How does "Web design" touch you?

Some people think that web design is something just as simple as buy a coke at a vending machine, insert coins, press bottom, and get the product that you choose. Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content, that is delivered a way to let user get focus on your website.

The website is the center of the online business. This is the virtual representation of the company whether it physically exists or not it. When a firm does online business, people cannot see salesmen physically like they would if they bought goods in a shop. Therefore the only way for future customers to evaluate the business and its value is through its website.
Let's compare the situation with businesses like shops and stores. It would probably not be relevant to let the sales representatives and salesmen dress in an unbecoming way or even in a casual way when they negotiate with clients.

Now, as regards e-marketing, if the website is poorly organized and have a bad design the potential customer may think that it was done in five minutes and that the company does not provide quality goods and services.
Instead, if the firm has a truly professional website that includes a good design then visitors may think the company is meticulous and gives attention to detail. By having a well done and relevant web design, the company shows its customer that quality really matters. This is considered as an aspect of e marketing that companies should put the emphasis on because the first impression often determines a strong opinion from people. (Kim and Fesenmaier, 2008)

A suggestion for the future could be to provide to the customers the ability to customise the design of the website. It could be done by giving the choice between different templates or by entirely customising the websites with tools supplied by the website or the browser. This could be the development of ideas like customisation of websites such as MySpace or browsers like Firefox which improves the commitment and the loyalty of the user



According to Melewar and Wooldridge (2006) ‘Organisations have realised that a strong identity can help them align with the marketplace, attract investment, motivate employees and serve as a means to differentiate their products and services’. The corporate identity is the important thing that the e-marketers should concern about because it not only implies to the organisation’s appearance but also could be interpreted as a strategic manifestation of corporate-level vision and mission.

First of all, the website content is a main factor. Company should add value, which motivates visitors to feel commited and increases the credibility. However, web design should update what’s new, add symbol to grab attention and also provide the latest addition information. Then the web designers have to show last modified date in trailer for the users to check for recent changes. As regards the page content, spelling mistakes should be checked and it should also use appropriate words to the visitors in order to make things easier to understand.

Secondly, as for many other products, design results should satisfy both usability and content requirements of target users. [Fucella et al (1998)] the website layout should reflect the aim of company and follow user expectations. The minimum number of clicks should be provided therefore the common items should be grouped together. In terms of page layout as a screen display, font is one of the identities, which express to the web surfers. For the good website, it should have same front on a whole page. Besides, the colour in the page and in the link should be the same as well. For example, Lloyd Bank website, it has the same font and consistence colour over the entire page; also they have the animation image which is different in activities in different links. This is because they want to create their unique identity image. As a result, when the customers visit the web again, they may recognise immediately.

Furthermore, as regards the use of the identity colour and font, the marketers does not only use it to send messages to customers but also to gain trust from customers. For example, is the windsurf website. They sell the variety of board and accessories but there are no images of any products. Therefore, when customers go to that web site they may be not be interested in the products and may fear that they might be deceived.


Moreover, download speed is another factor which should be consider because the users will browse other pages if it takes too much time to load. As a result, images are the main target to improve by reducing file size; remove unnecessary images and also specific IMG attributes.

Those companies, which want to obtain the full benefits of their Internet investment, must ensure that their Web sites are usable, easy to cruise, and meet the user’s expectations. To make users like the website is a great step to learn. The more they feel comfortable to visit the website, the more they will tend to come back.

This video presents some aspects of webdesign that business should take into account while studying e-marketing of the creation or development of their online shop. This video covers different subjects like the importance of word of mouth, the optimization of search engines and the use of advertising to generate income through pay per click adverts. The video also explains briefly why and how the e-marketing manager should be creative with the website as well as the purpose of maintaining the website. The general purpose of this video is to give quick advices on the general aspect of webdesign and not only on the visual attractiveness.

References

Melewar, T., C. and Karaosmanoglu, E. (2006) ‘Seven dimensions of corporate identity: A categorisation from the practitioners perspectives’ European journal of marketing[online] 40(7/8), 846-869. Available from[30 March 2010]


Fucella et al (1998). Fucella, J., Pizzolato, J., Franks, J., 1998. Web Site User Centered Design: Techniques for Gathering Requirements and Tasks. http://www.InternetTG.org/newsletter/june98/user_requirements.html


Kim, H. and Fesenmaier, D., R. (2008) 'Persuasive Design of Destination Web Sites : An Analysis of First Impression' Journal of Travel Research[online] 47, 3-13. Available from[5 April 2010]

Online Trust and Trustworthiness

In globalization, the online communication becomes popular .it help people to connect much more easily than before. Moreover, Internet enabled business to make transaction online. For instant, Lloy TSB bank, they now have the Internet banking so just stay at home people can do everything online. On the other hand, even though e-business makes on-line purchase convenient, it also has major problem which is trust issues because no business transaction can be performed without trust (Chandan Chakrabortya and Chakrabortyb 2007). Indeed, people does not have as much information as when they see the product for real so how can they give trust to them.

TRUST is a feeling of certainty that a person or thing is good which is base on inconclusive evidence. According to Mayer et al. (1995) 'We conceptualize trust as existing when one party has confidence in an exchange partner’s reliability and integrity'. Therefore, The word trust is refer to fives factors which is contribute a long-term relationship with customers.

· “T” refers to “Truth“: Sincere to customers is very important. If the problems happened then company should frank and dare to admire all faults. It is a real of customer need and it makes good long term relationship.

· “R” refers to “Reliability”: Anytime that company satisfied the customers need is related to trustworthiness of customers. It seemed to be that reliability created trustworthiness.

· “U” refers to “understand”: Help Company to satisfy the customer need.

· “S” refers to “service”: Good service is a tool that can preserve the customers.

· “T” refers to “take the time”: Trust cannot create to the customer within one day which is why company take time to present their performances.

The flip side of trust is TRUSTWORHTINESS; trustworthiness is ability to be relied on as honest and trustful. In other word, trustworthiness is the company aspect, which wishes to build up their trustworthiness, it should keep in touch with their customers or it is the ability in increasing the return to people who trust you.

In terms of difference, trust and trustworthiness are two different concepts. Both of them are important for the company, although they have different meanings, trust is more about what the company provides whereas trustworthiness is what the company tries to achieve. The differences are trust is usually used to describe someone's feeling on someone/something, however, trustworthiness is emphasized, "someone/something can be trusted by someone.

Indeed, trustworthiness is different in the sense that it is something the company tries to be acknowledged for. It is a concept that the company has to gain over its customers, so that their perception about the services provided by them is reliable. For example, the online purchasing is easy to fraud, then before making a purchase customers normally find out before whether or not that company is trustworthy or not (Buttner and Goritz 2008)

Nowadays, the number of online shops is increasing and companies try to increase their sales through their website. Most of companies try to contribute to the customer’s trust because it is the basis that a firm should create and develop to build a long term and profitable relationship with its customers.

In terms of online business, it is important for e-businesses to set up its trust among its selling process because customers give credit to this aspect of the transactions. If companies build good relationship with the customer, it leads to an improvement and achieve to be successful. However, Trust also plays the important role in business transaction. According to Grabner-Krauter and Kaluscha (2003) ‘lack of trust is cited as the main reason for not doing online shopping’. Indeed, companies can build trust and impression of customers in the first time because there are many ways to create trust such as after sale support: delivery, service quality, communication (Chandan Chakrabortya and Chakrabortyb 2007). Based on the situation in e-marketing, companies should consider a structure which represents how consumer perceived trust because it can be develop customer attitudes and also create the value and increase its credibility. In addition, when it has benefits as regards the credibility, company will see its global reputation being improved. Moreover, they can gain customer retention as well as new customers. It also creates web user’s experience which is link to the perceived security and perceived ease of use as well. On the other hand, if customers do not trust enough the company or directly blame its reliability, it means customer’s perceived risk is high then customers can be lost and the reputation and credibility of the firm will be damaged. These issues will lead to a decrease of the number of sales which can be dramatic both in terms of figures and time.

Figure 1: Six stage online B2C perceived trust model Source: Corbitt et al (2003)

Due to the trustworthiness, Trustworthiness is important in e-marketing as well because a successful online company needs to possess a trustworthy online: transaction system, including the payment, delivery, suppliers, etc. and then they can win their customers trusts later on. According to Trustworthiness is more important than trust as the beliefs of trustworthiness, integrity, ability and benevolence could be measured with explicit tools, like, finance record, company credibility and so on. For example, Amazon.com are trustworthy (Gefen,2000 cited in Buttner and Goritz 2008).

Trustworthiness is a factor that helps company gain more credibility. If the level of trustworthiness is higher, people will be confident with the company after the customers purchased the products through on-line store and it will lead to increasing of people who to loyal with the E-marketing (Bolton, Loebbecke and Ockenfels 2008). As a result, trustworthiness is an important process of the activity of e-marketing. It is through the trustworthiness that the company builds its reputation and its network of stakeholders. Therefore, this concept is the basis of the business since it will have impacts on many aspects of the activity of the company. In other words, supplier will refer to the trustworthiness of the company as well as credit institutions and customers. All these stakeholders are looking for a firm that is reliable in order to decrease the perceived risk of making business. The trustworthiness can be considered as a tool to determine the perceived risk of a potential or existing relationship within a partnership (Hanai and OGuchi 2009), also according to Mayer et al. (1995) 'Trust will lead to risk taking in relationship, and form of the risk taking depends on the situation'. For example, when the company starts to determine the conditions of a contract with a supplier, the latter will try to measure the trustworthiness of the potential customer and will take decisions according to it.

In conclusion, Trust relationships are a marketing process that takes time. Trustworthiness, on the other hand, is very difficult to quantify accurately. Both trust and trustworthiness play an important role to E-Marketing. It seems to be that trustworthiness is more important than trust because trustworthiness enables to strengthen efficiently the relationships with the stakeholders. However it is relevant to notice that a company which deals with e-marketing cannot rely on trustworthiness if customers do not trust it from the beginning. As a result both concepts are tightly linked since they are complementary. In the end, trust is necessary to build trustworthiness but trustworthiness gives sense to trust.

Reference

Bolton, G., Loebbecke, C. and Ockenfels, A. (2008) Does Competition Promote Trust andTrustworthiness in Online Trading? An Experimental Study Journal of Management Information Systems [online] 25 (2), 145–169. Available from <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=34882763&site=ehost-live>[15 March 2010]

Buttner, B. O., and Goritz, A. S. (2008) Perceived trustworthiness of online shopsJournal of Consumer Behaviour [online] 7, 35-50 available from <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=31239547&site=ehost-live> [13 March 2010]

Chakraborty, C. and Chakraborty, D (2007) Fuzzy rule base for consumer trustworthiness in Internet marketing: An interactive fuzzy rule classification approach Intelligent Data Analysis 11 [online] 339-353 Available from <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=25973125&site=ehost-live>[ 17 March 2010]

Dash, S. B. Ganguly, B. and Cyr, D. (2008) Website characteristics, Trust and purchase intention in online stores: - An Empirical study in the Indian context Journal of Information Science and Technology [online] 23-44 Available from <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=43820349&site=ehost-live> [17 March 2010]

Hanai, T., and Oguchi, T. (2009) How do consumers perceive the reliability of online shops?. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace [online] 3 (2), 1-8 available from <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=47965242&site=ehost-live >[14 March 2010]

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995) ‘An Integrative Model of Organisational Trust’, The Academy of Management Review 20 (3), 709-734.

Morgan, R.M. and Hunt, S.D. (1994) ‘The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing’,Journal of Marketing (58), 20-38

That's one small step for the internet, one giant leap for mankind?

Basically, the internet was just a tool but through the last two decades it became more than that. Nowadays it is a way of life for thousands of people whatever their age or their nationality is. During the last twenty years the internet spread from casual and professional users to teenagers, housewives or retired people so that a world wide web now links millions of people with eclectic backgrounds. If this evolution became a real revolution of our lifestyle, many debates arise about this change on people's behaviour and especially children and teenagers and their growth. As regards e-marketers, it is relevant to understand how the society is changing through the online communication and to take part in the discussion.

The penetration of the internet in the lifestyle of many generations has multiple consequences. Nowadays, many people grew up with the internet so that they state they could not live without it anymore. It resulted in a change of the way of thinking of these generations. Indeed, people now tend to consider that the internet determines the landmarks of the society whether they are aware of it or not.
Dr Aleks Krotoski took the example of Facebook and the meaning of friendship. She states that Facebook changed people's thoughts about the concept of friendship such as anyone with an internet connection in the world can be considered as a potential friend. This is indeed a major change of the society. Ten years ago, friendship would have probably had a much stronger meaning. Nowadays, clicking on “friend request” is enough to make a new friend. But the internet modified this definition and increased for example the risk of being abused by people, yet considered as friends.
It is interesting to make a new friend through Facebook because it enables to see what those people are thinking, doing or making by following their status. However, what if someone does not want to broadcast their profile or status to public? What should they do? Some of Facebook members though they are losing privacy by updating their status through News Feed do complain about this issue.

The internet has other effects on people. One of them is the possibility to distract our brain. Research states the human brain needs to be distracted and this need can probably be exhaustively fulfilled through the internet. The internet is so rich that people's intellectual skills can end up shrinking. Indeed, studies state that people get used to being distracted by the content on the internet such as the person starts to develop an inability to concentrate.
If this is true as regards everyday's task, it also has another negative effect on the concentration. Indeed, the internet can potentially pull people in its virtual world so that they cannot concentrate on their real life. If it affects people with social networks websites, it also concerns films and series using streaming videos technology. However, it seems it reaches its full potential with online video games and especially MMO games which benefit from large communities.
In Korea, Aleks Krotoski found out the new generation spends about eighteen hours per day online, and reflects these people have difficulties to focus on their real life. Eight per cent of them need medication to cure the bad symptoms from using a computer and ten per cent of them need to go to the hospital.


On the other hand, the Internet connection also brings young generation to different interests like politics issue. After Barack Obama showed up, many young people started to care about the politics issues which they were ignoring before. Through internet, people can actually see what politicians do or think at a level we never imagined before.



To conclude, the Homo Interneticus is more than a new designation to describe a type of people. It is a phenomenon which grew up massively in a few years so that it became the core of the lifestyle of modern society. With this evolution of people's behaviour, it can be assumed that both advantages and drawbacks appear. But further than benefits and loss is the change. The internet brought both solutions and issues but maybe the spread of different lifestyles is also part of the debate. Cultures, generations, social background, all these aspects end up in a confrontation to protect the value and the way of life of everyone. In the end, who can state for good whether Home Interneticus is the right step towards future or just an abomination? Maybe it would be relevant to study how to match this revolution with lessons form the past.


Documentary film:

These videos are the basis of the study on how the internet evolved in the society. Indeed, Ms. Alex Krotoski explains the importance that the internet has nowadays in everyday's life. Many aspects of the internet is covered such as social networks and the new perceptions on life it brought with its rise. Another point approached is the impact on the way of thinking of younger generations compared to older generations since people who are used to going on the internet suffers concentration issues.
On the other hand, the video also presents benefits brought by this new lifestyle. Indeed, Alex Krotoski explains that new generations tend to be more creative and are more attracted by political issues such as their involvement increases. In addition, a South Korean study shows that children raised with the internet understand math easier than other children.
The videos presents many examples whether it relies on international cultures such as South Korea, or comparison of generations, interviews, studies and websites that people are familiar with.

SMEs, Let's E-marketing

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

E-Marketing Mobile phones and internet

Mobiles phones with the internet and especially smart phones became a must have high-tech gadget. This new and developing technology can perform some of the tasks which were formerly dedicated to PC and even more. Thus, it sounds relevant to study if mobile phones connected to the internet will change our habits in front of our desktop and how. It is also a good idea to wonder if PC and laptops may become obsolete and replaced.

This new technology disposes of convenient features. One of them is the location-based services. This service enables mobile phones to receive different messages via internet depending on the location of the user. For example, discounts or whatever relevant real time information the user may consider useful can be displayed. Obviously, this features is also a gold mine as it is an e-marketing application which gives the opportunity to businesses to boost their sales.

This feature is probably well represented by the Augmented Reality technology. Quickly, AR technology enables the user to add virtual images to reality through the screen of their phones. Here are impressive examples of how AR can be convenient:

This video shows the viewers some features available only with mobiles phones connected to the internet. The purpose of these features is to help the user in real time during everyday's life. When people needed information before this new technology they generally used their desktop and checked information on the internet. Now, with mobile phones with the internet, the user can directly see what his was looking for on the screen of his mobile phone with a few manipulations. As a result, the user does not need to make detailed plans home nor to find a desktop while being outside. In addition, the user can use his mobile phone if he is lost like the video shows it with the car.

This video shows the viewers some features available only with mobiles phones connected to the internet. As regards businesses, this video compares the common ways to advertise a brand or a shop through billboards in cities with the combination of e-marketing and mobile phones connected to the internet. A japanese building is presented with special walls that enables the mobile phone user to detect the shop in real time. The mobile phone can then display information associated with this building. Therefore, it is interesting to think about this way of communication for the future and how e-marketing could gain importance in businesses management.

This video shows the viewers some features available only with mobiles phones connected to the internet. When people wanted to find a tube near them before the release of the internet on mobile phones and the augmented reality, they needed to use maps or to draw or print information from their desktop. This video shows that with the new technology, people can use their mobile phone to achieve what they want immediately by following real time indications instead of thinking about whether they are walking towards the right direction or not.

Mobile phones with an internet connection disposes of other advantages. Nowadays, technology improves very quickly so that such small devices benefits from an instant access. Indeed, the latest GPRS and 3/3.5G gives astonishing results.

On the other hand, it is important to have a look at PCs to compare both technologies. Desktops still have a higher speed due to the size of the components and wires like optic fiber broadbands.

Broadbands and comfort are two great advantages of PCs. If mobile phones are convenient when it comes to connect from everywhere, desktops probably still have a long future. Indeed, desktops are used in everyday life for a lot of people to do many tasks a mobile phone cannot perform the same way. In other words, for example it seems logic to prefer working in front of a desktop instead of with our mobile phones whether it is in a company or to write a document.

In addition of that, desktops tend to gain a larger part in leisure so that it started to take over television with the streaming media. Moreover, video games industry becomes more important as well notably due to the burst of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game which created huge communities of people with eclectic backgrounds from housewives to hardcore gamers to businessmen.

To make ideas clear, we assume the real subject is not about mobile phones replacing PCs. We think both of them have their future in the society since they both have features specificities people enjoy.

In terms of using mobiles and private proposition are private than desktop access because most of people keep the information in their mobile such as timetable, appointment, memo. Therefore, it seemed to be suitable for any lifestyle and it convenient to use (Chaffey et al. 2003). Normally, people always bring mobile phones along with them in everywhere that is why they are up-to-date all the time. They can save the data which they received or delete some that they do not want, it is very easy! Besides, people can apply to their activities whatever they would like do, for instance, transferring data, chatting or sending email. However, mobile company has to get the permission before implementing or collecting customer’s data (Evans jamal and Foxall 2009:405)

If mobile will become a form of wallet, it is not necessary to concern about security because the innovation of technology will come with security system. Nowadays, mobile can be installed the security program which asked the users to put code or any security number to pass on automatic identification code (Chaffey et al. 2003) such as text message alert when new sim card was inserted that why the data in mobile will be protected. In terms of bank transaction, mobile can make it as potential as PC because the online security nowadays is much tighter than in the past. After checking out from purchasing online, some bank also has an individual code to prove that the user is the same person as buyer. Hence, expensing trough the internet is not dangerous.

Reference

Evans, M., Jamal, A. and Foxall, G. (2009) Consumer Behaviour 2^nd edn. Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Chaffey, D., Mayer, R., Johnston, K. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2003) Internet Marketing Strategy, Implementation and Practice 2^nd edn. Essex: Pearson Education

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