Using the Internet Marketing Paradigm to Create an Effective Marketing Campaign through Internet Channels and Traditional Channels!

You are an e-marketing professional who has been tasked with formulating a marketing plan that integrates all channels of the marketing mix to achieve the business goals.  What can you do to create a synergistic effect in integrating the Internet channel and the traditional channels for increasing customer acquisition, customer conversion, customer retention, and customer value growth? 

There are various ways we could integrate customer acquisition, customer conversion, customer retention and customer value growth, but I will pick a really simple one that will showcase this Internet Marketing Paradigm.

I was recently, but no longer am, involved with a health product that was a daily dietary supplement.  Its name was Kyani and it was sold through two main channels.  One was through the traditional Direct Sales or Multilevel Marketing (MLM) business models.  The other way was through various internet marketing techniques, but the two main methods used were video marketing and social media marketing.  As you most of you probably know, MLM companies work on a down line system.  The leader of our whole down line group did not promote traditional MLM techniques such as marketing for meetings at a hotel conference room or throw a health supplement party at our house.  For more than ten years he has been an internet marketing guru and so we created a whole internet marketing system for anyone to use who joined on his down line (essentially he was helping us make money because when we made money, he made money!).  Here is how the whole paradigm worked.

The main customer acquisition was done in the following way.  His method directly involved social media marketing, specifically facebook, and the ad copy that we would send our friend’s list included a link that directed the potential customer to a landing page that included a video of him talking about how using his system in concert with becoming a Kyani user and seller, one could create a long lasting residual incoming that would only continue to grow.  In order to learn more the potential customer would then have to give their name and email address and consent to receiving emails from us.  We would us that permission to create a bit of brand awareness and eventually get them to agree to a phone call from one of the company’s representatives who would show them the benefits of the health supplement and then the benefits of selling the product.  This was the customer acquisition process.

The customer conversion in this method was done by the representative that called the potential customer who consented to the call.  What was unique about this system was that unlike other MLM companies where a member is solely responsible for acquiring and converting a lead, our leader contracted a company that we paid extra for, that would have a professional salesperson contact the consenting lead and convince them to buy.  They had a higher than average success rate, because most people’s fear of joining an MLM company is that they do not want to have to hard sell someone they way we are hard selling them.  The salesperson lets them know that they themselves are just contracted to sell this health product and business opportunity on behalf of a Kyani member and if this lead decides to join, they would never have to cold call anyone either or hard sell anyone.  They could just depend on the leads they create through social media marketing and the video on the team leaders landing page to do all the work of getting the potential customer to become a lead by putting in their name, email and eventually agreeing to a phone call.  Though it seems like the conversion takes place over the phone, the conversion starts the moment a potential consumer clicks on the link in their social media messaging that they receive from me.  If they go to our leaders landing page, watch his video and put in their name and email in, they are well on their way to being a conversion for us and that is how customer conversion takes place with Kyani and the social media customer acquisition.

Lastly we achieve customer retention by selling them on the amazing and laboratory-confirmed health benefits of our health product.  It must be taken on a daily basis and the best way to take advantage of Kyani is to put the health supplement on an automatic monthly autoship and then help that person build a business with our unique customer acquisition and conversion technique through social media marketing and video on our leader's landing page.  As they continue to use the product and see the benefits to their overall health, combined with sales that are made without them having to hard sell new leads, they will usually remain with the company.  There is also a weekly newsletter that informs the customer of new health benefits that our discovered from the product, any new complimenting products coming out and/or new and improved online marketing techniques to really help the customer improve and grow their own Kyani business.  This how customer retention is achieved.

Growth in customer value is achieved by knowing who to target.  If we just stick with social media marketing we really should know which friends and family on our facebook page or twitter feed that will receive our small marketing message more easily than others.  Also we should always make the message that includes the link to our leaders landing page very relevant and geared specifically to that person and not just use a standard message for everyone.  This helps us gain growth in customer value, by knowing which consumers (in this case friends and family) will react to such an opportunity and product and approach them in a fashion that is most beneficial to them. 

The reality is that if we do first three steps correctly, acquisition, conversion and retention correctly, then the growth in customer value will be much easier to achieve now and into the foreseeable future.

I would love to hear your feedback on this.

Hudek, Raj's BUS455 Week 3 Journal Post - Marketing Metrics and Their Evolution

A widely accepted practice in organizations is that what gets measured gets done. Critically reflect on the metrics learned this week to measure the effectiveness of internet marketing programs. Were those metrics really capturing the performance results that marketers essentially need for achieving tactical and strategic business goals?

This has been an interesting week in my internet marketing class.  We learned about Search Engine Marketing and Metrics.  This journal post will critically reflect over the latter. 

In our text that is written by Roberts and Zahay, we learned that the best way to evaluate a website’s effectiveness is to see it first from the customer’s perspective which is the usability factor.  If the site doesn’t work properly and all the links, tabs and buttons don’t lead where they are supposed, this can stop the game before it’s even started because if a visitor to the website can’t use it effectively they will most likely leave pretty quickly.  Usability is determined by either the marketer or some other tester using the site before it is published publicly on the web.  It is a very important step because without visitors willing to stay and explore your website you can’t collect the data that internet marketers term metrics.

Metrics can be collected from three different categories which are traffic, audience and campaign measurement.  The metrics collected from these three categories can be through hit counters which are usually added into the site program language (usually HTML).  The other way to collect metrics is purchasing services that can let the market review server request logs which is detailed user activity on individual pages of the website and tagged web pages which allow the marketer to collect more detail metrics about how the user navigates the site from start to finish. 

The last type of metrics is collected on site performance.  This can be done directly by implementing software and/or code onto your website or purchasing services that allow the marketer to review the server error logs.  Error logs let the market collect metrics on coding error that is causing the site to not work properly.

Some of the most useful metrics are collect from the audience category.  In this category you can collect behavior of visitors to your site.  This includes:

·       Number of page views

·       Session time

·       Path through the site

·       Shopping cart abandonment

·       Entry page (Roberts et al, 2013, p 390)

These metrics can tell a very clear story about how visitors interact with our site.  Most importantly it can let us know if our site is effective because we can cross reference this metrics with conversion and sales and see how they correlate.  For example, let’s say we record the average session time as 12 minutes and a bounce rate of 39% for a particular page.  Let’s say we sell cell phone accessories and this particular page on the website is about a new iPhone cover.  Now let’s compare that with all the other pages and find that the average session time for the other pages is 4 minutes and a bounce rate of 67%.  Lastly, the webpage with the iPhone cover leads to a sale of the cover 72% of the time, whereas on all other pages a sale results only 12% of the time.  We can now deduce from all these metrics that either the iPhone cell cover page is set up in a way that gets customers to buy, or that that is a popular item right now or a combination of both.  Conversely we can deduce that on all other webpages our cell phone accessories are either not popular, the pages don’t do a good enough job of selling, there are usability and navigation issues or a combination of all the above.  Why? Because a bounce rate of 67% means that 67% of visitors to the other pages leave without wanting to navigate to any other part of the website and they only spend 4 minutes in total as opposed 12 minute session times with the iPhone cover visitors! 

The point here is that metrics, as we can start to see, can really tell us a lot about our website and how visitors interact with it.  We can figure out where we need to make changes to encourage visitors to stay longer and possibly purchase something and also where to stick with what we’ve done because it is converting or increasing sales on our website!

Do you see the need for developing new sets of metrics that will be more relevant with this evolving marketing channel? Explain your reasoning.

There is a definite need for a new set of metrics with our evolving market channel.  The market is now moving towards mobile devices and tablets and computers that are generally more portable in nature.  The reason this is significant is because the way that websites are formatted on Android and iOS devices is totally different.  The programming language is different, basically everything is different and therefore you cannot apply the tools to collect metrics from these devices that you use with regular websites.  Why this even relevant?

Well, the data shows that as earlier as 2012, shopping on mobile devices increased by 81% (Musil, 2013, np).  That is huge.  That means that a website such as Amazon that was formerly receiving most of its conversions from the traditional internet are now receiving a large majority from mobile devices.  Fortunately, Amazon had the foresight to create a mobile version of their website as well as a tablet version etc.  And it is probably safe to assume that they’ve already starting collecting what metrics they can from these sites as well.  Though for many companies that do business online, this is not the case.

Many companies are still lagging behind in analytics for mobile devices.  If they have even created a mobile version of their website (many have not), they still might not be collecting the proper metrics.  It has only been in the last couple of years that companies that offer analytic services for websites even had a way to collect mobile metrics.  In 2013 Inman said that Experian finally started collecting basic mobile metrics (2013, np).  Obviously since then more services have popped up such as KISSmetrics and others that offer metrics on mobile visitors, visitor behavior, app usage etc. 

With this trend it is important that metrics for mobile devices need to become super streamlined because surfing the internet on a mobile device is usually a different experience for most users.  If they don’t create a good mobile version of their website and/or accompanying app, then they won’t even keep users around long enough to collect any meaningful metrics! Plus mobile internet users usually are more focused about why there are visiting a site because surfing a web page on a phone can sometimes be a little more difficult and therefore a visitor needs to have a reason to want to stay on a webpage or app.  Proper mobile metrics can get the necessary data to ensure that marketers build the most effective and user friendly mobile sites/apps possible.

Well that is my two cents and would love to hear your feedback on it!

References

Inman. (2013). website visits from mobile devices New metrics show. Retrieved February 13,

            2015 from http://www.inman.com/2013/03/04/new-metrics-show-website-visits-mobile-

            devices/

Musil, S. (2013). Shopping via mobile devices increased 81 percent in 2012. Retrieved February

           

            13, 2015 from http://www.cnet.com/news/shopping-via-mobile-devices-increased-81-

            percent-in-2012/

Robert, M. & Zahay, D. (2013). Internet Marekting: Integrating Online & Offline Strategies.

            Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Ltd.

Reflect on the level of impact the Internet has in your everyday life. Specifically, how does the Internet affect your buying habits? Do you purchase products online more frequently than from brick and mortar stores? Why or why not?

It is funny to think that when ARPAnet decided to come out with what eventually became the internet, it was solely for scientific research purposes.  There was no military intention, nor was their networking or retail intention.  These days the internet is not only a great tool in scientific research, but it's basically the one thing that almost 361 million people's lives around the world revolve around in one way or another.  And for those other 6 billion 700 million people, their lives are probably affected by the internet in one way or another even if they don't realize it.  That is what is fascinating about it.  The very nature of how it functions has the unavoidable side-effect of affecting a person's life.

For me after its ability to allow me to communicate with friends and family all over the planet easily, the next biggest impact it has on my life is the type of messenger bag I own or the type of birdseed the chirping birds outside my back porch eat everyday.  The internet has affected the way I not only shop for the obvious things that one would purchase online such as media and entertainment, but it has affected the way I shop for almost everything and even when there is something that I prefer not to purchase online because I want to take a could look at it first or try it on in the case of clothes, it stills helps in my decision making process as to which brands to consider looking at when I do go into the store.  The internet has changed the way I shop from beginning to end. 

Now if i hear of a brand, I don't just automatically assume its good because the cable guy installing a new box tells me it's good.  I go online and find out what other people who have purchased the item think.  This is one of the many amazing features of Amazon that make it such an amazing e-tailing platform.  Since Amazon now sells most everything the average person could ever want from an online shopping experience, there is user experience all those different types of products and most consumers are willing to share their experience and that is awesome because usually once you read about three people's user reviews and they are all pretty similar you can assume that whatever they are saying about the product (or service) is accurate.  Apart from being able to shop for most things naked on my couch, the internet allows me to stay naked while I pay for most utilities as well.

There were times when you had to go somewhere to pay an electric bill or send it in by mail or talk to someone on the phone they were usually hard to get on the line and might not always be courteous one you get them on the line.  These days, you can enjoy a cup of hot cider while you get your electric bill, water bill, phone bill and most importantly the internet bill paid right there on the internet!  These days, the biggest problem with the convenience is also how easy it is to form the habit of continuously shopping online when it so easy to do so.

Obviously you aren't going to pay the electricity twice in a month just because it is easy to do online.  But that doesn't mean you don't buy more of the things you want when you get credit from an e-tailer like Amazon or brick-and-click like Best Buy! I have Amazon Prime which means I get two days free shipping on millions of items they sell that are eligible for Prime, plus I get a lot of videos free with Prime Instant Video and free books and music as well.  On top of that they approved me for $700 credit, so I find myself constantly on their buying things I want, but don't necessarily need.  Amazon makes it easy with their one-click purchase as they have all my information stored on file and when I'm shopping from a phone, laptop, or PC that Amazon is familiar with me using, they make it as easy as one-click to purchase anything that I want.  On top of that they use an algorithm that records the things I search for and the things I buy and then Amazon always presents me with ideas of things they think I'd like and they are so accurate with their algorithm that I end up having to put the new things in a wish list and I keep thinking about how I want to buy it and finally I'll just give in and buy it!!!  They send me so many e-mails that even if I try to ignore Amazon for a couple of days, I get reminded by the e-mails and end up giving in and going to the site and don't leave until I've bought something.

As we can see, the internet keeps me buying and shopping way more than a brick and mortar store.  Online stores like Amazon are so convenient, have a good value proposition, and because they are online, make it easy for me to shop with them more often than I would with a brick-and-mortar store.  I even have credit with a couple multichannel stores like Best Buy, Home Depot and Jareds Galeria, but I haven't spent all my money with them or used up all my credit.  They just don't have the same appeal to me through the internet that stores like Amazon have.  Their specialty is getting consumers to buy when they visit the store, but getting a consumer to visit a store is much more difficult to do especially in this new world where we don't seem to have enough time.  Plus, going to a store and buying things with money we don't have seems so damaging to our budgets and wallet, yet doing the same thing online somehow doesn't feel damaging to our budgets at all!!!  At least that is how it is for me and I attribute a lot of that to the online storefront being just images on a computer screen.  When we see the actual item before we purchase it, I think that clicks something in our brain that this is REAL item that I will be spending REAL money on. 

What it comes down to is the internet has definitely changed the way I shop.  I shop more frequently and with less guilt online then I do with brick-and-mortar stores.  Well, I gotta go.  I just got an email about the new Amazon Echo and I gotta go see if I'm eligible to be one of the first test group consumers that gets to purchase it for $100 of the MSRP!!!