E-marketing planning

An e-marketing plan is needed in addition to a broader e-business strategy to detail how the sell-side specific objectives of the e-business strategy will be achieved through marketing activities such as marketing research and marketing communications. Since the e-marketing plan is based on the objectives of the e-business or business strategy there is overlap between the elements of each approach, particularly for environment analysis, objective setting and strategic analysis. Figure 8.2 shows how e-marketing activities will inform the e-business strategy which, in turn, will inform the e-marketing plan.

We will use a similar strategy process model for e-marketing planning to that introduced in Chapter 5. In this chapter we use the SOSTAC™ framework developed by Paul Smith (1999) and this summarizes the different stages that should be involved in a marketing strat­egy from strategy development to implementation (Figure 8.3). The stages involved can be summarized as:

• Situation – where are we now?
• Objectives – where do we want to be?
• Strategy – how do we get there?
• Tactics – how exactly do we get there?
• Action – what is our plan?
• Control – did we get there?

Measurement of the effectiveness of e-marketing is an integral part of the strategy process in order to assess whether objectives have been achieved. The loop is closed by using the analy­sis of web analytics data (Chapter 12) metrics collected as part of the control stage to continuously improve e-marketing through making enhancements to the web site and asso­ciated marketing communications.

We will now review the six elements of the SOSTAC™ approach to e-marketing planning. Overlap between this coverage and that in Chapter 5 is minimized by cross-referencing between these chapters.

Is a separate e-marketing plan required?

If there is a specific resource for e-marketing activities such as an e-marketing or e-commerce manager, then they will be responsible for the e-marketing plan. However, where there is no identified responsibility for e-marketing, which is still the case in many small and medium organi­zations, there is likely to be no e-marketing plan. This often occurs when marketing managers have limited resources or other priorities and a lack of recognition that a separate e-marketing plan is valuable.

These problems are typical and commonplace when there is no clear planning or control for e-marketing:

1. Customer demand for online services will be underestimated if this has not been researched and it is under-resourced and no or unrealistic objectives are set to achieve online marketing share.
2. Existing and start-up competitors will gain market share if insufficient resources are devoted to e-marketing and no clear strategies are defined.
3. Duplication of resources will occur, for example different parts of the marketing organ­ization purchasing different tools or different agencies for performing similar online marketing tasks.
4. Insufficient resource will be devoted to planning and executing e-marketing and there is likely to be a lack of specific specialist e-marketing skills which will make it difficult to respond to competitive threats effectively.
5. Insufficient customer data are collected online as part of relationship building and these data are not integrated well with existing systems.
6. Efficiencies available through online marketing will be missed, for example, lower communications costs and enhanced conversion rates in customer acquisition and reten­tion campaigns.
7. Opportunities for applying online marketing tools such as search marketing or e-mail marketing will be missed or the execution may be inefficient if the wrong resources are used or marketers don’t have the right tools.
8. Changes required to internal IT systems by different groups will not be prioritized accordingly.
9. The results of online marketing are not tracked adequately on a detailed or high-level basis.
10. Senior management support of e-marketing is inadequate to drive what often needs to be a major strategic initiative.

However, managers responsible for a substantial investment in an Internet web site and asso­ciated e-marketing communications will naturally want to ensure that the correct amount of money is invested and that it is used effectively. For these reasons and to avoid the 10 prob­lems noted above, many leading adopters of e-commerce do have a distinct e-marketing plan, as an international e-consultancy survey of e-commerce managers shows (Figure 8.4).

For smaller organizations, the digital plan need not be exhaustive – a two-page summary defining objectives and outlining strategies may be sufficient. The important thing is to set clear objectives and strategies showing how the digital presence should contribute to the sales and marketing process. Specific initiatives that are required such as search marketing, e-mail marketing or features of a web site redesign can be specified.

In the longer term, once an organization has successfully defined its approaches to Internet marketing, it is likely that a separate Internet marketing strategy or e-marketing plan will not need to be developed each year since the Internet can be considered as any other communi­cations medium and integrated into existing communications plans as suggested by Figure 8.4.

The aim of situation analysis is to understand the current and future environment in which the company operates in order that the strategic objectives are realistic in light of what is happening in the marketplace. Figure 8.5 shows the inputs from situation analysis that inform the e-marketing plan. These mainly refer to a company’s external environment.

Source: Dave Chaffey (2010), E-Business and E-Commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Prentice Hall (4th Edition).