END NOTE

I have learnt a great deal from undertaking e-Marketing. As we are moving closer and closer into a purely technology-driven world, it is important to understand how e-marketing is driving fundamental change to all marketing practices. For example, the emergence of social websites such as Facebook and MySpace, and search advertising such as Yahoo and Google. As future marketers, we need to be aware of the ethical, legal and marketing implications of existing and emerging technology.

Thanks to Ian and Steve for presenting us with an enjoyable and information-rich course.

Week Twelve - Reflection on Learning

They key aspects that I took away from this week's work were that there is no point of having a website if no one is going to use it. Therefore, in order to build traffic, management must identify the target market, the techniques used to build traffic (i.e. search marketing, online PR, viral marketing etc), and have correct timing.

I learnt the importance of viral marketing as it can encourage and promote word of mouth (whether good or bad), the differences between affiliate marketing and Pay Per Click advertising, the usefulness of sites such as Vurr.com to select the appropriate key word to drive users to a particular site, and how DMoz cleans up and culls out bad content so that users receive the most up-to-date and accurate information. Anyone can sign up to be a DMoz editor, so if you're interested, click on the following link: http://www.dmoz.org/help/become.html

Week Twelve - Traffic - Building & Managing the Flow

1. Find an article on affiliate marketing (for example: http://www.iabuk.net). What is the difference between affiliate marketing and PPC (Pay per click) marketing and what are the advantages and disadvantages of both?
The article that I selected on the topic of affiliate marketing was titled “5 Things You Must Have to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing” (http://www.selfseo.com/story-19710.php). It basically outlines that in order to achieve in affiliate marketing, people must be willing to learn and be trained, invest time and effort even if direct results don’t seem apparent, possess self-determination, be disciplined and be optimistic.

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts, whereas Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked.

The advantages of affiliate marketing are:
• Merchants have a wider environment generating more products and services signifying more sales.
• It is an easy way to create additional income for both merchants and websites.

The disadvantages of affiliate marketing are:
• High commission costs incurred by merchants.
• False and misleading types of advertising that has lead to unjust claims and also complaints from people.
• It is not a stable source of income for the merchant.

The advantages of PPC marketing are:
• They are generally targeted towards a very general audience.
• Drives lots of valuable traffic to a website.
• One of the most affordable forms of marketing on the Internet.
• Easy to set up and maintain.
• Pay commissions even if visitors never make any purchases.

The disadvantages of PPC marketing are:
• It is difficult to bid for select words, especially when small companies are up against larger companies.
• Pay less than affiliate programs since they are trading higher commission rates for a higher probability of earning income.

2. How is CRM relevant to affiliate marketing?
Customer Relationship Marketing provides the affiliate marketer with powerful tools that can effectively identify, track and monitor website's visitors. The software can even provide important information that enlightens the affiliate marketer to exactly what the visitor seeks and then apply to the right affiliate programs to fill the needs of the visitors.

The valuable information gathered by the CRM software provides the affiliate marketer with a clear idea of who is visiting the website and for what reason. This information allows the affiliate marketer the opportunity to make specific changes in advertising efforts, website content and other variables that will cause people to want to return to the website.

3. Where does viral marketing fit into this mix?

One of the best known forms of viral marketing is ‘word of mouth’. It relies on networks of people to spread the word. It is a form of promotion and can occur in social networks. It is important to get as many targeted online and offline mentions as possible in order to build traffic. Google uses a form of direct viral marketing, where invitations to potential customers are willingly sent by Google users. The secret to Google’s success is the simplicity of their product. They use simple interfaces and lack of obtrusive image-based ads, substituting them instead with simple text links. Rather than using image-based ads, Google designed text links where they scanned the content of the email or message being viewed and designed its ads based on that. This form of “intelligent” online marketing is related to viral marketing, and is very useful when used in conjunction.

4. In the PowerPoint presentation there is a link to Overture which was a 'key word' search tool. You will find that it is no longer there - one of the ongoing issues with web resources. Yahoo bought Overture and shut it down. Do your own search and see if you can find an alternative to Overture. Also see the discussion page and share your thoughts there.
Yahoo Search Marketing is a keyword-based pay per click or sponsored search Internet advertising service. Yahoo began offering this service after acquiring Overture, which provided a pay-for-placement search service. However, Overture was consequently shut-down.

An alternative to Overture is Vurr.com. It is a very simple site where users enter in a key word to find search queries matching and their frequency of use. For example, when I type in ‘health’, the top three results I get are health insurance, health and united health care. The most frequently use key word is rank at the top of the list. The benefits of Vurr.com are that it has a faster query response, results are not normalised (e.g. car insurance and auto insurance are not merged), typos and misspells are preserved allowing comparison to base word, word order is retained in the query, plurals and punctuation are retained for the query, and search frequencies are not subject to manipulation.

5. Methods used to improve search engine ranking include frequency of occurrence in body copy, number of inbound links, inclusion in directories such as DMoz, title HTML tag, Meta tags and hidden graphic text.

What is DMoz? Read about DMoz in Wikipedia. What search engines use DMoz? I have a personal online book business called OZRURAL. Is it listed in DMoz?
Directory MOZilla (DMoz) is a human reviewed directory. It is one of the largest directory systems that is maintained by human editors. A listing in DMoz is said to assist in boosting rankings in general search results. One of the main search engines that uses DMoz is Google. DMoz provides the means for the Internet to organise itself. As the Internet grows, so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organise a small portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.

OZRURAL is listed on DMoz and it comes up with two results:
1. OzRural - New and Pre-loved horse books bought, sold or exchanged. Specialise in rare and hard to find classics.
2. OzRural - Includes rural news, bookshop, alternative and farm diversification information and links.

Week Eleven - Reflection on Learning

There were no tasks or exercises to complete this week. It gave me a chance to finalise my virtual presentation.

Week Ten - Reflection on Learning

It took me longer than usual to complete this week's questions. However, I learnt a great deal from doing them. Firstly, it was surprising to learn that emails motivate and stimulate 88 per cent of consumers to use certain products and services. This just demonstrates that we are moving further and further into a technology-driven world.

We learnt that Maslow's hierarchy of needs can sometimes be too simplistic, and we need to understand the wants and needs of consumers in order to encourage them to purchase (online and offline). Customers can be categorised into Explorers, Hunters or Trackers. We must firstly identify the drivers of brand trust and engage consumers, which stimulates their purchase intent. The outcome of the purchase can lead to customer loyalty, and the customer may therefore be an advocate for the brand.

I thought that both YouTube videos were very interesting but long. I decided to watch the full-versions of each to gain a better understanding, especially the Yahoo video an how they develop their social network.

Week Ten - eConsumers

1. In Chaffey 20008, chapter four, three types of social behaviour are identified. These are the track, hunter and the explorer. What are the characteristics of these customer behaviours and how in particular might you encourage them to purchase online?
A tracker knows the exact product they want to purchase. They use online shopping sites to track a product down and check the price, availability, delivery time, delivery charges or after-sales support. This type of buyer requires very little persuasion to purchase online.

A hunter doesn’t have a particular product in mind but knows the types of product they are after. For example, a television or a laptop. They use online shopping to a find suitable products, compare them and decide which one to purchase. This type of buyer needs more help, support and guidance to reach a purchasing decision.

An explorer doesn’t have a particular product in mind but may have a well-defined shopping objective, a less-resolved shopping objective or no shopping objective at all. This type of buyer has a range of possible needs and many uncertainties to be resolved before committing to purchase. Suggested gift ideas, guides to product categories, lists of top-selling products and information-rich promotions could encourage them to purchase online.

2. Given that the main fears about using the Internet are security and privacy, what can organisations do to reassure customers?
In order to reassure customers, organisations could offer a 100% security guarantee, which means that customers pay nothing if unauthorised charges are made to their card as a result of using their services. Organisations should also state on their website that they are committed to ensuring the privacy of customer at all times when using their websites. Contact details of the organisation should be posted on the site in an easily accessible and clear position to give customers peace of mind and allow them to contact them if they have any concerns.

3. Onsite information processing can be divided into 5 stages: exposure, attention, comprehension & perception, yielding & acceptance and loyalty. What do you think is meant by each of these stages?
• Exposure: Customers must be exposed to content long enough in order to process it. If content is not displayed long enough the message will not be received.
• Attention: Customers have a limited attention span and therefore only pick up the main messages from a website. Therefore movement, text size and colour are helpful in gaining customers’ attention.
• Comprehension & Perception: Customers must be able to interpret the combination of graphics, text and multimedia on the website clearly and accurately. The design should be familiar to the customer so that they will interpret it according to previous experience and memory.
• Yielding & Acceptance: The information presented must be accepted by the customer. Some customers will respond to emotive appeals, while other will make a more clinical evaluation based on the text.
• Retention: Customers must be able to recall their experience. A clear, distinctive site design will be retained in the customer’s mind, therefore increasing the likelihood of a repeat visit.

4. How can (online) customer loyalty be improved?
Organisations need to retain high-value customers for life by building strong emotional and rational bonds. They must find out more about their needs, serve them and then offer relevant incentives to keep them coming back. The five determinant of loyalty include:
• Quality customer support
• On-time delivery
• Compelling product presentations
• Convenient and reasonably priced shipping and handling
• Clear trustworthy pricing policies.

5. It is very cost effective to conduct online market research, but there is also potential for sampling errors. The article extract below shows that 78% of women would rather have a pet than a husband. Do you think this figure is accurate? Give reasons for your answer.
The figure is not accurate as the majority of listeners to the radio station are females between the ages of 23 to 49. Furthermore, the younger-aged women are less likely to have a husband at that particular stage in their life, and are more inclined to vote for a dog instead. Therefore, they have a biased response rate. Marketers must carefully plan their research first before conducting it. As research can be very costly and time consuming, it is important that sampling questions and segments are chosen correctly to avoid any data biasness.

6. As more and more services can be delivered via mobile devices, there is already talk of the post-PC consumer. What impact will this have on marketing?
Marketers will be faced with the same marketing dilemmas as they have with previous technology such as radio, television, computers and i-phones. Dealing with a post-PC consumer should be exactly the same. Marketers need to continue to be adaptable to the new technology and develop marketing strategies and campaigns to suit the new type of consumer. Marketers must not be afraid of change and should move with the market in order to stay in the game.

7. Watch the 1800 Flowers video. How does 1800 Flowers optimise fresh delivery of flowers in all states of America?
In order to optimise the fresh delivery of flowers in all States of America, 180 Flowers controls delivery tightly. They control distribution by working closely with florists around country to manage quality, delivery and all aspects of the experience with perishable products.

8. Watch the Yahoo video. What are the key elements of a social network that are identified?
The CIO of Version Telecom says that giving people creativity makes a job fun. When people enjoy their job, they are more likely to go above and beyond. The key elements that he states are:
(a) Ask people to propose ideas in order to identify new opportunities in the business.
(b) Give people the opportunity to try and fail quickly. Quick failures are easy to resolve and cost the business less money. It facilitates quick learning and puts the business on the right course to get the right solution.

9. In addition to answering the questions this week, you should read widely on the subject. Visit some online blogs such as clickZ, Wired, Techcrunch and find some scholarly articles using Google Scholar. Search for articles on online relationships and loyalty, communities and social networks, buyer behaviour online, trust, loyalty and online customer motivation. You wont be able to cover all of these areas, so concentrate on finding a couple of journal articles and briefly describe the key points in them.
Does online relationship marketing enhance customer retention and cross-buying?
For full document, visit the following link: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ballarat.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hjh&AN=34319968&site=ehost-live

I found this journal article on EBSCO Host when searching for articles on ‘online relationships’. The key points in the article are that customer loyalty is more difficult to achieve in the online context than in the offline one. The integration of Internet technology with the customer loyalty concept is rarely discussed in the relationship marketing literature. The article also uses a model that examines the relations among relationship-bonding tactics, perceived relationship investment, perceived relationship quality, customer loyalty, customer retention, and cross-buying. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of relationship marketing as it positively influences online customers' perception, then their loyalty, and ultimately, their actual purchase behavior.

Between Friends
For full document, visit the following link: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ballarat.edu.au/ehost/pdf?vid=8&hid=108&sid=794be57e-0216-457c-bcf2-d5b155a24aa6@sessionmgr111

I found this journal article on EBSCO Host when searching for articles on ‘online social networks’. The article outlines the growth of social networking sites worldwide. It revealed that the idea of a social graph, a representation of a person's network of friends, family and acquaintances, gained popularity in 2007 as online social networks grew. Facebook claims that they have more than 64 million active users, with 250,000 more signing up each day. These companies tried to commercialise the social connections by permitting outside developers to build applications that access user's networks. According to Facebook, they also advertise user's contacts in accordance with the user's online buying habits. Some of these networks include Blogosphere, Comment Flow, Twitter Social Network and Virtual Marketing.

Week Nine - New Media & The Brand

This week we learnt about the two basic levels of brand awareness: brand recognition and brand recall. Once consumers are 'aware' of the brand, it is crucial that there is a strong brand image to further push consumers to adopt the product.

Brands ultimately influence our buying decisions. They also tell 'stories' about people and make people feel a certain way. For example, the people who drive BMWs or who wear Rolex watches. Consumers are spending less time using traditional media such as television, radio and newspapers, and are spending more time online. Therefore it is crucial that we, as future marketers, must be familiar of new media that consumers use to target our product/service to.