If you think what e-marketing is, READ THIS!

When people hear the word e-marketing, another word comes to their minds: Internet.

But e-marketing is about much more than just Internet.

It comprises other technologies that enable customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management, resource planning, digital TV and bar code scanners. E-marketing helps your company to use digital resources to sell your products and services, as a way to entrance in the mass market at reasonable prices.

Nowadays Internet is a basic source of information, a key element of the global economy and a major driver for new business, it offers the opportunity to reduce cost compared with the cost of traditional marketing. Online advertising and promotions can provide both value for money and accountability in terms of insight into the success of particular campaigns.

E-marketing is growing faster than any other form of marketing being a value complement to traditional marketing regardless the size of the business.
It has impacted upon the barriers to export entry and has provided hope to millions of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) attempting to enter foreign markets by allowing to communicate globally as efficiently as any large business (Gallagher, Gilmore and Henry 2007).

SMEs are the main drivers of the economy, and represent the 99% of all the enterprises in Europe. A lot of SMEs are tight on cash, and are pouring half of their marketing budget into advertising or direct mailing. An effective use of e-marketing can provide the SMEs the opportunity of lower costs on their transactions, and help the companies to have a rapidly return of investment (BIS 2009).

Using e-marketing, a company can advertise the products through e-mail reaching more markets at less cost, avoiding for example printing materials like catalogues. In addition if they create a professional web site they can improve their image, credibility, reputation and conduct marketing research in other markets. Internet opens the companies to the world of potential customers.

One of the main advantages of the use of e-marketing is that helps to develop corporate image, competitive advantage, increase sales and perform marketing research.

Being part of e-marketing is a way to expand the borders of companies, wider market opportunities to expand businesses. The possibility to use viral marketing to easily contact with the target market more effectively, establish a relationship with them using direct mailing, in order to get feedback, so the company can satisfy their necessities more effectively are some of the uses of e-marketing. Using a web page, with a nice web design, clearly organized, easy to use and to get access to, for example being on a search engine or as well as being part of a social network as it can be Facebook or Twitter provides the company the opportunity to attract new stakeholders (Chaffey and Smith 2008).

The basic statements of the traditional marketing remain within e-marketing, delivering the right message to the right customers doing it better than the competition. Many companies have realised of the benefits of the use of e-marketing and how a good strategy can make the difference between success and failure.

So, are you going to start thinking how to perform it in your company?

If you can’t, just hire someone to do it for you because it is vital to success.

And for those who are more interactive, as we were talking about interactivity in our last post, visit the next link with many case studies of Campaign Enterprise software, the first personalized email marketing application designed for personal computer.

http://www.arialsoftware.com/casestudies.htm

Also, the next videos explain in a very easy way all the benefits of using e-marketing;

Don't miss the opportunity to learn a bit more about this topic:




How they do it in the Silicon Valley:




There is a free lunch:



http://www.yola.com/


References

1. Gallagher, D., Gilmore, A., and Henry, S. (2007) “E-marketing and SMEs: operational lessons for the future”. European Business Review, 19 (3), 234-247

2. Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R. (2008) eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and Optimizing Your Digital Marketing. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann

3. BIS, Department for Business Innovation & Skills (2009) ‘Directorate: Small and Medium Enterprise Statistics for the UK and Regions’ [online] available from http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/sme/smestats2008-ukspr.pdf [20 February 2010]

iTV versus PC?

Imagine being able to turn your television on, pick the program you want to see from your customized pre-recorded list, pause the life show because you received a call, check the latest weather and stock quotes, conduct a phone chat and reply few e-mails, order a pizza and book your next holidays, all from your remote control and without moving from your couch.

Welcome to the world of interactive television.

With new digital TV set-top boxes with computing features, providing Internet, email, video games or home shopping facilities, who will buy a computer? Are the days of PC’s coming to an end? Why TV rather than personal computers?

Certainly, interactive television has many advantages to attract customers towards a new model integrating entertainment and functions. Consumers usually feel more comfortable with the TV rather than PC, particularly when they are at home because whereas the first one conveys relax, computers are associated with work.

According to Mark Gawlinski 24/7 services will have a brilliant future. The majority of on-screen shopping, banking, ticket booking or charity donating will be done by TV screen rather than PC. Moreover, the TV guide permits to customize the programming schedule and only the favourite programmes appear in the grids. Additionally, smart cards could be provided to the customers in order to personalise the environment and surface of their platforms. Consumers could have the ability to store their preferences (e.g. text size, colour combinations, favourite channels, and reminders) and personal details (e.g. credit card details). These cards have the advantage of being transferable between the systems (Gill, Perera).

Convenience is one of the main factors for those who support the use of interactive TV. People can just buy a product with only few clicks, from their houses and in their living rooms using the Internet capabilities that a bigger screen provides. This actually could give a big help to people that have temporary or permanent impairments. In fact, one study conducted in Europe found that 42% of the consumers feel comfortable using TV for shopping, while only a 26% prefer their laptops (Swann 2000). One of the reasons is probably the speed to make the transactions keeping the credit/debit card details for next time. Some experts have argued that with this kind of systems people is loosing their privacy and companies know everything about them, which products they order or the calls they made. But, this is not the same privacy than some online companies do leaving cookies to gather information about their consumers? Holding customer’s details is a way to look for new ways to satisfied them, not a lack of security.

Despite all of this, the disappearance of PC’s is unlikely to happen.
The linear model of TV will remain and its main use will be watching TV. There will be some people that use it to order some food, catch up with the sports or check the weather, leaving the more computer-related things for PC’s. It is hard to see an executive working on an Excel spreadsheet on TV.


What it can occur is a cultural division in the market but for now the truth is that a TV monitor is a TV set and people wants it better, not an alternative to the PC.

The next graph shows the most popular use of interactive services, and it seems that in Britain the weather is always something to be worried about.





References

1. Gawlinski, M. (2003) Interactive Television Production, Oxford: Focal Press.

2. Gill, J., Perera, S. (2003) Accessible Universal Design of Interactive Digital Television [online]vawww.brighton.ac.uk/cmis/courses/postgraduate/pgpit/euroitv/euroitv03/Papers/Paper10.pdf [17February 2010].

3. Swann, P. (2000) The Future of Interactive Television: TV dot Com, NY: TV books.

Coventry Life

The video bellow represents different aspects of our life as Coventry University students.
See it and enjoy it!

Welcome

to E-Utopia!!

You just entered to an online space created by five Coventry University students.

Led by a common interest and desire for a further development in marketing field, we chose Strategic Marketing Management and Sports Management as our Master degrees.
The fact that we belong to different cultures and nationalities, gives us the opportunity to go deep into versatile issues from more than one point of view.
By having many-sided interests and hobbies, we would be able to enrich you in spheres that differ from the Marketing one.

E-Utopia is our ecosystem where you’ll have the opportunity to read, learn, share opinions and thoughts, and by doing so to update yourself with contemporary trends.
Here, you will have the chance to have your say and be treated as a personality rather than as a participant.

The knowledge you would be provided is being gained during a constant learning and self-development.
We will be your source and such you will be for us.

All the information within the blog will be posted by its creators and members and will represent their opinion only, and will therefore not represent by any means Coventry University.
Despite the fact mentioned above, the posts will be valid, trustworthy and corroborated.

They will all be extracted from reliable sources which will be pointed out in accordance with our anti-plagiarism policy.

We would expect from you to adhere to E-Utopia rules and namely:

1.Respecting the other members and their statements
2.Including and treating each person equally
3.Learning and giving the others the opportunity to do so
4.Posting statements of proved reliability

We will not tolerate posts or materials which are racist, sexist, vulgar, sexually explicit, abusive, or otherwise objectionable.

Do not post any confidential information or any information that would infringe upon the privacy or personal rights of others.
Commercial use or any other unauthorized use of this blog is forbidden.

Have a fruitful and enjoyable stay with us and thank you for participating!