(photo: Devynlado (2014, August 7th) – Growing a Successful T Shirt Business the E-Commerce Way. Retrieved from GARMENTDECOR)
Dear readers and my creative marketers, it’s been a long time since my last post due to a wonderful job as a summer marketing intern in Video SEO Pro (and it was such an awesome experience which I would LOVE to share with you later on). But first…let me take a…selfie(?) No, of course not! Let us start a brand new chapter for the exciting business model, roll the drum please…—pam-rum-rum-rum—, it’s E-Commerce Marketing!
(photo: Dan Shewan (2015, January 9th) – The Internet of Things Is Already Here – and There’s Nothing You Can Do About It. Retrieved from WordStream)
21st century is the Digital Age where almost everything can be “digitalized”, including education, entertainment, social activities…and most importantly: BUSINESSES.
There are some differences between E-Business and E-Comerce, which we will discuss more in the future. But just a quick key point for you to take away: E-Business is more like progresses within a firm, while on the other hand, E-Commerce include commercial transactions and value exchanges across organizational boundaries (Laudon, K., & Traver, C. (2015). Chapter 1 – The Revolution is Just Beginning. In E-Commerce 2015, Eleventh Edition (11th ed.). Prentice Hall.)
(photo: (2015, June 3rd) – 101 Must-Read Growth Hacking Guides for Ecommerce Startups. Retrieved from Founders Grid)
E-Commerce is definitely a growing business and market we should all watch out! Why is E-Commerce so powerful, you might ask. Well, with the help of Web 2.0, businesses are able to set their regulations, and in some point, rule their market by their own ways.
There are 8 unique traits that made E-Commerce such a lovely darling to us marketers: Global Reach that allow us to break down the boundaries among countries; Universal Standards, meaning the technology standard: the Internet; Richness of information with integration of video, audio, and text; Information Density, with the help of technology, we are able to lower the cost and improve the quality of our contents; Interactivity with consumers; Customization that allows businesses to personalize marketing messages to consumers; Social Technology which user can generate contents and support social networks; and last but not least, Ubiquity where marketplace was extended and consumers were allowed to reach your platform via various devices at anytime, ANYWHERE! (Laudon, K., & Traver, C. (2015). Chapter 2 – E-Commerce Business Models and Concepts. In E-Commerce 2015, Eleventh Edition (11th ed.). Prentice Hall.)
(photo: Retrieved from Ignite Digital)
There are so many concepts and ideas I would love to share with you, such as different types of: business models, strategies, structures…etc. But since this is the first chapter of our E-Commerce Marketing Journey, I would love to take it slowly, and make it more like an interesting dialogue and resourceful space for you to explore!
But just to keep you all as my loyal readers, tee-hee-hee…Take a look at the graphic down below and you’ll know the importance of the magical E-Commerce Marketing!
(photo: Kinetic Growth (2012, December 14th) – US eCommerce sales: 2011-2016. Retrieved from Kinetic Growth)
!!!!!!!!!A-MA-ZING isn’t it!!!!!!!!
Now your expression should be somewhat like this
(photo: Roschke, R. (2013, November 14). Celebrity Surprise GIFs For Every Situation. Retrieved from POPSUGAR.)
Ok folks, are you willing to subscribe our Night Owl Marketers Blog and pay close attention to our E-Commerce Marketing articles now? LOL 😀 Let’s get back to our little discussion over here as a little ending of our first chapter.
Before we start our little discussion, I would like to introduce a new phrase you might have or haven’t heard before: freemium!
(photo: Isak Edblad (2012, November 6). What is the Freemium Model and How Does It Work?. Retrieved from Fik Observatory.)
Freemium is a pricing strategy which industries provide products/services that are free of charge, and rely on certain amount of customers to pay for premium versions of the products/services. Companies with great examples of freemium strategies are: Pandora, Internet radio company; Spotify, online music streaming; and LinkedIn, professional social network.
Why should companies apply freemium as their business strategy? First of all, FREE features often attract people, which make it easier to build up your user base. That is how LinkedIn thrived as the global professional social network in such short amount of time. They rely mostly on contents that were generated by their users, which made it crucial to accumulate huge amount of members.
Second, it also helps if the amount of users can increase the value of your products/sevices. Dating sites and applications are great examples, such as Match!
Last but not least, it works fine if the company is sure to have great customer retention rates and the products produce more value over time. Keep this in your mind when you’re considering freemium as your strategy: the cost of providing the “free products/services” to additional customers must be low in order to keep your company going plus GROWING.
I’ll just share a fun story of freemium strategy for mobile games in case you all get sleepy from watching those extremely long texts above 😛
Now, you get a clearer picture of what freemium is, which basically is: giving away basic products/services for free and charge if users want to upgrade the functions…you might want to ask: since freemium is so attractive to consumers, why don’t companies all apply this strategy?
WRONG! Companies using freemium still face a lot of challenges, including: what are the things that are free versus what should be charged, the cost of providing free products and services to consumers, the pricing of the premium upgrades, and most importantly, how to encourage your consumers to pay when they’ve probably got all the basics they need.
(photo: Retrieved from Webillion Infocom Creative Designs.)
Now you have some basic understanding of E-Commerce Marketing, are you excited to discover more about this spectacular world? Let me know what you want me to cover in the future by leaving your messages down belooooow. And I would LOVE to discuss with you the possibilities and difficulties when applying freemium in your business strategies, cause I had soooooooo much fun reading through the fun case studies myself 😉
-lydialav
For more information of FREEMIUM, you can click on the links below:
- Making “Freemium” Work, by Vineet Kumar
https://hbr.org/2014/05/making-freemium-work - The Common Characteristics Of Successful Freemium Companies, by TOMASZ TUNGUZ
http://tomtunguz.com/when-to-go-freemium/ - What are the best examples of companies that have succeeded using the “Freemium” business model? (Great discussions here!!!)
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-examples-of-companies-that-have-succeeded-using-the-Freemium-business-model - Case Studies in Freemium: Pandora, Dropbox, Evernote, Automattic and MailChimp, by Liz Gannes
https://gigaom.com/2010/03/26/case-studies-in-freemium-pandora-dropbox-evernote-automattic-and-mailchimp/
Night Owl Marketers 