ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In the name of Allah the most merciful, I am very grateful to complete this task as requested by Radiusite on 27 August 2012. Through this report, I have analyzed all the important elements to make sure Radiusite can improve the services. Thank you. TERM OF REFERENCE
To investigate about the internet promotion of Radiusite and how the business need to be improve based on customer perception, advertising model and marketing method. BACKGROUND OF STUDY Radiusite is a shawl boutique that is opened since 2009 with two boutique in Shah Alam and Rawang. This company seem to operate more on their online shop and this report is prepared to present the analysis and suggestion on how to improve the company services. Question A There are many ways to promote Radiusite Boutique through internet. One of the method is by using online public relation.
According to (Knowthis. com) Public relations involves the cultivation of favourable relations for organizations and products with its key publics through the use of a variety of communications channels and tools. The tools available in traditional public relation (offline) and online public relation is different. For online public relation the tools used include social media, website, online press conference, article and e-mail marketing. The online public relation method that has been used by Radiusite Boutique is by promote the business through social media.
The social media that has been used is facebook and Youtube. The customer can open the facebook page and click “like” to subscribe the latest information about Radiusite Boutique. The latest update from the company will be delivered to the customer as soon as they sign in to their facebook. This will directly promote the business through internet because customer also can interact with the company. Customer suggestion and comment can help the company to improve, other than that, give respond to the comment also can create a good relationship with customers.
The company also use youtube as a method for their public relation. They provide video on how to use their product on youtube, this provide aids for the customers so they can be more understand and if they don’t, they can ask the through the comment. Youtube also shows the customers the actual looks of the product. The benefit is they can reach the customer easily without paying anything compare to use the promoter in traditional method. Radiusite is well known with their online boutique rather than two of their boutique in rawang and shah alam.
This company used their official website as another tool to promote their product, the customers that visit facebook or youtube will be provided with the link to jump to the official website. This website provide the ordering form for the customer to make transaction, with this method the company can attain the customer detail like name, address, email and many more. This website also provide the customers with term & condition of the transaction that they will make.
The information provided with the term and condition will make the customer more understand about the product and build good relation between the two parties because they can avoid miscommunication. For example, the term and condition has explain that the customer has to sent the copy of the receipt to Radiusite for the process of validation, if not the process will not be proceed. Other than social media and website, there are many other tools that can be used like online press conference, online newsletter, article marketing and e-mail.
Firstly, I suggest to use online press conference, it is the method where the information is released and the public is allowed to give question. There are two ways of online press conference that is forum and online chatting. By using forum, customers can discuss about the topic in the thread, the moderator can control the content of the post in the forum. By using this, Radiusite can easily analysed the strength and weakness of their product based on the thread opened by the site’s user, they also can replay the question asked and discussed about any issues.
Online chatting also can be used by Radiusite as a online press conference. Radiusite can share the company latest news to the public and the chat room allow the visitor to communicate and give comment and suggestion on the business. This give advantage to Radiusite because they can interact with customer in real time. This is important because the customer can’t wait too long before their message will be reply, at least with this chat room, other user that online can response to the question, suggestion or comment. Article marketing is another tools that can be used in online public relation.
article marketing is used by a company to attract the public by releasing an article that the public has interest. This article then will be republish by other website or blog if it is really interesting, at the same time can help Radiusite to gain publicity. Other benefit of article marketing is it can generate awareness to potential customer that read the article, it also come with trust if the article is shared by other person. Lastly, I suggest Radiusite to use e-mail marketing. According to (homebusiness. about. com), e-mail marketing is a process of soliciting business prospects via email.
Radiusite for example can send e-mail to their potential or current customer telling about the promotion made. This will directly build awareness to the potential customer and loyalty to the current customer. When the e-mail is sent to the customers, they realized that the company valued them and wants them to remain as the customer of the next product. Question B Internet promotion is the method where the promotion is done by online and differ from traditional promotion method. The tools used in internet promotion are popup advertisement, banner advertisement, online public relation, social media, blogs and flash game.
For Radiusite the online promotional tool that has been used is banner advertisement, this tool is used by displaying a picture that give a message to the website’s visitor to attract them to buy the product. Example of banner advertisement that can be found in Radiusite is when the website placed banner with shows the user about their boutique operation time. Other than that, there is also a banner that promote their boutique shop in Shah Alam. The benefit of this tool is the customer will be more attracted to the message only by displaying a simple banner.
Other than that, Radiusite also use social media, it is one of the tools used in online public relation. This is a very affective online promotional tool because people nowadays spend more time in their social media. The information will be easily spread in the virtual world, for example by using facebook, the customer can share about Radiusite boutique to all his or her friend. Although with one share, the information is effectively reach the potential customers. Other online public relation tools also helping in internet promotion.
The tools that can be used for example are e-mail marketing and article marketing is very helpful. For example, the company can attract random customer by using e-mail marketing, by using this method, the company also can approach customers personally. Other than that, I suggest Radiusite to use pop up advertisement. According to (Webopedia. com) pop up ads is a type of window that appears on top of (over) the browser window of a Web site that a user has visited. This tool can attract more attention because the visitor whether they want or not will
open the pop up windows to see what is the content. The benefit that Radiusite can gain is although the visitor is not read the whole content, they will be aware about the existence of the product. Question C According to (entrepreneur. com) affiliate marketing is a way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies (“affiliates”) who market the company’s products for a commission . As a business organisation, we can offer an affiliate program to others or we can sign up to be another business’s affiliate.
In Radusite, I found that the website is offer an affiliate program to other business, we can see the notice at the left side of the page that inform about the affiliate program for those who are interested. The example of affiliate marketing can be seen in the picture below where two of the advertising in the website will be direct the user to the other website or blog that is owned by the affiliate business. The example in picture below will direct the user to princessvictoriastylo. blogspot. com and cheromforinlo. com Both of princessvictoriastylo. blogspot and cheromforinlo.
com used banner advertisement as a method for their affiliate program. This is a common style used in affiliation, it is effective for small business that want to develop their brand. The advertising is influenced by the popularity of Radiusite, so the affiliate will get more famous. There are many type of commission method, the common type used is PPC (pay per click) and PPA (pay per action). According to (Investopedia. com) a website that uses CPCs / PPC would bill by the number of times a visitor clicks on a banner instead of by the number of impressions.
The advantage of using PPC can be seen at the affiliate’s side, this is because the affiliate only need to pay the advertising based on how many times people click on it. According to (Marketingterms. com) PPA or CPA (cost per action) is a online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations. This is the best choice for Radiusite if the boutique want to promote using affiliate program. This is because the affiliate does not need to pay if the visitor just click, the commission will be pay when a specific action agreed by both side is taken, for example registration or sales.
For the company that want to make affiliate program in Radiusite website, the commission has been set to be pay RM 200 for 1 month and RM 500 for 3 month. The advantage of this scheme is it generate constant income for every space of advertising. For better income in affiliate program, Radiusite can use pay per click. Although not all the visitor will click to the affiliate advertisement, once they click, the percentage will receive to Radiusite, the percentage of payment for cost per click is high, so it can generate better than current scheme.
Question D According to (Businessdictionary. com) customer perception is a marketing concept that encompasses a customer’s impression, awareness and/or consciousness about a company or its offerings. Customer perception is typically affected by advertising, reviews, public relations, social media, personal experiences and other channels. There are good and bad customer perception that can be found for Radiusite. From the facebook, I have analyzed several comment that can be used to understand customer’s perception.
Below are several example that we can use to know customer’s perception. From this picture, the perception that we can see is a perception that represent loyalty and trust to the brand. In the comment, the customer state that she used to cut her working time only to get the product, she also said that she met the model, this means that the customer knows the product from the source that use the model as a promotion method, it is by using social media and company’s website where the picture is placed.
In the other comment, the customer said that the product is very attractive and she wants to buy another shawl although she has bought 2 shawl before. In this comment, we can see that the customer is very confident to buy the product based on her good experience with the product. The promotion by using social media mostly from facebook has influenced the customers perception because it has frequently update and the update always reach the customers. So here, we can see the promotion through social media can attract customer to buy the product and create a good perception.
This comment shows the customer perception that satisfy with the services provided by Radiusite. Through the banner advertisement from the website, the customer can understand the step to be taken to complete the transaction. The banner advertisement in the website not only displaying the picture but also play an important role to deliver the information about the company. There are 2 comment from unsatisfied customers regarding the services of Radiusite. The first comment says that the product is not as expected, this may happen because lack of product description during the promotion.
The second comment is about the poor services of Radiusite online, the customer has make many order but she got no response from Radiusite. I suggest Raduisite to give detail explanation about the product before advertise it, customer sometimes confused by the picture advertising because they didn’t see it before. Other than that, Radiusite need to be more specific in explaining the step to make purchase through the website and social media, customer has complaint that Radiusite did not take action for the order made by call. This shows that there is lack of information for customers. Question E According to (Webopedia.
com) Internet marketing, or online marketing refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use the Web and e-mail to drive direct sales via e-commerce as well as sales leads from Web sites or emails. It is different from traditional marketing. According to (Investopedia. com) Marketing is the activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people. Internet Marketing| Traditional Marketing| Objective| Accessibility| Marketing strategies| Both of traditional and internet marketing have the same objective which is to maximize the organization profit.
Through internet and traditional marketing, the organization can influence the customers to buy the product and services provided, beside that it also bring loyalty to the current customers. For Radiusite boutique, both internet and traditional promotion made is aimed to sell the product which is shawl. The accessibility of this two method is also same. Internet and traditional marketing is easy to access because nowadays everyone can access internet and everyone can have a television and radio. Same goes to newspaper and magazine, this material can be found in any local groceries. So the public can access the media freely.
For Radiusite, besides using online promotion, traditional promotion also can be used for example by advertise in the newspaper and television. The marketing strategies used for both method also same. It has the same strategies but the way it is delivered to the public is different. For example, both of the method apply 4ps of marketing mix because it is the basic for whatever method used in marketing. Radiusite has to pay attention on pricing strategy whether using online or traditional promotion. | Internet Marketing| Traditional Marketing| Cost| Low cost| High cost| Coverage| Wide| Limited| Feedback| easy| hard|
The different of internet marketing and online marketing can be seen in term of cost. Internet marketing is less cost compare to traditional marketing, this is because traditional marketing use approach like radio, television, banner, promoter and also paper materials like newspaper, magazine and many more. This will make the process of marketing become high in cost. In the other site, internet marketing only use online tools like online PR, banner ads, blog, pop up windows, social media and many more. Online marketing is more to virtual world, so it is paperless. There is also difference in term of coverage of the marketing.
Internet marketing cover wider area because it use internet to reach the target. The things needed is only a computer or devices that can connect to the internet. Compare to traditional marketing, the coverage is limited because it only concentrate to the targeted area, the wider the area its cover, the higher the cost needed. For example, if Radiusite use traditional marketing, by using banner, the marketing is limited to the resident, by using television or radio the broadcast is also limited but internet marketing is broad and across the country as we can see through Radiusite online Boutique. Lastly, the feedback.
By using internet marketing, the feedback can be attain more effective. Online marketing tools like social network allow its user to respond very fast. In the other side, traditional marketing a need face to face promotion to gain the response from the customer. More than that, face to face marketing is a time consuming marketing, it may takes time to get response from 10 customer compare to get comment from 10 user in Raduisite facebook page. CONCLUSION The internet has been used in promoting Radiusite Boutique by applying the use of online public relation. Website, social media like facebook and youtube has been used by Radiusite.
Other online PR tools is suggested to Radiusite for example article marketing, e-mail marketing and online chat. For internet promotion method, Radiusite has used banner ads and social media for the promotion method. It is suggested for Radiusite to use pop up advertisement, e-mail and article marketing. There are also affiliation business model in Radiusite website, most of the affiliate use banner ads as promotional tools. The commission payment method is not using PPC or PPA, Radiusite has state the payment scheme for those who are interested to advertise their product in Radiuside webpage.
Customer perception has been analysed based on several comment from the social media. There are positive and negative comment regarding the promotion that has been used by Radiusite. In the positive side, the promotion that has been conduct through official website and social media has successful to influence customer to make transaction. There is also negative perception for the promotion that has been made. Radiusite is suggested to provide advertisement with more product detail and full instruction for transaction.
Lastly is the similarities and differences between internet and traditional marketing for Radiusite boutique. Internet marketing and traditional marketing in Radiusite boutique has the same objective, both of this method has the same accessibility to reach the user and have the same marketing strategies. The differences of using this two method can be found in term of cost, the coverage of the marketing and the feedback receive. BIBLIOGRAPHY Public relations http://www. knowthis. com/principles-of-marketing-tutorials/public-relations/what-is-public-relations/
E-mail marketing definition http://homebusiness. about. com/od/homebusinessglossar1/g/email_marketing. htm Pop up advertisement definition http://www. webopedia. com/TERM/P/popup_ad. html Affiliate marketing http://www. entrepreneur. com/encyclopedia/term/82092. html Customer perception http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/customer-perception. html Marketing definition http://www. investopedia. com/terms/m/marketing. asp#axzz25LjzVQhJ CPC http://www. investopedia. com/terms/c/cpc. asp#axzz25LjzVQhJ Affiliate APPENDICES Social Media Banner ads
