E-Commerce Cyber Marketing Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

E-Commerce Cyber Marketing Strategies - Essay Example Internet has become of the most phenomenon technological factor to most modern organizations, tapping the cost-effectiveness and affordability of the factor to achieve their objectives and goals (Krishnamurthy, 2006). As such, the internet has ingrained itself in the modern commerce and trade. Moreover, despite its rapid growth, analysts expect the internet to growth and advance further. The central goal of most organizations is to realize future threats and opportunities, and accordingly design a strategy. Commoditization of the internet has led to the development and evolution of electronic commerce, or E-commerce as commonly known (Hanson, 2000). Essentially, E-commerce refers to the concept of selling and buying services and products over computer networks or the internet. It incorporates technologies such as internet marketing, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, inventory management, systems, electronic data interchange, online transaction processing, and automatic data collection systems. E-commerce has led to the revolution of traditional marketing concepts, initiating strategies to enhance marketing strategies referred to as network marketing (Miletsky, 2000). This paper seeks to discuss and analyze four main E-commerce cyber marketing strategies: viral marketing, online advertising, permission electronic mail marketing, and search engine man agement and optimization. The paper also provides an analysis of their pros and cons, as well as a comprehensive comparison of the strategies. Lastly, the paper provides a decision-making criterion for selecting the best strategy. In marketing strategies, the most important factor to consider is to shorten the distance between consumption and production as well as reduce the lengthy circulation of commodities through numerous links. As such, the internet provides an ideal marketing platform, allowing consumers and producers to conclude their transaction in a click of a mouse button. This is the foundation of cyber marketing. Essentially, marketing is the communication between firms and customers with the intention of persuading the customer to purchase the goods and services of the firm. The increasing growth and popularity of the internet makes it an ideal target for marketing, supported by other significant factors such as cost effectiveness, reliability, speed, and accessibility (Bhusry, 2005). Consequently, marketers have come up with innovative strategies to tap the potential opportunity of E-commerce cyber marketing, including viral marketing, online advertising, permission electronic mail marketing, and search engine optimization. Viral Marketing Viral marketing essentially refers to the online word-of-mouth advertising. In this marketing concept, the firm provides something interesting that encourages others to spread marketing information about the product or service, cost effectively and quickly without much effort from the firm. Consequently, this potentially creates an exponential growth in the effect and visibility of the marketing message (Bhusry, 2005). In other words, the message spreads like a common cold virus form one person to the other. Cyber virus marketing is a very effective marketing strategy, and a successful campaign may present an opportunity of obtaining thousands of new every year. A prime example of a phenomenon viral marketing s trategy is Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com), the first provider of free E-mail services (Krishnamurthy, 2006). The firm began offering free accounts, attaching a

Evaluate one organisation's approach to sustainability measurement Essay

Evaluate one organisation's approach to sustainability measurement - Essay Example The company is the leader in the grocery markets in UK and has also established itself as the leading grocery and retail merchandiser across several parts of the world. Tesco is the fifteenth largest company among all the companies in the world and is listed in the London stock Exchange. The company is also included in the list of FTSE 100 companies in the UK market. Tesco runs its operations through the supermarket chains, departmental stores, cash and carry outlets and warehouses. Apart from the grocery items, Tesco also offers its customers with the electronic products, computer software, books, furniture, music CDs and DVDs, other items of merchandise, etc. The increase in the supermarket chain and departmental stores with the increase in retail merchandizing activities of Tesco have seen the number of stores of the company grow from 500 stores in 1990 to more than 2500 stores in the next two decades. The company employs around 5.5 lakhs employees in the areas of operation and cu stomer service. The company pays due attention to the sustainability of the leadership position that it has attained over the years. The actions of sustainability measurement have helped the company to retain its position and brand image in the market (Tesco, 2013, p.1). This has paved the path of sustainable growth of Tesco as a multinational company in the world. Environmental and social risks The direct and indirect environmental and social risks for Tesco have been explained as follows. In order to identify and analyse the environmental and social risk exposures of the company, the industry risk as well as the company specific risk should be taken into account. The retail market and industry has undergone a shift to the low demand of the consumers due to the macro-economic fluctuations and events of recession. Tesco faces the risk exposure related to the compliance and regulations for the retail market chains on activities that would lead to environmental pollution, disposal of wastes, etc. The social risks are also involved in the operations of Tesco due to probable negative impacts on the environment and society due to the disposal of wastes in the operations of the company. The social risk forms a major part of the risk exposures in the operations of Tesco as the perception of the society to the operation of the company indirectly affects the sale and revenue earnings of Tesco. The operations of Tesco lead to the perception of brand image of the company. Any impression of loss of faith among the members of the society and the consumers has significant impact in the international operations of the company (Epstein, 2008, p.46). The discrepancies in the operations of the company not only expose the company to environmental and social risk but also increase the risk of value chain system in the company. The financial risk exposures of the company originate from the volatility of the stocks in the retail industry. The volatility of the index leads to the fl uctuation of stock prices of Tesco. This would expose the company to risk of degradation of the valuation of the company. Financial risks related to the company may arise due to the discrepancy in financial reporting of the company. The deviation from the guideline in the financial reporti