Muhammad Iqbal
A. Six E-Marketing planning stage by using the method SOSTAC ®
1.1 Situation Analysis
Situation Reviewor Situation Analysis is the first step that must be done in planning the development of e-marketing, which in this stage will be carried out analysis of the condition or the effectiveness of marketing activity that is underway in the company.Analytical results obtained will be used as an ingredient for defining the new marketing strategy (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2006, p. 160).
at this stage, the tasks to be done is to analyze and understand the company in the marketplace, by collecting information about the state of the company's external environment (macro environment and micro environment) and the internal state of the company (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2006, p. 160).
Analysis of the internal condition of the company include an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the company (eg in terms of resource that is owned, possessed the power of brand, the effectiveness of current marketing strategies, etc.). While the analysis of external conditions including an analysis of the micro enterprise environment and macro environment.
Analysis of the condition of micro enterprise environment typically includes an analysis of the interaction of companies with intermediaries, suppliers, customers and competitors in themarketplace, such as analysis of customer characteristics, the level of demand and customer behavior patterns, activities carried out
competitors, and other interactions that can produce certain effects for company performance. While the macro environment analysis of a company usually involves an analysis of factors beyond the control of a company that could lead to opportunity orthreats not just to one company but all companies that are in the same marketplace, such as natural factors, economic, political, social, technological and so forth.
Picture: Environment should be analyzed at this stage of Situation Analysis (Source: Chaffey, 2010, Completing a marketing case study assignment)
All information has been obtained can be summarized in a SWOT table. SWOT table is a table that can be used to assess strength and weakness as well as record company's opportunities andthreats that come from the company's external environment. SWOT table is a table SWOT powerful that not only the data load on strength, weakness, opportunities and threats, but also can be used to produce the strategy. Examples of tables that are able to synergize the SWOT analysis results with the proposed possible strategies can be seen in Figure
Fi gure: SWOT Table With Fields Development Strategy (Source:
Chaffey, 2011, SWOT analysis diagram)
1.2 Objectives
Once companies know their exact position in the marketplace, it is time to set goals.The existence of goal setting can help guide the company to remain focused only on the things you want toachieve. Making goals is not easy, but SMART can be used as guidelines for guidance in making a specific purpose.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Related, where the definition is as follows (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2006, p. 170):
• Specific: Goals are made must have enoughdetailso it can be used as guidelines for making the right strategic objectives.
• Measurable: Objectives should be measurable defined either qualitatively or quantitatively, seh Ingga company can periodically monitor whether these objectives have been achieved or not.
• Actionable: The purpose of that is made to be realistic or feasible.To measure this, compare the capabilities with the objective to be achieved.If the capabilities do not meet achievement goals, means not an end goal that is actionable.
• Relevant: Goals must be made relevant to the problem you want solved.
• Time-Related: The goal has been made shall be equipped with a target date ordeadlineis for sure, that could spur the company to achieve that goal right at the appointed time.
In essence, if the employer has a clear and specific objectives, a list of goals that will help the company to better focus the company's planning and facilitate the evaluation process to find and fix errors in reaching the goal.
There are five examples of the benefits of the implementation of e-marketing for the company, all of which can be summarized into 5S.5S can serve as guidelines for setting goals for companies that want to implement e-marketing.The following is an explanation of the 5S (Chaffey & Smith, 2008, p.451):
• Sell: One of the benefits of the implementation of e-marketingat the company was able to assist in increasing sales, because the promotion is done online companies can reach the wider community.If the purpose of implementing e-marketingcompany is to increase sales, create anonlinecampaign to convince prospectivecustomersto buy products.
• Serve: Another benefit of the implementation of e-marketingis addingvalue.If the purpose of implementing e-marketingcompany is to addvaluefor customers, create e-marketingcan improve service quality orcustomer service.
• Speak: If the application ofe-marketingat the company aims to get closer to the customer, createe-marketinginto an effective means of communication between thecustomerfirms.
• Save: If the application ofe-marketingcampaign aims to reduce costs, createe-marketingto reduce budget costs are incurred by the company prior to the implementation of e-marketing(eg, the existence ofe-marketing,companies can minimize the less effective methods of promotion , such as through excessive printing of brochures).
• Sizzle: If the purpose of implementing e-marketing company is to increase brand awareness and recognition through online channels, create e-marketing to spread information about brands,products or services offered by the company rapidly to the general public.
1.3 Strategy
Once the goals to be achieved successfully formulated in the previous stage, the preparation of targeted strategies can be done.Many people ask what exactly is the difference of the Strategy and Tactics on the stage of the planning framework SOSTAC ®.By Dave Chaffey and PR Smith in his e-Marketing Excellence (2008, p.
454), the strategy itself is only a general guide to achieve that goal.The difference with the tactics, the tactics required to describe details about the specific ways or tools that will be used to achieve the goal, adjusted to a predetermined strategy.
Ways that can be used to remember the key elements that must exist in the strategy-particularly in the establishment of e-marketing strategy is effective-is to be guided by the following acronym: STOP and SIT (Chaffey & Smith, 2008, p.459).
First, the strategy should be focused to achieve the Objectives (O) that had been predetermined. Identification of all segments (S) which may be owned by the company. Segmentation is acustomer classification into different groups to be able to know the needs of specific products or services from each group. Due to the needs of targeted customer segments online may be different from the existing customer segment in the path offline, it may be necessary to re-election of the Target Market (T) or a segment that wants mastered through online marketing. First, the strategy should be focused to achieve the Objectives (O) that had been predetermined. Identification of all
segments (S) which may be owned by the company. Segmentation is acustomer classification into different groups to be able to know the needs of specific products or services from each group.Due to the needs of targeted customer segments online may be different from the existing customer segment in the path offline, it may be necessary to re-election of the Target Market (T) or a segment that wants mastered through online marketing.
Positioning(P) is also one of the most fundamental parts that must be considered in the establishment of e-marketing strategy, because the selection of products to be sold through onlinechannels, determining the right price and value offerings such as what was promised to the prospective customer with the e-marketing , will determine the company's position in the marketplacecompared to competitors who compete in it.Are all these things (STOP) can then be formed into a proposition that can be a strong competitive advantage for the company?
Keep in mind, the sense mentioned above proposition is the Customer Value Proposition (which in the context of making e-marketing strategy referred to as the Online Value Proposition)which according to Anderson, Narus, and Rossum (2006, Three Kind of Value Proposition: Which Alternative Conveys Value to Customers ? section, para. 1) is defined as:
a. All benefits to your customerswhere theCustomer Value Propositionis defined as a list of all the advantages to be gained if thecustomerpurchased the product or service.
b. Favorable points of difference Between your product with your competitorswhere theCustomer Value Propositionis defined as a list of more advantage to be gained if thecustomerpurchased the product or service when compared with buying the competitors.
c. Resonating focuswhere theCustomer Value Propositionis defined as the greatest advantage offered by the company to keep thecustomerto buy products or services of companies both in the present and future.
Strong value propositionor an effective value proposition should be able to attract the target customer to buy a product or service offered by the company, even be able to influence the loyal customers that are willing to use the products or services sold by the firm.
Online value propositionitself can be interpreted as a Customer Value Proposition offered by the company to the customer through the online channel (Chaffey, 2010, para. 1).Many ways you can do to build an effective Online Value Proposition, including the use 7P approach as follows:
• Product (Content, Customisation, Community) - provide new services through the medium of e-marketing that
have been constructed so as to provide positive experience for the customer about the brand that sold the company, such as the provision of online customer service, providing detailed information about the product (including a review or testimonial content of the products provided by other customers) and the formation of communities through online channels, to add value to the product or service offered.
• Place - Connecting online can provide a new channel that is relatively more practical use to interact and communicate with the company, for example, customers can order at any time with ease through online channels without having to come to its offline stores.
• Promotion- Online channels provide many opportunities and facilities for the company in promoting a rapid, inexpensive and able to effectively reach out to the wider community.Most important in terms of promotion is creative in combining e-toolsare already widely available to help the success of e-marketing websitehas been launched, such as the use ofSearch Engine Optimization, Display Ads, Social Networks,and others as a means or tools to facilitatecustomer acquisition.
• Physical evidence, People, Process- The followingmarketing mix elementis extremely important role in shaping thecustomer experience.Peopleplay an important role in the success ofcustomer service, Processquality (quality of performance and ease of access fromthecompany'swebsite,the
ease of the procedure order throughonline channels,etc..) AndPhysical Evidence(such asindependent reviewof the quality products that are written by someone outside the company voluntarily, Clippings, writtennewsmedia about the company, a form of product packaging,the appearance of a brand or logo, etc..) plays an important role in creating the customer's perception of the brand that sold the company. So to be able to create an effective Value PropositionOnline, the implementation of strategies to improve the quality of these threeelementsmust also be well planned.
By Dave Chaffey on his E-Marketing Excellence (Chaffey &
Smith, 2008, p.86), there are extra 'P' that should be considered in making the company's strategy based on the marketing mix,namely the Partnership.Partnership here means an alliance between the two companies working together to improve the quality of e-marketing campaigns are being conducted.A concrete example of this form of partnership is the cooperation that carried out by Tesco with AOL.Tesco goals in cooperation with the AOL partnership by establishing a social media marketing campaign is to facilitate Tesco:
Tesco Real Food Challenge in order to spread to more than a million new online users with a specific target audience of 30-44 year-old woman who had children, where most of they often access the AOL site as a center for the latest news or information.
7P above are usually a lot of companies that use only main 4P Product, Price, Place, Promotion, as the company's promotional
strategy. 3P while others are used as an adjunct to managingcustomer relationships with the company. To complete the customer needs to be equipped with 4P 4C (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2006, p.216). 4C consists of:
• Customer need analysis(Extension of the first P,
ie product).Companies must be able to make the products according tocustomerneeds.
• Cost(Extension of the second P, ie Price), pricing strategy should be tailored to the needs and interests of the target customer.
• Convenience(expansion of the third P, the Place).As previously described, using theinternetcustomer convenience can be realized, because the transactions can be done through the company's corporatewebsitecan be accessed anywhere and anytime.
• Communication(expansion of the fourth P, the Promotion).Campaign that was initially conducted through one-way communication, using theinternetcan be developed into a two-way communication is more interactive with the customer.The Company also may be associated with eachcustomeris unique.
Another element that must exist in the formation of strategy, in addition to the SIT STOP.SIT stands for Sequence or Stage (S),
Integration (I), Tools (T). How to formulate strategies using three components, first determine the first stage or the sequence of e-marketing type to be built.Is e-marketing type to be built just a brochureware website (model level 2 of the 5 levels of the type of development in e-marketing company), or has entered into a simple type of interactive website (model level 3 of the 5 levels of the type of development in e-marketing company) which supports the inter-user communication (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2006, p.162)?After determining the stage or site level as what will be built, determine whether there should be integration between the database integration process or online with the offline channel if online application is implemented later on, should do the integration between the database offline customer data withcustomer data stored in online database ?Then do not forget to also specify what kind of tools will be used to realize the e-marketing website.
1.4 Tactics
In essence the difference is the strategy with tactics: a general guide to formulate strategies that will be the company to achieve the goal, while tactics to formulate detailed steps or stages such as what will be done for the implementation of the strategy (Chaffey, Chadwick, Johnston, & Mayer, 2008, p. 460).
For example, the desire or the company's goal to maintain a good relationship with the customer, formulate strategies implemented
in the form of 'improving the quality of interactive communication between the customer and the company'.Tactics that can be formulated to implement the strategy include:
• Add features testimonials,product reviews,criticism and suggestions as well as holding a discussion forum on thewebsite e-marketing,as a means of communication between the customer and the company.
• Connecting customers and companies to form a community on the famous social network, like Facebook or Twitter, socialmedianetworkwhere it will be used as a means of distributing news or the latest promos, as a means of direct communication between customer and company representatives, etc..
Companies can use the RACE framework as a tool to help facilitate the company in formulating the right tactics in trying to improve the effectiveness of e-marketing that have been invested.RACE is a skeleton framework of tactical formation that was first introduced by Steve Jackson in his book Cult of Analytics.RACE consists of four steps of marketing activities designed to help establish brands engagement (the process of establishing customer loyalty to a brand).Here's the translation of a series of marketing activities contained within the framework of RACE (Chaffey, 2010, What Is Race? Section, para. 1):
• Phase 1,Reach:Reachis a tactic that must be done in building brand awareness of your products or services sold, with introducing him through various online or offline media.
To be able to effectively buildbrand awareness,not only the company'swebsiteis needed, but there must be combination with othertoolsthat can be used as a tool to buildtrafficto corporate websites, such as the use ofsocial media, facebook,ortwitterkaskus as early media to the general publicbrandrecognition and to provoke them to be willing to visit the website has been created.
• Phase 2, theAct:Actis a tactic to influence so thatwebsitevisitors are interested in finding out more about the company.By providing an attractive feature, clearwebsitenavigation, and content that is capable of forming a positive impression for visitors tothe websiteof thebrandor company, they may be hooked to find out more about the company and its products.
• Phase 3,Convert:Conversionis a tactic to attract the targetcustomeris willing to establish relationships with companies, and interested in trying to use the products or services offered by the company.
• Stage 4,Engage: at this stage, the thing to do is to attempt to maintain the already established relationship with customers in order to last a long time, for example, the service is goodcustomerservice,maintaining communication
throughsocial mediaor features testimonials and productreviewson thewebsite e-marketingcompany,and others.
Picture: RACE Framework as a Tool of Bantu Formation Tactics (Source: Chaffey, 2010, Digital marketing strategy and planning framework template)
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