October 2004

E-Marketing: Delivering Environmentally Friendly Business Benefits

E-marketing delivers serious business benefits to UK commerce and industry, whilst remaining one of the most environmentally friendly ways to advertise and sell.

You can’t ignore it. Marketing is the driving force behind putting your products and services in front of your target audience. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a one-man band, or a company with a fully-fledged marketing department, to be competitive you will need to adopt new marketing methods that take advantage of the available advertising mediums.

E-marketing: What is it?

E-marketing, or electronic marketing, is simply using the Internet to market products and services. There are many individual forms of e-marketing, such as e-mail.

Is there a market for e-marketing?

The UK online marketplace is still enjoying huge growth rates; the online retail sector grew by 44% in 2003 – 12 times more than offline retail. Forrester Research has predicted a growth of a further 46% in this sector for 2004.

The strongest growth sectors include industrial companies, IT & computing, financial services, retail and travel & entertainment.

Can my business grow if I market online?

Whilst it depends on the methodology of your individual approach (e.g. well researched market, good message to communicate, unique selling proposition, etc.), a recent Bellwether report discovered that those companies who spent more than 10% of their marketing budgets on the Internet grew by 10% in Q3.

What other benefits are there?

E-marketing has a host of benefits:
Targeted
Interactive; more interesting
Global reach
Trackable and measurable results
Environmentally friendly
Reduced lead times
24-hour marketing
Cost-effective
Personalisation

Most people are attracted to e-marketing due to the cost-effectiveness of the medium. However, it is not as simple as saying that e-marketing is cheaper. This is simply not true. Distribution cost per unit is usually cheaper - but there is still an overhead cost that comes with any marketing campaign: the preparation.

Before any marketing campaign is carried out, be it online or offline, a large amount of preparation needs to be undertaken. Market research and analysis, copywriting, testing, and other stages need to be completed before you can even begin the campaign.

Tell me more about these "environmental benefits"

There are some environmental benefits of using e-marketing when compared to traditional print marketing. The number of benefits are not what is essential though, it is the impact that these benefits have.

First and foremost, there is a reduction in the use of paper – be it the paper that the marketing communication is printed on, the envelope this communication is put in or the paper used to produce the stamp for postage.

In theory, paper it is an environmentally harmless resource; it is manufactured from a sustainable raw material, can be reused (through recycling) and, ultimately, is biologically degradable.

However, the reality is that manufacturing paper and chemical pulp creates vast volumes of toxic waste water and consumes significant quantities of energy and fresh water. And this is just the beginning of the damage that is caused. Deforestation brings a whole host of other problems, including damaging balanced ecosystems and adjusting global climates.

E-marketing helps to lessen the dependence on paper, reducing the damage that is caused by large-scale paper manufacturing.

Another important benefit is a reduction in the use of ink from presses - residue waste ink is considered a liquid industrial waste that requires proper disposal.

So, what are the different ways of "environmentally friendly" e-marketing?

There are many different forms of e-marketing, including:

Direct e-mail (including e-newsletters)
Text messaging (SMS to mobile telephones)
Websites
Web directories and portals
Search engines
Each type of e-marketing has its advantages and disadvantages. Deciding what type of marketing is best suited to your business at any particular time can be key to the success of a campaign.

What do I need to consider before I begin a campaign?

Before you begin any online marketing campaigns, you need to consider some important details.

Legal issues

Legal issues are the most important item to consider when attempting to run an e-marketing campaign; you do not want to fall foul of the law. For example, some forms of e-marketing require you to handle personal information (e.g. e-mail marketing requires you to know an individual’s e-mail address). This means that you must comply with rules and regulations such as the Data Protection Act 1998. Additionally, new e-mail and SMS marketing rules apply if you are targeting individuals – they must opt-in to receive marketing communications via these mediums.

There are other rules and regulations that need to be considered; contact a qualified advisor if you are unsure which rules and regulations are applicable.

Fulfilment

If you run a highly successful e-marketing campaign, are you able to fulfil the work that is generated?

To avoid becoming a victim of your own success, you need to have a solid fulfilment process in place to handle queries or to dispatch and deliver goods or services in a reasonable time. This means that, while you should plan for a realistic response rate, you also need to know what the limits of your systems are and have a plan to cope with a peak in demand.

Suitability

Make sure the technology you choose is right for both the message and the customers. The set-up and performance of people’s computers varies greatly. For example, some office computers don’t have soundcards, which means audio files (e.g. music) will not be any use.

Another consideration is the Internet connection speed. Do most of your customers access e-mail at work with a broadband connection or do they use a dial-up modem at home? If it is the latter, then large attachments or images will make the e-mail frustratingly slow to download.

Finally, there is an issue of compatibility. For example, different programmes will display e-mail differently. An e-mail with images or an HTML component could look messy on a different set-up. The solution to this problem is to profile your customers and understand what the best format for them is. Some may like e-marketing with all the bells and whistles, others might prefer a plain text e-mail.

Appropriateness

Done right, e-marketing can be enormously effective. Done wrong, however, and it can be intrusive and frustrating.

It is recommended that you contact customers in a measured, planned and targeted way with offers they will appreciate. Unsolicited e-mails (also known as spam) or SMS messages are more likely to turn customers away.

By sending unsolicited commercial communications you may also be breaching new privacy rules. It is very important that you take these into account when planning campaigns and ensure that you comply with them. Failure to do so could result in fines and negative publicity.

Ok, I understand these considerations. Tell me, how do I run my e-marketing campaign?

There are seven distinct stages in running a successful e-marketing campaign:

Research and analyse your target market
Consult with customers to discover what they want from you
Plan the e-marketing campaign
Test the campaign with a representative sample of customers
Measure the results of the test
If the results are acceptable, implement the e-marketing campaign
Monitor and measure the return on investment for the e-marketing campaign

Repeat steps 3 – 7 to expand your e-marketing mix.

E-marketing diagram

I want to know more

Pro Enviro has experience in successfully running various types of e-marketing campaigns across a range of industries.

If the benefits highlighted in this article are of interest to you, contact Amir Davies on 024 76 279 000 for further advice on e-marketing strategies and campaigns.

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