Commercial Application of Trend - Coursework Example

Commercial Trend Report Index Index 1 List of Figures 2 Body 4 Benefits of inbound online marketing 14 Possible drawbacks of the application of the online Marketing trend to a business 17 Current companies that have successfully integrated Online Internet market 19 List of Figures Figure 1: Inbound Marketing 5 Figure 2: Integrating Inbound with Inbound Corporate Strategy 6 Figure 3: Prospect Strategy 7 Figure 4: Customer-Focused Companies 8 Figure 5: Marketing-sales 9 Figure 6: Reaching Top Marketing 11 Figure 7: Leads Generation 13 Figure 8: Facebook 14 Figure 9: Summary of disadvantage of online marketing 18 Figure 10: Open Forum 20 Figure 11: TippEx Video 21 The Executive summary This report evaluates on online marketing as a form of commercial trend and its applications. It details on the ten aspects of the online internet marketing with well-illustrated imagery. It further exhaust on the benefits and drawbacks of online marketing to any corporate company. Finally a review of five global companies is documented on the various ways they have integrated online marketing to their business. Finally, a sharp, fine conclusion is drawn to summarize what has been outlined. Body Internet marketing is the ideal marketing trend that is driving the sales of major companies in the world. Inbound marketing trend has ten key aspects that enable it work in not just any commercial company but a leading company. Inbound marketing is a hotcake technique in 2013. It dominates most of the marketers-conversation; this is based on an annual report released by HubSpot. With an over 3300 respondent base in 128 country, the report focused on how the marketers’ organization are integrating the current marketing trend ,practices, tactics and the drives behind the results. The first fact about inbound marketing is that it is the new practice/norm. Dispel the myth that inbound marketing practice is just but, another fleeting trend. In fact majority of the world’s marketers are employing the inbound marketing principles. Research by HubSpot shows that inbound adoption reaches the majority of the marketers however, educational opportunities remain intact. Almost 60% of marketers have already adopted the inbound strategies, however, 19% are not sure on how to categorise their efforts. Figure 1: Inbound Marketing Post analysis on the company’s likely to employ social media, email, and blogs in their marketing strategies showed that the world crème Del crème professionals, marketing agencies and groups, were likely to adopt inbound principle at 73% (Nesterenko, 2013). The second aspect is that corporate integration has to be revolutionized to achieve optimum limits. It is very crucial for all the CEOs and company stakeholders to realign the marketing stare ices online with the company goals. Lack of efficient communication between sales and marketing makes marketers unable to generate sufficient volumes of the right leads. It’s a great disappointment that only 34% of companies believe out rightly that their strategies ate completely integrated into their overall goals. The HubSpot annual report shows that approximately 81% of the strategy is integrated into the broader organizational goals in most companies. Figure 2: Integrating Inbound with Inbound Corporate Strategy Nesterenko (2013) defines the third inbound marketing strategy as the quality content should take back seat in internet marketing. Two thirds of all marketers believe that lead generation, reaching the right audience and conversion is of more importance than generating quality content. The research asserts that 91% of the B2B marketers are currently employing custom content for marketing. It further shows that major organizations will be increasing on the resources they spend on generating content every year. This is evidence enough for every CEO with visionary goals that content generation is not just fleeting, but, a current marketing trend to embrace for the next coming years. Figure 3: Prospect Strategy Miller (2013), defines that during his interview, he asked the marketers to define the focus of their individual organizations, and was surprised to discover that most response outline customers as being key factors. Thus, the fourth aspect is to concentrate on the customer. The fundamental phrase of business ‘the customer is always right’ is watertight. Figure 4: Customer-Focused Companies The report wisely showed that its ‘less than ideal’ that half of the 3,300 marketers, were not focusing on the customers (Miller, 2013). Therefore, this report is a revelation in the right direction; therefore, each CEO or marketer should focus more energy in studying and knowing his or her clientele base. The current marketing trends change dynamically but, one constant thing is that a customer-focused model grants the business a staying power. The fifth aspect is to ensure marketing and sales have an effective communication- they need to talk. It is logical for every company to know that sales-and marketing alignment is crucial. If there is a deadlock in communication between the two departments, then chaos in the organization is inevitable. Roberts (2010) attests that it is a very great challenge to establish a leveled service agreement between the two departments thus the very low figure of 27% of companies who have a formal plan for the establishment. What is more astonishing is the discovery by the report that it is apparently beneficial to establish a concrete plan. The report also established that enterprises with formal agreement between the sales and marketing departments spend 40, which are 12% less on customer acquisition. Figure 5: Marketing-sales Image Credit: HubSpot The sixth aspect of inbound internet matketing is thaat the Company excecutive officers should care deeply about the audienc. According to Roberts (2010), Though past research has detalied that most CEOs interests lies in proving the ROI, hubspot report indicates that the focys had shifetd to researching and identify target audicne. There is an incrreasing savviness in leaders toward the intricatcies of inbound marketing, this is accordingt tho the current marketing trends . Marketers cant create a quality content relevant to high proesoects withiut havig a vibrant buyerpersona knowledge or profles of th e marketing pain points and priorities. Figure 6: Reaching Top Marketing Blogging has been seen a persomal interest where teanegers get their own space to expperss themselves. Marketers have then seazed this opprotunity and made it a wonderful ROI. Have you wondered where the growth of blogging bussiness will be next year? Where it will nbe among the tends that will fade away next year or will still be empleyed by marketers. Research has shown that this art of content marketing will still be effective (Walker-Sand , 2013). Most companie that invest heavilty in blogging willl be channeling their revenule to blogging efforts. Its shown that only 34% of the markerter who had difficulty in defing ROI, the the qaulty blogging content is still amoung the curemt trend that is still yiedling big returns The eighth aspect of inbound marketing is that inbound marketing is very effective many online consumers of social media and internet marketing are aware that inbound marketing are more cost-effective option compared to other available marketing options. HubSpot further found that all inbound practices are more effective as it delivers 54% more leads in 2013 than outbound sources. Eridon, (2013), theorises that If an investment is made on a dynamic website that converts, interactive social media activity and quality content the company sales can spiral to 54% more leads (Lera, 2013 ). This will translate to cohesiveness that last longer than current marketing trends. The research analysis show that consumers are ignoring billboards and turning off their televisions so as to channel their attention to direct search using search engines like Google, Bing and social communities such as Facebook , twitter, tumble, flicker and LinkedIn (Walker-Sand , 2013) . Figure 7: Leads Generation Organic search rules are the ninth aspect. Search Engine Optimization is still much alive Quality content is the highest ROI in the marketing effort. It is undisputable that no much-paid advertisement could be equated to the customer conversion rates of email marketing, social media and SEO. The last aspect of on-line marketing is Facebook. Facebook social community is still the giant resource for finding customers followed by twitter. Facebook is the world largest social network considering the 1 billion-member customer-base. Facebook isn’t just among the current marketing trend, it’s the core internet marketing avenue, this is because it provides marketers a direct customer access than any than any previous platform (Spindler, 2006). Though LinkedIn cannot outdo Facebook membership, this professional network site has proved to be the key location to generating leads who later convert into customers. Companies with blogs posted a 43% rate of being strong and robust ability to map their revenue to content marketing (Spindler, 2006). Figure 8: Facebook Benefits of inbound online marketing Inbound online marketing is extremely beneficial in the way it defines and realigns the way customer’s purchases goods. Analysts such as Moth(2013), show that that increasing number of consumers use social media and mobile phone to conduct research on products and their prices before purchasing the goods internet marketing help organizations to build relations with customers and prospects via constant and cheap one-to-one communications which is a deviation from mass marketing. This is because online marketing provide convenience to the business. It saves the company extra opening hours and the extra staff overtime payment. The customer too can browse, view goods and place orders at times convenient to them (Moth, 2013). With inbound online marketing distance, barriers can be overcome d- through selling goods in any country without opening stores in many countries. It can go to the extent of having an export empire without having an extensive physical network of distributes n across regions. In addition, for international trade one just uses the local authority to verify if ones goods comply with local business regulation and that are suitable for local markets. These local services involve translation and product modification to reflect local market differences. The cost is another key factor. Cost of billboard and TV adverts is ever rising and fluctuates from country to country depending on the fore exchange rate. However, internet marketing is relatively cheaper. The aggregate cost incurred in online marketing is a fraction of euros spent on Yellow pages, TV or billboard. However, one can set a free listing on Google Local that has same efficacy as Yellow pages the recurrent cost of property and rental maintenance and inventory costs are also minimized by online marketing (Sheehan, 2001). Inbound marketing allows marketers to personalize their offers and interactions with customers. Through tracking web pages and product information that customers consume, one can offer tailor-made packages that suit their interest. This tracked information also provide input data for planning cross selling campaigns that enable marketers increase the value of sales by customer. Thorough inbound marketing 65% of customer-seller relationships are formed. The internet platform creates an ample atmosphere for increasing customer retention levels. Once a customer has bought from a business, the owner can initiate an intimate relationship by sending them a follow-up email to confirm the transaction, thank them, and welcome them back to the online store business. Emailing them regularly with personal and specialist offer retains the clientele base. The business can further engage them to review their products on a company website thus reinforcing a sense of community. According to Sheehan, (2001), inbound marketing enables the company to reap the importance of the robust social media membership according to an article posted on Harvard Bossiness School of Executive Education, group of customers that react to social media influence led to a 5% increase in sales. By incorporating social networking, tools in the internet marketing campaigns will increase the company revenue. For example using tools such as Google Analytics, which is a free traffic analysis tool, one can easily calculate the ROI. Lastly online marketing enjoy the privileges of targeted advertisement; these are adverts created to appear effectively on a corporate website at times that coincide with specific interest of targeted customer. This is because internet allows businesses to advertise to customers using particular demographic criteria i.e. customers in the UK view online adverts mainly from UK company likewise to customers in other countries. When targeting the youth, a criteria is employed that will deliver to them where they spend most of their bulk time. Online marketing real measure of efficacy is its ability to post real time results. Do not wait for weeks to see the effects of marketing efforts boosting the business. Through a paid search campaign, one gets a real time result that enables them to adjust the marketing content to achieve desired effect. In addition, real-time monitoring tools enables people identify the exact week point and fix it (Nesterenko, 2013). Online marketing enables, a company refines the strategy, using analytical and tracking tools, the company can test conversion rates at fraction of the total cost of traditional media. The playing field for competitors is leveled by online marketing hence allowing the smart small companies compete in competitive field that were previously dominated by large corporations and their massive marketing budgets. When a marketing strategy is not posting a good return on investment, the business is saved the hassle of creating a large expensive campaign; rather, it just perfects it. The long-term exposure accrued from online marketing is a force to reckon with. Organic search marketing campaign optimizes a website enable a business achieve long-term ROI. When the website visibility is regained with search engines, just do a low-cost maintain ace of the strategy. Possible drawbacks of the application of the online Marketing trend to a business However, the inbound online marketing is not 100% full proof in that it has major limitations. Online marketing is not as very free as such. Hardware, software, web design, and maintenance, labor, time, and distribution costs have to be factored to the cost of product or service production. People still prefer physical interactions when buying products. Though a website may provide them with information that influences their purchasing decision, the business location may hider such clientele. Furthermore, Lera’s (2013), research show that slightly over 50% of families shop online hence customers may miss the fraction of the family population. Let us not forget the numerous incidences of internet fraud that defraud or hinder customers from buying online. Online marketing is as important as the last update hence timing of updates is critical, therefore it is important to keep the website up-to-date. This also leads to recurring costs. Internet safety deters customers from using their credit card information. The may be tracked and have the account hacked hence customers worry about the website. Lastly, there is no equivalence to physical service. The online marketing is devoid of customer response programs as well as customer service. Therefore, customer may have rated the services as poor without proper contact with the owner. Poor navigational tools are common phenomena in most website hence visitors have difficulty in navigating what they need as these website are created without customer service point of view. There is a tight competition out there and many options online, thus when a customer finds the website, they may have checked many websites before yours. Thus unless the buy from the website, they are gone as quickly as they came (Eridon, 2013). Figure 9: Summary of disadvantage of online marketing Current companies that have successfully integrated Online Internet market A recent survey in the UK showed that 64% of business has interpreted social media into their business. The major reason behind their decisions is brand awareness accounting for 83%, social sharing, 56% followers and trust gaining at 55%. Social media has been defied to be a sales channel for consultancy, though there are difficulties in working out the exact ROI. This is however, a smaller fraction as compared to traffic and leads in the US B2B companies. According to Notify, social accounts for 1.9%Traffcic compared to gigantic 41% organic search (OnlineMedia.Sg, 2011). Adobe’s launch of its Creative Suite 6(CS6) and creative Cloud product, create a manifesto themes ‘create Now’ this served as the branding, and marketing core theme that bundles its online and offline efforts. In April 2012, adobe held a scavenger Hunt in San Francisco (Roberts, 2010). Participants picked puzzle pieces found beneath balloons in the city and returned them to Adobe headquarters. They then shared the location tips and product information on twitter, Instagram and foursquare and the winner was rewarded with lifetime membership in creative cloud alongside a $10,000 cash reward. According to Moth ( 2013), Cisco, the network provider, attracts a massive follower base in YouTube while its channel boasts of over 33,000 subscribers with almost 5 million views. Cisco attributes its success to the amount of content it uploads and constant stream of new videos daily. The videos range from demos, Q&A, presentations to events. Cisco also uses Facebook, its blog to promote leadership articles in an aim to educate the corporate, generate a driving buzz and improve its seo visibility. American express company launched an’ Open forum’ to give advice to small business people.it frequently updated web content on blog post and videos. Its genius creation was the ‘idea Hub’ that allows members to share ideas with experts Figure 10: Open Forum Open forum posts a massive grows of 160,000 in 2008 to 1m in 2009. It now has unique1m visitor traffic per month. It enjoys support from their social media avenues including Facebook. The famous supply chain kinaxis crated an online video campaign to dabble its leads and traffic. Suitemate series – a comedy of two businesspersons sent to jail for following a shoddy merger was the formed. With a fully dedicated mini-site backed by win an ipad competition kinaxis made a leap in traffic (Moth, 2013 ). It late crated a cringe worthy series dubbed- the late night supply chain store alongside a 21st century supply chain blog. Its traffic increased by 7.7 times while the lead increased 3.7 xs. The last company is tippEx, which is a great example of company using social media to attain brand awareness. It extensively used YouTube to create an interactive campaign where customers could rewrite the story in the video. Hunter shoots bear video has the haunter asking people to come up with verbs to replace ‘shoots’ (Roberts, 2010). The ending of the video depend on what the viewer writes. Figure 11: TippEx Video This strategy got real-time results as at the end of three months it had got a massive 35 million reviews with five-minute exposure on average. The video has been shared a massive 380,000 times in Facebook and twitter. 30% sales uplift of the brand has been achieved in Europe all attributed to single social campaign. This is a demonstration of how humor has been used to gain massive aware for online advert Ways to integrate the online marketing trend into the business. One of the greatest ways of integrating social media into a business is to make the website more social, user friendly or less formal. When using twitter – a micro blogging site, the “TweetMe” button can extent the content visibility on company site. Most of CEO, celebrities, consumers and company interact on twitter. Adding a twitter feed on the company blog will help automatically display new entries on company twitter account. Facebook can be combined with RSS feeds, Facebook fan pages. Furthermore, onsite Facebook elements are well suited for direct marketing to clients (Miller, 2013). Digg is a user driven website that provides newsfeeds. It leverages social networking to locate and review news and articles. Digg button intergraded to website allows visitors to dig content and heap it up on top of Diggs list where it can be visible to many users. Put the Facebook URL, address, logo or link on company business cards, letterhead, and print radio TV ads, cups, t-shirts, mouse pads, customer case study and any related material can be found. Lastly, network offline by joining professional organizations, events established a niche as a CEO. Connect with the industry movers and shakers as it presents an opportunity to give out business card with social media links and URLs, direct people to your social media accounts thus invite the real world to connect online with you (Miller, 2013). Set a company blog such that a Facebook update or tweet is generated automatically anytime when a post is made. Invest in company, product, and images by posting them on Pininterest and Instagram as the online world love pictures. Whenever there are events, functions, or launching new products use these opportunities to promote imagery. Conclusion However, marketing trends come and go; however, it’s clear to state that inbound online marketing principles are long lasting. They may have a decade impact on most company sales. If a CEOs company is still investing in billboard advertising, and direct mail, then they should re-evaluate and switch platforms to find where their customers are accessed at or risk being overtaken by the internet revolution. The outlined drawbacks should not dismay the CEO but serve as a roadmap to what lies therein ahead of them. When running the organization, the executive officer, taking the right steps guarantees a great success and the company will stick around for a while. References Charlesworth, A. (2008). Internet Marketing: a Practical Approach. Routledge. Eridon, C. (2013). Hubspot Blog. Retrieved from www.hubspot.com Lera. ( 2013 , May 2 3:27 pm). How Health and Fitness Companies Use Online Marketing. Retrieved from Lera Blog: http://lerablog.org/internet/marketing/how-health-and-fitness-companies-use-online-marketing/ Miller, M. (2013). Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus. John Wiley & Sons. Copyright. . Moth, D. ( 2013 , February 26). Five examples of B2B companies achieving success in social marketing. Retrieved from Econsultancy: http://econsultancy.com/ke/blog/62217-five-examples-of-b2b-companies-achieving-success-in-social-marketing Nesterenko, H. (2013, May 9). Internet Marketing Blog. Retrieved from Current Inbound Marketing Trends: 10 Things You Didn’t Expect: www.writtent.com/blog/current-inbound-marketing-trends-10-things-you-didnt-expect/ OnlineMedia.Sg. (2011, December 5). Integrate Online Marketing into your Business. Retrieved from online Media: http://www.onlinemedia.sg/integrate-online-marketing-into-your-business/ Roberts, M. L. (2010, June 2). Integrating Internet Marketing into Marketing Programs. Retrieved from Course Website: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072827033/ Sheehan, B. (2001). Basics Marketing 02: Online Marketing. AVA Publishing. Copyright. . Spindler, S. (2006). Online Marketing: How to Increase International Sales with Search Engine ... GRIN Verlag Publishers . Walker-Sand . (2013, Jan 20). Integrating Social Media Into a Business Website. Retrieved from walker Sand Communications: http://www.walkersands.com/Integrating-Social-Media-Into-a-Business-Website Read More