Archive for the ‘online strategy’ Category

The benefits of email newsletters

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

I have just spent some time trawling the net looking for some statistics on the benefits of an email newsletter. To my suprise I haven’t found anything to report back on.

“Hang on.” do I hear you say, “There are tons of stats out there.”

Yes indeed there are, but none are specific on the benefits of just a newsletter. No sales, no offers just a business talking about what they have been up to. This might be that some of the largest email senders are retailers. Hardly suprising as there are stats that offer figures like $50+ per dollar spent (sorry for the dollars). Impressive figures.

But what about the humble enewsletter? I have worked with a company who, on launching their site, sent out a newsletter talking about the site launch and the what they had been up to. The response was 2 enquiries from a cold (first email) list of 400. The numbers are low, but then they aren’t in retail.

I will shortly be launching a round of newsletters from my own business and will be looking to report back on the response. I will continue to look round to find the stats but there are the obvious benefits:

1. Keeps the customer up to date with your industry developments, this can be useful as it proves that you are adding value to your services, which they can benefit from.
2. Keeps them informed of what you are doing in the market.
3. Reminds them that you are there. Which in todays market is vital.

The other point is that some businesses don’t suit a sales letter, as the customer base probably wouldn’t accept it. Some work with a fine wine company revealed that their customers expect the personalised phone service that the business has been built on, to switch to a swarm of marketing emails would downgrade the brand.

Let me know if you have any feedback on the newsletters.

Posted in e-business, eBusiness, eMail marketing, marketing, online strategy | No Comments »

eBusiness - Integration of websites with 3rd party applications

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Recently I have spoken to two businesses that are interested in an eCommerce website. Both are established businesses running retail websites. One ecommerce website was more successful then other but the issues were identical. Rather than integrating the websites into the necessary third party applications someone was having to copy and paste data between two systems!!!!

The first point, in both cases, was that the “Someone” was a business owner, who no doubt has far better and more important tasks to be completing on a daily basis. It no doubt felt right at the time when they made the decision, after all, it is an important task that needs to be done right. The reality is that paying yourself £60k a year to do data processing is not good use of resources.

The second is the exposure to risk that can occur with a manual task. In one case it was the payment details, so that chance of getting card details incorrect during the process are slim as the banks have numerous checks to ensure the details match up. The other was account and order creation, which could result in incorrect orders or missing details. When the numbers are small the risks are less but as a business grows the room for error increases.

eCommerce & eBusiness should be about reducing manual overheads and the automation of processes to reduce the risk of error. Ok there is the chance that something can go wrong with the software, but with good levels of testing the risks can be reduced and with log files errors can be easily traced.

This rant leads us back into the use of Kaplan and Norton’s strategy map, which I will pick up next time.

Posted in business objectives, business strategy, e-business, eCommerce, online strategy | No Comments »

Customer Proposition Continued

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Earlier in this blog I did start some ramblings about customer propositions and I thought it might be time to carry on where I left off.

Having identified our customers and segmented them, we have started to build propositions that should suit each of the segments or where segements over lap the propositions may suit more than one. It is then important to build up the messaging around that propositions.

The web allows you to easily deal with a number of different propositions, as it is realitively cheap to build 2 websites with slightly different branding to appeal to two different markets. This way you are providing clear messaging to two different groups without confusing either group.

A company that has built up the multi brand messages well, is N Brown a provider of fashion to multiple sectors. The following chart shows a breakdown of their brand propositions taken from a presentation by their CEO Alan White at the recent Drapers online fashion event.

The image lays out how the various propositions fit into the market. As a small business it is unlikely that we will be setting up quiet so many different propositions but it does provide a clear picture of how it can work.

In generating a customer proposition you need to look at a number of key aspects these are indentified as the following by Kaplan and Norton: Price, Quality, Availability, Selection, Functionality, Service, Partnership and Brand.

These are quite important as they will require an internal focus to ensure your business is set up to deliver them.

Posted in eCommerce, online strategy, strategy maps | No Comments »

eCommerce During a Recession

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

eCommerce sites provide an excellent form of marketing during economic downturn. When the high street is starting to feel the pinch it is guaranteed that shoppers will be heading online looking for greater value.

The internet also offers a wider source of customers than you might receive from your other channels, obviously the market is virtually world wide.

However simply having a site isn’t going to be sufficient, it is now that extra work is required in order to capture market share at a time when others might be starting to cut back. Investment in search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising will prove money well spent when you start to build your customer base.

eBusiness also offers a cheaper alternative for keeping in touch with your customers. Email marketing is a very cheap method for keeping in contact with your customers and shouldn’t be ignored. It does need to be combined with data from other sources to gain the most value though. Providing personalised and segmented emails to your customers is a great way of showing them that you care. Similar to the mail that comes through the door people pay more attention to mail that is relevant to them.

Many view marketing as an expense that can be cut to save money. I have personally witnessed the implications of such a mistake, a company I worked for previously saw a drop in sales for 6 months, due to reduced marketing activity.

Posted in business strategy, eBusiness, marketing, online strategy | No Comments »

e-Business

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

The internet doesn’t have to be about selling products online, e-business activities should form part of your overall business information strategy. Which should be aligned with and support your main business strategy. It is vital that the choices you make for your business are not just based on the latest trends and offerings from hi-tech companies.

We can use a simple model to build up a picture of your business strategy. I have recently become familiar with Kaplan and Norton’s strategy maps. Now before you start running for the hills please hold on as the next few additions to the blog will build up a simple picture of how it works and the benefits it can start to bring to your business.

Posted in e-business, online strategy, strategy maps | No Comments »