Based on the results, the recommended tools are designed and proposed for the commissioning company. The chapter begins with the background studies that led to the possibility of the topic, followed by a discussion of the project's goals and tasks for writing the thesis.
Background studies
In addition, the chapter will continue with the delineation of the subject, the introduction of the commission company, as well as the stakeholders' benefits and the international aspects of the outcome. Therefore, I decided to have this thesis product-oriented with the final outcome being a set of practical tools to help boost the company's online marketing activities.
Project objectives and tasks
Demarcation
The thesis is focused only on the field of e-marketing as the marketing goal of the product is to improve customer relationship management. Therefore, the scope of the thesis will exclude the concept of e-business and e-commerce, and focus on e-marketing, especially resource planning stage.
Case company profile
In addition, the nature of the product requires a lot of consideration and coordination between the design company, the construction company, the contractors and the consumers, regardless of the volume of sales. CASTA is also the only official distributor of the Spanish household furniture brand TEKA for the Vietnamese market.
Stakeholders’ benefits
Based on the company's business model, most of the contact and communication activities between the company and the customers are done through the sales employee system. Similar to the benefits that the company will receive, the customers will enjoy the benefit of being able to communicate with the company for better services.
International aspect
The first level is to introduce the definition of E-marketing and its development over the years. The second level is to provide a better understanding of the benefits that e-marketing can create and also the common challenges that companies usually encounter when applying to their business model, thus explaining the purposes and strategies of using e- marketing to the benefits.
E-marketing: the concept
Last but not least, mobile marketing is a unique form of e-marketing that focuses on the use of wireless mobile devices, ranging from cell phones, Bluetooth to the latest trend: smart devices. This form of e-marketing is related to IP marketing as nowadays, mobile service owners can access the internet through their devices; however, mobile marketing does not necessarily involve internet based system to be able to work.
Benefits and challenges of E-marketing
In addition, because the Internet market has so many options for many specific goals, specific goals must be determined in advance in order to have a successful Internet marketing plan. Most of the time many companies treat the Internet as "another distribution channel" and abuse the true potential of the Internet.
E-marketing platforms
Email marketing
This type of marketing is more likely to have higher response compared to cold email campaign because of the existing relationship between customers with one of the brands. However, customers tend not to read ads from other brands when the priority of "hosting" the e-newsletter is higher, this type of marketing can be expensive.
Mobile Marketing
In 2000, it was adopted as one of the ISO international standards, and since then, the QR code has become increasingly popular. In addition, the QR code has other convenient features such as readable from any direction in 360o, small print size that saves space.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Click-through rates are highly dependent on the position in which the links appear on search engine pages. The rate only decreases sharply after the first page, falling below 10% for links appearing on the third page. Pay-per-click marketing (PPC) is a form of marketing in which companies place text ads and links to their websites in the "sponsored ads" section of search engine pages when specific keywords or phrases are typed.
Last but not least, in fact, many Internet users do not click on the ads when they are trying to find other specific links and the "sponsored ads" are irrelevant to their purposes (Chaffey.
Theory summary
Due to the competitive nature of PPC, it requires hourly and daily monitoring to stay competitive and up-to-date, which is very time-consuming. On the other hand, e-marketing also brings challenges such as lack of specific goals, insufficient allocated budgets, mishandling of the online value offered to customers, and the transfer of power from sellers to consumers due to the rise of the online social community. QR code is one of the most used mobile marketing features, proving its effectiveness and cost effectiveness.
The interview took place via Skype and emails after the completion of the benchmark study.
Case 1: Australian wineries
The reason for choosing this case study, despite the difference in nature of the industry and product offering from the client company, is because of the initial phase of using online marketing and the simplicity of the tool used, which is similar to CASTA Ltd. According to the study, the wineries started using the Internet quite early, starting in 1994, and one of the wineries in the study sample has integrated Internet marketing into their day-to-day business operations. Most wineries use email, information search and a website brochure as their e-marketing tools, while only 27.1% involve online transactions with suppliers, making the case study suitable for the purpose of the benchmarking process, as the commissioning company is not want to add online transactions to their online marketing plan right now.
Approximately 80% of wineries experience time savings in sending documents and processing orders.
Case 2: Hombase Company, UK
This first email would only be sent 24 hours after customers are added to the Kitchen Trigger program and have a "call to action" (CTA) link that directs customers to the Homebase online catalog along with other CTAs for customers who decided to buy. Typically, this second message only shows the CTA to book an appointment and would direct customers to a specially designed booking page. Finally, the third email is sent to reinforce the message of the previous two trigger emails and “trigger” the undecided customers.
Adding CTA links to emails also resulted in an 8.4% click-through rate and 70% of customers who clicked moved on to book an appointment.
Case 3: E-Mart retailing stores, South Korea
Customers enjoyed the uniqueness of the code view and anticipate the lunch break to witness the cast shadow and scan the code. Due to the good response from the customers, the Sunny Sale QR code was installed in 13 locations in Seoul city in the first two months of 2012 and then expanded to another 20 locations. After the launch of the campaign, more than 12,000 Sunny Sale coupons were sold and in February the number of e-mart members increased by 58% compared to January.
In addition, the campaign also received recognition from international organizations as it received awards from the London International Awards, Cannes Lion and Spikes Asia in 2012 for its achievements in creativity in mobile campaigns.
Case 4: Epic Cruises, Canada
On the other hand, the paid search portion of the campaign (pay per click) was also successful as it optimized the landing page for the ads and added multiple conversion points to increase the click through and conversion rate. Based on their keyword and competition analysis, the paid campaign achieved a conversion rate of 5.2%, almost double the industry's rate (2.8%). The click-through rate for ads on the Google search engine also reached 3.3%, well above the industry rate of 2.1%.
There was a 415% increase in unpaid search engine visits, and a conversion rate of 5.2% was the highest rate Epic Cruises has ever achieved.
Cases analysis summary
Based on the results of the interview, the client shows a lack of experience and knowledge in online marketing. On the other hand, their website and facebook page are the ones that do not work, as their staff is not tasked with continuously updating and improving the pages. He also stated that the company is willing to invest and definitely develop further and deeper in online marketing if they achieve the positive results through the improvements that this thesis recommended.
Based on the results obtained from the benchmarking process and the qualitative interview, it is clear that the proposed tools should be easy and simple to implement.
E-mail newsletter system
A brief description of how the products are categorized in the catalog should grab the attention of customers with different preferences. An interactive HTML email template can be developed in the future, when the newsletter campaign has proven its effectiveness and more IT staff is available. The email newsletter template designed in MS Publisher can be sent to all emails in the list using the mail merge action.
Alternatively, you can attach a link to the CASTA home page or Facebook page to the newsletter.
QR code generator
Below you will find instructions on how to create a new QR code for various marketing purposes that the client company can use in the future to develop it into an all-encompassing QR code campaign. Generating the code is very easy as the user just needs to copy and paste the link of the pages they want to encode into the QR code and then click generate. The QR code can now be printed and pasted on the company's promotional materials, such as newspaper ads, PR articles, product labels, etc.
On the other hand, discount programs can also be promoted through specially designed QR code.
Pay-per-click
It is recommended to include the company's customer service phone number and the company's homepage for easy redirection. Here, the ad that will appear at the top of the front page will be designed depending on the will of the company. The ad expansion section in the settings will allow the company to include their contact information or attach some of their product images.
The final step is to decide the highest cost per click (CPC), which is the highest price the company is willing to pay when a customer clicks on the ad.
Key findings and outcome
Project evaluation
Recommendation and own learnings
Case Study – How intelligent segmentation helped Homebase increase in-store bookings and increase revenue. URL: http://www.canneslions.com/resources/downloads/winners_pdfs/Cannes_Lion s_2012_Mobile_Lions_Winners.pdf. CASTA's product range includes high-end and luxury kitchen cabinets and other appliances, prices ranging from $20-30,000.
At the moment, the B2C sector is still quite new, so we do not have detailed segmentation for our customers.
Project timeline
Gantt Chart
Interview with Minh Nguyen, CASTA’s Executive Director,
