Internet Strategy Development And Implementation - Case Study Example

INTERNET STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION. Company : Sydney Car Component Manufacturer Inc. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Sydney Car component manufacturer is a company that deals with the manufacturing of the following car components; air conditioners, brakes, drive shafts, exhaust systems, clutches and flywheels. The company was formed in the beginning of the year 2010. The output has been encouraging with most customers buying the products offered by the company. The products bear a trademark name of ‘SYDNEY’ that enables them to be distinct from a variety of similar products in the market. The company has grown to a fully-fledged manufacturing company integrating the modern technology and an ultra-modern manufacturing warehouse. Current Marketing Strategies Due to a competitive market, the company has adopted the following marketing strategies to help boost the profits and sales. a) Flyers- this was the initial marketing strategy of the company. The flyers were cheaper in production and were an easy carpet-bombing method. They were distributed to the major auto-spare shops around Sydney and directly to the car owners. They highlighted the contact information, the services and offers available to the consumers. The feedback was positive. The flyers have remained an attractive mode of communication even in the present times. b) Value Additions- this is very similar to free appraisals and coupons. They are aimed at widening the gap of competition and provide a greater customer satisfaction. The company has incorporated the following as value additions; discounts for repeat customers and referral awards. As the company grows, it considers that other value additions such as point card or preferred customer card would be very core at capturing the market. The company also plans to make a big branded auto garage where the customers can be assisted to fix the car components. c) Posters and Billboards- the company has in the recent past partnered with advertising agents in making presentable billboards. The billboards are important since they capture the attention of the motorists. These has been an important mode, bearing I mind that the company has been getting stiff competition from the established competitors in the market. The agencies have also been of great value in distributing the posters of the products that the company offers to various key attention points. d) Follow up and Feedback system. This has been an important tool to the company not only as a marketing tool but also a strategy tool. The company has a contact department through which customers may make enquiries and clarifications. The contact centre is also important in collecting the concerns and compliments of the company. This is pivotal in mission rolling and in quest to reach the demands and tastes of the company. e) Corporate sponsoring The company has engaged in its branding through sponsoring the safari rallies. This being the face of the motor world, it thus comes out as a wonderful tool through which the company can be sold out to the customers. The idea has been important in integrating corporate social responsibility and marketing as a channel to ensure better profitability of the company. SALES GRAPH REPRESENTATION OF THE COMPANY Sydney Car Component Manufacturer ANALYSIS From the finding of the last two years the company has so far projected an upward trend in the volumes of sales of its products. Thus there is a greater need to ensure an e-marketing strategy to enable the products do even better. A greater sales volume translates to better profits for the company. The year 2012 provides a better opportunity to harness better marketing strategies inorder to get positive results for the company. THE E-MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES. The company has come up with the following e-marketing strategy inorder to better its sales not only the current market but also in the international market. This is seen as an avenue for the success of the company. The e-marketing strategy will include the steps the company will take inorder to market its brand through the web. The company has a website but will make it appealing by coming up with a better design and format while making it attractive to prospective buyers (Chaffey, 2002). The first strategy will be e-mail marketing strategy- this is an important component of e-marketing. It involves sending information of the products, services and the offers of the company through internet to potential and current consumers. It is an important business technique that enhances good business relations. The second strategy will be an online advertising- it involves placing of advertisements of products and services on the company website and search engines first page which get a considerable amount of traffic from the internet users (Baker, 1999). This method attract a substantial Return on Investment (ROI) value. The third strategy will be Online Newsletters- unlike the email marketing strategy this targets a wider clientele. It also comes up as a decent way of passing product information for promoting products, offers and services. The online newsletters are offered regularly and let the customers know of the new introductory offers available and the new products likely to be launched. Fourthly, the company will adopt a business blog strategy- (Hoffman and Novak, 1997) argues that this is a forum through which the company will sell its ideas and products to the current and new clientele. This can be merged up with the social media strategy. With a growing number of clients joining the social media( for example facebook page and twitter account) the company can target such clients by making advertisements through the same. The fifth strategy will be Search Engine Optimization (SEO); this is a procedure that relates to attracting to a company website as much internet traffic as possible. It is a crucial online marketing that can bring a great success to the company. It includes optimizing the website of the company such that it is ranked among the initial pages of the search engines. This is essentially enhanced through use of keyword phrases that internet users put in the search engine interface while searching for a particular product or service (Economist, 2000). The sixth strategy will be inbound marketing- this will involve creating and freely sharing the company informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers. The seventh strategy will be display advertising where the company will use web banners and banner ads placed on a third party website to drive traffic to the company’s own website and increase product awareness. SOSTAC MODEL This is an acronym that represents six elements of a marketing plan (Chaffey, Ellis, Mayer & Johnston, 2009), these are; 1) Situation- where you are at this point in time. 2) Objectives- where you want to get to. 3) Strategy- how you are going to get there. 4) Tactics- How you will execute the plan. 5) Actions- who is in charge of carrying out each step and deadlines for doing so. 6) Control- how the process will be monitored and measured. Following a SOSTAC model requires full implementation of all of the components and a faithful adherence to the plan, to achieve online business success. For Sydney Car component manufacturer to achieve success the SOSTAC model will be of importance in developing a winning marketing strategy. SITUATION ANALYSIS This involves a realistic analysis of the current situation of the company. This is important since it helps the company to strategize for the future after analyzing the present position, and thus implement it effectively (Chaffey, 2001). (Chaffey, 2002) argues that the situation analysis will involve looking at the sales, profits, costs, clients, assets and suppliers of the company. The company will also need to evaluate its current products; this is going online a positive stride in reaching the right audience. This is usually determined by the products the company is producing, because most of the car components are compatible with different automobiles of different models, the e-marketing thus become an important avenue through which a larger clientele can be established. OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS After analyzing the current standing of the company, it will embark on a fact finding mission in setting out targets and goals that will determine the future of the company. A company starts through an objective, and this must always be the compass that supports its very existence. Thus Sydney company must be clear if by joining an e-marketing strategy it will be serving its intended purpose. For most businesses and companies too, their aim in the online marketing is usually to capitalize on the profits, the company, must thus ensure that beside profits what else prompts it to target the e-clients. For objectives to be attained (Chaffey, 2002) recommends that the objectives must be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and able to be achieved within a given time scale. Thus there is need to enhance the core values of the company, enlarge its vision and mission and further increase its objectives inorder to achieve substantial growth in a competitive environment. STRATEGY SETTING The online market will without a shadow of doubt going to be crowded with the suppliers of similar products. The company needs to strategize, they would start with market segmentation and thus identify the section of the market that need to clearly served. It is very important to segment and divide the broader markets into viable niches, this will enable the company to penetrate the market easily (Houston, 1986). (Ansoff, 1957) contends that strategizing is very important, it assists the manufacturer to come up with a better set up that will be competitive for marketing the products. The next stage after market segmentation will essentially be audience targeting. The company should try to target the markets that have higher demands and less saturated with different automobile components. This positioning strategy will assist the company in reaching higher supplies. This is as opposed to going directly into the online marketing directly, it may bring a set back to the company since other competitors are also online. TACTICAL PLANNING After these steps have been taken (Chaffey, 2001) recommends an implementation stage. This is the time the company decide on what the best communication tools are, and how they are going to be effectively used. There are many choices when it comes to marketing online, while the company may be tempted to use all of them, it is of importance to focus on a few and use them well. The results of the company will be optimal if the approaches and styles, employed at these stage are synergistic with other elements of business. It is at this stage that the company will consider its budgetary resources. It is important that other marketing strategies are not neglected while ultimately focusing on the internet marketing. ACTION PLAN This is an important stage since it will enable the company to turn the pretty clear ideas into action. The company will at this stage be expected to form a department that will be focusing on the untapped internet market. The company may opt to liaise with a marketing agency to save on the initial costs of setting up a department. It is also at this stage that the company will assign roles and determine deadlines. Deadlines are important since they show the timeframes by which various components of the plan are to be completed. This is important; otherwise, the company would end up meandering for months or years trying to reach on attainment of the goals. It’s at this stage the company will equip itself with the right technological components and also equip its employees on the skills necessary to facilitate the internet marketing strategy. There is further need at this stage to come up with a metric that will enable the company to measure and monitor its progress and achievement. A visual feedback mechanism at this stage will be useful in getting the team members enthusiastic and excited (Bosij, 1999). CONTROL STAGE Taking control involves constantly letting the company staff are monitoring the system and measuring the right indexes. The company will be required to come up with the right measuring instrument, for example, if the sales is the core of the company, it will not be interested with the advertising budget and the traffic reaching for the products. For online business measurements is easier since this is automatically compiled by scripts and recorded in databases. This should be conducted by an independent department or persons to enhance reliability, effectiveness and efficiency. Determining how often the data will be monitored is a crucial component. Weekly analysis often proves sufficient for most data, but if the sales were to increase, the company should strategize in lessening this period. After such painstaking process, it is required of the company to undertake an analysis of the data collected and decide on how to address the variance. The company should come up with a list of alternatives. The company cannot be able to address all the contingencies, but by having a broad set of alternatives, this can help get the company through difficult periods or help to tackle unexpected disasters. SOSTAC model analysis may be time- consuming and intense, but its implementation would be of greater assistance to the company. Going carefully through the stages and addressing each of the components will give the company a solid and a functional plan for marketing the online business (Chaffey, Ellis, Mayer and Johnston, 2009). COMPANY BENEFITS IN INTERNET MARKETING Sydney Car Component would firstly benefit from internet marketing because it is inexpensive when examining the cost involve in reaching the target audience. The nature of the medium involved will enable the consumers to research and purchase for the products conveniently. It is also a means of appealing consumers and can bring quick results. Secondly the company will have the benefit of measuring the statistics easily and inexpensively. Most of the internet marketing strategy can be measured, traced, tested and utmost controlled. Through the use of measurement methods such as pay per impression, pay per click, pay per play and pay per action, company results can be easily generated. Other benefits (Economist, 2000) the company will get include the following; Extremely low risks involved. Faster response to both marketers and end user. Increased interactivity. Increased exposure of products and services. Boundless universal accessibility. LIMITATIONS OF INTERNET MARKETING The company will lack the benefit of a personal touch to the consumers. In the current marketing strategy the customers enjoy free automobile fixing services in the work station. This will not be available to the online clientele because of the proximity concerns. Marketing will thus be based entirely on advertisement and this might lead to negative criticisms from established online competitors of the products to the first time consumers. Secondly internet security concern is at the heart of online marketing. Many consumers are hesitant to purchase items over the internet because they are suspicious of their privacy intrusion. Many customers remain unaware if and when their information is being shared; additionally companies holding private information are very vulnerable to leaks and data attacks. Thus internet browsing security remains a key customer concern. The company will be required to buy a spyware prevention software that will assist in shielding the customers (Valentin, 1996). Thirdly, it’s a concern to most consumers the guarantee of the quality of the products they purchase. Leveraging merchant and feedback rating systems are some of the most widely used means of guaranteeing quality. Various online payment mechanisms too like credit cards and PayPal have constantly provided a backend buyer protection system to address internet problems. Building a strong consumer brand will remain the key strategy of the company to help strengthen the internet market. Fourthly there is an element of world competition through globalization. STEPS OF DEVELOPING THE COMPREHENSIVE SYDNEY CAR COMPONENT MANUFACTURER INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGY. After carefully interrogating the SOSTAC model, the company will work boldly in strategizing in the following steps, in order that sales may increase and thus boost the income of the company (Chaffey, 2001). Step 1: Develop the company strategy development process Developing a digital strategy for the company follows a logical progression from understanding the current to help control the future. The following diagram shows a good illustration (Chaffey, 2001) Step 2: Analyze the market place It’s very important that the company understand online customer behavior. There are various tools that are used to review the customer behaviour online, thus before getting into full implementation of the internet market this should be carefully analyzed. Customers will have different tastes and will opt to buy different commodities online, thus as a preliminary the company should be sure that the car components consumers are okay with the online purchase. Step 3: Technology opportunities and threats. (Baker, 1998) argues that the online market is marred by various threats and this have to be examined before getting into online business. The online market has a lot of hackers and thus the company should come up with better system that can withstand the threats posed by technology. Review of the system once in a while will also assist with achieving a stable system. Despite the technology threats, there is a lot of opportunities too, and the company will be seeking to emulate companies like Amazon who have established a niche in the online market. Step 4: Digital Strategy development Just as discussed in the SOSTAC model, the strategy should link with the situation analysis. The company should also come up with realistic goals and strategies that will help achieve results across various multichannel initiatives in areas of customer acquisition, retention and conversion. What the company will seek to cover at this stage will include (Chaffey, 2002); Customer value proposition development. Online segmentation and targeting options. Business and revenue model. Business Development model. Step 5: Marketing Mix These include a mixture of many ideas and plans that are followed by a marketing representative to promote a brand or a particular product. There were essentially seven elements of marketing mix, these were product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence. These have over time been replaced by the Four C’s of marketing mix that are consumer, cost, convenience and communication. The following model illustrates this; (Chaffey, 2001) Step 6: E- CRM. E-CRM means an electronic customer relationship management solution. It consists of a call center, self service website, sales force automation tool or the comprehensive analysis of the customers’ purchasing behaviors. These initiatives have to work together to enable the company to work effectively and respond to the customer’s needs. To deliver a successful e- CRM (Vlosky, 2002) says there is need for an integrated information architecture. Creating and maintaining a great information architecture is not a trivial process, it need to designed to support various applications and technologies that may be adopted by the company. The data obtained must then be accurately extracted, transformed and loaded into the environment. A good technological architecture is the cornerstone of a comprehensive e-CRM. Its only when a customer initiates a purchase and this is recorded through a transactional applications can the company know the effectiveness of its e-CRM. Often times there are multiple versions of applications that handle specific products. The company should not only monitor transactional applications in isolation, there is also a greater need to come up with a personalized way of monitoring the Sales Force Automation (SFA) and call center applications. The diagram below illustrate this; (Chaffey, 2001) Step 7: Customer experience What makes a great customer experience for the company is a play of many factors that are employed by the company. This diagram illustrate the main factors that determine a successful customer experience. (Chaffey, 2002) Step 8: Digital Campaign Planning. For the company campaign to be effective and successful the company should take the following into consideration (Deignton, 1996) ; Goal setting and tracking for interactive marketing communications. Campaign insight Segmentation and targeting Offer, message development and creativity. Budgeting and selecting the digital media mix. Integration into overall media schedule or plan Step 9: Digital Media Communications. Inorder to achieve optimal results the company will have to develop a good search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, email marketing and advertising (Fill, 1999). These are the main consideration in achieving an effective digital communication. Step 10: Improving Results. Measurement and improvement (Economist, 2000) are the main consideration at this stage of the communication. The effectiveness of any internet marketing is in the results that the company is able to realise. There is thus need to integrate all the above steps inorder that the company may effectively realise increased sales and greater profit margins. This diagram below goes to illustrate this step; Adopted (Chaffey, 2001) INTERNET MARKETING BUDGETING Sydney car component Manufacturing Inc, will have to consider the key element of budget. Every novel idea in an organisation requires channeling of resources into the company, this have from the beginning to be approved by the senior management before any progress or initiative is carried by the company. The company will consider the following five questions before setting apart and approving the budgetary allocations (Ghosh, 1998); 1. What business is to be conducted? Consumer retail companies will always spend substantially more on marketing than a manufacturing company like Sydney. Advertising, even through internet marketing can be expensive but its essential for a company thus wishes to capture a large market and increase its sales. 5% to 7% is a good benchmark of revenue to marketing investment for the manufacturing company. Its also vital to test, measure and analyze the percentage of the company vis- a vis the other marketing strategy the company has been employing. Return on Investment(ROI) is an important tool for measuring results after a budgetary location. 2. How important is ‘location’ to your business? Its tried and true that you can either invest in a ‘location’ to drive traffic to the business or in ‘ marketing’ to get customers in the door. Getting a good internet location is important, its usually expensive at the beginning but with increase of internet users the advertising costs lowers with time. 3. What is the amount of competition up to? If the main competitor of Sydney car component manufacturer Inc. is ranked number one in Google for every search term, better strategy and a bigger budgetary allocation will be important to get potential customers. An entrant in the market like Sydney will require a bigger percentage inorder to compete effectively. 4. What can the business afford? The company business plan and marketing plan should have some discussion of the minimum marketing revenue. Most companies are known to start with an optimistic budget but cut this at the mid-year due to the constraints caused in the other department of the company. The company should only set up a percentage that it can only maintain inorder that other departments can run effectively without constraints. 5. What does the future hold? Unlike radio, television and print advertising, much of the internet marketing requires a long range planning and investment. Most competitors use a lot of money and time to rank highly in high first page rankings. Thus it will be of importance to know the percentage the competitors are using, the more that the company waits before getting into internet marketing the more the projection of the percentage will increase. CONCLUSION The internet has continued to provide to global audience instant information, broad connection and a revolutionary form of communication (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). However, though seemingly effortless for access to consumers, the internet has from the past been a complex problem for the marketers. Numerous organization underestimate the potential it create or fail to maintain an interactive internet marketing plan. For the organization that has an interactive marketing plan, they often face the challenge of new technology, new opportunities and campaign measurement. Sydney car component Inc. should promptly develop an internet marketing plan and strategize on its implementation. The internet provides a new opportunity for its products. The internet can be used as relatively low cost method of collecting marketing research, particularly about customer perceptions of services and products. The internet can further be used to create a two-way feedback that does not usually occur in other media. What is very significant is that the company will be able to respond via the website to the main concerns from the customers. A great importance of interactive marketing communications is that it can be tailored to the individual. This process is known as personalization and is an important aspect of achieving customer relationship online. Personalization is achieved through extranets that are set up with key accounts to manage the buying and after sale processes (Vlosky, 2000). REFERENCES Ansoff, H. (1957) ‘Strategies for diversification’ , Harvard Business Review, September– October, 113–24. Baker, P. (1998) Electronic Commerce. Research Report 1998. 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