Online businesses tend to use the marketing mix in order to break the aims and objectives and achieve them successfully.
Products: This includes the types of products Tesco sells and how Easyjet provides for customers, for example Tesco provides good products and house equipments whereas Easyjet provides customers with good deals on tickets.
Prices: This includes the prices of the products sold, or the prices that Tesco and Tesco set to sell their products/services. Both businesses set their price list after checking the prices of other similar businesses to theirs. They can either set the prices lower or higher.
Place: This is where the products are going to be sold i.e. where the business sells their products. Tesco sells its products through its store or over the internet. Easyjet sells its services through the internet as you can view online the best tickets available and then try to negotiate over the phone as well.
Promotion: This is where both businesses are going to attract people’s attention to buy the products/services and make them aware of the products in the market. It includes advertisements and promoting the products/services such as offering special offers for their customers. However operating online will require three additional marketing mixes: people, process and physical evidence. The 3Ps that have been added to the marketing mix as operating online does not require any physical products, i.e. they are selling services or products that we cannot actually touch or feel.
People: This refers to all the customers, employees, employers, suppliers and all the people involved in the business. It is very important for the business to meet the satisfaction of its people because the reputation of the business is in people’s hands. This also includes contacting with customers via email. This will help the business to stay in contact with the customers and find out their needs and expectations.
Processes: This includes the amount of time that it will take the customers to purchase a product or service. It involves many questions such as, How Long it will take the customers to buy the product? Or how many clicks does the customer have to perform before ordering a product online? The longer the process, the less effective it is for the customers.
Physical evidence: This includes how the business is promoting the products/services and how they are displayed on the internet. How the website looks? Colourful? Boring? Also why is it attracting customers? It also addresses to how simple and easy the website is to use, e.g. providing a search engine and add to basket.
Segmentations and targets: This relates to the customers. Customers have different preferences to what they want from the business. For example people shop everyday for groceries, however not all customers are looking for the same products. This also applies to Easyjet as people fly from country to country, but depending on the place they go there is a set price. By segmenting the market, customers will be able to find out what all their customers want. Segmentations and targeting online is carrying out a number of different variables such as demographics, economic and psychographics.
Demographics trends: This may change from time to time. It includes gender, age, race, disabilities and employment status. This explains for the population change. For example the age population may increase or decrease over time.
Psychographics: This links to customers on whether they are satisfied with the products/services provided or not.
Economics: This is linked to people’s earnings, whether they are in low income or high income positions.
Usage based: This data notifies the business owners about how the internet is used in different countries all around the world.
Internet marketing
Internet marketers use different techniques to make good use of the online business. Online promotion is one of the main techniques that internet marketers use to take advantage of the internet market. Using different methods for online promotions will work successfully for the internet market. Using a search engine, as Google or Yahoo and making sure the user has entered the correct key words will help the customers find relevant searches. For example entering the word Tesco or Easyjet will bring up a wide variety of results that people can choose from. Banner advertisements are also a good method for promoting the products. Banner advertisement usually appears on the top of the page when viewing a certain website. Tesco and Easyjet can use it to promote the new products/services that have been entered into the business. This will make customers aware of offers that they provide. Affiliation is another way of internet marketing. This is used when businesses want to build a strong relationship and associate with other businesses in order to sell their products through different businesses. Easyjet for example associate themselves with other companies to sell tickets.
Internet marketing opportunities are there for different uses such as:
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Relationship Marketing and mass customisation: This outlines the aim of the business and is based upon building a strong relationship with the customers by making them get involved in the business and share their own ideas and opinions. For example Tesco are always offering existing customers discount tokens on particular products by sending them through the post and they also have the club cards which can be applied to the internet. For Easyjet it supplies customers with web technology, which has images and this helps with customer interaction which can help save money and time. Relationship marketing is also based on collecting feedback from the customers regarding their services and products. By collecting feedbacks from the customers, businesses will be able to work towards providing better services and products for the customers, in other words it will help the business to add any new improvements if needed.
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Reaching wider and more distant markets: By using the internet, businesses can surely reach a wider range of customers from all around the world. This is because any person from any country will have the ability to view the online business and order any products without having to travel. Both Tesco and Easyjet can reach a wider range of audience as they operate online. Customers from all around the world can visit Tesco and order any product they want. For this reason Tesco has expended their business without having to open new stores or employ new staff.
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Development of new products/ services: Business can easily check the top seller products/services through the internet. This is done by checking what the customers are viewing and buying. There is also the rating check that will enable the business to examine whether the customers are interested in a certain product/service or not. Tesco can check which products are more preferable by checking the feedback and the rating of the products. If customers are interested in the products, Tesco can work towards improving the products and adding more varieties or flavours of that product because customers will increase their interests toward the product.
