ABC Software Company’s E-Marketing Plan

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Preparing an e-marketing plan
E-marketing in Indonesia
Network Marketing Methods
Budget
Conclusion
References

Abstract

The following thesis will discuss in detail the fundamentals of creating an e-marketing plan for an upcoming IT company. ABC Software Company has been selected as a case for implementing the plan. A review of literature will help illustrate appropriate methods to be used.

The plan will show strategies to be used and give suggestions to help boost the company’s ability to attract more customers. The efficiency of this plan will be established once it has been fully implemented. A good plan is vital for the success of a company venturing into a new market.

Introduction

The cost of computer systems and other related devices such as smart phones has drastically gone down for the past few years. This has led to increased use of web resources across the globe. Indeed, internet has become one of the most reliable promotional tools ever invented by man. In this regard, more and more businesses are increasingly conducting their businesses online with a view of increasing the rate at which consumers access their products and services.

Internet enables the customers to gain quick access to accurate and reliable company information. Businesses take opportunity of this by creating system interfaces that affect a consumers shopping behavior which in turn results in more revenue for the company as a result of increased sales.

With the internet, attracting a customer is relatively easy compared to other mediums. Preferences of an individual customer are taken care of more easily. Furthermore, businesses advertising themselves through the internet have the advantage of being able to create a brand image through the use creativity to attract more and more customers. Stories playing with customers’ feelings can be combined with animations and graphics to help customers identify with products (Anderson, 2007).

The stories subconsciously transform an impressed customer into a missionary who spreads information regarding the various products on offer to other potential customers. This helps sell the company brand name in a much cheaper and convenient way due to the multimedia capabilities of the internet such as video, voice, animations and graphics.

The customers’ ability to share stories relating to the brand name is capable of reaching a wide range of customers through social networking sites. Thus, businesses are able to influence shoppers’ behavior by manipulating stories told in a manner that allows the product features to be communicated adequately.

The increase in popularity of e-marketing has led to the realisation that ABC Software Company can maximise revenues by planning and implementing key marketing strategies to help launch its products in Indonesia Market. The company is located in Utah and seeks to expand its product market to other overseas countries beginning with Indonesia. By developing a model for evaluating existing opportunities in the new market, it will be easier to create a well defined market profile for the stated region.

Preparing an e-marketing plan

The figure above depicts the process of developing internet marketing strategies (Afuah, 2003). A company must consistently adjust its development strategies to accommodate social networking trends. This involves strategies aimed at managing a customer’s contact. Through consistent online marketing and advertising, a company can acquire more customers.

By the end of year 2010, it was estimations indicated an internet presence of over 200 million websites. Traditional marketing stimulates sales by attracting prospective customers. Commonly used techniques include integrated marketing process, sales people, advertising (TV/ Radio), billboards, magazines, newspapers to name just a few. On the other hand, network marketing involves the use of tools such as Affiliate marketing, social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Paltalk), ad words, Web subscriptions, web Banner Ads, emails etc (Chaffey, 2007).

Market overview

The Indonesian market will need an estimated 850,000 IT workers in the coming decade where a third of the total will be required to work in the software sector. The economic performance of the country although steady at the moment was somehow performing below par two years ago due to global inflation (Huberman, 2010).

Though the software market in Indonesia is well developed, much need to be done to fully exploit the potential of the internet in the region. Large corporations such as IBM, Sony and others have established a niche through which they are able to outsource their software projects. The revenue from the software industry in the region is said to have hit the $1.5 billion mark by the end of 2010. The growth rate is estimated to rise above the 27% mark in the next five years.

Country Overview

Indonesia being one of the developing countries has a huge internet survy population that provides businesses with a prospect for growth. The Indonesian government ensures that there is a favorable business environment for the outsourcing of IT services from any region across the globe. This is to ensure that the government enjoys a steady flow of foreign direct investment (Chaffey, 2007).

E-marketing in Indonesia

Majority of Indonesian companies run websites that allow for advertising and e-shopping at the same time. There are so many ecommerce sites in Indonesia that include dstore, greengrocer, Harvey Norman etc. Reports indicate that 88% of Indonesian firms use accounting software. The use of specialised software is not uncommon. Such software include enterprise resource planning (18 %), human resource management (35%) to name just a few (Anderson, 2007).

Network Marketing Methods

This entails the use of network distributors to increase business growth. Strategies such as lead generation, management and recruitment when combined with reliable agents enhance direct contact of customers (Huberman, 2010). Tools such as pay per click, SEO or search engine optimisation to name just a few are used in implementing these strategies. Corporate websites use websites with links to search engines such as yahoo, Google, hotbot, AOL etc. The named websites form the largest base of SEO market with an estimated 93 share %. Google ranks as the most popular search engine with over 75% searches conducted on its interface in the month of august 2011 (Figueiredo, 2011).

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

This helps in improving the presence of a business website across the World Wide Web. Search engine marketing often targets paid website listings. Thus, the higher the website is on the search results, the more it is likely to attract a huge audience. SEO takes into account local searches, images, video, voice, business, news and other searches (Chaffey, 2007).

Pay per Click (PPC) and Pay for Inclusion (PFI)

PPC is very similar to traditional advertising. The advertiser is required to pay for every click that a visitor makes on an advertising web link. PFI on the other hand involves the refreshing of a website after every 48 hours. The client pays to make it possible for his website to be included in the search index.

Online Advertising

This enables a business entity to connect potential customers to spam, email, banner ads, search engine tool, social network advertising, etc (Porter, 2009). Advertising on the internet is gaining popularity at a very high rate. This has an advantage over traditional advertising in that it gives the consumer more control over the choice of products and services. It entails the use of social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and other mediums such as banner adverts, e-mail, keyword and game adverts etc (Sanders, 2009).

Email Marketing

This costs less in comparison to snail mail. It makes it possible to personalise a relationship with a customer and track his or her shopper habits. A company can use outbound mail to communicate to a customer and inbound mail to communicate to its workers.

The cost due to the number of recipients is negligible. It is also not expensive to maintain a mailing list. It is also easy to trace as opposed to traditional mail. Hence it is easier to monitor the progress made when e-commerce strategies are implemented. Other advantages include speed, flexibility, reduced paper work which by extension helps preserve ecological resources.

The major setback of this methodology is failure of emails to arrive due to programs protecting the recipient’s inbox. Thus, messages ending up in spam box are likely not to be read. Again, recipients may end up getting bored and refuse to give any response. Hiring experts and acquiring appropriate technology to implement e-mail marketing strategies can be costly.

E-Marketing Plan Framework

The use of internet technology to sell goods and services is referred to as e-marketing. Such technologies complement traditional marketing methods. The e-marketing plan is exclusively oriented towards e-environment (Figueiredo, 2011). The e-marketing plan should not deviate from procedures followed in developing traditional marketing plan.

The foregoing implies that e-marketing plan can use the SOSTAC framework. The acronym which doubles as a trademark stands for Situation analysis, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Actions and Control (Ibid). Situation analysis involves setting the company mission in terms of assessing external environment. This helps determine how many people access the internet and the level of presence of competitors. It also helps establish the present state of the business.

O for objectives involves asking questions pertaining to the direction where the business is headed. The objectives help the e-marketing plan in five ways i.e. sell, speak, serve, save and sizzle (Anderson, 2007). S for strategy involves asking questions relating to how the business is going to achieve its objectives. The market is selected and tactical decision made. Positioning of the product market is defined and resources to be spent allocated.

T for tactics involves the selection of channels to be used. This includes creation of websites, emails, virtual exhibitions to name just a few. Assessment of how fit an e-tool is in terms of what it can and what it cannot do is made at this stage. Actions give tactical details and the time of the implementation of strategies.

This may include when to launch and interactive TV ad, launch email campaigns and so on. The planning of Action is labor intensive and if care is not taken then the plan might just not work. Control involves the assessment of website performance. It may involve monitoring traffic on the website, sales made through the website, churn rates, enquiries made and so on. Control should be systematic and therefore it needs to be entrenched in a plan.

Social Media Marketing

Social media helps create and facilitate the exchange of user generated content. Applications used include Google+, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and hub pages (Figueiredo, 2011). It is estimated that 85% of frequent web surfers used Social medial during the year 2010. Indonesia has 68% of internet users’ frequent social network (Ibid).

Facebook which was created by Mark Zeckerberg attracts traffic of over 800 million users per day. The site is mostly used for entertainment, finding friends, posting videos and photos etc.

Most top executives of companies in Indonesia use face book to contact prospective customers. Companies are able to improve on service delivery and product quality based on comments from customers. Reports indicate that 31.2 million Indonesians used internet by the close of year 2010 (Afuah, 2003). Major portion of this figure was involved in chatting, email, blogging and social networking.

Implementing the marketing plan for ABC Company

The company intends to open a branch in Indonesia. The company is jointly run by 3 people. The process of implementing the plan can use tools described earlier such as E-mail marketing and search engine optimisation.

Mission and Services

The company intends to concentrate in marketing its brand name in the wide Indonesia region. It intends to provide the market with state of the art applications software. Moreover, it will use the country as a base for outsourcing given the relative low cost of labor in comparison to the neighboring Asian countries. Outsourcing helps any business to lower its operational expenses.

Content and Form

The server of the company is located in the USA, thereby, making it easier to control and manage security threats to the website. The company will use Skype and e-mail to communicate directly with the branch management in Indonesia. The company will also entrench the location of its headquarters in Google map and extensively use Facebook as a means of reaching prospective clients in the region.

Search Engine Optimisation

The company is not at the moment subscribed to the SEO jet. The company will forthwith use Google analytics to track consumer behavior in the new market. The procedure for enrolling the company with Google analytics is simple. This will help the company’s website to be included in the search engine optimisation. Since the company is new to the market especially that of outsourcing failure to register with Google, analytics can have negative impacts (Chaffey, 2007).

Google Ad words

This tool will be very effective in advertising the company’s software products. The company will use this tool to promote its brand name. However, this will cost the company since ad words are paid for.

SWOT Analysis

The internal environment of a company is assessed for strengths and weaknesses while the external environment is assessed for opportunities and threats.

ABC Company has several strengths which include being the first software company located in the USA which is willing to outsource in Indonesia coupled with the use English and Javanese in the region. The company’s major weakness is lack of experience in e-marketing.

The company has several available opportunities which include increased chance of expansion in the region once the brand name picks up and the chance of reaching prospective customers in the region. Global inflation may pose as a threat together with the company’s inability to clearly speculate on consumer behavior in the new market.

E-marketing helps create savings by cutting on expenditure. The marketing plan can be implemented easily without necessarily having to spend so much on traditional advertisement campaigns. Investing in blogs, e-mail and other internet tools is relatively cheaper.

The company will operate virtual offices which are relatively cheaper to maintain compared to brick and mortar office. This will make it possible for people to operate from their home thereby saving on the money that would have been used to hire expensive rooms uptown.

Also, virtual offices enable hiring of part time workers thereby cutting down on labor costs. This is very beneficial for company like ABC Company whose brand name is in its initial stages of recognition. The use of virtual offices does not allow for efficient teamwork especially when the company is faced with a technical difficulty.

The e-marketing mix of ABC Company will comprise of tools such as LinkedIn and face book. The former will help the company get in touch with other companies in the region thereby enhancing contact with its key suppliers and buyers. LinkedIn will also help the company to advertise its software products. Setting up a Facebook interface is less difficult than LinkedIn which requires a lot of information.

ABC Company Website

The design of the website should be such that the user is made to think that it is simple. The SEO should be that which improves the company’s presence in the search engines. Again, since most people in Indonesia do not trust e-marketing, it would be appropriate to incorporate telephone use in the marketing campaign. Another problem with internet marketing in this region is hackers and spammers (Chaffey, 2007).

The above problem can be avoided by sending emails at an interval of two weeks. This will help improve customer perception in that he or she will tend to believe it is not a sperm. The company can also set up you tube channel to complement LinkedIn and face book and RSS feed.

Budget

The server maintenance and other fees should be set at 1250 Euro per year. Contacting customers online should be 540 Euros annually. A virtual office worth 1720 Euros per year should be purchased. Advertising on Facebook should be allocated 1200 Euros per annum. Total budget will be 4500 to 5200 Euros.

Conclusion

The ABC Company selects Social media marketing as the principle channel to be used in the realisation of its e-marketing objective. Despite the presence of credibility, security and privacy issues, much is expected to be gained after execution of the plan. The company will strategically deploy e-marketing tools such as Facebook, RSS feeds, SEOs, PPC, Blogs and Ad words to stimulate sales with a view of maximising revenue (Afuah, 2003). However, the company will put emphasis in the use of LinkedIn and Facebook.

References

Afuah, T 2003, Internet Business Models and Strategies text and Cases, 2nd ed, McGraw-Hill, Boston.

Anderson, C 2007, The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand, Random House Business Books, London.

Chaffey, D 2007, E-Business and E-Commerce Management, Prentice Hall, Cambridge.

Figueiredo, J 2011, ‘Finding sustainable profitability in e-commerce,’ Sloan Management Review, vol. 41 no. 4, pp. 41-52.

Huberman, B 2010, ‘The Economics of Surfing,’ Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce, vol. 1 no. 2, pp. 203-14.

Porter, E 2009, Strategic marketing communications, Kogan Page, London.

Sanders W 2009, E-Business Marketing, Prentice Hall, Cambridge.

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