E-marketing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
Understand the concept ofe-marketing and the changing marketing landscape
.Explain the technology catalysis along with the strengths and applications
of e-marketing
.Get acquainted with the theory behind behavioural Internet
.Knowthe differences between various online marketing domains
.Get familiar with the idea of digital marketing optimization
Know the implications of digital change

he era of digital environment and digital convergence has openedupnewopportunities

T for marketing The age of individualization, networking, and digitization, along with
the evolution of consumers in the virtual domains is posing new challenges for marketers.
In this digital age, it is quite imperative to revisit marketing strategies and adapt thenm
significantly to contribute to the marketing value chain. The upcoming diseiplhine o
emarketing offers opportunities for innovation, profitability and affordability in the epoch
of the empowered customer, who has graduated from standalone media platorms to
always-on' devices, courtesy digital convergence. This affinityfor the Web can be harnes

effectively to leverage its impact on the consumer. Emarketing can be put into use to:
Explore the new tools offered by the world of the Internet
Access the realm of social media
Investigate the mindset of online consumers
Scrutinize the characteristics of the virtual medium which can be of value to the end
consumer

Identify how companies can leverage the online world as a media vehicle, for brand
communication and proliferation, building brand and stakeholder relationships and
customer relationship management (CRM
Understand the consumer online experience
Examine traffic building activities for marketers.
 A DIGITAL MARKETING

In summary e fi),
E-markcting' is the use of information technology in the process of creas
commmicating, delivering value to the customers. It is also used for mancating
and
customer
elationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders
E-marketing is the result of information technology applied to traditional markes.
ting
THE VIRTUAL WORLD

The Internet, a vast web of

computer networks, provides a plattorm for worldua
uscrs to connect and share data, Nide
thereby serving as a huge intormation repository. Th,
Internet has fundamentally
changed the consumers notion ot convenience, speed
price, product information, and service. It has, hence,
to create value for
given marketers a whole new w
customers and build relationships with them."The Internet is a
greater flexibility in working hours and
allowin
wing
location, especially with the spread of unmetered
high-speed connections and Web applications
The Internet can now be accessed almost anywhere by numerous
means, especiall
through mobile Internet devices. Mobile phones, data cards, handheld
game consoles
and cellular routers allow users
to connect to the Internet from any
is a wireless network
point where there
technology supporting device. Within the limitations
the
by small screens and other limited facilities of such pocket-sized devices, servicesimposed
of the
Internet, including e-mail and the Web, may be available.
Simultaneously, organizations have moved from product based marketing campaign
to a customer based
relationship approach. Economies have become customer driven
Companies are going global, reaching out to customers located afar as e-commerce
and online buying facilitate consumer
purchase, and thus diminishing geographical
restrictions. Increasing competition between
organizations is
leading to the
implementation relationship strategies and multi-channel relationship programmes
of
as consumer retention becomes
vital for organizational sustenance. As
realize the organizations
rising importance
of
communicating with their consumers, the Internet
provides an excellent low-cost solution for better
connectivity.

THECHANGING MARKETING LANDSCAPE

The Changing Marketing Landscape (Fig. 1.1) can benefit with the advent of
Internet strategy inlegration' resulting in combination of
market, policy and IT, working
a complimentary or cumulative fashion. The Internet plays a key role in integration o
information across suppliers, customers and the organization. Formulation of a
ceau
strategic perspective to this end enables organizations in development of benchman
processes.
Refined Inlernet marketing metrics for evaluation of
marketing performance a
and

identification of key perlormance indicators, as a result of the nent

campaign's requirem
 E-MARKETING 5
Evolution of the Internet Internet strategy
integration

Infuencer marketing Internet marketing

metrics

The changlng marketing

landscape

E-commerce
Big data

Web 2.0 Wireless networking

Individual Internet
worth

Fig. 1.1 The changing marketing Landscape

to design and send tailored offers and messages to the right consumers. Length and
Depth of consumer online vnisits, time spent online, page vnews, referring sites, etc. become vital
issues to be discussed in the context of e-marketing metrics.
The era of Big data (Fis 1.2) with the increasing volume and detail of information
available online and the need to harness customer intelligence from data extracted
by the Web crawlers. Marketing can benefit through better consumer segmentation,
forecasting consumer trends and consumer analytics. Consumer profiling can help in
extraction of consumer DNA, which can aid decision making in marketing

YCustomer
intelligence

Forecasting
trends

Extract Transformn Learn

Customer
analytics

Extraction of
consumer DNA

Fig. 1.2 The Era of big data

6 DIGITAL MARKETING

demand for connectes

Incrcasc in uirless netuorking" resulting
in a surge for
consumcr clectronics and substantially better online consumer experiences
is increas1ng as more
Consunmcr about the quality of their connectivity
expeoctations
and mrc of the devices arc uscd for cntertainment such as strcaming movies or

onlinc gaming.
and high-tech cquipments
Rising consumer ownership of conputers, cell phones with significantly
Internct savvy consumers
lcading to creation of a vast population of
at creating significant individual
high levcls of Internct literacy and enthusiasm, aiming
Internet worth.
Individual Internet worth is a function of consumer demographics involving age.
education, location, daily Internet usage pattern, time spent online, purpose of Internet
ctc. Individual online reach, amplification
and network impact coupled with
usage,
individual content based rankings help create peer indexes and makes it possible to
measure and track reactions to individual posts and comments. This is valuable to

marketing when this individual is a consumer.

Individuals with higher individual Internet worth can be successfully used as opinion
leaders and consumer evangelists for effective e-marketing
Web 2.08 or the read-write Web that provides adequate opportunities for companies
to practice -marketing by content creation in virtual world. This enables better
campaign management, consumer engagement and consumer interaction (Fig. 1.3).
Companies such as Dell are using a series of online Web 2.0 platforms to engage
with the consumers. These include blogs (Direct2Dell), Dell Online Communities
(Dell Ideastorm), Facebook pages, and wikis.
Organizations such as Apple have created 40 online product communities-each
for a separate Apple product, to active engagement with its consumers.

Blogs

Youtube Online
communities

Web 2.0
Podcasts Wikis

/
Twitter Facebook
pages

Fig. 1.3 The advent of Web 2.0

 E-MARKETING

The cra of e-commerce," leading to online transactions, in the wake of a

population,
constraincd with time, but willing to spend, for convenience and ease of
shopping
Ebay. Flipkart,Jabong and Myntra are some of the e-commerce companies operating
in India and offering Indians the opportunity to shop online.
Infhuencem marketing'" being practiced by top brancls. Top brands reach out to influencers
for markcting purposes. In online domain, these are bloggers or social media users
with a morc-than-average reach among consumers and they are prized by marketers
for their ability to sppread the word about products or services they believe in.
According to a Technorati Mecdia study from December 2012, 65% of top US brands
reported participating in influencer marketing A similar 64% of those were deemed
influencers by Technorati, which implies that they had more-than-average reach in
specific markctplacc-made revenue from blogging; either from advertisements on
their site or sponsored endorsements from brands.
Exolution of the Internet. The dimensions of Internet usage have changed. This includes
the people using the network devices to access the network, the content available using
the network and communication happening throughout the network, and technology
standards that make the network possible.
Companies that manage learning relationships with customers are able to customize
their offerings for them. These customers stay with the company almost forever.
The consumer decision process is an intrinsic function of consumer psychology and
not achieved objective in terms of product procurement. It is the psychological gain
or losses that are the behavioural drivers. This is where the collaborative Web can be
utilized. Organizations can focus on reducing the psychological losses and mitigating the
impact of any negative consumer thought or negative product information by engaging
consumers into meaningful conversations.

dew

EXHIBIT 1.1 Vodafone offers free Twitter access to push data usage
In 2013, Vodafone India tied up with Twitter to
offer free access, without any data charges, to the
social networking website through their browser
(mobile.twitter.com) and Twitter for Android'
App. The offer was for a period of three months
after which regular data charges were applicable.
The move was clearly made to increase mobile
Internet usage on mobile phones. The aim of
the attempt was promoting data usage. Data
unlike voice, did not have a ready market, and the
move aimed at netting in some new users, thereby
creating a new revenue stream. Apart from these
free tie-ups, data operators have entered into
multiple agreements to offer Facebook, Twitter,
or other specific website access at a fixed price.
This is a model that has worked to some extent
but is yet to proliferate. Analysts estimate that
although there are nearly 100 million Internet
users in India, only 1-2% actually use it beyond
the basic search or e-mail. An increasing number
can be netted in if the access is hidden behind
the application.
 VWeb 2.U 1s now
ushering into the world ol VWeb 3.0, also termed as the Semantic Web.
The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to
be shared and
reused across applications, enterprises, and community boundaries.

THE INTERNET AND BUSINESS

The Internet has three technical roles (Fig. 1.8), which are as follows:
Content providers to create information, entertainment, and so forth that reside on
computers with network access

GA
Content
providers

Users Technology
infrastructure

Fig.1.8 The three technical roles of the Internet

 14 DIGITAL MARKE TING

The digital
revolution

Networking Individuallzatlon

Fig. 1.9 The GPTs of the Internet

Users who access content and send e-mail and other data over the network
A technology infrastructure to move, create, vicw, orlisten to the content
Individuals can be both users and content providers at various times.
ln this context, the three general purpose technologies (GPTs) of the Internet are
shown in Fig. 1.9:19
There are three important types of networks involved in the formation of the Internet
which are as follows:
Intranet A network that runs internally in a corporation but uses Internet standards
such as HTML and browsers. Thus, an intranet is such as a mini Internet but
only for
internal corporate communication.
Extranet Two or more proprietary networks that are joined for the
purpose of sharing
information. If two companies link their intranets, they would have an extranet. The
access isnormally only partial.
Web The portion of the Internet that
supports a graphical user interface for hypertext
navigation with a browser such as Internet Explorer. The Web is what most people
think about when they think of the Internet.

E-MARKETING-STRENGTHS AND APPLICATIONS

This section explores the strengths of e-marketing and resultant implications for
organizations (Fig 1.10). Those are described as follows.
E-commerce
E-marketing provides rich resources for buyers, sellers, and learners. Opportunities
range from virtual markeplaces like Amazon and cBay to a series of online directories
where organizations can get their products and services listed for online transactions
and auctions. These online hubs for commerce are useful both in a B2B and B2C
ontext, offering an incredibly wide range of products and services. The USPs of these
 E-MARKETING 15

E-commerce
Online branding
Personallzatlon
Content creatlon
Cost effectlveness
Versatlty
Measurement
Interactive advertising

Fig. 1.10 E-marketing applications

marketplaces are quite far reaching They range from their global reach to the increased
revenue generation by virtue of enhanced consumer participation and facilities like
online auctions, which thrive on healthy ecosystems of sellers and affiliates.

Online Branding
Powerful branding and creation of a successful brand image are very important for any
organization. Brands thrive on positioning and the consumer-brand relationship. Online
branding offers a myriad of opportunities to enhance brand identity and brand salience, and
increase consumer-brand resonance. This subsequently strengthens brand loyalty.

Personalization
E-marketing presents unprecedented one-to-one communication and dynamic
personalization during an online session by individualizing an impersonal, computer-
networked environment; for example, a website may greet a user by his/her name or
provide personalized information. Likewise, online advertising allows the customization
of advertisements, including content and posted websites. For example, AdWords, Yahoo!
search marketing, and Google AdSense enable advertisements to be shown on relevant Web
pages or alongside search results.

Content Creation
Emarketing allows the consumers to not only 'consume' the content hosted online by
the organization but also generate content. This creates numerous opportunities for
marketing and advertising functions to create consumer-specific content for increasing
sales and greater revenue generation.

Cost-effectiveness
E-marketing is cost effective, specifically with reference to the ratio of cost to the reach
of the target audience. The companies can reach wide audiences for a small fraction of
 16 DIGITAL MARKETING

traditional advertising budgets. The medium offers unlimited space on the Weh,
subsequently, marketerscan present items that would not be cost cffective in print, An

Versatility
The Internet opens up the market to new groups of customcrs and allows then
em
research and purchase products and services conveniently. The medium is not limited
gcography or time, customizes powerful extrancts to the company and individuals b
also allows profitable strategic business alliances and affiliations. and

Measurement
Internet marketers also have the and ease of measuring statistics,
advantage ana
also inexpensively; and almost all
aspects of an Internet marketing campaign can he
traced, measured, and tested. This is possible as online marketing initiatives
usuall
require users to click on an advertisement, visit a website, and perform a
action. targete
Interactive Advertising
The immediacy of online content creation and consumption has contributed to
the
emerging area of interactive advertising and presents fresh chalenges for
who have hitherto
adopted an interruptive strategy.
advertisem
The consumer website visit is at the heart
of online marketing. These are short
but organizations face visits
challenges in building higher consumer perceived value for these
visits. Organizational
objectives are to make these visits believable and persuasive enough
to achieve one or more of the
above stated objectives of
Interaction with the online consumers has been e-marketing
broadly classified in Table 1.1.
E-MARKETING COMMUNICATION MODES
E-marketing involves multiple communication vehicles and
vehicles include e-mail, instant platforms. E-marketing
messaging, and podcasts. Podcasting derives from Apple's
ubiquitous iPod. With podcasting, consumers can download audio files
video files (vodeasts) via the Internet
to an iPod or another
(podcasts) or
to them or view them handheld device and then listen
whenever and wherever they wish. The
Internet represents its flexibility
offered the
by
potential as a mass medium, (e.g., banner advertisements), as an
addressable medium (as in case of
e-mails), and as an interactive medium (as in case of hve
chat). Platforms include PDAs, personal video
recorders, and cellphones.
ONLINE MARKETING DOMAINSS
The four major online marketing domains? include B2C
business to business), C2C (consumer to (business to consumer), 52D
Fig 1.11 and Table 1.2) consumer), and C2B (consumer to busines
 E-MARKETING 17
Table 1.1 Interaction with online consumers

Classification of online interaction Consumer issues raised Opportunities for marketing

Interaction for information retrieval
Issues of usablity
Issues of customer support
Issues of virtual value
E-marketing can aid the consumer search
process, promote information exchange and
online transaction, and help organizations
enhance value perception by providing more
usable and navigable websites.

Information believability Issues of credibility E-marketing can focus on creating online

Consumer actions after access to
information
Issues of trust
Issues of completeness
Issues of persuasion through
marketing material
content pertaining to an organization, which
can be used for building organizational
credibility and enhancing trust, and
subsequently building consumer loyalty.
Internet marketing can be used to persuade
consumers, keeping in mind the three
principles of Ethos (strong credibility of the
organization persuading an individual to buy),
Logos (successful online marketing using
logic and reason), and Pathos (e-marketing by
appealing to human emotion).

Targeted to Targeted to
consumers businesses

6tInitiated by business B2C B2B

Initiated by consumer C2C C2B

Fig. 1.11 Online marketing domains

The low cost of setting up a shop on the Internet has led to many small business
start-ups aimed at niches. What these firms have realized is that the best recipe for
Internet success is to choose a hard-to fnd product that customers do not need to see
and touch.

THE BEHAVIOURAL INTERNET

The Internet provides a virtual territory where individuals replicate their oftine
behaviours in the virtual world. This gives rise to the Behavioural Internet theory
which attempts to investigate the various dimensions of the Internet and an individual's
behaviour, which can be synchronized together to benefit the domain of marketing. The

concept is explained with a case study on Blackberry at the end of the chapter. The case
study will demonstrate the attempt of Blackberry to use the behavioural Internet to
leverage the emarketing dimensions of the media equation, flow, content accessibility
social and quality cues, and friendly technology.
 promotions.

Types of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing can be broadly categorized into six types, which are as follows:
Television advertisements
Radio advertisements
E-mail marketing (Table 1.4)
Internet marketing (Table 1.5) 330R
Mobile marketing (Table 1.6)
Social media marketing (Table 1.7)
There are several types of television and radio advertising techniques We shall not dele
into them here. We shall, however, briefty discuss he remaining types.
 26 DIGITAL MARKETING

Types of E-mail Marketing

Table 1.4 Types of e-mal marketing

Newsletters and digests Regularly published monthly or quarterly issues, distributed through e-mail. These ea
link to content shared through earlier newsletters. can

Dedicated e-mails Specialized e-mails sent to denote only one specific ofer

Lead nurturing e-mails These are e-mails targeted, with coherent content at those potential consumers who
ho in
the past have displayed some specific interest in a product or brand.

Sponsorship e-mails These are e-mails where one organization pays for the inclusion of its e-mail copy in the
content generated by another organization.

Transaction e-mails Transactional e-mails are the e-mail messages that get triggered by a specific action tak
taken
by an e-mail respondent to complete an activity or transaction, such as illing a form or
making a purchase.

Types of Internet Marketing

We briefly discuss the different types of Internet marketing in Table 1.5. Most of then
have been discussed in detail in subsequent chapters.
Several Indian companies are actively using Internet marketing (Fig 1.16).

Table 1.5 Types of Internet marketing

Display advertising The use of Web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website or Blog to drive
traffic to a company's own website and increase product awareness.

Search engine marketing A form of marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in
Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) through the use of either paid placement, contextual
advertising, and paid inclusion, or through the use of free Search Engine Optimization
techniques also known as organic result.*
via
Search engine The process of improving the visibility of a website or a Web page in search engines
the 'natural'or un-paid ('organic' or algorithmic') search resuts.
optimization
An online advertising model where the advertisers pay the publisher when the
Pay per click
advertisement is clicked on, by an Internet visitor.

websites such as
Social media marketing The process of gaining traffic or attention through social media
Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.33

to a product and brand.

Blog marketing Refers to using blogs as tools to host content pertaining the
where the RSS feed deposits
Serves likea constantly updated interactive website,
a blog.
new content is posted on
information into the inbox of users every time
one Internet
information is passed electronically from
Viral marketing A marketing technique where
user to the other, through
self replicating viral processes.
(Continued
 E-MARKETING 27
Referral marketing A method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually
word of mouth.

Affiliate marketing A marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor
or customer brought about by the afhliate's own marketing efforts.

Content marketing The process of creating speclalized content such as info graphics, blog articles and
e-books to attract more customers.

AdSense marketing AdSense is Google's online advertising platform. Using elements such as the Internet
(Google) user's geographical location, the current website's content and others, Google is able to
deliver ads that target the Web visitor's exact interests.

Inbound marketing Involves creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting
prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers.

Video marketing This type of marketing specializes in creating videos that engage the viewer into a
buying state by presenting information in video form and guiding them to a product or
services. Online video is increasingly becoming more popular among Internet users and
companies are seeing it as a viable method of attracting customers
Advergaming Advergaming refers to advertising using games. Advertising can be integrated into
online games to promote products and brands online.

Types of Mobile Marketing

Table 1.6 Types of mobile marketing

Mobile Mobile Apps are computer programs designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers, and
Applications other mobile devices. These Apps are profusely used for marketing these days.
Mobile website Mobile friendly websites are being used for marketing. The content on the website is
marketing synchronized for the mobile handset to aid usage for marketing purposes.

SMS marketing Companies can send text messages using SMS marketing for their mass marketing efforts.

MMS marketing Companies can send multimedia content regarding their products using the multimedia
messaging service on mobile phones.

QR code marketing QR codes give companies a powerful way to drive traffic to stores and mobile websites. These
can be read by any mobile device with a camera and a QR code reader application, allowing
organizations to direct customers to relevant online content.

Pay-per-call mobile The advertiser begins to work with lead generation and affliate marketing partners that carry
the responsibility of creating the campaign and screening the incoming calls for possible
customers and the advertiser subsequently pays for valid calls.

Bluetooth wireless Proximity marketing is the distribution of promotions or messages to users of devices that
proximity based have the capability to recelve them along with thelr individual permissions. It can be applied
marketing9 through GPS-enabled devices, cell phones in a particular cell, via a bluetooth or Wi-Fi device.

Mobile banner ads Banner advertisements are very popular among mobile users.
 28 DIGITAL MARKETING

Table 1.7 Types of social media marketing

like Facebook and twitter for marketing.

Social networks This involves using online social networks
Social news websites feature user-posted stories that are ranked based on popularity. These .
Social news Can
be used to share product related information.

Corporate as well as individual blogs and online forums are being used for communicating
Blogs and forums
organizational messages and promotional schemes to consumers.
Media sharing Media sharing allows users to share videos with other publishers in the virtual domain, thereby
reby
enabling them to easily manage videos across multiple accounts.
Micro-blogging Micro-blogs allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences,
individual images, or video links. These are more user friendly for usage by marketers.

Bookmarking A
social bookmarking serviceisa centralized service which enables users to add,
online annotat
sites edit, and share bookmarks (uniform resource identifers) of Web documents.

Display Search engine Search engine

advertising marketingboi optmization

Amazon, Reliance, Jet Airways

India
India Tata
L&T, India Indicom

Social media
Referral o 294 Affiliate
marketing marketing marketing
Brooke ICICI
Bond, bank
MetLife,
India India

Fig. 1.16 Internet marketing and Indian

companies
DIGITAL MARKETING OPTIMIZATION
Digital marketing optimization refers to
and analytical techniques, by applying a streamlining
more focused
of all online
marketing activities
resource allocation and
achieving approach better marketing
for
edge amongst competing higher marketing conversion, for gaininga compenue
organizations.
Why should companies indulge in
resources are digital marketing optimization? As the
limited, the marketing function needs to plan organizationa
productivity of its actions and an
optimal accordingly increase tne
to
An efficient utilization of
digital marketing programme can be resources.
(Fig. 1.17): optimized in the following way
Companies need to study how consumers are
Companies can prioritize interacting with the Web.
activities in the context of garnering
consumer attenno9