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E-Marketing

that up to the first quarter of 2003, the average conversion addresses are often purchased or swapped with other busi-
rate from shopping in brick-and-mortar stores to buying nesses. Spamming is at best unethical and at worst illegal.
on e-commerce sites was just 10 percent.
E-customers’ most serious concern is security and pri- COSTS AND BENEFITS OF
vacy, followed by price, delivery cost, return policy, cus- E-MARKETING
tomer service, site design, navigation, one-click shopping, E-marketing can offer more competitive prices than tradi-
and personalization. E-marketers must assure customers
tional marketing because e-marketing reduces costs by not
that their sites use cybercrime-proof systems to protect e-
having to maintain physical store space and by strategi-
customer information and clearly display the security/pri- cally placing distribution centers throughout the country.
vacy statement on their sites. Competitive prices,
Second, because the Internet is available 24/7, e-market-
discounts, e-coupons, free delivery, and standard return ing enables shoppers to search for product/service infor-
policies motivate initial online purchases and repeat pur-
mation and buy goods at their convenience, not just when
chases. Nevertheless, requiring too many mouse clicks for
the store is open. Third, research indicates that the cost of
navigating on a site, a lack of easily accessible help, tech-
nical difficulties, and requesting too much customer Internet-based promotion is one-fourth of traditional pro-
motion, because it does not incur the costs of paper, print-
information for purchasing goods often causes shoppers
to abandon their online shopping carts before reaching ing, handling, and mailing. Fourth, e-marketing enables
buyers to custom-build products such as shoes, clothes,
the checkout.
computers, and automobiles on the Web, options often
not available in stores.
E-MARKETING TECHNIQUES
E-marketing techniques can be broken down to pull and
PITFALLS AND LEGAL ISSUES
push marketing. Pull marketing is a passive technique by
which online shoppers take the initiative requesting spe- Failures and successes in e-marketing have shown that
cific information on the Web. Search engines, when marketing goods online results in distribution, stor-
product/service advertising, e-coupons, and e-samples are ing, or shipping and handling costs higher than the value
part of pull marketing. For example, e-marketers can reg- of the goods, an exclusively online enterprise may be
ister their e-commerce sites, products, and services with headed for a short life. In addition, e-marketers need to be
search engines such as Google and or Yahoo, thereby aware of cultural pitfalls when designing e-commerce sites
enabling online shoppers to search for product/service for foreign markets.
information using Google or Yahoo and link to their sites. E-marketers must operate their businesses in compli-
Similarly, e-marketers can also register their e-coupons ance with numerous laws. For example, e-marketers are
and e-samples with e-coupon sites such as ecoupons.com responsible for protecting customers’ privacy; without
and e-sample sites such as yes-its-free.com. customers’ permission, they are not legally allowed to
Push marketing is a proactive technique that enables share or sell customers’ information to a third party.
e-marketers to “push” their product/service information Copying other businesses’ Web information for commer-
to Web visitors or shoppers without their requesting it. cial use is also in violation of copyright law.
Banner advertising, pop-up advertising, e-mail promo-
SEE ALSO Cyber Crime; Electronic Commerce
tion, and spamming belong to push marketing. For
instance, e-marketers can rent designated space from
Internet service providers such as America Online or BIBLIOGRAPHY
MSN for their banner or pop-up ads. Using animated Awad, Elias M. (2004). Electronic commerce: From vision to ful-
graphics, appealing messages, and links, e-marketers try to fillment (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
lure visitors to their sites to buy their products or services. Strauss, Judy, El-Ansary, Adel, and Frost, Raymond (2005). E-
Many Internet users, however, find such ads annoying and marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
employ software that blocks pop-ups and banner ads. Zhao, Jensen J. (2003). Web design and development for e-busi-
E-mail promotion is widely used by e-marketers to ness. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
send new product/service information to their registered Zhao, Jensen J., Whitesel, Joel A., Alexander, Melody W., et al.
(2004). The quality of Fortune 500 B2C e-commerce Web
customers. For example, airline companies periodically e-
sites: An experiential assessment by online shoppers. Issues in
mail their registered customers about their e-fares and
information systems, 5(1), 359–365.
promotional vacation packages. Spamming refers to send-
ing millions of e-mail promotions to recipients who have
never asked for the information. These recipients’ e-mail Jensen J. Zhao

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