Page 201 - Electronic Commerce

Chapter 4

Promotion includes any means of spreading the word about the product. It requires
decisions about advertising, public relations, personal selling, and overall promotion of the
product. On the Internet, possibilities abound for communicating with existing and potential
customers. In this chapter, you will learn how organizations use their Web sites, e-mail
strategies, and social media as communication tools for promoting their products and services.
176 For years, marketing managers dreamed of a world in which instant deliveries would
give all customers exactly what they wanted when they wanted it. The issue of place (also
called distribution) is the need to have products or services available in many different
locations. The problem of getting the right products to the right places at the best time to
sell them has plagued companies since commerce began. Although the Internet does not
solve all of these logistics and distribution problems, it can certainly help. For example,
digital products (such as information, news, software, music, video, and e-books) can be
delivered almost instantly through the Internet. Companies that sell products that must be
shipped have found that the Internet gives them much better shipment tracking and
inventory control tools than they have ever had before. Figure 4-1 depicts the components
of the four Ps of marketing and shows their contributions to overall marketing strategy.

Product Price
Quality Value to customer
Design Price of competing products
Features Customer price sensitivity
Branding Discounts
Packaging Differential pricing
Customer perception
Marketing
Strategy Learning
Promotion Place
Advertising Distribution channels Cengage
Public relations Market coverage
Personal selling Logistics 2015
Online communications Inventory management ©

FIGURE 4-1 The four Ps of marketing contribute to marketing strategy

Product-Based Marketing Strategies
Managers at many companies think of their businesses in terms of the products and
services they sell. This product-based marketing strategy is a logical way to think of a
business because companies spend a great deal of effort, time, and money to design and
create those products and services. If you ask managers to describe what their companies
are selling, they usually provide you with a detailed list of the physical objects they sell or
use to create a service. When customers are likely to buy items from particular product
categories, or are likely to think of their needs in terms of product categories, this type of
product-based organization works well. Most office supplies stores on the Web believe
their customers think of their needs using a product category structure. For example,
both Office Depot and Staples use product categories (paper, ink and toner, printers) as
the primary organizing theme in the design of their Web sites.

Copyright 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.