E-marketing

What is E-marketing? Benefits of E-marketing E-marketing Objectives

E-marketing refers to the use of the Internet and digital media capabilities to help sell your products or services. These digital technologies are a valuable addition to traditional marketing approaches regardless of the size and type of your business. E-marketing is also referred to as Internet marketing (i-marketing), online marketing or web-marketing.

As with conventional marketing, e-marketing is creating a strategy that helps businesses deliver the right messages and product/services to the right audience. It consists of all activities and processes with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers. What has changed is its wider scope and options compared to conventional marketing methods.

E-marketing is deemed to be broad in scope, because it not only refers to marketing and promotions over the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. E-marketing also embraces the management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) and several other business management functions.

E-marketing joins creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design, development, advertising and sales. It includes the use of a website in combination with online promotional techniques such as search engine marketing (SEM), social medial marketing, interactive online ads, online directories, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, viral marketing and so on. The digital technologies used as delivery and communication mediums within the scope of e-marketing include:

Internet media such as websites and e-mail
Digital media such as wireless, mobile, cable and satellite.

What is E-marketing? Benefits of E-marketing E-marketing Objectives

In today’s internet age, building an online presence is imperative for all businesses to be competitive. E-marketing provides businesses with access to mass markets at an affordable price and allows them to undertake a personalised marketing approach. The flexible and cost-effective nature of e-marketing makes it particularly suitable for small businesses.

Following are some of the benefits of e-marketing for small businesses:

Wider prospect reach – the internet has become part of everyone’s life. So for whatever products you offer, there is already an existing market on the World Wide Web. With e-marketing, it allows you to find new markets and potentially compete worldwide with only a small investment.

Cost-effective approach – A properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can help your business reach target customers at a much lower cost compared to traditional marketing methods.

Reduction in costs through automation and use of electronic media – e-marketing presents a strong business case in cost savings, particularly in the areas of transactional costs, customer service, digital media channels, print and distribution.

24/7 marketing - with a website your customers can find out about your products and make purchases even if your physical (bricks & mortar) premises are closed or you don’t have physical premises at all.

Personalised one-on-one marketing - e-marketing allows you to reach people who want to know about your products and services instantly. For example, many people take mobile phones and PDAs wherever they go. By combining this with personalised e-marketing, you can create very influential and targeted campaigns.

Increased interactivity – e-marketing allows you to create interactive campaigns using music, graphics and videos. Through two-way communications, interactive games or quizzes, you can engage your audience and give them greater involvement and control over their web experience.

Increased ability to track results – e-marketing makes it easier to measure how effective your campaigns are. It allows you to obtain detailed information about customers' responses to your advertising, through the use of methods such as pay per click or pay per action, etc.

However, before you get started with your e-marketing, it is very important to have some skills and know-how in order to run an e-campaign effectively. If not, you run the risk of wasting your valuable resources with a poor campaign.

What is E-marketing? Benefits of E-marketing E-marketing Objectives
E-marketing objectives define what you want to achieve through your e-marketing campaign. They set the reasons why your business wants to go online and allow you to estimate and monitor the progress of your online marketing activities. They also provide an incentive to focus on critical areas and formulate strategies to help achieve intended objectives.

Different businesses may develop different e-marketing objectives depending on their individual circumstances. A useful framework for developing effective e-marketing objectives is the five S’s framework, which includes:

Sell – using the internet to sell products and services
Serve – using the internet to serve customers
Speak – using the internet to communicate with customers (both existing and potential)
Save – using the internet to save/ reduce cost
Sizzle – using the internet to build brand identity


When setting your e-marketing objectives, you need to make sure that they are:
Specific – specify what is to be achieved
Measureable – expressed in measurable terms such as key performance indicators, outcomes, numbers, percentage, dollars, etc.
Action-oriented – state which actions need to be taken and who will take them
Realistic – achievable with the resources available
Time Specific – establish specified time frames.

Examples of some typical e-marketing objectives could be:
To achieve 20% online sales within the first year of launching online marketing campaigns.
To increase online sales for all products by 15% in 2011.
To grow email coverage to 50% of the current customer base by the end of next year.
To reduce the annual cost of direct marketing by 20% through e-mail marketing.
To improve brand awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent by surveying 300 online customers each month.