marketing of products and services and therefore each and every company is putting constant efforts to join e commerce platform and take maximum advantage of it. This report is entirely focussed towards creating a better understanding of internet marketing and various aspects related to the concept. For this purpose, the real case study of Lady Gaga has also been referred to and discussed in brief.

Task 1

1.1 Define E-Commerce, E-Business, Internet marketing, and Digital Marketing and discuss their differences.

• E- commerce: It is the method of purchasing and selling of products or services by making use of electricity based media channels which are mainly operated through World Wide Web or internet. E-bay and Amazon are very good examples of the companies working through e-commerce websites. These companies are responsible for the tremendous growth of e-business during the last few years as they have been earning billions of dollars, similar to large retail organizations, as their annual revenue (Lambros, 2008). Another major reason for which e commerce has been gaining popularity is that it is available to the users for 24x7 and also the websites are easily accessible and provide effective services to their consumers through their e-commerce channel.
• E-business:  Most of the people get confused and they just replace the term e-commerce with e-business but there are some significant differences among these two terms. The term, electronic business, can be defined as making usage of technology for making improvement in the business processes of an organization. This improvement includes all the processes whether it is marketing, finance, administration or Human resource or the external ones such as marketing or Customer Relationship Management (Lambros, 2008). E-business transactions usually take place between two business entities instead of consumer and the company. For instance, e bay purchases certain product such as camera from a seller; this would be considered a pure business to business transaction under which two business organizations are involved.
• Internet marketing: Internet marketing is a popular term in the present times due to its increasing significance for satisfying marketing needs of an organization. It is an important advertising tool utilized by a company with a view to increase market exposure of the offerings. This is performed with the help of a number of channels, for instance web messages, e-mail, etc. This tool is an extension of traditional marketing tools utilized in the earlier times such as newspapers, magazines, television, etc. (Kent, 2012). In addition to the internet marketing, there are various other forms of marketing such as e mail marketing, social media marketing and web marketing.
• Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is another form of marketing under which products and services are promoted or marketed making use of a number of electronic media forms. Digital marketing is completely different from the traditional marketing methods as it provides real time feedback to the company’s advertising efforts which ultimately help them to analyse the progress of their marketing campaigns.
• Differences: All these terms sound similar but they are dissimilar in various forms as e-commerce is more focussed towards Business to consumer transactions whereas e-business involves only business to business transactions. It clearly means that transactions in case of e-business are of higher value as compared to the transactions in case of e-commerce. Similar to this, major difference between digital marketing and internet marketing is very clear (Lambros, 2008). Internet marketing mainly focuses on mediums that are based on internet whereas digital marketing focuses a lot on digital products which may or may not be directly associated with the internet.

1.2 Description of a product, the way it is marketed, sold and delivered using Internet, and the micro- and macro-environment around its marketing environment

Nowadays, trend of self-photography that is called selfie is increasing at a higher pace. In this regard, camera supporting device i.e. Monopod available at Amazon.com can be considered. The clear idea about this product is visible in the below figure:

(Figure: Image of Monopod)

Monopod is a best way to support camera and prevent camera shake while taking a selfie. By making use of monopod, a photographer can take sharp images or selfies making use of slow shutter speed which is not at all possible while holding camera in hand. Monopod is a camera supporting device which is promoted as Amazon’s product and is retailed through this website (Row, 2013). Marketing of Monopod has been closely linked with the promotion of Amazon’s e-commerce website.

Marketing of this product is done through traditional as well as internet mediums. For instance, Amazon publishes printed advertisement in the newspaper mainly promoting Monopod even when most of the company’s products are sold online (Row, 2013).  Micro and macro environment situation of this product is discussed below:

• Micro environment: With regard to micro environment for Monopod, it can be stated that there is high potential for the product to grow further and maintain its position in the competitive market (Row, 2013). Apart from this, it can also be stated that the product, Monopod, has done its pricing and marketing principles segmentation in a way that it can attract large group of selfie fevered consumers towards it.
• Macro environment: With regard to macro environment for Monopod, it can be stated that there is marvellous potential for the product in the present era. People, in the present time, click their pictures themselves rather than getting it clicked by someone else for getting popularity on social media platform (Row, 2013). This fact can clearly be understood as the demand for mobile phones with front camera is consistently increasing as people prefer clicking self-pictures through their own mobile phone instead of taking anybody else’s help.

1.3 The Elements of Internet Marketing of the Product, and Critical Discussion of its Internet Marketing Mix

Following is the marketing mix for Monopod:

• Product: Monopod was launched to fulfil the self-photography requirements of customers. The device has achieved popularity in a very less time due to its marvellous features that are making lives of selfie fevered customers more easy and complex free.
• Price:Amazon.com keeps dealing with the pricing strategy of its products time and again so as to gain increased popularity or get more traffic directed towards the website.
• Place:Monopod, on Amazon, is retailed through its ecommerce website Amazon.com and it has created a complete system that provides other related accessories as well. This feature makes the purchase and maintenance of product easier than expected by the consumer.
• Promotion: Monopod’s promotion has been done aggressively by Amazon company baking use of various online and offline marketing channels.

In the sum, it is vital to mention that Amazon’s marketing mix for Monopod is aligned with the business strategy of the company. Company’s marketing strategy has guaranteed the notion that its e-commerce channels are exploited in an effective manner in order to endorse and sell Monopod to its customers.

Task 2

2.1 A clear and thorough definition for the following key elements of Internet Marketing:

• Search engine marketing (SEM):SEM is a particular form of internet marketing that mainly aims to promote the websites by increasing their visibility on the search engine results pages by advertising and optimization. SEM is basically a process through which various methods are applied to enhance the market visibility or exposure of certain product or service (Jindal, Kant, & Sharma, 2014). This is one of those internet marketing methods that focus on purchasing advertisements appearing on the result pages of the search engine such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the exposure or visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid search results. SEO is basically a methodology or strategy that is used to augment the number of visitors to any particular website by gaining a higher rank placement in the search outcomes of any search engine (Roberts, & Zahay, 2012). The SEO tactic assists in making sure that site is reachable to the search engines and also it escalates the likelihood that particular site will be easily located by the search engine so as to display it on the priority in the search engine results.
• Paid search engine marketing: This form of marketing, as the name depicts, is that marketing, which is considered as the division of Search Engine Marketing.  Through this form of marketing, advertisers can easily obtain traffic for their website by purchasing advertisements on search engines (Jindal, Kant, & Sharma, 2014). Under the paid search engine marketing system, advertiser pays for a particular word to be displayed in the search engine results so that once the user puts that word in the search box, traffic is directed towards advertiser’s website.
• Pay per click advertising (PPC): It is a method of marketing that is utilized to generate clicks to a particular website by making use of search engine. In this form of marketing, advertiser is charged every time the advertisement is clicked by the visitor or every time a visitor is directed towards the advertiser’s website (Verma, & Mehla, 2014). Once the PPC campaign of the advertiser is well designed and starts running smoothly, the fee that is paid will be trivial as every visit matters to the business more than what has been paid for that visit.
• ?Email marketing: E-mail marketing is the marketing strategy that is most widely utilized by the advertisers to reach its customers in masses. Through this form of marketing, an advertiser can easily target its potential customers and observe the effectiveness of its marketing efforts. In the broadest sense, email marketing is nothing but directly passing on a commercial message to a large group of customers using e mail (Ebay, 2014). This form of marketing involves using e mail to send advertisements to the consumers with the purpose of building trust, loyalty or brand awareness among the customers.

2.2 Discussion of the Way Product is marketed in the Entertainment Industry  

Online public relations

Online public relations can be understood as an activity through which advertisers reach out their potential customers or public following a structured way. This method of advertising is mainly adopted to promote a product or build the image of particular product in the eyes of large groups of consumers. Nowadays, traditional public relations are losing their importance due to the emergence of highly digitalized world. Online public relations assist in improving online visibility of products, brands and celebrities. Above case study of Lady Gaga reveals the following facts:

• Lady Gaga well knows her target audiences and therefore she communicates directly with her fans and followers.
• Lady Gaga wanted to present herself a brand so that her followers can connect with her and for this purpose she has taken online public relations up to a certain level.
• She is steady and reliable while communicating her product features or maintaining her connections with her fans and followers.

In the sum, it can be stated that online public relations is the only strategy through which celebrities such as Lady Gaga can directly connect with their fans. Nowadays websites such as You Tube.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com, etc. are some of the common websites that are utilized by celebrities and organizations for promoting themselves among large group of customers.

Digital marketing communities

A group of people that have come together for pursuing an activity that is of common interest is defined as communities. In the same way, internet has provided a common ground to the digital media communities where people can come together taking help of internet forums (Roberts, & Zahay, 2012). In the above case study of Lady gaga, she has her dedicated fans having their own digital media community which is focussed towards keeping eye on Lady Gaga’s work This community criticizes or praises the work of Lady Gaga, every time she launches a new one, which helps her in getting real time feedback on her work so that she can make required improvements at the right point of time.

Task 3

3.1 A short market research report on a selected product’s market

For providing answer to this task, monopod has been selected as the trend of self-pictures i.e. selfie is constantly increasing not only among the youngsters but among the people of all the age groups.  This selfie culture is not something that can be called recent. As per the record, the launch of portable Kodak Brownie box camera in 1900 is responsible for the advent of Selfie world but the term selfie has gained popularity due to the rise of social networking sites after the year 2005. More and more people, nowadays, click their pictures themselves rather than getting it clicked by someone else (Lee, 2014). This fact can clearly be understood as the demand for mobile phones with front camera is consistently increasing as people prefer clicking self-pictures through their own mobile phone instead of taking anybody else’s help. Following chart shows the 10 most popular cities to take selfie in:

(Figure: Selfie trend statistics)

In the above figure, it is clearly evident that London is the world’s Selfie capital as it has gained highest share i.e. 14.05% in selfie trend in contrast of which Athens has gained only 4.25% (Row, 2013). Due to the increasing trend of selfie in these countries, the demand for devices supporting the selfie feature of a camera is increasing and monopod is one out of them. Monopod is one single pole that is much easier to transport and is able to retract when not in use and these are the major reasons the demand for monopod is increasing at a higher pace.

3.2 Identification of the market data which could not find in secondary market research, and design of a primary research to collect those market data using digital tools

Following survey can be used for increasing the popularity of device supporting selfie feature in market, and to understand how much the camera supporting device or monopod is most popular:

3.3 Discussion of the Benefits of Internet/Digital Tools and Techniques for Relationship Marketing Management.

On the basis of case study for camera supporting device, Monopod, it can be stated that internet based digital tools have played a significant role in the success of products like Monopod in this highly competitive market. Consumer shopping websites such as Amazon have also played major role in ensuring that an entire system that supports the usage of device like Monopod has been developed for the convenience of customer. For instance, any customer, while purchasing Monopod can compare it with other devices that support front camera feature of a mobile phone along with accessories that can be helpful while transporting the device from one location to other (Lee, 2014). These types of facilities provided on the websites are helpful for the customer while getting all the support material at a common platform.

In this way, Amazon company has not only utilized its e-business website efficiently as an internet marketing tool to enhance the sale of Monopod but also to promote the sales of other supporting products such as mobile phones, cameras, etc. Customers can not only purchase mobile phones and cameras from Amazon to click their best selfies but also they can purchase other devices that can help them to make efficient use of their device’s features. Therefore, it can be concluded that Amazon has always put customer experience on priority so that every customer’s experience while clicking their selfies using Monopod remains flawless and smooth.

Task 4

4.1 An outline internet marketing plan for the products.

Environmental Analysis

• Political Factors: The key political factors that will the internet marketing of a monopod will be consumer protect act, privacy and legal issues and spam issues. It is noteworthy that while buying online consumers offers information and knowledge to internet operating companies, and thus, it is essential to work under legal requirements and follow laws in order to work efficiently          
• Economic position:Due to the increasing trend of self-photography, more than 25 million Monopods were sold during the year 2013 generating revenue of more than 2.3 trillion for Amazon. It has been evidenced that from the sale of camera supporting devices, Amazon is generating a huge volume of sales. Market share of monopod in the overall camera supporting devices’ segment is of more than 80 percent.
• Social position:Customers belonging to each and every age group in this digitalized world is the main or target customer base of this portable camera supporting device called Monopod.
• Technological position:Monopod, a portable camera supporting device, has proved to be a great addition to any photographer’s kit especially to the one who is fond of taking selfies. Monopod can prove to be useful piece of photographic equipment at the time when some sort of freedom and flexibility is required by the photographer.

Competitors Analysis

The major competitor of a monopod will be a tripod. It is pertinent to state that a tripod is a transportable three-legged frame, which is utilised as a base for supporting the weight and upholding the immovability of some other object, or a camera. Tripod is a competitive product for monopod because it offers constancy in opposition to downward and horizontal forces and movements about horizontal axes. It is considerable unlike a monopod, which needs to be used with hands for clicking a picture, customers can use tripod by setting the angle of the picture, and time and there is no need to hold it as it has three legs already. Thus, tripod is competitive product for monopod, which strives to offer better utility to customers. Apart from this smartphones and digital cameras are also competitive products for a monopod.      

Channel analysis

The medium used for marketing the product will be print advertisements and social media websites. It is considerable to mention that print advertisements will allow the company to submit appealing images of the product and post details about its uses, which in turn will aid in attracting consumers. In addition to this, with the growing inclination of today’s consumers towards social media websites, it is valuable to utilise the same for marketing the monopod product. Thus, Facebook and Twitter will be used to post requisite information about the product and to persuade customers for buying. Moreover, videos will also be posted on Youtube demonstrating the different uses of the product and its value.                   

 SWOT analysis

Market Segmentation

The below mentioned is the market segmentation of a monopod on the basis of the different segmentation types:

• Geographic segmentation: The monopod is mainly targeted to consumers in the urban areas as the urban consumers get easily attracted towards such technologically advanced products and are also very much influenced by the selfie trend.    
• Demographic segmentation: It is targeted to consumers of all age group interesting in clicking selfies or group pictures without taking anybody’s help, irrespective of their gender. The monopod is highly reasonable product in comparison to tripod and other such products available in the market and hence all income group customers can buy it.
• Psychographic segmentation: A monopod is meant for people who want to enjoy every moment of their life and need to capture it as a memory. It is targeted to consumers who love enjoying, going on tour, clicking pictures and sharing the same with the world.
• Behavioural Segmentation:A monopod is targeted to consumers who love online shopping because of its expediency as compared to brick and mortar stores.

Conclusion

In the conclusion, it can be stated that Internet marketing has become an essential form of marketing in this highly digitalized world and therefore none of the advertisers can escape from this form of marketing. Almost each and every company, nowadays, is shifting its concentration towards internet marketing strategies so as to gain increased popularity in the competitive market. Another important reason for which companies are shifting their focus towards the internet marketing modes is it is very crucial for growth and success of business. 

References

Ebay. 2014. When to Use a Monopod and Leave the Tripod at Home. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ebay.com/gds/When-to-Use-a-Monopod-and-Leave-the-Tripod-at-Home-/10000000177629164/g.html [Accessed on: 12 February, 2015].
Jindal, A. K., Kant, K., & Sharma, R. 2014. Future Prospects of Online Marketing. TRANS Asian Journal of Marketing & Management Research, 3(3), 26-34.
Kent, P. 2012. Search engine optimization for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Lambros, D. 2008. Digital Rights Management for E-Commerce Systems Premier reference source. IGI Global.
Lee, K. 2014. Introduction to Search Engine Marketing 2014. [Online] Available at http://www.sempo.org/?page=intro_to_sem [Accessed on 12 February 2015]
Monopod Reviews. 2014. [Online]. Available at http://www.better-digital-photo-tips.com/monopod-reviews.htm  [Accessed on: 12 February, 2015].
One Slide Photography. 2014. [Online]. Available at http://oneslidephotography.com/what-are-the-advantages-of-using-a-monopod [Accessed on: 12 February, 2015].
Roberts, M., &Zahay, D. 2012.Internet marketing: Integrating online and offline strategies. Cengage Learning.
Row, J. 2013. When and How to Use a Monopod Instead of a Tripod. [Online]. Available at http://www.lightstalking.com/when-and-how-to-use-a-monopod-instead-of-a-tripod/ [Accessed on: 12 February, 2015].
Verma, D., &Mehla, H. 2014. INTERNET MARKETING: ISSUES, CHALLENGES & FUTURE TRENDS IN INDIA. International Journal of Logistics & Supply Chain Management Perspectives, 3(1), 861-866.