13. Pro and Cons to Some E-Marketing Techniques
Good Day!
similar and reinforcing
In terms of methodology, internet marketing is similar to traditional marketing.
Internet marketing still involve actions such as defining the business goals, targeting the audiences (and messaging per audience), measuring existing internet presence and programs, defining/refining the internet marketing strategy, implementing and measuring results.
In this posting I wish to delineate the advantages and disadvantages of online marketing techniques.
Please note that e-marketing is composed of online PR as well.
The extend to how deep one wishes to deploy the below techniques greatly depend on the business nature, product mix, and target segments, amongst other things.
The internet marketer should be intimate on the pros and cons to these techniques to ensure good success to marketing campaigns carried out.
Pro and Cons to E-Mail Marketing
| Tool: | E-Mail Marketing |
| Pro | 1. Relatively low cost of fulfillment. The physical costs of e-mail are substantially less than direct mail (RM 0.05 per e-mail).
2. Direct response which encourages immediate action. E-Mail marketing encourages click through to the website where the offer can be affected immediately and this increases the likelihood of an immediate, impulsive response. 3. Faster campaign deployment. Lead times for producing creative and engaging in campaign lifecycle tends to be shorter than traditional media. 4. Ease of personalization. It is easier and cheaper to personalize e-mail than for physical media. 5. Options for testing. It is relatively easy and cost effective to test different e-mail creative and messaging. 6. Integration. Through combining e-mail marketing with other direct media which can be personalized such as direct mail, mobile messaging or web personalization, campaign response can be increased as the message is reinforced by different media. |
| Con | 1. Deliverability. Difficulty of getting messages delivered through different internet service providers (ISPs), corporate firewalls and webmail systems.
2. Renderability. Difficulty of displaying the creative as intended within the in-box of different e-mail reading systems. 3. E-Mail response decay. E-Mail recipients are most responsive when they first subscribe to an e-mail. It is difficult to keep them engaged. 4. Communications preferences. Recipients will have different preferences for e-mail offers, content and frequency which affect engagement and response. These have to be managed through communications preferences. 5. Resource intensive. Although e-mail offers great opportunities for targeting, personalization and more frequent communications, additional people and technology resources are required to deliver these. |
Pro and Cons to Advertising via Social Networks
| Tool: | Advertising via Social Networks |
| Pro | 1. No Cost. There is no cost involved in setting up an account and create groups.
2. Target Segment. Social networks allow the business to target segments based on demographics and geographics. |
| Con | 1. Cost. There is cost however to use the network services to help advertise to a specific segment or group. |
Pro and Cons to Online Advertising
| Tool: | Online Advertising |
| Pro | 1. Online Advertising is Similar to Traditional Advertising. Online advertising builds brand awareness and increase sales the same way as traditional marketing do vis-à-vis AIDA (awareness, interest, desire, action).
2. Stunning Images and Interactivity. Online ads can be developed to offer stunning and lasting images. Banners for e.g. can contain rich media and they offer levels of interaction that other forms of advertising cannot achieve. It allows target market to not only see the, but to play with it too. 3. Customer Bonding. Interaction builds a bond and improves the chances of the consumer remembering the brand. Cognitive learning is a powerful outcome of interactive display advertising. Animations, games, video, Flash – modern online advertising is able to bring together a number of other online marketing tactics. 4. Viral Marketing Clever viral marketing games can also be designed e.g. adding “send to a friend” functionality from within the ad. 5. Measurability and Data Gathering. Banner ads, like all e-marketing tactics, are measurable. Tracking the click-through rates (CTR) will give an idea of exactly how many people are responding to the business call- to-action. |
| Con | 1. Technical Obstacles. The nature of a lot of display advertising is intrusive. Pop-up blockers can often prevent ads from being served as they were intended by the business. Most browsers are able to block pop-ups. Example is Firefox browser which has AdBlock plus that will block advertising on web pages.
2. Connection Speed. Bandwidth is an issue although it is a shrinking problem worldwide. 3. Advertising Fatigue. Consumers are suffering from advertising fatigue. |
Pro and Cons to Affiliate Marketing
| Tool: | Affiliate Marketing |
| Pro | 1. Sales Extension. Sales for the business can be extended to on 24/7 basis worldwide.
2. Great Traffic/Exposure. The greater the affiliate the greater will be the exposure. Setting up affiliates all over the global regions ensure 24/7 exposure for the business. 3. Target Segment. Assure targeting a specific segment of customers that are interested in a specific product offered by the business. 4. Backlinks. With the right affiliate software/network, affiliate program can generate hundreds to thousands of backlinks to the business site. That feature is almost worth the cost and hassles of an affiliate program by itself. 5. Reduce Promotion Costs. Affiliate marketing has proven to be one of the cheapest ways to promote product sales and increase business. 6. Note: The business can also be an affiliate to another program. |
| Con | 1. Commission Offering. The program ha to offer substantial volume and commission to attract substantial affiliates into the program.
2. Set-up Costs. Set-up cost can be costly with some affiliate networks. 3. Monitoring. As the affiliate program gets bigger, personnel has to be increased to monitor the program. |
Pro and Cons to B2C & B2B E-Commerce
| Tool: | B2C & B2B E-Commerce |
| Pro | 1. Channel Reach. Provides additional channel and reach is bigger.
2. 24/7 Sales. Provide a 24/7 sales window. |
| Con | 1. Cost. Building up an e-commerce microsite and online payment system can be costly. |
Cheers!
