e-marketing strategy

Candidate: 142. MOK. Exam - Information & Communication theory.

1 | P a g e

Title:

e-marketing strategy

Term paper Exam – Spring 2009:

Information & Communication theory

Subject code: JBMKINFO

Rune Haugestad + 47 94 88 29 01

[email protected]

My digital CV and recommendations:

http://no.linkedin.com/in/runehaugestad

Media & Communication Bachelor – 4th term. Oslo University College

My empirical qualitative survey:

Appendix A: E-mail survey request

Appendix B: Original answers to the survey


2 | P a g e

Table of Contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 3

2. Theory and methodology ................................................................................................................................ 3

What is strategy? ............................................................................................................................................ 4

What is e-marketing? ..................................................................................................................................... 5

What is e-marketing strategy? ........................................................................................................................ 5

3. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

Why e-marketing? ................................................................................................................................................... 6

4. E-marketing tools and services ....................................................................................................................... 7

Google Trends ......................................................................................................................................................... 9

Google Analytics..................................................................................................................................................... 9

Market monitoring & media surveillance ............................................................................................................. 11

5. E-marketing and ethics ...................................................................................................................................... 11

Customer Relationship Management ........................................................................................................... 13

Enterprises way of improving their e-marketing .......................................................................................... 13

6. Analyzing my survey ................................................................................................................................... 15

Selection of participants ............................................................................................................................... 15

Participants and interpretation ...................................................................................................................... 15

Research objectives and purposes ................................................................................................................ 15

Questions and answers ................................................................................................................................. 16

Patterns & themes ......................................................................................................................................... 19

My interpretation .......................................................................................................................................... 20

7. Summary and conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 21

References .................................................................................................................................................... 22

Appendix A: E-mail request ......................................................................................................................... 23

Appendix B: Original answers to the survey (Verification) ......................................................................... 24


3 | P a g e

1. Introduction My choice of theme “e-marketing strategy” is based on my interests in marketing, digital

communication and technology, in addition to a rapidly new developments in e-marketing.

Through 11 years of experience from the IT branch, I have worked with project management

of ERP and CRM solutions, and consulting about strategic thinking within both business and

IT strategy. I have no directly experience with e-marketing strategy, only indirectly. So this

term paper was a nice opportunity to learn more about communication strategy, marketing

and e-marketing strategy and tools. More specific, I wanted to look deeper into how e-

marketing strategy and e-marketing tools are integrated and used in a few selected digital

enterprises. Because of this I decided on the following research question: How can a

medium sized digital enterprise improve its e-marketing?

2. Theory and methodology Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln define qualitative methodology like this: “Qualitative

research is multimethod in its focus, involving an interpretive naturalistic approach to its

subject matter. This means that qualitative researches study things in their natural settings.

Attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring

to them” (Gall, Gall & Borg 2003 p. 24). I decided to use qualitative methodology to gather

my empirical data in this educational research because I wanted to look at marketing

managers and marketing professionals individual meanings, knowledge, practice and attitudes

towards e-marketing. In addition is my purpose to discover the link between e-marketing

strategy and implementation, and to discover e-marketing concepts and usage after data was

gathered. I wanted to do this because the important of connections of my discoveries to theory

and theses in our curriculum. In this paper the word enterprise is synonymous with “company

or firm”. The literature used in this term paper is based on Anderson (2008), Friedman (2006)

and McQuail (2005). In addition I have used Peppers & Rogers Ph.D. (1999), Professor

Adrian Sargeant and Professor Douglas C. West (2007), MsC/MBA Søren Hougaard and

MsC/Ph.D. Mogens Bjerre (2002) to obtain more specific in depth knowledge about e-

marketing which is a small part in our curriculum books. In the same matter I have used

Carter, Clegg & Kornberger (2008), Ph.D. Kjell A. Nordström (2002), and Ryan & Jones

(2009) to obtain specific knowledge about defining strategy and e-marketing strategy. I have

used Ph.D. Edward De Bono (1999) as source to creative thinking. I have chosen to use

questionnaires and not interviews as method of collecting research data. The main reason for


4 | P a g e

choosing questionnaires is because of the short timeline writing this term paper. It`s easier to

send the questionnaires by e-mail, and to be able to reach more people than to travel around

and doing interviews. Then participants can answer the questions when they have time and in

their own speed, and choose the order of the questions (Gall, Gall & Borg 2003). I am aware

of some negative effects of doing it, like; if the participant does not understand a question, I

can`t help them immediately. And after I have distributed the questionnaires I can`t change

the questions or re-phrase them. If I had more time, I would both use questionnaires and

interviews to have the ability to ask follow up and in depth questions or to redefine questions

if not understood. I have limited my research focus to not go in depth into economical issues

and objectives, and to not do any cross branch analyzes this time. I have conducted ten open

research questions. I have tried to get the questions as easy to understand as possible to avoid

participants doing their own interpretation (Gall, Gall & Borg 2003).

What is strategy? Etymologically, the word “strategy” derives from Greek language. The word consists of two

words putted together; “Stratos” means army, and “agein” means; to lead (Carter, Clegg,

Kornberger 2008 p. 8). If there was no competition for an enterprise there would be no need

for defining a strategy (ibid). If you ask different people with different background, education

and positions, you end up with a long list of different definitions. Today, strategy is very often

technology driven. Technology change and develop, business models, business strategy and

marketing strategy must change with all the new possibilities technology has brought us

(Nordström 2002). I needed a definition of the word strategy relevant to e-marketing (which is

business and technology driven) strategy in this term paper. The definition I decided to use is

quoted from Thompson and Strickland “ A company’s strategy consists of the competitive

moves and business approaches that managers employ to grow the business, stake out a

market position, attract and please customers, compete successfully, conduct operations, and

achieve targeted objectives.” (Carter, Clegg, Kornberger 2008 p. 9). I choose to use this

definition because it covers both business and marketing approaches (including e-

marketing/interactive marketing) in a broad way. A business strategy often includes a vision,

mission, goals, objectives and maybe some important organizational ethics. Strategy across

different disciplines often shares the following four characteristics: 1: Strategy is about the

future and goals. 2: Strategy is about how to score, what to do to achieve your goals. 3:


5 | P a g e

Strategy is about growth in a competitive world. 4: Strategy is about leaders and

management’s responsibility (ibid).

What is e-marketing? E-marketing or electronic marketing refers to marketing principles and techniques via

electronic media (PC, software, databases, networks) and more specifically the Internet (New

media). You will find different synonyms out there, such as Internet marketing, online

marketing, WEB based marketing etc. These are often the same tools and services. In the

same way, you will find endless definitions of e-marketing. E-marketing is the process of

marketing a brand, enterprise, product or service using the Internet. It includes both direct

response marketing, indirect and interactive marketing elements and uses a broad range of

technologies to help connect businesses to their customers (Sargeant & West 2007). By such a

definition, e-marketing encompasses all the activities a business conducts via Internet with the

aim of attracting new business, retaining current business and developing its brand identity.

What is e-marketing strategy? E-marketing strategy should be a sub-set of marketing strategy (Sargeant & West 2007 p. 53).

It is important as with any strategy to identify goals, and in addition; target groups, formulate

message/story, identify parameter for measuring, choose media, tools and services.


6 | P a g e

Some important question should be asked before writing down an enterprise e-marketing

strategy. It is important with strategic thinking: Why does my enterprise need an e-marketing

strategy? How do we know if e-marketing is right for our business? How does my enterprise

formulate an e-marketing strategy? Who in my organization is responsible for our e-

marketing strategy? Who is responsible for choosing and deploying e-marketing tools and

services? How do we measure our efforts and how can we detect and analyze our Return On

Investment (ROI)? (Jones & Ryan 2009 p. 18). Therefore will I look into the; “how”, “what”

and “why” of e-marketing, outlining the benefits and pointing out how it differs from

traditional marketing and communication methods and how knowledge about communication

and marketing theories, technology tools, innovation and creativity can help an enterprise to

improve its e-marketing. E-marketing strategy in this term paper means everything from the

conceptualization of a comprehensive e-marketing strategy, through to the implementation of

the various methods, tools and services needed to make that strategy a reality. A defined e-

marketing strategy should explicitly identify the business goals which e-marketing efforts

support the enterprise to achieve (ibid).

3. Discussion

Why e-marketing? One main reason for enterprises to use e-marketing is to increase the speed of marketing, and

to create a loop of dialogue not monologue or mass “one to many” communication, to create

interaction and dialogue not only content, to create liking not only branding and to use new

repeating stories with storytelling (Peppers & Rogers 1997, Nordström 1999). Modern

marketing is about adding value for the customer and the enterprise. Today’s marketing is

about to communicate with what Chris Anderson calls “Generation Why” or what Friedman

call generation Z (Zippies) (Friedman 2006 p. 215). Today’s consumers are less loyal than

ever, because they have more choices than ever (Nordström 1999). Today’s consumers ask

themselves; what’s in it for me? So with an up to date e-strategy, enterprises should identify

their objectives within how to be better to listen and increase learning of their customer’s

behaviors and demands. A way to do this is to start one to one (1:1) e-marketing approach,

and to create ways of doing non-stop dialogue and learning (Peppers & Rogers 1997).

Participation from both customers and the enterprise are essential in this process. One of the

main goals is to create a win-win situation. Tools to win increased market shares are maybe

most importantly use of personalization and individualization approaches. Another approach


7 | P a g e

is to try to get closer to a monopolistic competition situation, stated by Porter (1980), which is

one of the most influential voices in strategy (Carter, Clegg, Kornberger 2008 p. 5). This point

of view is supported by Kjell A. Nordström (1999) with his book Funky Business. He says it

is not possible any longer to obtain and stay as a monopoly for long periods of time anymore.

He suggests building temporary monopoles, and when competitors adapting their business

models or products, they change again and then build a new temporary monopoly situation.

And then create a never ending line of temporary monopoles (ibid). How you do this is a

success factor. Insight about this “How” subject is shared by Dov Seidman in his book; How.

To quote Seidman;“To differentiate yourself from your competition, you can no longer rely

on price and service, or even on best practices. Everyone will have those sooner or later, -

everyone who stays in business. You will differentiate your company from the others by HOW

you do business” (Friedman 2006 p.468). How you do e-marketing is also significant to

differentiate.

4. E-marketing tools and services This chapter is based on combined insights from Ryan & Jones (2009) and from e-

marketingstrategies.net, and Googles information pages. The acronyms and buzz words are

never far away within e-marketing technology. Here is an overview over the most common e-

marketing tools and services used today.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM is both a software system for maintaining sales and marketing data. The purpose with a

CRM solution is to empower and improve relationships with customers.

Enterprise Websites

A Website is perhaps the most important tool to share marketing visions and communicate

and interact with customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is about optimizing websites to achieve high rankings on the Search Engines for certain

selected key phrases. Sometimes called "organic" or "natural" optimization, SEO involves


8 | P a g e

making changes to the HTML code, content and structure behind your website, making it

more accessible for Search Engines, and by extension, easier to find by users.

SEO is an extremely cost effective way of generating new business to a web site. SEO is a

continuous process though; both to maintain rankings and improve rankings for other terms

that may bring in relevant traffic. PPC and SEO work synergistically to maximize Search

Engine traffic.

Contextual advertising

Advertising on a web site viewed by a user at that specific time.

Conversion Rate

This is a metric which measures success of an online ad, when compared to the click-through

rate. (i.e. conversion depends on the marketing objective; percentage of people converted into

subscribers, or buyers out of the total population exposed to a particular campaign.)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing is divided into two categories: Paid Search and Organic Search.

Talk about Paid Search and you’re talking Pay Per Click or PPC. Talk about Organic Search

and the focus is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. They’re similar enough to be classified

together under SEM but they’re different enough to warrant separate explanations. SEM,


9 | P a g e

niche and targeting marketing is also what Chris Anderson (2008) calls; The Long Tail

marketing.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search advertising

You Pay Per Click. You buy sponsored adverts on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The

beauty of the system is that you’re paying purely on a performance basis, that is, when the ad

is clicked on. A PPC campaign is a dynamic strategic process. It needs to be closely

monitored and managed to ensure maximum ROI. The more targeted your traffic, the greater

your conversion rates, and the better your ROI.

Google AdWords shows ads matching search words in Google Search (Google).

Google AdSense is content tailored Ads (Google).

Google Trends Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches

have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on

Google over time. Hot Trends reflects what people are searching for on Google today

(Google).

Google Analytics Isolate and analyze subsets of Web traffic. Motion Charts add sophisticated multi-dimensional

analysis to most Google Analytics reports. .Google Analytics track and compare all ads, email

newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links, and keywords on Google and other

search engines (Google).

E-mail marketing

There are two main approaches to use e-mail; one-to-many and one-to-one.

E-mail marketing is very powerful. It’s also extremely cost effective, highly targeted,

customizable, measurable and best of all, takes advantage of the consumer's most prolific

touch point with the Internet, their inbox.


10 | P a g e

Web Browsers

I.e. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Fire Fox and Opera. The latest Opera Web

browser gives users more speed, easier, faster and customizable Web search.

Cookies

Packets of data created on the user’s hard disk in response to website instructions

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing uses affiliate partner websites to display your adverts, and pays them on a

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) basis. Advertisers earn a commission on sales generated.

So while you’re increasing your brand visibility, you are only paying for the results.

Social networking

Social networking is one of the newest marketing opportunities on Internet today. It can offer

highly targeted advertising to niche social groups on profile information the users volunteer

through sites like Facebook, MySpace and other similar web sites.

Viral marketing

Word-of-mouth is probably the world’s oldest form of marketing. Viral marketing is word of

mouth in an electronic context. Viral marketing uses the connectedness of the Internet and the

social networks characteristic of Internet communication to build brand awareness

exponentially. People pass on, gives their recommendations, and share things that provide

value. Anything that truly entertains, informs, shocks, amuses or intrigues the recipient is

likely to be further distributed. Viral marketing is limited only by the creativity of the e-

marketer. Measuring can be done with viral responses; the number of recipients, who received

the referral, opened it and clicked on a link.

Online public relation (PR)

Business has moved online and Public Relations (PR), that indispensable tool of brand

awareness, has followed. Online PR allows PR to reach its fullest expression because the

potential for getting your brand “out there” is limitless.


11 | P a g e

Online Reputation Management (ORM)

ORM means monitoring what’s being said about you on Internet. An enterprise reputation is

out there on the web for all to see, and it can be difficult to delete or reverse. Existing and

potential consumers and customers care about that reputation. People are talking. Good things

and bad things. By being aware of what’s being said about your enterprise on the Internet, you

are able to react and put the necessary damage control strategy in place as soon as bad

publicity pops up. To quote Friedman; “Because of Internet, your company’s reputation, will

be the sum total of all your conduct and interactions, which will now be so much more

measurable by outsiders” (Friedman 2006 p. 469).

Market monitoring & media surveillance Using WEB-agent technology from companies such as Norwegian CyberWatcher to monitor

your target marked and/or customers can be a useful tool to identify, target or analyze e-

marketing efforts. CyberWatcher offer search engines for Business Information, creating

value and innovation by combining news updates with structured business information.

Microsoft Advertising

Advertising within Microsoft services such as; MSN, Windows Live, Messenger and Hotmail

and Spaces. In addition offers Facebook, in-game ads and the B2B website Office Online.

5. E-marketing and ethics

Business ethics in e-marketing reflects many of the general ethical concerns of marketing, i.e.

children and direct marketing (Sargeant & West 2007 p.323-331). Modern e-marketing

technology presents real challenges to ethics. Here are some different kinds of ethical

challenges enterprises face when planning and implementing e-marketing and e-advertising:

Identify and describe clearly the facts (who did what to whom, where, when and how). Define

the conflict or dilemma and the higher order values involved (values such as freedom,

privacy). Identify the owners (players with an interest in the outcome). Identify the options

one can reasonably take. Identify the potential consequences of your options (Ryan & Jones

2009). E-marketing have global reach (across national boundaries and national marketing

laws) However, such general concerns must be considered by marketers with regard to


12 | P a g e

concrete priorities in the daily work of marketing and advertising in the digital environment.

A minimum ethics is to follow the laws of the country where headquarter and WEB site

belongs. Here are four more specific major ethical dimensions (ibid):

1. Information rights (individual rights to their own personal information and access to

information about organisations)

2. Property rights (enforcement of traditional intellectual property rights)

3. Governance (should the internet and e-commerce be subject to public laws? What law-

making bodies should have jurisdiction?)

4. Public safety and welfare (ensuring equitable access to the internet; pornography and

gambling threats to safety and welfare )

Privacy and Information Rights

Under what conditions should we intrude into others lives? Information plays an important

role in the privacy concept. The web is ideal for invading personal privacy (unobtrusive

surveillance, market research) but there will be conflict as to how data is collected and used.

The “right to be left alone”. Personally identifiable information has been defined by the US

Federal Trade Commission as “any data that can be used to identify, locate, or contact an

individual” Cookies handle online information for shopping carts, recall stored sales

information to remind of purchases previously made and suggest new products (ibid). Cookies

can collect email, full name, postal addresses, telephone numbers, computer’s geographic

location and time logged online. Cookie packets can be combined with other digital

information, transferred between servers and sold to third parties.

Ethics and technology

Unethical SEO is a technique where users optimize Meta Tags in their HTML code, with

words and phrases witch not necessary have anything with their business. If Google finds out,

Google will delete them from their ranking systems. Here are some more examples (from e-

marketingstrategies.net ) with technology which focus to prevent exploitation, aesthetics and

dishonesty: “The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited

Pornography and Marketing Act) is a federal law that establishes requirements for those who

send commercial email. It spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products


13 | P a g e

are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask e-mailers

to stop spamming them. Permission-based email isthe practice of only sending email

messages to those recipients who have agreed (or asked) to receive them. A challenge-

response system is a program that replies to an email message from an unknown sender by

subjecting the sender to a test designed to differentiate humans from automated senders, also

known as “bots”. The Email Sender & Provider Coalition (ESPC) was formed to fight spam

while protecting the delivery of legitimate email. The ESPC members have recognized the

need for strong spam solutions that ensure the delivery of legitimate email and have been very

active in the war against spam (e-marketingstrategies.net)”.

Customer Relationship Management To have a modern and integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is crucial to be

able to deploy business strategy into the wheels of any business. An ERP solution (i.e.

Axapta, Visma, Oracle Financials) includes software solutions for economic data, financial

data, accounting data, production data, logistic data and warehouse data. Some ERP solutions

include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, other providers offer this as an

optional module, and other software providers are selling stand alone CRM solutions with

integration to existing ERP providers. CRM systems solutions are often a big part of

enterprises e-marketing tool also. CRM systems can store e-mails related to specific

customers and partners, and can be a useful tool to plan, collect, and store and analyze data

retrieved from other systems and e-marketing campaign. CRM system often has tailored

statistics modules for generating easy to understand data presentation for sales and marketing

people and key economic statistics for financial management. Analytical CRM applications

include: Sales analysis, customer profile analysis, campaign analysis, loyalty analysis,

customer contact analysis and profitability analysis (Hougaard & Bjerre 2002 p.132).The

managements need for real time data are essential, so many enterprises have business

intelligence (BI) solutions in addition to their ERP and CRM solutions. BI solutions have the

ability to extract and present data across all systems and databases in real time, giving the

management minute to minute business status to take the optimal decisions. CRM is the

central application to store all e-marketing campaigns data and statistics.

Enterprises way of improving their e-marketing Business professor Oded Shenkar says; “You need an entirely new business model to

compete!” (Friedman 2006 p. 140). A lot of other business gurus are saying the same; when


14 | P a g e

all the technological tools are available to everyone, you have to compete with other skills in

addition; Such as knowledge, creativity and constant innovation (Friedman 2006 p. 140, &

Nordström 2002). An important tool to achieve innovation is to collaborate with other

companies (Friedman 2006 p. 204). Justin Lu and his company Protime Consulting helps

customer such as Sony, Hyatt and Estèe Lauder with their e-marketing. He says “I can run

virtually my entire business on the Web using Salesforce.com. We’ve been able to grow very

quickly by focusing on what’s important to generate more revenue and keeping our systems

cost low with Web-delivered services” (Friedman 2006 p. 89) Lu uses Salesforce.com as his

e-mail marketing system to send out mass e-mails. Lu uses its sales force automation system

to control all presale data. Then he uses it`s CRM system to memorize all customer

interactions. The cost to use all these Web enabled systems are very low and competitive

(ibid). But again; everyone can use similar tools, and they can do it with high speed, so you

have to do more to be unique. A company need more than computers and Internet to stay

ahead. To quote Romer; “You needed new business processes and new types of skills to go

with them…” (Friedman 2006 p. 209). New types of skills are to be found inside (vertically) a

company or to be found outside via collaborating with others (horizontally). “It takes an

adjustment to move from vertical to horizontal thinking. Because vertical thinking often

requires you to start by asking who controls what system, not what is the outcome or effect

you want to create” (ibid). Creative thinking is an important asset also in the modern digital

world to stay ahead (Friedman 2006 p. 367). Why? “We need creativity, because nothing else

has worked... For many people the core idea of creating thinking is difficult, because it is

contrary to the natural habits of criticism, judgment and recognition. The brain is designed as

a ”recognition program”. The brain is designed to set up patterns, to use them, and to

condemn anything that does not ”fit” these patterns. Most thinkers like to be secure. They like

to be right. Creativity involves provocation, exploration and risk taking” (Bono 1999 p. 118-

119). To quote what Gartner Group says about human resources trends in the new media

world is what they call employee versatility: “Specialists generally have deep skills and

narrow scope, giving them expertise that is recognized by peers but seldom valued outside

their immediate domain. Generalists have broad scope and shallow skills, enabling them to

respond or act reasonably quickly but often without gaining or demonstrating the confidence

of their partners or customers. Versatilists, in contrast, apply depth of skill to a progressive

widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competencies, building

relationships, and assuming new roles” (Friedman 2006 p. 294). Versatilists are capable not


15 | P a g e

only of constantly adapting to their surroundings, but also of constantly learning and growing

(ibid). Creative thinking can be learned. “Before you create anything new you need to

understand what is already there (and analyze why). Once you have this foundation, being

creative can be trainable” (Friedman 2006 p. 369). It’s all about imagination. Albert Einstein

says to us; “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Imagination is an important

creative tool and enterprise assets to achieve differentiation in many branches and niches

including e-marketing approaches, when everybody is competing for attention. Creative

storytelling can be a powerful tool to differentiate an enterprise e-marketing campaign,

whether it is text or multimedia showed via e-mails, banners, search engine ads, flash or

videos on the enterprise Web site or launched on i.e. YouTube.

6. Analyzing my survey

Selection of participants My selection of participants in my survey is based on own “ads” on Facebook within my

social network and ad hoc contact with new people at Gulltaggen 2009, a big Internet

conference in Oslo 28th and 29th April (Where Chris Anderson and Kjell A. Nordström was

speakers amongst several other “guru`s”) I got 5 reply’s out of 10 requests, and these is a mix

of 5 totally different digital enterprises;

• Enterprise A: Is an Internet based international digital enterprise.

• Enterprise B: Is a Norwegian Web based service provider.

• Enterprise C: Is a Norwegian new media Web/marketing bureau.

• Enterprise D: Is a Norwegian media software based enterprise.

Participants and interpretation The answers tell me that I managed to create easy to understand questions for the participants.

None of them seem to misunderstand the questions or doing any misinterpretation.

Research objectives and purposes My main purpose in this term paper is to answer my research question: How can a medium

sized digital enterprise improve its e-marketing?. To do this I have constructed the ten

questions in my questionnaires. You will find all the original answers from the participants in

the appendix.


16 | P a g e

Questions and answers Question 1: Does e-marketing appear in your business plan, marketing plan or Internet/WEB

strategy plan or both?

Answers:

Enterprise A; “YES both”. Enterprise B; “E-marketing is an essential part of our marketing

plan. Since we’re an online business, this is essential for us.” Enterprise C; “Yes, it would be

very little strategic to not be digital visible.” Enterprise D; “Yes. Being a company that bases

its services on the Internet we should have some sort of idea about e-marketing of its

services.”

Question 2: If your company has a written Internet/WEB strategy, how does it include e-

marketing?

Answers:

Enterprise A; “Web and Internet is crucial to all parts of our business, and therefore we rely

almost solely on e-marketing as a marketing driver.” Enterprise B; “I work within sales, so

unfortunately I don’t have easy access to these documents.” Enterprise C; “I have not seen

any written documents related to these subjects. But we do have a focused approach to be

active, visible and attractive on the net.” Enterprise D; “The Company does not have a

written web strategy.”

Question 3: Which e-marketing tools and services are your company using and why?

Answers:

Enterprise A; “Google Adwords and contextual advertising.” Enterprise B; “We are tracking

all our e-marketing, to make sure we get the results we want. We have internal tracking tools;

I’m not 100% sure if we also use external tracking. According to our own service to improve

this, we have used eye tracking study. The results made us adapt and change layout and

different elements on our page, so we can attract more users, but also keep the existing users

happy.” Enterprise C;”We use basically e-mail, several social networks and our own

enterprise WEB site as communication channel. If the need for more activities, we will add

banners and online PR to reach our target market.” Enterprise D; “The company has

engaged in search engine marketing (Google AdWord program). We have, to a small extent,

used banner ads on specific websites. We are not running any email campaigns at the


17 | P a g e

moment, but we are regularly supporting several of our partners in such campaigns. SEO has

to some extent been implemented but not entirely (Meaning some of the group’s websites are

SEO optimized whereas others are not yet optimized towards search engines.”

Question 4: What e-marketing tools works best to achieve your marketing objectives and

why? Answers:

Enterprise A; “As Above. Pay per performance works better and gives measurable results”.

Enterprise B; “Eye tracking study (answered above), and tracking tools to see where we get

out traffic from.” Enterprise C; “As a communication bureau we are dependent that our own

website tells as much as possible about us.” Enterprise D; “I would say that this depends

highly on the marketing objective. If the direct objective is increased sales I would say that

email campaigns with following (Telephone) calls would have an impact. I think it is still so

that the main marketing/sales tool for increasing sales is cold calling. This can however

easily be combined with email campaigns for increased focus. I have yet to see that search

engine marketing really works as well as some say. It might be that we have not been

executing our campaigns well enough. For brand building and -recognition, banner ads and

possibly the use of various social tools such as Twitter, Facebook profile, blogging, etc.

would make an impact, because this gives the company a more “neutral” venue for

communicating with new and existing clients, and building trust and dialogue with the

audience.”

Question 5: What does your company do to improve your e-marketing? (i.e. visibility,

interactivity, storytelling, etc. ) Answers: Enterprise A; “Measure results. Copy and improve

success, and stop what's not working.” Enterprise B; “We combine online and offline

marketing and are getting good synergies to get more value out of every kind of ads we do.

We also launched our new design and service on Twitter, to get valuable feedback from the

entrepreneurs in the business. We also improve our PPC campaigns, and get more values by

optimizing the campaigns. SEO is also in focus, but this is an area we can do more.”

Enterprise C; “We`re updating our own web site these days. We`re planning activities

targeting social networks marketing. Our business demands to be updated on digital

communication! “ Enterprise D; “In developing our new services we keep in mind how these


18 | P a g e

can be even more accessible, and how we can sort of merge an open access service and our

paid service – the objective obviously being to increase the number of paying users.”

Question 6: How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing and e-marketing today? 6.2. What

do you think the mix will look like in the close future? Answers: Enterprise A; “Most e-

marketing, but also some physical Direct Marketing. Future; Even more e-marketing, maybe

as a Direct Marketing tool”. Enterprise B; “We mix TV and online activities to get more out

of each channel. Our PR strategy is also close related to our marketing. I already see that a

lot of companies are cutting their budgets on offline activities and are putting this money

online. I also believe that the mix in the near future will be different online activities where

you can measure the effect of the campaigns. I also believe that social medias, blogs and the

companies PR strategy will be essential and will be integrated more close than before. Search

will play a more central role, to get more out of offline campaigns.” Enterprise C; “We`re not

marketing our own enterprise with traditional mass communication. Mostly with our web site.

Maybe we should surprise the surroundings with some traditional mass communication, the

opposite of others strategy these days. Hmm…” Enterprise D; “We have two main business

areas. The subscription services that seek a large volume of clients are to a large extent being

managed by our various partners. Our other main business area involves integrated

services/solutions (integration of news search into other applications such as CRM, credit

information services, etc.). The marketing of the integrated services is handled mainly by

personal contact and to some extent by e-marketing tools such as e-mail campaigns. We does

not conduct any large scale of traditional mass marketing with regards to any of our

products.”

Question 7: How are your company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing?

Answers: Enterprise A; “Both.” Enterprise B; “We don’t use this in an extended way.”

Enterprise C; ”So far doesn`t one to one fit the right need for us” Enterprise D; “My

company is using both types of communication depending on the message. On some

campaigns we have for example openly addressed several players in one industry seeking

partners. In these campaigns we have, through the communication, made it clear that we are

addressing all the players in the respective markets. On other campaigns it makes more sense

to communicate more on a one to one level. We use both approaches depending vastly on the

message and the objective.”


19 | P a g e

Question 8: How do you measure your e-marketing efforts? Answers: Enterprise A; “Sign-

ups, visits”. Enterprise B; “Sorry, I don’t have this information.” Enterprise C;” When we

help our customer we use tracking systems like Google Analytics, other tools are

TradeDoubler and with converting rates and direct sale as a result of ads.” Enterprise D;

“The efforts should be measured based upon what the objective is. Very often the objective is

increased sales, and that is the easiest thing to measure as well”.

Question 9: What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing? Enterprise

A answer; “more customers, users and very measurable marketing. Very high relevance.”

Enterprise B; “More users and more value to our clients, which are essential for our

service.” Enterprise C; ”We have achieved some amount of new customers via our Web site,

one new employee via banner, and we have found a employee via Facebook.” Enterprise D;

“Signing new partners and new clients, but mainly new partners I would say. By partners I

mean resellers who market and sell our services in their local market.”

Question 10: What challenges are you facing using e-marketing strategies? Answers:

Enterprise A; “Pricing”. Enterprise B; “I don’t see any big challenges.” Enterprise C; “The

biggest challenge these days, is to conduct and write down a concrete strategy. We are in a

business which is used to the old “word of mouth”. Enterprise D; “As an overall challenge I

would say time. This means that there is little time for making well organized plans for how to

better use various e-marketing tools. I would personally like to further explore and use the

social web as a marketing channel. I think this will continue growing of importance and as a

marketing channel and communication channel between companies and organizations and

people. There are several reasons – you meet people at “home”, it is a more or less trusted

channel, given that you use this channel seriously – you have several room for dialogue, and

increased dialogue with clients normally will improve the relation. There is basically no

limitation as to how it can be used and exploited. But anyway I get back to lacking of time and

priority.”

Patterns & themes All the enterprises (Enterprise A, B and D) do have a written e-strategy or sees the importance

of construct one as soon as possible (Enterprise C). The main e-marketing tools and services

used of the participants are; enterprise Website, SEO, SEM, tracking tools, banners,

contextual advertising and e-mail. Some of them consider; social network, online PR, as a


20 | P a g e

strategic choice in the close future. The participants answer to; what e-marketing tools works

best to achieve your marketing objectives and why? Pay per performance because of easy to

measure the ROI. Eye tracking study (to optimize the Web design), banner ads and possibly

the use of various social tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging and e-mail campaigns

(with following telephone calls). To quote enterprise D; “…social tools such as Twitter,

Facebook profile, blogging, etc. would make an impact, because this gives the company a

more “neutral” venue for communicating with new and existing clients, and building trust

and dialogue with the audience.” What does your company do to improve your e-marketing?

The answers to this question were several efforts; to quote enterprise A; “Measure results.

Copy and improve success, and stop what's not working.” PPC campaigns, SEO, social

networking and ease accessibility, to sum it up. How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing

and e-marketing today? They answer: E-marketing plus direct marketing, and TV and online

activities working together to get more out of each channel are pointed out by enterprise A

and B. Enterprise C and D do not use traditional mass marketing at all. The answers to the

next question are particularly interesting. What do you think the mix will look like in the close

future? The answers to this question are: More e-marking plus e-marketing as a direct

marketing tool, e-mail campaigns, social media, blogs, search and PR strategy. How are your

company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing? Enterprise A and D are doing

both depending on the message and target group. Enterprise B and C are not into one to one

marketing yet. How do you measure your e-marketing efforts? The answer to this question

was: Sign-ups, visits, Google Analytics, converting rates and direct sale as a result of ads.

What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing? The answers to this

question were: signing more customers and partners, more users and very measurable

marketing, and more value to our clients. What challenges are you facing using e-marketing

strategies? The answers to this question were: Pricing, to conduct and write down a concrete

strategy and to little time for making well organized e-marketing plans. I rise a question why

not anybody have thoughts about e-marketing and ethics as a challenge in the future!

My interpretation The lack of a written Internet/WEB (Enterprise (B), C and D) strategy shows the importance

of including the management across business departments such as marketing, & sale, IT,

economy managers and the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in this subject. Strategy should be

the management’s responsibility to conduct and deploy into their organizations. It is not the


21 | P a g e

marketing director, but the CEO, who should be responsible for the enterprise strategies

within Internet, CRM and e-marketing. Because success on Internet and with e-marketing can

be the difference between “win or disappear” in today’s globalization and that should concern

the CEO. Marketing manager is responsible for conducting and deploying the CRM and e-

marketing strategy. CEO should also take action so market strategy is shared with everybody

at the sales department. Focus on storytelling (a technology independent but creativity based

tool) seems to be abundant in the answers from the participants. It doesn`t mean that their

respective colleges or that their enterprise do not understand this is an important tool. The

range of tools used in the four enterprises tells me that they all have taken advantage of e-

marketing, but that they probably could use more tools and services to improve their efforts.

One to one communication and marketing is almost absent. Mass communication and mass

marketing is not dead, but focus on e-marketing are increasing and have less costs, reach more

people, and have easier and faster ways to measure the ROI. When implemented correctly, the

return on investment (ROI) from e-marketing can far exceed that of traditional marketing. I

consider exploring more of the subjects in this term paper in depth in my Bachelor paper,

eventually with both qualitative and quantitative methodology, with both questionnaires and

interviews to achieve both a good statistic material, and to be able to discover trends between

branches and between different management levels.

7. Summary and conclusion E-marketing can be a means to reach millions of people every year. By continuously tracking

the response and effectiveness of a campaign, the marketer can be far more dynamic in

adapting to consumers wants and needs. With e-marketing, responses can be analyzed in real-

time and campaigns can be tweaked continuously. Combined with the immediacy of the

Internet as a medium, this means that there’s minimal advertising spend wasted on less than

effective campaigns. E-marketing creates new opportunities to seize strategic competitive

advantages. Marketing messages are most effective when they are presented directly to the

audience most likely to be interested. Finally, my conclusion is they who manage to use an

optimal mix of strategy theory, marketing/communication theory, technology insight and

possibilities, use of innovation and creative thinking, have good chances to stay ahead of the

pack.


22 | P a g e

References Curriculum books

Anderson, Chris (2008). The Long Tail. New York: Hyperion.

Friedman, Thomas L. (2006). The world is flat. London: Penguin books Ltd.

McQuail, Denis (2005). Mass communication theory. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Additional books

De Bono, Edward (1999). Six Thinking Hats. London: Penguin Group

Gall, Meredith D. & Gall, Joyce P. & Borg, Walther R. (2003). Educational Research – An introduction. US:

Pearson Education, Inc.

Hougaard, Søren & Bjerre, Mogens (2002). Strategic Relationship Marketing. DK: Samfundslitteratur Press.

Nordström, Kjell A. (2002). Funky Business – Talents makes capital dance. UK: Prentice Hall - Financial Times,

Pearson Education Limited.

Peppers, Don & Martha Rogers (1999). Enterprise one to one – Tools for Competing in the Interactive Age.

New York: Random House Inc.

Ryan, Damien & Jones, Calvin (2009). Understanding DIGITAL Marketing – Marketing strategies for engaging

the digital generation. US: Kogan Page Limited.

Sargeant, Adrian & West, Douglas C. 2007. Direct and interactive marketing. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Inc.

Thompson, A. & Strickland, A. (2006). Strategic management: concepts and cases, 13th edt. London: McGraw-

Hill

Internet sources:

http://www.cyberwatcher.com/business/benefits.htm

http://www.e-marketingstrategies.net/glossary.html

http://www.google.com/ads/

http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html

http://www.google.com/analytics/

http://www.opera.com/browser/

http://www.opera.com/browser/�


23 | P a g e

Appendix A: E-mail request Sending you my term paper survey as agreed on Gulltaggen today. The course is in English and all my papers

and documentation the same. Therefore, please answer in English!

The survey is about e-marketing strategy and usage of e-marketing tools and services.

My Research question is: How can a medium sized enterprise improve its e-marketing?

I wanted to study some cases with offices in Norway, and to study their individual meaning, knowledge, practice

and attitudes towards e-marketing. I also want to discover the link between e-marketing strategy and usage, and

to discover e-marketing concepts, usage and technology.

This is my second year (4th term) of a Bachelor degree in Media and Communication at Oslo University

College. I am particularly interested in your response, because your experience within traditional (mass)

marketing and e-marketing will help me in my educational research analyzing links between strategy and e-

marketing usage.

It is important that you answer all the ten questions. I have tried to formulate the questions as easy to understand

as possible, to reduce the time necessary to fill in your answers in the survey.

I will appreciate it if you will complete the attached questionnaires and finish and return it to my e-mail address

prior to 1st May. We have a very short deadline on this paper.

All content and information replied to me will be total confidential and anonymous in the term paper. The

information will not be used outside my term paper, but I might use some of the information in my Bachelor

paper next year. I will be pleased to send you my term paper or a summary of the survey results if you desire?

If you want to check out my earlier education, work experience and recommendations, please click in to my

profile at www.Linkedin.com. There you will find my updated digital CV.

Remember to give your answers the same number as the questions. Just reply to this e-mail account. Please also

add your position/role.

See my questionnaires below. Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards

X


24 | P a g e

Appendix B: Original answers to the survey (Verification) Enterprise A;

1. Does e-marketing appear in your business plan, marketing plan or Internet/WEB strategy plan or both?

YES Both 2. If your company has a written Internet/WEB strategy, how does it include e-marketing?

web and Internet is crucial to all parts of our business, and therefore we rely almost solely on e-marketing as a marketing driver.

3. Which e-marketing tools and services are your company using and why?

Google Adwords and contextual advertising

4. What e-marketing tools works best to achieve your marketing objectives and why?

As Above. Pay per performance works better and gives measurable results 5. What does your company do to improve your e-marketing? (i.e. visibility, interactivity, storytelling, etc. )

Measure results. Copy and improve success, and stop what's not working 6. How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing and e-marketing today? 6.2. What do you think the mix will look

like in the close future?

Most e-marketing, but also some physical Direct Marketing. Future; Even more e-marketing, maybe as a Direct Marketing tool

7. How are your company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing?

Both 8. How do you measure your e-marketing efforts?

Signups, visits 9. What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing?

more customers, users and very measurable marketing. Very high relevance

10. What challenges are you facing using e-marketing strategies? pricing

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Rune Haugestad <[email protected]> wrote: Position: Industry Head -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mailto:[email protected]�


25 | P a g e

Enterprise B;

Research questions: 1. Does e-marketing appear in your business plan, marketing plan or Internet/WEB strategy plan or both? E-marketing is an essential part of our marketing plan. Since we’re an online business, this is essential for us. 2. If your company has a written Internet/WEB strategy, how does it include e-marketing? I work within sales, so unfortunately I don’t have easy access to these document 3. Which e-marketing tools and services are your company using and why? We are tracking all our e-marketing, to make sure we get the results we want. We have internal tracking tools; I’m not 100% sure if we also use external tracking. According to our own service to improve this, we have used eye tracking study. The results made us adapt and change layout and different elements on our page, so we can attract more users, but also keep the existing users happy. 4. What e-marketing tools works best to achieve your marketing objectives and why? Eye tracking study (answered above), and tracking tools to see where we get out traffic from 5. What does your company do to improve your e-marketing? (i.e. visibility, interactivity, storytelling, etc. ) We combine online and offline marketing and are getting good synergies to get more value out of every kind of ads we do. We also launched our new design and service on Twitter, to get valuable feedback from the entrepreneurs in the business. We also improve our PPC campaigns, and get more values by optimizing the campaigns. SEO is also in focus, but this is an area we can do more. 6. How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing and e-marketing today? 6.2. What do you think the mix will look like in the close future? -Answered above; we mix tv and online activities to get more out of each channel. Our PR strategy is also close related to our marketing. I already see that a lot of companies are cutting their budgets on offline activities and are putting these money online. I also believe that the mix in the near future will be different online activities where you can measure the effect of the campaigns. I also believe that social medias, blogs and the companies PR strategy will be essential and will be integrated more close than before. Search will play a more central role, to get more out of offline campaigns. 7. How are your company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing? We don’t use this in an extended way. 8. How do you measure your e-marketing efforts? Sorry, I don’t have this information 9. What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing? More users and more value to our clients, which are essential for our service 10. What challenges are you facing using e-marketing strategies? I don’t see any big challenges. Position: Byråansvarlig


26 | P a g e

Enterprise C: 1. Does e-marketing appear in your business plan, marketing plan or Internet/WEB strategy plan or both? Ja, det hadde vært usedvanlig lite strategisk gjennomtenkt ikke å gjøre seg/holde seg synlig digitalt nå :) 2. If your company has a written Internet/WEB strategy, how does it include e-marketing? Ingenting skriftlig (som jeg har sett), men en gjennomgående tanke om å fremstå som aktive, synlige og attraktive på nettet. 3. Which e-marketing tools and services are your company using and why? Vi bruker stort sett e-mail, diverse digitale sosiale nettverk og vår egen website som kommunikasjonskanal. Dersom behovet skulle oppstå, vil også bannerannonser og evt. PR være aktuelle virkemidler for å nå frem til de vi vil snakke med. 4. What e-marketing tools works best to achieve your marketing objectives and why? Som et kommunikasjonsbyrå er vi selvfølgelig i stor grad avhengige av at vår egen website formidler så mye som mulig om oss. Ellers er det jo alltid de jobbene vi gjør for våre egne kunder som til enhver tid er målestokk for hva vi besitter av kompetanse. 5. What does your company do to improve your e-marketing? (i.e. visibility, interactivity, storytelling, etc. ) For øyeblikket sprengjobber vi med websiten vår LOL :) Diverse aktiviteter knytta til sosiale nettverk kommer vi nok også til å trappe opp. Synlighet kommer forøvrvig som et vedheng på de jobbene vi selv gjør for våre kunder. Når det er sagt - det dreier seg jo i veldig stor grad om å makte å formidle tankene bak og resultatene av disse jobbene på en konkret og underholdene måte. Det er også viktig for et selskap som vårt å hele tiden fremstå som oppdaterte på digital kommunikasjon, så i den grad vi får våre kunder med på å sprenge tradisjonelle grenser på mediafronten, vil det ha stor betydning for oss. Ergo - hva gjør vi for å forbedre vår egen emarketingstrategi - jo, vi lærer oss mer som våre egne kunder vil nyte godt av. 6. How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing and e-marketing today? 6.2. What do you think the mix will look like in the close future? Vi markedsfører vårt eget selskap i veldig liten grad - og da spesielt lite gjennom tredisjonell massekommunikasjon. Som tidligere nevnt er vi jo selv i markedføringsbransjen, så mye av vår egenreklame ligger i de jobbene vi gjør daglig. Per i dag er vi stort sett utelukkende tilstede digitalt - kanskje vi skal overraske og heller blande inn litt trad. massekommunikasjon etterhvert? Stikk motsatt av hva alle andre kommer til å gjøre? Hmm. Det er verdt en tanke :) 7. How are your company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing? Her må jeg innrømme at jeg ikke har no' godt svar :) Så langt har vi ikke hatt bruk for å snakke én til én. 8. How do you measure your e-marketing efforts? Vi måler ingenting av det vi gjør for oss selv, av den enkle grunn at vi så langt ikke trenger det. Når det gjelder jobber vi gjør for våre egne kunder, måles effekt på mange forskjellige måter. Noe gjennom vanlige trackingsystemer (Google Analytics etc.), noe direkte gjennom medianettverk som TradeDoubler og noe måles gjennom våre kunders egne systemer (deriblant konverteringsrater og direkte salg som følge av annonsering). 9. What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing? Vi har vel fått en og annen kunde som direkte resultat av våre egne websider, og iallefall én ny ansatt som følge av bannerannonsering. I tillegg har vi besatt en ledig stilling nå gjennom aktiviteter på Facebook. 10. What challenges are you facing using e-marketing strategies? Den største (og kanskje for øyeblikket eneste) utfordringen vi har nå, er vel i det hele tatt å få en konkret strategi på plass. Vi er jo i en bransje som ikke har noen tradisjon på å markedsføre oss selv annet enn gjennom markedsføring av andre. Som de sier - skomakerens barn har ofte dårligst sko :)

Position: Art Director & Interaksjonsdesigner


27 | P a g e

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rune Haugestad [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 27. april 2009 14:56 Enterprise D:

Research questions: 1. Does e-marketing appear in your business plan, marketing plan or Internet/WEB strategy plan or both? Yes. Being a company that bases its services on the Internet and the use of such X should have some sort of idea about e-marketing of its services. 2. If your company has a written Internet/WEB strategy, how does it include e-marketing? The company does not have a written web strategy. 3. Which e-marketing tools and services are your company using and why? The company has engaged in search engine marketing (Google AdWord program). We have, to a small extent, used banner ads on specific websites. We are not running any email campaigns at the moment, but we are regularly supporting several of our partners in such campaigns. SEO has to some extent been implemented but not entirely (Meaning some of the group’s websites are SE optimized whereas others are not yet optimized towards search engines. 4. What e-marketing tools works best to achieve your marketing objectives and why? I would say that this depends highly on the marketing objective. If the direct objective is increased sales I would say that email campaigns with following calls would have an impact. I think it is still so that the main marketing/sales tool for increasing sales is cold calling. This can however easily be combined with email campaigns for increased focus. I have yet to see that search engine marketing really works as well as some say. It might be that we have not been executing our campaigns well enough. For brand building and -recognition, banner ads and possibly the use of various social tools such as twitter, Facebook profile, blogging, etc would make an impact, because this gives the company a more “neutral” venue for communicating with new and existing clients, and building trust and dialogue with the audience. 5. What does your company do to improve your e-marketing? (i.e. visibility, interactivity, storytelling, etc. ) In developing our new services we keep in mind how these can be even more accessible, and how we can sort of merge an open access service and our paid service – the objective obviously being to increase the number of paying users. 6. How do you mix traditional (mass) marketing and e-marketing today? 6.2. What do you think the mix will look like in the close future? X has two main business areas. The subscription services that seek a large volume of clients is to a large extent being managed by our various partners. Our other main business area involves integrated services/solutions (integration of news search into other applications such as CRM, credit information services, etc.). The marketing of the integrated services is handled mainly by personal contact and to some extent by emarketing tools such as email campaigns. X does not conduct any large scale of traditional mass marketing with regards to any of our products. 7. How are your company using; one to many and/or one to one e-marketing? My company is using both types of communication depending on the message. On some campaigns we have for example openly addressed several players in one industry seeking partners. In these campaigns we have, through the communication, made it clear that we are addressing all the players in the respective markets. On other campaigns it makes more sense to communicate more on a one to one level. We use both approaches depending

https://fronter.com/hio/mail/sendmail.phtml?curent_mbox=INBOX&selected_mailserver=705647&show_from=&to=Rune.Haugestad%40stud.jbi.hio.no&[email protected]�


28 | P a g e

vastly on the message and the objective. 8. How do you measure your e-marketing efforts? The efforts should be measured based upon what the objective is. Very often the objective is increased sales, and that is the easiest thing to measure as well. 9. What are the benefits your company has achieved with e-marketing? Signing new partners and new clients, but mainly new partners I would say. By partners I mean resellers who market and sell our services in their local market. 10. What challenges are you facing using e-marketing strategies? As an overall challenge I would say time. By this I mean that we are a rather small organization where everyone needs to do that extra little effort. This means that there is little time for making well organized plans for how to better use various e-marketing tools. I would personally like to further explore and use the social web as a marketing channel. I think this will continue growing of importance and as a marketing channel and communication channel between companies and organizations and people. There are several reasons – you meet people at “home”, it is a more or less trusted channel, given that you use this channel seriously – you have several room for dialogue, and increased dialogue with clients normally will improve the relation. There is basically no limitation as to how it can be used and exploited.But anyway I get back to lacking of time and priority. Your position/role: Marketing Director