The growth of technology was increasing by the internet transaction and also has become a key element major driver of business. Nowadays, the internet offer more opportunities for companies to develop their product and service including SMEs. The entrepreneur of SMEs can adopt e-marketing and e-commerce to support sales volume and promote their organization as well. SMEs is the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which play a central role in the world economy.
Many reason which is why SMEs should consider about e-marketing in company. Proactive reasons are the chance to eliminate operation, production and transaction cost. E-marketing has low cost communication permits firms with limited like SMEs and it is also giving more chance to promote their companies internationally. Moreover, it will be effect in long-term if company want to do global marketing. Even though, e-marketing enables more than just internet but it can create competitive advantages.
This video presents an interview with Mr. David Smerdon and discusses about the subject of how to boost sales using the internet. In this video, the discussion focuses on the e-mail campaign aspect of e-marketing so that many advices are given about this subject. David Smerdon speaks about three problems that SME's have while running an e-mail marketing campaigns like running a database, design and deliverability and writing content. Other points are approached such as the possible solutions for the problems SME's have with e-mail marketing, comparison between e-mail marketing and traditional direct mail campaigns and examples of how SME's use Email Marketing.
Traditional strengths of SMEs are highly ability to serve niche market and develop relationship with customer (Gilmore, Gallagher and Henry 2007) . Companies are identifying the customer, what’s the customer need and consumer behaviour by recording the information on internet. . Then it can use database and dedicated websites as regards their theme and their potential visitors. By anticipating in E-marketing, it has more connivance to purchase by information and buy product and service. For example, Easy jet (low cost Airline) which is supported by 90% of revenue from online transaction. Anyway, E-marketing can serve the customer need that concern on acquisition and retention. Also, companies advertise their goods to the most relevant people since they are more likely to become potential customers.
On the other hand, SMEs should consider about the implementation of a marketing research to support the e-marketing campaign because it improves the efficiency of the latter.
To tackle an e-marketing campaign, it is important to plan it before. This is the role of marketing research. Indeed, the main purpose of a marketing research is to learn information through a study about the subject relevant to the marketer. In other words, marketers need to learn relevant data about their target before releasing the e-marketing campaign.
Marketing research is the basis of the e-marketing campaign. The information gathered during the research enables the company to target the right people online and thus to generate outputs efficiently. In addition, the marketing research leads to information about competitors and their own e-marketing strategy.
A purpose of marketing research is to enable marketers to take good decisions about the lunch of their e-marketing campaign in order to make it efficient. Indeed, information gathered during the marketing research can lead to alternative choices about new markets or new products for example. This is a main benefit since the opportunity to have many choices decreases the risks taken during the e-marketing processes.
List of reference
Gilmore, A., Gallagher, D., and Henry, S. (2007) ‘E-marketing and SMEs: operational lessons for the future’. European Business Review 19 (2), 234-247
8 comments:
We agree with the importance of market research in any business. However, in this article, we would like to add ‘why’ and ‘how’ SMEs could actually engage with market research with limited financial resources and human resources (even more crucial during recession at this moment). This allow us to understand (why) the difficulties of most SMEs to engage in high expenses market researches which could cost up to £60,000 per qualitative research, and small companies may not be able to fund such research. To answer the ‘how’ aspect, instead, SMEs should utilize existing e-marketing tools such as social networks to create free market research to better understanding the customers, their attitudes, opinions and/or intentions (Casteleyn 2009). You have also mentioned about EasyJet, which a classic example on how they utilized customers' Twitters to study their demand, reviews and feedbacks, then used it to improve on their services (John 2009).
References:
Casteleyn, J., Mottart, A. and Rutten, K. (2009) ‘How to use Facebook in your Market Research’. International Journal of Market Research 51(4), 439-447
John, A. (2009) Did You Know That EasyJet Are Listening to your Twitter Conversations? [online] available from http://www.marketingtom.com/2009/09/did-you-know-that-easyjet-are-listening-to-your-twitter-conversations.html [26 February 2010]
Isn't it also important to do some Marketing Research after an SME made its first steps online?
i really do think emarketing is relevant to Smes because the world is becoming global in its outlook and in this digitally enhanced age all businesses in one way or the other need the internet to make business better
What kind of marketing research would you suggest to a small company?
how would you start the e - experience for a small company? meaning, by blog, E - commerce, Website? E-advertising?
Thank you Floris Lefever. We agree since businesses still need to adapt and position itself as regards the viewers and customers. Indeed, after the company made its first steps online, it will get information on what the potential customers are interested in as well as the number of visitors. As a result the business should keep on doing Marketing Research regularly with the new information. In addition it is important to continue Marketing Research as regards the competitors as regards their evolution. Indeed, it seems relevant to study how they manage their goods and services, to learn form their good ideas and to prevent from doing the same mistakes.
Another aspect the company can tackle is surveys to their potential customers to gather their opinion about the business. For example, they can ask questions through email or questionnaires about goods, services, webdesign etc. In addition, it can enable the company to position itself better as regards a more defined target market.
Thank you Temilade. We agree with your statement about the fact that businesses needs to use the internet. It is maybe not relevant for small or locale companies but for other businesses, it enables to do many things. For example, people can see what the company does through the internet such as advertisement, online shops or involvement about sustainable development. One of the benefit of the internet is to cut down the budget allocated to communication since its costs less than other media such as TV in addition of the fact that the internet makes the information available to most people at anytime.
Thank you Joke Saelen. For a small company, we think that they can do some marketing research with surveys and case study about the competitors previous issues or successes. With surveys, small companies can search information about previous experiences from other big companies as their field did before.
We would also suggest questionnaires given in the street or by email. Indeed, it is important even for a small company to study its market in order to determine the main target audience as well as their expectations. With this questionnaire, the business should be able to determine who are its customers and potential customers, the kind of people they are, where they live or if they want and can afford the goods or services as well as their opinion.
Small companies can start to post their commercials on the internet like blogs or websites for example. They can also try the pay per click advertising system. Indeed with this option the company only pays when someone clicks on the advert.
With the internet, the company can also invite the viewers to write comment about commercials and corporate news. With this concept, the potential customers may feel more involved with the brand.
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