A Must read for E-Marketers

What is E-Marketing?
Marketing has existed forever in one form or another; however the methods of conducting marketing has changed and improved as technology grows. The internet has been a phenomenon during the early 2000’s and has pretty much changed how organisations conduct their marketing due to the many features that has become available (Mccole and Ramsey, 2004). The internet has become a very powerful marketing and sales tool for organisations and has basically opened up a virtual market for organisations to market their products (Mccole and Ramsey, 2004).
E -Marketing can be defined as the process aimed at facilitating and conducting of business communication and transactions over networks (Reedy and Schullo, 2004). E-marketing is also sometimes referred to as web marketing, internet marketing and online marketing.

How E-Marketing should be taught?
Considering e-marketing is at its peak and is becoming more trendy (Reedy and Schullo 2004) compared to other forms of marketing, it should be taught theoretically and practically.
In teaching e-marketing, the course tutor should always bear in mind that some students may be versed with the use of the internet and others may not. Through theory, students would be able to gain knowledge and understand the principles (entire concept) of e-marketing, formulate ideas on online buyer behaviour and other aspects of the internet. Also, it is only via theory that students may familiarize themselves with online jargons such as blogs, URLs, etc. It should be noted that every subject has its jargon and it is only by teaching these jargons that students come to know about them and apply them in practice. Similarly, e-marketing as a module will enable learners have that knowledge and understanding in order to familiarize them in preparation for the job market.
Training students for e- marketing as a module can also be done through organising workshops, tutorials with field experts and group exercises so that students can learn and have a mastery of electronic marketing.

Importance of E-Marketing in Higher Education
E-marketing module is essential in the marketing studies as it is the modern form of marketing. The fact e-marketing is a new concept it is worth teaching in higher education since teaching is all about gaining knowledge in new ideas and maximising its use. As a matter of fact the Universities are using E-marketing as an efficient tool to lure students to their University (Hanna, 1998). Universities are trying to find out the needs of the new digital generation of students and provide learning options that would suit to the demand (British Council 2009). The higher education is diverted towards learning, both on campus and off campus which would be suitable to needs of the marketing environment (Hanna, 1998).


Importance of E-Marketing in Business Organisations
E-marketing refers to the use of digital interactive technologies and information technology in order to conduct a firm’s business. This term is widely used for business activities-marketing made use of fulfilling the traditional market practices of creating, communicating and delivering value to customers (Gilmore, 2007).
E-marketing in firms mainly concentrates on increasing its reach and reduces costs to customers by providing unlimited information to customers without human intervention also the information is provided to the customers in an easily and understood manner. For example, airline scheduling and reservation systems are very difficult to create and maintain to serve individual needs. Secondly, the e-marketing firm creates good interactions to individual customers that allow customers to design products and services that meet their specific requirements. For example, online checking and seat assignment can be done on the internet.E-marketing is playing a major role in the success stories of airlines such as Easyjet( EasyJet Airline Corp, 2004)E-marketing allows transactions between customers and firms that would typically require human contact as in the case of successful firms such as dell and amazon.com (Sheth, 2005.
E-marketing is also pivotal in business organizations as its coming has also given the opportunity for the growth of small medium enterprises (SMEs) as compared to other traditional forms of marketing. Gone are those days where the big firms could dominate in terms of creating awareness for the evolution of e-marketing has also given room and contributed to the growth of small firms via online viral marketing.

Furthermore e-marketing also serves as a tool of measurement for business organizations (Sterne 1995). With this, organizations are able to measure their success by knowing the number of people who visit their website on a daily basis and assess their performance. This factor has enabled organizations to function better especially in the face of competition.



How E-Marketing can be applied to various Industries
Most if not all major retail outlets such as John Lewis and house of Fraser in the retail industry use e-marketing due to the ever growing usage of the internet (Kennedy and Coughlan,2006). E-marketing can be applied and set up by any organisation that wishes to do so and they can simply set e-marketing up by identifying the target market segment.
Once a target segment is identified the organisation can use various techniques to reach their potential customers such as emails. Example of this would be the giant supermarket chain called Tesco; they have a huge database of customers in which they can simply send emails to and with the help of the internet they are able to reach a wide range of customers at minimal costs. This enables Tesco to promote and make customers aware of their products and services.
Other techniques in which e-marketing can be applied by organisations in retail industry is promoting brands/products through social networks and company websites.

E-marketing will keep on growing as new technology and new opportunities become available (Jayawardhena et al, 2007). Organisations will need to keep investing in e-marketing to ensure that they are successful in applying it to their own organisations.






REFERENCES
Anon. Business services.’ journal of marketing intelligence & planning 22, (7) 761-779
British Council (2009) E-marketing Workshop
Available from < http://www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-events-training-e-marketing.htm >
EasyJet Airline Corp (2004) ‘EasyJets New Slogan.’ Travel Weekly: The Choice of Travel Professionals 4-4
Gilmore, A. and Henry, S. (2007) ‘E-marketing and SMEs: Operational lessons for the future.’ Journal of European business review 19, (3) 234-247
Hanna, D. (1998) Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition: Emerging Organizational Models.
Mccole, P. And Ramsey, E. (2004) ‘Internet-enabled technology in knowledge-intensive
Reedy J. and Schullo S. (2004) Electronic Marketing: Integrating electronic resources into the marketing process, Westgroup,Ohio
Sheth, j. And Sharma, A. (2005) ‘international e – marketing and issues.’ journal of
International marketing review 22, (6) 611-622
Sterne J. (1995) World Wide Web marketing: Integrating the web into your marketing strategy, 2nd edn, john Wiley & sons, New York