Interactive and Internet Marketing - Case Study Example

Interactive and Internet Marketing EXECUTIVE SUMMURY This assignment is entails a report to the web designers on the elements that will be needed in the designing of an online game in a company called Second life. It is an armed forces organization and the web will be used for the recruitment of people in the defence force. This report will contain elements of the web that will be useful in process of marketing the organization online. Some of the elements include blogs, wikis, mashups, and activities of social networking, videos that are web-based, navigation elements, branding and content elements. It contains the target market for all the online games, the objectives of the website, a layout for the web page, a sketch showing the categories of the information that is available on the website and the colour palette colour as well as branding. INTRODUCTION The purpose for this report is basically to market the content or the services offered through the website online. The type of marketing will be interactive yet internet based marketing. It is evident that marketing planning has never been the simple systematic approach described so enthusiastically in most prescriptive texts and courses. According to the researches that have been carried out, the moment any organization embarks on the marketing planning path, it can expect to encounter a number of complex organizational, attitudinal, process and cognitive problems, which are likely to block progress (Dennis, 2001). This means that there is a great need for any organization to carry out a market research to be able to make the right decision. There are a number of considerations in formulating marketing objectives for any given organization depending on the industry involving. It should be noted that the entire objective must be SMART. This means Specific, measurable, achievable, realist and time bound. In order to achieve a smart objective in the market, any the marketers must consider the profit margin that they want to reach. This means that before setting any market objective, they should make a cost benefit calculation to decide the profit they intend to achieve, by doing that they will be able to come up with a good objective. The marketers should also consider the needs of the customers. This means that there should be a research carried out in the vicinity where the business will be set to be able to establish what the customers need. The need depends on the gap that other marketers have not filled. In other words, the marketers must be in a position to give the consumers what they have not been given. For example, a product like a Toyota Prado car may be in existence in the market. However, the marketer must go to extend of checking out what that particular make of a car does not have and then introduce such in the market. It could be that the latest model in that town does not have the alarm system or rather the ant robbery system. In that case, the marketer needs to introduce such kind of a car (Hisrich, 2000). This means that with that kind of knowledge he or she will be in a position to come up with an objective that will be aimed at filling that particular gap or rather solving that problem. The marketer should also be able to look at the corporate vision. This means that the corporate leader must have a definite vision to where the business is heading. The marketing department then must be able to look at the vision closely and decide what marketing objectives to set to achieve the corporate vision. This is very important to ensure that all the activities that are being carried out by the marketing department are fully supported by the employees in the other department like the manufacturing (Rix, 2007). If the marketing department follows that vision of the corporation then it means they will be able to not only fulfil the objectives of the corporation but also the needs of the customers as they set their goals. The marketing objectives must also be formulated depending on the financial objectives of the organization. This will enable the department know the marketing measurements. The final consideration to make is the eight P’s. This refers to the following Product- this refers to the product that is in question like the model of the car Price-the amount of cash needed to purchase the product if it is exported cars Promotion-this entails the methods of advertising to get the product familiar to the buyers People-the consumers that are targeted Placement-the location of the product Process- the channel to be used to get the product to the consumers Physical environment- the place in terms of mood, tone and ambient of the environment Packaging- the ways in which the product will be protected Target market The target market refers to the identification of the consumers that the product will serve. It enables the business to recognize the consumer’s diversity without trying to impress them all at ago. It is dependent on the segmentation. This refers to the process of identifying the portion in the market exhibiting differences from each other. This process enables the company to meet the needs of the consumers. It also enables the business owners to be in a better position of competition with their competitors. The following are the criteria of identifying market segments; accessibility, identifiable, uniqueness of the needs, substantiality and durability of the product. For a market segment to be good then it should contain members that are externally heterogeneous and internally homogenous. The following are the bases of segmentation. A. Geographical: The product will be in America. Basically the urban centres. The reason being that it is densely populated and the climatic styles are not likely to affect the sales of the software. B. Demographic: Being cities where most people have an access to the computers, it will likely serve the needs of people of different age, gender, family lifecycle, family size, social class, religion, occupation, ethnicity and nationality at the same time. C. Psychographic: this will group the consumers into very different lifestyles. Since the business will be in town which is actually an international city then it will actually attract and serve people with different opinions, attitudes, interests, value and activities. D. Behavioralistic: this is basing the segmentation according to the behaviour exhibited by the customers. Some will come due to their readiness to use the internet service, benefit they will be seeking, brand loyalty and due to the existing occasion. All of which perfectly suits the place of the business. E. Location: it will be located in the area Towns because the cost of production is also very low. However, it will be far from the industries dealing with the same product. This website will target a wide range of users. It should be noted that being an internet facility it will target all sort of people in the world as long as they are capable of using the internet. This means that the market segmentation in the area is very wide and broad since all ages of people are expected to be in the urban as well as rural set up. The users are approximated to have over 1,000, 000 people with a very high growth rate. This is because of the issue of immigration whereby people are migrating to the urban centres at a very high rate. People in the urban centres are likely to be the most users of computer services. This particular marketing plan entails the development of a website. The need for the target market identification came as a result of some findings. The information was gathered after the department of development and research did a through research to identify the trend of the most consumers who uses the internet. This was due to the fact that the company needed to understand the usage habits of the consumers. There was also a need for the company to understand any unmet needs as far as the satisfaction of the customers is concerned. This is for the company to be able to anticipate its future market as well as to be able to determine what features to include in its website. According to the method that was used whereby the company had to monitor the people who usually visit the internet with an aim of playing games it was discovered that most of the people are likely to visit sites that provide games, recording and copying music. The target group is mainly young people who really enjoy playing games on the internet. This is the age of the young adults and mainly the group of people living in the towns and the youths in the colleges. This is because according to the people were studied they were living in the urban centres and they were of the ages between 24 years to 35 years. A marketing audit is one of the most important activities as far as the success of any business is concerned. It is usually done in the beginning of any marketing process. It should be noted that also at some point in the process of implementation of the plans it could be done. One of the main objective as to why an audit must be done is to establish the external and the internal influences on marketing process. It also enables the corporation to review its planning. Auditing process uses a number of tools, which includes the SWOT analysis, PEST analysis and the analysis of the five forces, which is an internal and external environmental analysis of the factors. A tool exposes the marking department as well as the entire business to the strength, its weaknesses, all the threats and opportunities that are likely to affect its progress either positively or negatively. Another very important tool that is used in auditing is the checklist. A checklist is designed for the purposes of answering the questions that exposes the current situation of the business. Objectives of the website There are some reasons for designing the website. I. To market the service that the organization is offering II. To make it easy for the people interested in the activities easily gain access and learn activities of the organization III. To give the people interested in the services of the organization an opportunity to choose what game they need to take part in IV. The website will give people an opportunity to be interactively involved in making suggestions through the blogs. This is whereby the users can give ideas V. To make the services of the organization available to people anywhere in the world through the internet which is easier than having to physically travel A home page layout The web construction was done by after cognitive psychology and cross-cultural behaviour was done. This is because different people are likely to gain access to the website who exhibit different cultural practices in terms of language, assign value, thoughts, behaviour and age. This lead to a research which would have ensured different needs of people is taken care of (Hemp, 2006). It is expected that people of different languages ages and values would gain access to the website. The following are the contents of the web page (Nielsen, 1999) The home page will contain the name of the organization. This is the identity of the organization The logo of the organization. Every organization contains a logo which is an unique trade mark An option to switch the language. This is whereby people can change to the language they are comfortable to use. The main languages that will be available include French, English, Chinese and Spanish which are the main commonly spoken languages and most people targeted are from there. Dialogue box which will enable people to chat online as long as they are logged in the website. This will enable different people to share ideas even from far places The options of the games that is available in the website. By clicking on the options people will be able to play any game Log in option. This will include an option for signing in and an option for signing up to be part of the organization. This is whereby people will have to log in and play any game they choose from the list. If one is not registered then they will have to register. The requirement will be a user name and a password. There will be a blog. This is a place whereby people will have an opportunity to post their questions, on some of the issues contained in the website as well as get answers. Options for chatting online. This is whereby people will be able to strike a communication with each other online. Wikis. This is part of the website that will enable changes to be made on the website accordingly. This will permit the users to user different functions that are available to perform different functions. People will be allowed to remove some materials as well as add some other material on the website but in regard to specific issues. Some rules will govern the activities. This includes a situation whereby the highest scores for the games can be edited by only after participating in the game. If one exceeds the highest mark scored in the game then they will have the privilege to change the scores. Any other person can not make changes in the game (Hsu & Lu, 2007). It will also promote association of meaningful topics but from very different pages through the provision of a link that is created and the wiki will show the availability of the page. The users will also be able to write documents by the use of a simple markup kind of a language. Mishaps. This is a feature that the website will provide for the people to use as well as combine the data. The data can be from different sources then it is presented in such a way that it will create a whole new service. It will involve frequency in its application, fast integration and easy use to give rise to raw data for processing some information. it will give the users an opportunity for using features for combination, aggregation, and visualization so as to make the existing data more useful to the users both at a personal level and professionally (Kim & Allen, 2002). Social networking option. This is an option that will enable people interact freely with each other from wherever part of the world. Through this option people will be able to open an account for themselves by signing in and then add friends in their account. They will also be able to share communication with each other and finally also share a game. This means that people can play a game with each other from deferent part of the world like they were sited together (Liu et el. 2003). Search engine. The web will also provide a search engine for the users so that any person who wish to search for anything in the website will have an easier time going about it. A sample sketch of the website page The second life organization All you need you will get it right here Choose the language: French English Chinese Spanish Dialogue box Games available: Puzzle Crossword Mahjong chess what is on your mind? Chat with friends? Are you signed in? Sign up sign in Basic schematic showing categories of information directly accessible form the home page Some of the basic features in the web include the language. The main language will be English but other commonly spoken languages in the world will be included this whereby the users will have an opportunity to change to the language of their choice. The main colour that will be dominant in the web is a combination of blue and red colours. The web will be designed in a standard font of 12 and most of the style will be times roman. This will be with an exception of the titles and subtitles (Chau et el. 2002). Conclusion The web has designed will be very effective and efficient in marketing. This is because it has been incorporated in such a way that it will accommodate people of different ages, cultural background, languages and values. It will also give the users a sense of belonging by giving them an opportunity to freely interact with each other as well as allowing them to sign in for membership. The fact that it will provide an opportunity to use different language will also help in marketing online since many people have an opportunity to read through. Reference Armstrong, G. & Kotler, P. 2007. Marketing: an introduction, 8th Ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Chau, PYK, Cole, M, Massey, AP, Montoya-Weiss, M, & OKeefe, RM. 2002. Cultural differences in the online behaviour of consumers. Communications of the ACM, vol. 45, no. 10, pp. 138-143. Dennis, A. 2001. Marketing: principles and practice, 4th Ed. Financial Times, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Hemp, P, 2006. Avatar-based marketing. Harvard Business Review, June 2006, pp. 1-9. Hsu, CL, & Lu, HP. 2007. Consumer behaviour in online game communities: A motivational factor perspective. Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 1642-1659. Hisrich R. 2000. Marketing, 2nd Ed. New York: Barron's Educational Series. Kim, K. S., & Allen, B. 2002. Cognitive and task influences on web searching behaviour. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 2, pp. 109-119. Liu, Y., Lin, F., & Wang, X. 2003. Education practice and analyzing behaviour of students in a web-based learning environment: An exploratory study from China. Online Information Review, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 110-119. Nielsen, J. 1999. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing. Rix, P. 2007. Marketing: A Practical Approach, 6th Ed. McGraw-Hill: Australia. Susan, B. 2002. 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