E-marketing 655
as technology leadership, service leadership,
market leadership and brand leadership. The
author acknowledges that these aren’t exclu-
sive. It is interesting that this author does not
see price differentiation as important, rather
on-line he sees brand and service as important
to success.
The differential advantage and positioning
of on-line services can be clarified and commu-
nicated internally and externally by developing
an on-line value proposition (OVP) or Internet
value proposition (IVP). This is similar to a
unique selling proposition, but is developed for
e-commerce services. In developing an IVP,
managers should identify:
A clear differentiation of the Internet
proposition from competitors based on
product features or service quality.
Target market segment(s) that the proposition
will appeal to.
How the proposition will be communicated to
site visitors and in all marketing
communications. Developing a strap line can
help this.
How the proposition is delivered across
different parts of the buying process.
How the proposition will be delivered and
supported by resources. Is the proposition
genuine? Will resources be internal or
external?
Ideally, the e-commerce site should have an
additional value proposition to further differ-
entiate the company’s products or services.
Having a clear on-line value proposition
has several benefits:
It helps distinguish an e-commerce site from
its competitors (this should be a website
design objective).
It helps provide a focus to marketing efforts
and company staff are clear about the purpose
of the site.
If the proposition is clear it can be used for PR
and word of mouth recommendations may be
made about the company. For example, the
clear proposition of Amazon has used is that
prices are discounted and that a wide range of
titles are available.
It can be linked to the normal product
propositions of a company or its product.Tactics
Tactics are the details of strategy. E-marketing
tactics define the different e-marketing tools to
be used and their sequence or stages. The main
tools used to implement the e-marketing tactics
are:1 The website and integrated database.
2 Customer relationship management tools,
principally the integrated database.
3 Opt-in e-mail, again linked to the CRM database.
4 On-line communication tools such as banner
advertising, sponsorship, links and PR.
5 Traditional off-line communication tools such as
advertising and PR.One approach to defining e-marketing tactics,
which we will use here, is to re-examine the
options that e-marketing provides through
these tools for varying the marketing mix. We
will focus on the ‘4Ps’ of product, price, place
and promotion, defined around the start of the
1960s by Canadian Jerome McCarthy (1960),
together with the extended mix of the Amer-
ican academics, Booms and Bitner (1981). They
considered the extra Ps crucial in the delivery
of services – people, processes and physical
evidence.
Some feel that for interactive marketing the
5Is (Peppers and Rogers, 1997) should replace
the 7Ps in the information age. The 5Is do not
supplant the 7Ps, but rather are complementary
to them, since the 5Is define the process needed,
whereas the 7Ps are the variables which the
marketer controls.
These are: Identification– customer specifics.
Individualization– tailored for lifetime
purchases.