Interactive Marketing - Essay Example

Interactive Marketing ID 19714 Order No. 294151 [Supervisor] [Any other details] 25 April 2009 Table of Contents: Introduction: In this short essay, the author presents an analysis of the criticisms by Professor Stephen Brown stating that marketers get too much involved in researches and customer satisfaction and have lost the niche of marketing innovation. In the end the author presented some discussion points. Interactive Marketing in Today's Marketing Efforts Haeckael (1998. pp64-66) developed an empirical generalization on dimensions of interactivity that generate an overall impact on the interactions occurring.

He identified the dimensions as number of people involved, degree of contingency, frequency & reaction time of exchange, degree of sensory involvement, types of entities, content being exchanged, locus of control, degree of synchronicity, senses involved, cost, intimacy, consciousness, mediated/one-to-one, and degree of user ability to modify the form and content in real time. He emphasized that the then unthinkable systems will emerge in the future as just in time interactive marketing systems with features that shall fulfill all the dimensions of interactivity defined by him.

Coviello and Milley et al. (2001. pp22-23) argue that the interactive marketing is the "new" type of marketing and all the rest methods are "traditional" types of marketing. The forms of interactive marketing presented by the researchers are business to consumer, inter-personnel commercial, fully interactive collaboration, network, and business to business. Brodie and Winklhofer (2007. pp3-4) presented the new marketing strategy called e-Marketing penetration that is carried out through four methodologies - Database Marketing (using database tools to target customers in a segment or micro-segment), Transactional Marketing (traditional marketing but through electronic means), Interactive Marketing (electronic interactions between employees and customers) and Network Marketing (developing relationships with customers & firms within an on-line network).

The researchers defined e-Marketing as a methodology to create and mediate dialogue between firm and identified customers over the Internet or other interactive technologies. They listed a number of literatures from 1989 to 2005 to demonstrate how e-Marketing evolved to become the "new" marketing methodology against the "traditional" methodologies. They demonstrated that the primary issues in evolution of e-Marketing have been favourable attitudes, management support & favourable management structure, experience in Information Technology, competitive pressure, able to manage sequential steps to e-Commerce, motivation & communication, ease of use, price & performance of underlying technology infrastructure, creation of value chain, increased efficiencies at reduced costs, and customer & channel willingness.

As described by Klein (2003. pp42-43) the latest trend in interactive marketing includes virtual product experience (interactive viewing of product from all angles, virtual tours using virtual reality) and tele-presence of marketing personnel (virtual 3-D characters speaking about products & answering questions). They concluded that the effectiveness of tele-presence and positive attitude towards advertised products will increase with the level of media richness and with the level of user control in the computerized environments - like looking into the interiors of a car by using a 360 degrees rotating control.

Overall, the interactive marketing has changed the face of the marketing world and is all set to establish modified set of marketing theorizing for the future of this profession. Information Technology is contributing and will continue to contribute critically to this change. Discussion Points Brodie and Winklhofer (2007. pp3-4) presented the framework of e-Marketing and concluded that positive attitude of management & users towards Information Technology is key to the success of this technique of marketing.

Without getting into the technical details, the author wishes to discuss how the modern customer relationship management using IT differs from the traditional customer relationship management e-CRM is a major buzzword in modern world although customer relationship management is a very old concept altogether. The author wishes to discuss what, from the perspective of the customers, is the value addition of e-CRM Are they really able to visualize the value addition of e-CRM from their viewpoint If no, then are these tools only means for reducing the number of humans and still maintain the same efficiency This is the first set of discussion points presented by the author.

Klein (2003. pp42-43) advocates better customer attitude towards advertised products if the media richness and user controls are high. The author wishes to argue whether such virtual reality experience really can substitute the user experience when they view the live product Probably, the virtual product experience only sets their expectations from the live product - and if the actual delivered product doesn't meet the expectation, the customer may feel cheated. Keeping this in mind, can the fancies of graphics designers really meet this requirement And who will finally take the blame from the customer - the 3D character that was explaining the product to the customer Doesn't this concept requires very serious thought process much beyond the whims & fancies of technologies being used This is the second set of discussion points presented by the author.

Conclusion: The author presented the concept of interactive marketing explained by Haeckael (1998. pp64-66) and presented its evolution and success criteria with the help of more literatures. Finally, the author presented some discussion points on this subject. Reference List: Brodie, Roderick J. and Winklhofer, Heidi. (2007). Is e-marketing coming of Age An examination of the Penetration of e-marketing And firm performance. Journal of interactive marketing volume 21. Number 1. pp3-4. Wiley Inter Science.

Retrieved on 25 April 2009. Available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/cgi- bin/fulltext/114043958/PDFSTART. Coviello, Nicole and Milley, Roger et al. (2001). Understanding IT-enabled interactivity in contemporary marketing. Journal of interactive marketing. Volume 15. Number 4. pp22-23. John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved on 25 April 2009. Available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fulltext/85513836/PDFSTART. Haeckel, S. H. (1999). About the Nature and Future of Interactive Marketing.

Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 12, Issue 1. pp64-66. Retrieved on 25 April 2009. Available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/journal/40006669/abstractCRETRY=1&SRETRY=0. Klein, Lisa R. (2003). Creating virtual product experiences: the role of telepresence. Journal of interactive marketing volume 17. Number 1 . pp42-43. Wiley Inter Science. Retrieved on 25 April 2009. Available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fulltext/102526954/PDFSTART End of Document