internet marketing chaffey
The E-marketing Plan – Brief Overview and working scheme
] I. Summary of a marketing plan
Marketing Planning (concretized in the marketing of the plan) is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to make profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in ways difficult to assess. A marketing manager must understand and build an image on these variables and their interactions, and must make rational decisions.
Let's see what we call a "marketing plan"? It is the result of the planning activity, a document that includes a review of the place of the organization in the market, a factor analysis and step as a SWOT analysis. A comprehensive plan also formulate some presumptions on why we think the past marketing strategy was successful or not. The following phase should present the objectives set, along with strategies for achieving these objectives. In a logical sequence, we also need to evaluate the results and formulate alternative plans of action. A plan would detail the responsibilities, costs, sales forecasting and budgeting issues.
In the end, do not forget to specify how the plan (or plans) will be controlled, so that means you will measure your results.
Let's see how to build the marketing plan, what is its structure: after we see how to build the traditional marketing plan, let's take a look at the e-marketing plan and see how the unique characteristics of the Internet require some changes in the approach of writing a marketing plan.
But before proceeding, we must understand and accept that the measures of the marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach to planning activity, no matter where you apply. The differences fulfill one plan to another is the degree of formality accorded to each phase, depending on the size and nature of the organization involved. For example, a small business and undiversified adopt less formal procedures, because managers in these cases have more experience and working knowledge of subordinates, and are able to achieve direct control over most of the factors. Moreover, in a company with a diversified business, is less likely that top managers have functional information a greater degree than the subordinate managers. Therefore, the planning process should be formulated to ensure a strict discipline for everyone involved in the chain of decision making.
II. The general marketing plan
The classic marketing plan would follow the following schedule of 8 stages:
1. The mission statement: This is the planning stage, when we set the directions and intentions of the organization, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is an overview of the company's intentions and almost has a philosophical character.
2. Establishing current objectives: it is essential for the organization to try to determine precisely the targets to be reached. These goals, in order to be viable, must be intelligent. SMART is an acronym meaning "specific," "measurable," "achievable" "realistic" and "programmed". The objectives should also convey the mission of the organization in general.
3. Collection Info: This phase is based on the marketing audit concept. After performing the audit of the macro-environment, analyzing the factors STEP (social, technological, economic and political), we must turn the focus on the immediate external environment (the micro-environment) and analyze the competitive environment, costs and the market. Finally, conclude with the SWOT analysis, so we will have an overview of the internal environment, external face. The SWOT analysis combines the two perspectives, from within and from outside, because the strengths and weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, while opportunities and the threads come from outside.
4. Re-formulating objectives: After a thorough review of the data collected in the previous stage, it is sometimes necessary to reformulate the original objectives, to address all issues that could have come from the previous stage. The distance between the initial target and re-formulated objective will be met by appropriate strategies. We must ensure re-formulated objective is SMART as well.
5. Establishing strategies: several strategies are to be formulated in order to cover the distance between what we want to achieve and what can be achieved with the resources at our disposal. As we usually have several options, we must analyze them and chose which is more likely to achieve marketing objectives.
6. Plan of actions: consists of a very detailed description of the procedures and means to implement the actions we take. For example, if the strategy involves an increase in advertising volume, the action plan should establish whether the ads will be placed, the date and frequency of advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The measures it intends to take should be clearly formulated, measurable, and the results should be monitored and evaluated.
7. Implementation and control: it consists of a series of activities to be undertaken to implement the marketing plan in accordance with the objectives set by the seller. At this stage, it is essential to gain the support of all members if the organization, especially when the marketing plan it must affect the organization of their motives.
8. Performance measurement: constitutes the last stage, but not the least important of the plan marketing, because it can only get what we measure. In order to measure the results achieved through the marketing plan, we must constantly monitor all stages previous plan.
The marketing plan that has a feedback loop, from stage 8 back to the 4th. This is because sometimes during the process of planning, which might need to perform stages 4 to 8 several times before the final plan can be written.
III. The Marketing Plan
The marketing plan is based on exactly the same principles as the classical plan. There is a different approach, but there could be some formal differences given by the uniqueness of the Internet environment. Many of these differences stem from the need to ensure a high rate of customer response, as the e-world is moving faster and requires a faster reaction of their firms, compared with traditional offline market.
Even though it is perfectly acceptable and common practice to use 8-stage classic model for the e-marketing plan, well, you might consider the simplified version proposed by Chaffey, that identifies four important steps to build e-marketing plan:
1. Strategic analysis: consists in continuous scanning of the macro and micro-environment. The accent must fall on the consumers' needs that change very quickly in the online marketplace and the actions of competitors rising and evaluating the opportunities offered by new technologies.
2. Defining strategic objectives: the organization must have a clear vision and establish if the channels of the media will complement the traditional, or will replace them. We must define the specific objectives (do not forget to check if they are smart!) and must also specify the contribution of online activities for the turnover of the organization.
3. Formulating strategies – we do that by addressing the following aspects:
– Develop strategies to target markets;
– Positioning and differentiation strategies;
– Prioritizing activities online;
– Focus attention and efforts on CRM and financial control;
– Develop strategies for product development;
– Develop business models with well-established strategies for new products or services and the pricing policies;
– The need for organizational restructuring;
– Changes in the structure of communication channels.
4. Application strategies: includes careful execution of all measures necessary to achieve the objectives. You can refer a website relaunch campaigns promotion for a new or re-written, monitoring website efficiency and many more.
Note: A common strategy for achieving objectives of e-marketing is the communication strategy. The steps to build a coherent communication plan will be presented in a new article.
IV. The E-plan marketing (sample titles)
1. Executive Summary
a. General information about the current situation;
b. strategic plan key aspects of e-marketing.
2. Situational Analysis
a. characteristics of the electronic marketplace;
b. Possible factors of success;
c. analysis of competitors;
d. technological factors;
e. legal factors;
f. social factors;
g. potential problems and opportunities.
3. The e-Marketing Objectives
a. product profile;
b. target market;
c. sales targets.
4. The e-Marketing Strategies
a. product strategies;
b. pricing strategies;
c. promotion strategies;
d. distribution strategies.
5. Technical issues
a. Site Content web;
b. web site "search capability";
c. logging security (for customers and staff);
d. customer registration procedure;
e. multimedia;
f. autoresponders;
g. order forms and feedback forms;
h. levels of access to online resources;
I. transactions credit cards;
j. website hosting;
k. web publishing;
l. technical staff (size, requirements)
6. Appendix
7. Bibliography
About the Author
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