CHAPTER 1. GENERAL THEORETICAL BASIS OF E-MARKETING (ONLINE MARKETING)
1.1. General theoretical basis of E-Marketing
1.1.1. Concept of E-Marketing
The term Marketing first appeared in America in the early years of the 20th century.
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XX. It was spread to Europe, Asia, and then to our country in the 1980s. Marketing originated from the word “market” which means market in English. The suffix “ing” means approach, so marketing is often misunderstood as marketing.
The term marketing has become familiar to the tourism business for many years. Mentioned since the 1970s, today marketing activities have become very popular for businesses. According to Suzanne Walters, “Marketing is the activities that create useful products for service users. It is not just advertising or public relations. It includes market research, analyzing potential, existing programs and services, setting goals and audiences, using persuasion in communication. In other words, Marketing is what you do every day to make customers appreciate what you have done for them and how you do it.”
To be successful in business, businesses and businessmen need to have a thorough understanding of the market, the needs and desires of customers, and the art of business conduct. Today, businesses must operate in a fiercely competitive environment with rapid changes in science and technology, new laws, new trade management policies, and declining customer loyalty.
In the past two decades, with the remarkable advances of information technology, especially the Internet, marketing methods in general have changed rapidly, breaking down the old barriers of traditional marketing to reach new customers.
reach customers regardless of space and time. A new type of marketing based on electronic media and the Internet has appeared, which is E-Marketing.
Simply translated, E-Marketing or in other words, Electronic Marketing is a phrase for marketing activities through electronic tools, more specifically the Internet. Phrases such as E-Marketing, Internet Marketing and Online Marketing can be used interchangeably because they seem to be completely synonymous.
Philip Kotler - a famous economist defines "E-Marketing (or Electronic Marketing) is the process of planning the product, price, distribution and promotion of products, services and ideas to meet the needs of organizations and individuals - based on electronic means and the Internet"
Judy Strauss defines: “E-Marketing is the use of information technology in the process of creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and to manage customer relationships in a way that benefits the organization and its stakeholders.” In addition, there is another definition of E-Marketing as follows: E-Marketing includes all activities to satisfy the needs and desires of customers through the Internet and electronic means. (Joel Reedy, Shauna Schullo, Kenneth Zimmerman, 2000).
Although there are many concepts and definitions of E-Marketing, we can simply understand: "E-Marketing is the process of implementing Marketing through digital tools, so it is sometimes called Digital Marketing. In which, the most developed and popular digital channel is the Internet. E-Marketing is a combination of traditional Marketing and information technology, so the basic rules and principles of Marketing and business do not change". It can be said that E-Marketing still retains the nature and function of traditional marketing, which is to create and provide products and services that satisfy customers in order to bring profits to the organization. However, E-Marketing is different from traditional marketing in that: the business environment and means of implementation are based on electronic means and the Internet.
1.1.2. Basic characteristics of E-Marketing
E-Marketing has been widely and quickly applied by Marketers since its appearance. The main reason is that E-Marketing has many superior features compared to traditional Marketing, so the effectiveness in Marketing activities, promoting brands, products and services is also greater. E-Marketing has some basic features as follows:
- Unlimited in space and time:
In the digital environment, all geographical barriers have been completely eliminated. This creates conditions for businesses to expand their business activities and fully exploit the market worldwide. Thanks to online advertising and marketing activities, businesses can fully promote their brands, products and services to target customers around the world at a low cost and in an optimal time frame. Customers of businesses can come from any continent or geographical area such as: America, France, China, Japan, England... However, besides that, this feature also poses potential risks to businesses. When geographical barriers are eliminated, it also means that businesses officially participate in the global business environment. At that time, the competitive environment will become more fierce and fierce because there are strong competitors from all over the market. This requires businesses to build a clear, specific and flexible business and marketing strategy.
E-Marketing has the ability to operate continuously at all times, fully exploiting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. With E-Marketing, the concept of "dead time" does not exist. Businesses can provide customer support services, send emails, conduct online advertising programs, and review and check E-Marketing activities at any time. But because the concept of time is completely eliminated, businesses will become targets for customers, competitors, and all other subjects to follow.
This forces businesses to constantly update their news, activities, products and services to be able to convey the latest information to customers, thereby increasing core values and gaining sympathy and trust in the eyes of target customers.
- High speed:
Thanks to E-Marketing, all information about products and services can be released to the market faster. Thereby, customers can also access this information faster. On the other hand, feedback and interactions from customers to businesses also take place in a short period of time. In addition, transactions with customers in some cases are also executed faster, especially with digital products.
However, the rapid spread of information also has two sides, sometimes there are still streams of information that are not beneficial to the business and spread rapidly on the Internet environment. At that time, if the business does not have a way to handle it professionally and promptly, it is very likely to fall into a media crisis. In addition, businesses are also susceptible to unfair competition tactics from competitors (spreading false rumors, slander, defamation of image...). In the era of multi-dimensional information and rapid spread like today, businesses always need to be cautious, vigilant and extremely alert and skillful to deal with bad information streams.
- Product diversification:
Nowadays, shopping has become much easier than before, when customers only need to own a device with an Internet connection to be able to freely choose products and make purchases just like in real stores. Products and services provided on these "virtual stores" are increasingly rich and diverse, attracting great attention from consumers. Besides, there are some products that only exist and are provided exclusively in the online environment, for example, products in online games...
From there, E-Marketing creates a fair business environment, suitable for both small businesses and large corporations. However, it also poses a big challenge for businesses when they will have to put their products and services on the online environment selectively, suitable for the target customer group to achieve the most optimal efficiency, avoiding boredom and discomfort for Internet users.
- Minimize cultural, legal, social, economic differences...
In fact, the Internet is a global environment where people from different regions, different races, different religions... can access this network to interact with businesses. Therefore, E-Marketing or more precisely, the form of Marketing via the Internet has brought people not only across geographical distances but also cultural and social distances... to get closer together to participate in the business's Marketing process. In addition, when implementing the E-Marketing program, businesses need to comply with basic regulations such as: Law on E-Commerce, electronic signatures, electronic transactions... leading to the fact that when building E-Marketing plans and strategies, each business must carefully research and standardize its E-Marketing activities.
- Technical aspects:
Thanks to the use of modern digital tools, E-Marketing can bring customers authentic experiences in the process of searching for information, comparing options before making a purchase decision in the most convenient and fastest way. This helps businesses promote their products closer to their target customers without spending too much money and resources. For example, when they need to buy a shirt, customers can completely find information about the material, style, color, size... of the product through the information, images and videos that the business provides on the website without having to go to the store. E-
Marketing also requires customers to use new techniques, but not all customers are able to use them proficiently (especially those in rural areas or those with low education levels, who have little access to information technology). In addition, information technology infrastructure can also become a relatively large obstacle. If the infrastructure is weak, slow transmission speed will prevent consumers from having many opportunities to access the Internet to find information, buy online or participate in online auctions... Websites with large capacity and complex design also cause difficulties in the process of downloading information to customers' computers and mobile devices. The above factors pose a great challenge for businesses in designing appropriate E-Marketing programs and means and tools to create maximum convenience for target customers.
1.1.3. Advantages of E-Marketing over Traditional Marketing
First of all, it can be affirmed that the ultimate goal of Marketing in general (both traditional Marketing and E-Marketing) is to satisfy the needs and desires of consumers. However, the way to achieve this ultimate goal of each form of Marketing is different. Traditional Marketing has a disadvantage that it is not quantitative, so it is often very difficult to accurately measure and count specific numbers for each advertising item (number of views, reactions after viewing, actions after viewing), the number of customers receiving information, the number of customers who are able to interact with the Marketing programs that the business offers... However, E-Marketing is completely capable of overcoming this disadvantage, businesses only need to spend a very small budget to be able to measure accurately and quickly to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs that have been launched. For example: detailed statistics of visits to the company's website/fan page, which sources those visits were forwarded from, the number of customers who have accessed the information the business wants.
How much do you want to convey... It can be said that E-Marketing is a quantitative form of Marketing, because all the activities it performs can be measured, controlled easily and bring results in real numbers.
In addition, E-Marketing also opens up a space and favorable conditions for businesses to dialogue and interact directly with their target customers. If with traditional tools, the interaction is almost one-way, now customers are completely proactive in giving feedback to businesses about their satisfaction and feelings. Therefore, it helps Marketers to review, check the progress and effectiveness of Marketing activities accurately, thereby making timely adjustment decisions. Along with the explosion of information technology as it is today, messages from manufacturers are easily spread quickly on the Internet environment. Users tend to prefer sharing content that interests them with friends and people around them, which has contributed to helping businesses' Marketing messages spread strongly and effectively, saving costs much more than traditional Marketing. Thus, with E-Marketing, customers are not simply recipients of information anymore but also officially participate in the Marketing process, contributing to promoting and spreading information and images of the business.
However, E-Marketing still has some limitations. Firstly, in terms of technology, E-Marketing requires customers to use new techniques and not all customers can use them. Slow connection speed is also a factor causing difficulties. In addition, if the company builds a large and complex website to promote the product, many customers will have difficulty using the website as well as downloading information with slow connection or on mobile devices. Secondly, in terms of sales, customers cannot touch, taste, try or feel the product before buying online. E-Marketing has had a wide impact on many industries such as
music, banking, commerce, and the advertising industry itself. In the music industry, many customers buy and download music over the Internet instead of buying CDs. More and more banks are offering online services. Online banking is believed to be more attractive to customers because they do not have to go to a bank branch to do so. Currently, more than 150 million Americans use online banking services, and the growth rate is increasing. Improvements in Internet connection speeds are a major reason for this growth. 44% of individuals who use the Internet conduct their banking transactions over the Internet. Internet auctions are also becoming popular. Rare items that were once only found at flea markets are now being sold on eBay. The site also has a strong influence on prices. Buyers and sellers often check prices on eBay before going to the flea market, and the price on eBay often becomes the price at which the item sells. More and more flea market vendors are selling on eBay and running their businesses from home. The impact of E-Marketing on the advertising industry is growing. In just a few years, online advertising has grown steadily to tens of billions of dollars. According to a report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the US E-Marketing market was worth a total of $16.9 billion in 2006 [NTD?]
1.2. Basic E-Marketing tools
E-Marketing focuses on marketing your business online. You can use direct or indirect marketing features on the internet to connect your business with new customers, retain existing customers, and build brand awareness.
E-Marketing, through online tools and resources, can be used by your company through direct email, blogs, SMS or text messages, websites, videos, banner ads, images, advertising (such as PPC advertising, display advertising or social media advertising) search engine optimization, social media, affiliate marketing, and more. Although there are many