SMU MBA ASSIGNMENTS

MK0017-E-Marketing

 

ASSIGNMENT

 

 

 

Note: Answer all questions. Kindly note that answers for 10 marks questions should be approximately of 400 words. Each question is followed by evaluation scheme.

 

 

1 Elaborate the e-marketing techniques used for various marketing activities.

 

Answer : Implementing effective e-marketing strategies ensures that a websites gains maximum long-term exposure across the Web. The effects of various e-marketing strategies and techniques differ, but combining most of them gives the optimal long term results.

 

BANNER ADVERTISING

Banner advertising was one of the first online marketing strategies, both on websites across the Web, and search engines. Whether the banner ad is on well known quality websites or search engines, the principle is the same: clicking on the

 

 

 

2 “Motivation to buy a product is crucial part of studies in online consumer behaviour”. Explain

 

Explanation of types of buying behaviour

Answer : Definition of Buying Behavior:

Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.

Need to understand:

 

• why consumers make the purchases that they make?
• what factors influence consumer purchases?
• the changing factors in our society.

 

 

 

3 “A website has to be designed to showcase the company and its products”.

 

 

Answer :  Creating a website basically involves the following 3 steps:

 

STEP 1: REGISTER A DOMAIN NAME

 

Before you even think about building your website, you should register a domain name. A domain name is the thing that looks like this: “yourdomain.com”.

 

Your domain name represents the URL (or permanent web address) of your website. Therefore, when anyone types in “yourdomain.com” or “www.yourdomain.com”, they will see your website.

 

You register your domain name through a domain name registrar or hosting provider. You simply check that your preferred domain name is available,

 

 

4 Explain 2P+2C+3S Formula in E-Marketing with the help of a diagram.

Answer : e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt — that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90’s.

 

e-Marketing Strategy

 

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing — the well-known 4 P’s (Product — Price — Promotion — Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P’s (People — Processes — Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.

 

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 3 P’s) is built around the concept of “transactional” and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P 2C 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

 

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P’s) and upon each other.

 

1. Personalization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

 

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one — personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

 

3. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the “time” parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.

 

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a “community” and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.

 

 

Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

 

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media — the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place — a digital location for digital interactions.

 

Such a location is what we call a “site”, which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the “website” is merely a form of a “site” and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The “site” can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

 

6. Security

The “security” function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

 

–          security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;

 

–          security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.

 

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

 

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.

 

 

 

 

5 “Businesses are always looking to develop new sales and distribution channels to maximize profitability and growth”. Explain

 

Explanation of role of distribution 10 10

Answer : THE IMPORTANCE OF CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION

 

A) There are hundreds of thousands of marketing intermediaries whose job it is to help move goods from the raw-material state to producers and then on to consumers.

 

1) MARKETING INTERMEDIARIES are

 

 

6 Write short notes on:

 

a) Sales Force Automation

Answer : Sales force automation (SFA) software is a type of program that automates business tasks such as inventory control, sales processing, and tracking of customer interactions, as well as analyzing sales forecasts and performance. Businesses may have a custom version developed specifically for their needs, or choose from among the increasing number of sales automation software products, such as Interact Commerce’s

 

 

b) Customer Loyalty

Answer : There are many definitions of customer loyalty. Yet each of them fails to realize that loyalty runs hand-in-hand with emotions. Customer loyalty is the result of consistently positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience, which includes the product or services.

 

Consider who you yourself are loyal to. Surely you’ll answer family and friends. Why? Because of the emotional bond you have with them. Your family