E-Marketing Strategies for Businesses

Introduction

Globally, there has been a rapid increase in the number of websites and that is from 17m in 2000 to approximately 1b by 2016. Moreover, there is also an increase in the number of online, as well as mobile users worldwide. As such, many businesses have taken this to their advantage and thus, they increase their online sales, as technology has made it easy for them to introduce various shipping methods, and as well, there are various simplified payment options, which have made major global brands to engage in newer international markets (Sharif & Butt, 2017). For businesses seeking in place to capitalize on this trend, seeking expert guidance in such areas as business dissertation help can provide valuable strategies for navigating the complexities of the digital marketplace. In other words, it is evident that the online economy is rapidly growing every day. Following the improvements have been made in e-marketing, there has been a creation of a new, complex and also challenging market environment, which then requires organizations to utilize better e-marketing strategies. E-marketing strategies pose as the sub-sets of digital marketing, and as such, they assist organizations in raising their sales’ turnover, market shares, as well as profitability (Bolos et al., 2016). In this regard, this paper thus purposes to expound on the statement “a good e-marketing strategy is the most important aspect for the success of any kind of internet-based business.” In this regard, it will significantly analyze this assertion hence making a critical appraisal on different strategies of e-marketing, which have been used by different companies. Overall, it is significant to note that this statement proposes the fact that e-marketing strategies control the e-market, owing to the fact that they provide a befitting communication channels, create rules, and also new roles, with regards to supply and demand (Gerrikagoitia et al., 2015). They thus, create a completely new discipline as compared to those that were used decades ago, thereby, making traditional marketing strategies to be regarded as less effective, yet expensive.

Literature Review

Sharif & Butt (2017) denote that in order for companies to ensure that their products as well as services are visible, they invest their resources on the Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Bolos et al. (2016) second this and stress that the major that primary objective of SEM is to create awareness of the company’s website to the clients as well as attracting them. SEM has an essential tool of marketing that assist in realizing a befitting marketing strategy for organisations in the virtual world. SEM comprises different techniques which can be applied to increase a product or brand visibility (Gerrikagoitia et al., 2015). However, Sharif & Butt (2017) note that e-marketing strategies that have proven to be the most effective when a company purposed to generate high ROI is the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and also the Pay Per Click (PPC). Many businesses experiences the challenge of deciding whether their strategy of e-marketing should be based on PPC or PPC or rather both of them (Miller, 2017). As such, a big challenge is often posed onto them, to discover the strategy that is better in achieving the overall goal of the business. Unfortunately, no research has been conducted that can help businesses in making the right decision while selecting the correct strategy of e-marketing, owing to the fact that the problem is regarded to be complex and also dependent on various factors (Ong, 2019).

Search engine optimization (SOE)

Google search engine is widely used to SEO this due to the fact that it has a larger share of searching volume that totals up to 81.11%. As such, optimizing for it is a top priority, especially when there is need considering a suitable e-marketing strategy (Kritzinger & Weideman, 2013). According to Mitchell (2012), SEO is concerned with optimizing a website, in order to better its performance within various organic listings that are present in a search engine. She goes at all and denote that an organic list comprises of the results appearing of the search engine results page, based on key-word relevance. Notably, there are two kinds of SEO and they include “off page” and “on page” SEOs (Duk et al., 2013). In line with this, On-page SEO comprises site content and text, which makes the pages to be search engine-friendly and as such it implies that the crawler of the search engine perceives page content to be of great value mainly for designated keywords (Kritizinger & Weideman, 2013). When making the page it is demonstrated that the page content is evaluated by the search engine by calculating the distance to be covered from the search query and the pages accessibility elements being crawled. Sharif & Butt (2017), on the hand, denotes that Off-page SEO draws much attention with all the site optimisation aspect. For instance, quality link exchanging, obtaining substantial external links, selection of the keyword, as well as inbound links. Bolos et al (2016) also emphasize that the other aspect of the off-page SEO are the interaction of the social networking, forums publication, search engine, as well as local listing submission and blogs among others. According to Gerrikagoitia et al. (2015), the techniques of SEO are aimed at improving content quality, and also it falls as a consequence of increment of the page rank. Notably, the search engine provides encourages such kind of practices through providing webmasters with information that are of best practice, which aim at helping them create content. Mitchell (2012) notes that a good example of a company that uses SEO is Tesco Company and it assists it to dominate the online grocery.

The pay per click (PPC)

According to Ong (2019), Google invented the PPC and presently, other search engines such as Yahoo have adopted it. Companies such as Amazon and John Lewis often use this approach in deciding the appropriate keywords or even phrases, which describe the appearance of their advertisements. This must be charged for all the engines used in clicking searching used by the users in making advertisement links (Miller, 2017). However, Sharif & Butt (2017) state that it can last, only with the condition that the advertising company makes payment for the campaign. The criterion for selecting the most appropriate strategy or even the procedure of employing them when there is need to design a SEM campaign is not well demonstrated in the scientific literature. Kritzinger & Weideman (2013) point out that this is because it is presented as an unsupported heuristics that SEM practitioners create. There is no research, which is devoted to the challenge of calculating ROI and adopting substantial processes, meant for sales captures generated by SEM. As such, Mitchell (2012) notes that the problem is evident in all companies, which do not focus exclusively on online sales, but instead, utilize their capabilities towards attracting customers and increasing their knowledge regarding their business.

Overall, according to Mitchell (2012), PPC can easily be implemented as compared to SEO. A campaign conducted by use of Google AdWords entails is language, settings of network targeting, independent budget, as well as location. In this regard, campaigns of such kind can contain various Groups of Ad that has a sponsored Ad listing, as well as keywords that are related (Gerrikagoitia et al., 2015). Study shows that Ad Groups are majorly created to define and also expound on advertisement within a specific campaign. Sharif & Butt (2017) agree to this and stress that they enable campaigns to be more precise, and also accurate. For instance, a campaign created specifically for bathroom mosaic tiles can be condensed down significantly in order to make it concentrated, such that it can be made to contain a specific and focused Ad Group. For instance, ‘stone bathroom mosaic tiles’. According to Ong (2019), the Ad groups would contain keyword listings that relate to the group’s products. Notably, advertisements found within Ad Groups are considered as paid listing adverts which are displayed on Google’s search engine results page. They can be fully personalized, with a character descriptions, site addressed as well as hyperlink, which attract customers to click on them (Mitchell, 2012). In line with this, the adverts are able to provide targeted landing pages.

Key strategic planning models

E-marketing entails three significant planning models, which e-marketers should take note of. They include product lifecycle, porter's legendary generic competitive strategies framework and the Ansoffs strategic growth options. They are as discussed below:

Product lifecycle

Product life cycle is an important model in e-marketing as it describes various stages, which products go through from the time it was introduced to the market to the time it is finally eliminated from the market (Stark, 2015). The first stage is the research and development stage, whereby, it involves the researching about a product and its development prior to it being available in the market for sale. The second is the introduction stage, which entails the launching on the product in the market. The third is the growth stage, whereby, the product sales increase at a high rate. The fourth is the maturity stage, where sales are at the peak, but the growth rate declines. The final is the decline stafe, which is the final stage, and at this point, sales begin falling (Stark, 2015). This has been demonstrated in the figure below.

competitive advantage are combined with various activities that an organization purposes to achieve, then three generic strategies result into above average performance within an industry. They include cost leadership, focus, as well as differentiation. In cost leadership, an organization purposes to be a low cost producer in the industry. The cost advantage sources often vary and also depend on the industry structure. In this regard, they include economies of scale, preferential, preferential access to factors such as raw materials and proprietary technology (Abdolshah et al., 2018). In differentiation, an organization purposes to be unique within an industry alongside some dimensions, which buyers value. In terms of focus, it sets out the narrow competition scope existing in an industry. In this regard, the focuser selects the appropriate segment in the ndustry and thus, tailors its strategy to be serving them only. Focus has two variants, and they include differentiation of the target segment and the cost focus, which requires a cost advantage in a given target segment (Johnson, 2016). The porter's generic competitive strategies model is as presented below:

Figure 2: Porter's Generic Competitive Strategies

introduced into a given market (Al-Azzam et al., 2016). The Ansoffs matrix is as presented in the table below:

Figure 3: The Ansoffs strategic growth options model

Analytical review

Kritzinger & Weideman (2013) point out that SEO does not pose as a trivial technique, and as such, requires a lot of experience, patience, as well as background knowledge, however much is a technique that Lewis Johnson could invest in as well. Averagely, SEO generates approximately 75 per cent of site traffic, yet the expenditure of a company on SEO is about 15 per cent of the entire e-marketing budget (Ong, 2019). This is contrary to PPC that produces approximately 24 per cent of site traffic and yet, expenditure of the company on it would be approximately 80 per cent of the entire e-marketing budget. The difference is owing to the faster ROI, which businesses perceive via PPC. Moreover, Mitchell (2012) makes it clear that PPC can easily be implemented as compared to SEO. It equally needs little technical and advanced knowledge. As such, it is evident that PPC can be easily utilised, and also to employ, especially for the purpose of advertising. This is because it provides a company like Amazon with a total control over the whole process of advertising, than SEO that needs significant skills in setting up and also targeting (Sharif & Butt, 2017). This thus, implies that whilst selecting a good e-marketing strategy, businesses should consider such aspects, in order to generate their success.

Businesses purpose to their strategies of e-marketing, in order to produce a lot of traffic to their websites, and also to sale the product, brands, as well as services of their companies. Notably, this can be realized through the implementation of wither PPC or SEO or even both of them. However, it is evident that the PPC cost is higher as compared to that of SEO, owing to the constant acquisition, as well as keywords bidding (Sharif & Butt, 2017). PPC the needs regular monitoring of the positions of the keywords, and constant bidding, in order to have an edge over other key competitive payers. It involved recurring costs that depend of various clicks. On The contrary, SEO only needs an investment in the website optimization. It does not have recurring cost, which is contrary to PPC (Gerrikagoitia et al., 2015). Campaigns of PPC can be established in a prompt manner and can provide a significant ROI within a couple of days. On the other hand, SEO can take many weeks before producing beneficial results, owing to the fact that it provides instant ROI, can generate a more traffic, and also more profit, immediately a greater merit has been significantly accomplished. According to Duk et al. (2013), this is as a result of many individuals who uses search engine often click on various organic links instead of paid links. This information is supported by the research conducted by scholar, which indicated that 72 per cent of google users often click on links that are generated through searching as compared to just 27 per cent of users clicking on paid listings (Sharif & Butt, 2017).

SEM depends on the utilization of keywords, which relate to products, services, and even brands. In generating a PPC campaign, it is evident that Google allows the addition of around 2000 keywords per campaign and this can be a maximum of 25 campaigns (Sharif & Butt, 2017). Notably, this offers ease and flexibility on the campaign design. On the contrary, SEO just focuses on 4-5 keywords that are most representative for either a product or a service, and it is clear that this provides the search engine with a coherent identification of the page content. In this regard, Duk et al. (2013), notes that once crawlers locate keywords on the site that is optimized, they are indexed and thus, become free sources of traffic, owing to the fact that there lack another cost per click that is involved. Overall, it is worth noting that ROI should be regarded as key metric that companies should consider whilst considering either PPC or SEO (Duk et al., 2013).

Conclusion

Based on the above provision, this paper has discussed two major e-marketing strategies, which include search engine optimization, and also pay per click. It is evident that the main aim why businesses use e-marketing strategies is to increase their ROI, and as such, the potential return of ROI have been evaluated on the two strategies. Of importance to note, this research poses as a good starting point that can aid in establishing future investigations and would as well assist in supporting SEM will significant empirical evidence relating to the efficiency, as well as trustworthy measures of ROI. It is then envisaged that this research promotes a clear direction for various businesses, with a special interest on SMEs that sell online to help in making a decision on the best strategy of e-marketing, and this will depend on the type of their businesses. This is owing to the fact that an ideal strategy of e-marketing is an imperative aspect for the success of any type of business based on internet.

References

Abdolshah, M., Moghimi, M., & Khatibi, S. A. (2018). Investigating Competitive Advantage in Banking Industry Based on Porter's Generic Strategies: IRANs Newly-Established Private Banks. International Journal of Applied Management Sciences and Engineering (IJAMSE), 5(1), 52-62.

Al-Azzam, Z. F., Irtaimeh, H. J., & Al-Quraan, A. B. (2016). Impact of Intellectual Capital on Carrefour Internal Growth Strategies (Ansoff’s Model) in Irbid. Arabian J Bus Manag Review, 6(206), 2.

Andaleeb, S. S. (2016). Market segmentation, targeting, and positioning. In Strategic marketing management in Asia: case studies and lessons across industries (pp. 179-207). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Bolos, C., Idemudia, E. C., Mai, P., Rasinghani, M., & Smith, S. (2016). Conceptual Models on the effectiveness of e-marketing strategies in engaging consumers. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 25(4), 3.

Camilleri, M. A. (2018). Market segmentation, targeting and positioning. In Travel Marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 69-83). Springer, Cham.

Duk, S., Bjelobrk, D., & Čarapina, M. (2013, May). SEO in e-commerce: balancing between white and black hat methods. In 2013 36th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO) (pp. 390-395). IEEE.

Gerrikagoitia, J. K., Castander, I., Rebón, F., & Alzua-Sorzabal, A. (2015). New trends of Intelligent E-Marketing based on Web Mining for e-shops. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 175, 75-83.

Holzbaur, E., Ross, J., & Rothrock, T. (2016). Epro Product Life Cycle: Guidance For A Successful Management Phase. Value in Health, 19(3), A109.

Irtaimeh, H., Al-Azzam, Z. F., & Al-Qura'an, A. (2016). Impact of intellectual capital on Carrefour internal growth strategies (Ansoffs Model) in Governorate of Irbid. European Journal of Business Management, 8(5).

Johnson, G. (2016). Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.

Kritzinger, W. T., & Weideman, M. (2013). Search engine optimization and pay-per-click marketing strategies. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 23(3), 273-286.

Miller, M. (2017). SEO vs. PPC: Differences, pros, cons & an integrated approach. Retrieved [online] from https://searchengineland.com/seo-vs-ppc-pros-cons-integrated-approach-274643 [accessed on 1st Dec, 2019].

Mitchell, M. (2012). SEO & PPC: Better Together. FT Press.

Ong, S. (2019). SEO vs. PPC: Which Should You Use? Retrieved [online] from https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-vs-ppc/ [accessed on 1st Dec, 2019].

Sharif, A., & Butt, H. (2017). Online Businesses and Influence of E-Marketing on Customer Satisfaction. J. Hum. Ins, 1(2), 89-93.

Stark, J. (2015). Product lifecycle management. In Product lifecycle management (Volume 1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.

Continue your journey with our comprehensive guide to E-commerce Venture in the UAE Travel Accessories Market.