Etailers Turn to Alternative Online Marketing
More and more etailers are turning to alternative marketing when it comes to promoting their ecommerce businesses. These alternative methods, including such items as social networking and consumer-generated content on business blogs, are often difficult to measure. Internet Retailer points out one of the newest examples of alternative online marketing:
“We’re seeing retail clients getting into a heavy experimentation mode in alternative marketing,” says Stephen DiMarco, vice president and chief marketing officer of Compete Inc., a company that measures web traffic and consumer response to online marketing. “Once somebody creates a page on Facebook and a rival sees it, it causes the rest of the market to rush to create a Facebook application, regardless of whether it drives results.”
This represents a growing trend. Ecommerce businesses are setting up Facebook pages and creating business blogs that prominently feature user generated content. However, the difficulty lies in measuring the results of such efforts. It is difficult to analyze traffic, consumer attitudes and pin down the impacts of these alternative online marketing methods. And as evidenced by the backlash against Facebook Beacon, as covered by TechCrunch, some of these methods can run counter to a brand’s efforts.
Integrated analytics from a variety of sources that incorporate customer search information, traffic data and other results can help you create a more accurate picture of whether alternative online marketing really is working for your business.
Tags: ecommerce marketing, ecommerce, online marketing, alternative online marketing,
etailers, ecommerce businesses
Posted by Miranda | January 22, 2008
Greg Pepin January 23rd, 2008
The effectiveness of a brands’ online marketing strategy always points back to the product they are trying to push on the consumer. The success also depends on whether or not they are trying to strengthen relationships with existing consumers or if they are trying to acquire new consumers. A majority of the time brands will try to hit the home run of growing the business with alternative marketing and fail completely when they should be doing more integrated campaigns with the customers they already have.
Simply getting involved in the alternative marketing area, and not keeping the basic tenets of marketing in mind can do a brand more harm than good.
The Blockbuster example you have cited above is bad strategy in my opinion. Rather than reaching out to people who may never become consumers is much more detrimental than building a better relationship with the ones you already have. In turn, they won’t leave you for a competitor.
Miranda January 23rd, 2008
You make some very good points. One thing many etailers neglect is building community. Alternative online marketing often requires a sense of community in order for it to be effective. I agree that cultivating a plan that brings repeat customers is more important than focusing solely on those who may never become customers.