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2
Marketing Briefly
Before proceeding to study
marketing power of blogging, the author briefly
explains the main concepts of marketing and online advertising. This chapter
defines Internet marketing, social media marketing and social media. These
concepts were used in order to help investigating the research questions.
2.1
Marketing in Internet Environment
In 2007, Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Management S. Gupta defined
marketing as follows:
“Marketing is a social and managerial function that attempts to create, expand
and maintain a collection of customers.”
At the present time technological advance and explosion of the Internet have
reversed marketing environment. Today’s businesses operate on the Web. The
World Wide Web (web) is a global network that has transformed from a
communication tool into a new marketplace (Johnson, 1994). Based on the book
“Blog Marketing and Online Marketing” written by Sherbakova (2010), the most
important types of marketing in Internet are:
- Internet marketing – or online marketing focuses
on advertising activities
that take place on the Web. Also, online marketing mixed with traditional
marketing that concentrates on satisfying customer needs. Internet
marketing is divided into specialized types such as:
• Email marketing – focuses on email communication with current
and potential customers.
• Web marketing – concentrates on web sites,
online and affiliate
advertising.
• Social media marketing – it is a subset of online marketing activities
that are using social media channels for product or service
promotion (Barefoot & Szabo 2009). Social media channel is a
channel of communication that builds a strong relationship with the
customer through the social media. Social Media are Internet based
tools and platforms that are generated for two-ways communication
and information sharing.
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All these types of marketing are similar to traditional marketing. According to
Shenton (2000), whether Internet-based marketing or traditional each marketing
operation normally focuses on five
constants of marketing:
1)
Product – it is the first thing that has to be considered. What
product meets the customers’ needs?
The Web allows the
company provide detailed information about the product. Also
modern options allow tracking the interests of Internet users by
analysing their profiles and checking the links they click by
analytics tools.
2)
Price – the prices can be different in the Internet. As an example
an Internet store has an ability to reduce prices due to the
absence of retail store
that requires rental payments, salaries,
wages payable etc. Also it is possible to track competitors’ prices
and make better offers.
3)
Promotion – it has to find a way to reach customers
. In the
Internet environment online advertising and social media can do
it. The list of online advertising will be presented below. The
social medial channels will be presented later in the research.
4)
Place –
where does the company operate? It is unimportant
because Internet allows finding
the right target audience
worldwide.
5)
People – who is the right customer? In present time, companies
can find perfect customers through the Internet but before that
they have to determine their target group.
