WEST UNIVERSITY OF TIMIOARA FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT: FINANCE & BANKING ENGLISH

Bachelor Dissertation

Scientific coordinator Phd Lecturer Adam Ciprian Bachelor Student Vadim Rob

2012

WEST UNIVERSITY OF TIMIOARA FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT: FINANCE & BANKING ENGLISH

Bachelor Dissertation Online Marketing Campaign

Scientific coordinator Phd Lecturer Adam Ciprian Bachelor Student Vadim Rob

2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE MEDIUM.....................................5 1.1. INTERNET. CROSS MEDIA............................................................5 1.2. NEW MEDIA.....................................................................................6 1.3. ONLINE MARKETING NOTIONS. EFFECTIVE MARKETING.................................................................................10 CHAPTER 2. ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS MODELS, CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, MIX, TOOLS AND CHANNELS......................................................13 2.1. ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS MODELS.............................13 2.2. ONLINE BUYING BEHAVIOR.....................................................17 2.3. THE ONLINE MARKETING MIX................................................ 20 2.4. ONLINE MARKETING TOOLS....................................................24 2.5. INTERNET MARKETING CHANNELS.......................................25 CHAPTER 3. ONLINE CREATIVE STRATEGY.................................................28 3.1. MEASURE AND CONTROL.........................................................28 3.2. ONLINE MARKETING TRENDS..................................................29 3.2.1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING GOES MAINSTREAM.........29 3.2.2. VIDEO MARKETING BECOMES MAINSTREAM................30 3.2.3. MOBILE WEBSITES..............................................................33 3.3. GANTT CHARTS............................................................................33 CHAPTER 4. ONLINE MARKETING CAMPAIGN STRATEGY/ PLAN FOR CITY BUSINESS CENTRE TIMISOARA....................................35 4.1. BUSINESS/COMPANY INFO........................................................35 4.2. TARGET AUDIENCE & PERSONAS............................................35 4.3. SMART OBJECTIVES & THE BUDGET......................................37 4.4. ONLINE MARKETING MIX & TOOLS.......................................39 4.4.1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS USED FOR THE CAMPAIGN............................................................................39 4.4.2. SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) TOOLS USED FOR THE CAMPAIGN...........................................................44 4.4.3. MONITORING AND CONTROL TOOLS...............................46 4.5. ONLINE CREATIVE STRATEGY...................................................49 4.5.1. WEBSITE RELATED CREATIVE STRATEGY........................49 4.5.2. OTHER CREATIVE STRATEGY ELEMENTS & GANTT CHART.....................................................................................51 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS................................................................................53 REFERENCES...........................................................................................................54

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE MEDIUM

1.1. INTERNET. CROSS-MEDIA The Internet (also known as the Net, or the Web) can be shortly described as a network of networks. Specifically, it is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol. It is a more interactive medium of mass media. It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and governmental networks, which together carry various information and services, such as e-mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web. Toward the end of the 90s, the coming of the World Wide Web marked the first era in which most individuals could have a means of exposure on a scale comparable to that of mass media. Anyone with a web site has the potential to address a global audience, although serving to high levels of web traffic is still relatively expensive. It is possible that the rise of peer-to-peer technologies may have begun the process of making the cost of bandwidth manageable. A vast amount of information, imagery, and commentary (content) has been made available in web pages. Internet has also enabled breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. This rapid growth of instantaneous, decentralized communication is often deemed likely to change mass media and its relationship to society. The number of people who use the Internet in the USA: More than 75% of the U.S. population are online, and this number grows every day. (Sites like InternetWorldStats.com have updated statistics.) 90% of Internet users use search engines to find products, services, or information, according to iProspect.com. Social media use is on the rise. In 2010, Facebook reported that every 24 hours 175 million active Facebook users (out of over 500 million total users) share about 500 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.).

"Cross-media" refers to delivering the same message through different media channels. Many authors understand cross-media publishing to be the ability to publish in both print and on the web without manual conversion effort. The Internet is quickly becoming the center of mass media. Everything is becoming accessible via the internet. Instead of picking up a newspaper, or watching the 10 o'clock news, people can log onto the internet to get the news they want, when they want it. For example, many workers listen to the radio through the Internet while sitting at their desk. Even the education system relies on the Internet. Teachers can contact the entire class by sending one e-mail. Moreover there are distant learning programs that are made possible through an online virtual learning environment which make that

possible. They may have web pages where students can get another copy of the class outline or assignments. Some classes have class blogs in which students are required to post weekly, with students graded on their contributions. A blog is a website, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or interactive media such as images or video, usually maintained by an individual or more. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order, with most recent posts shown on top. Blogging, too, has become a pervasive form of media. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images and other graphics, and links to other blogs, web pages, and related media. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Microblogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. (as an example here, Twitter, can be mentioned) RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal blogs. It is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed" or "channel") contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs like Flipboard, Mixtab, Reeder or filtered displays. A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers (the term is derived from the popular media player, iPod). The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

1.2. NEW MEDIA New media is a broad term in media studies that had grown in the latter part of the 90s that refers to on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, may it be computers, tablets, phones, etc, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. Another important promise of new media is the "democratization" of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content. Another aspect of new media is the real-time generation of new, unregulated content. In general technologies label as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, compressible, and interactive. Some examples may be the Internet, websites, computer multimedia, video games, CD-ROMS, and DVDs.

New media does not include television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is an example, combining Internet accessible digital text, images and video with web-links, creative participation of contributors, interactive feedback of users and formation of a participant community of editors and donors for the benefit of non-community readers. Facebook is an example of the social media model, in which most users are also participants. The flourish of new media has increased communication between people all over the world and the Internet. It has allowed individuals to communicate and express themselves through blogs, websites, pictures, and other user-generated media. Flew (2002) stated that as a result of the evolution of new media technologies, globalization occurs. Globalization is generally stated as "more than expansion of activities beyond the boundaries of particular nation states". Globalization shortens the distance between people all over the world by the electronic communication (Carely 1992 in Flew 2002) and Cairncross (1998) expresses this great development as the "death of distance". New media "radically break the connection between physical place and social place, making physical location much less significant for our social relationships" (Croteau and Hoynes 2003: 311). However, the changes in the new media environment create a series of tensions in the concept of "public sphere". According to Ingrid Volkmer, "public sphere" is defined as a process through which public communication becomes restructured and partly disembedded from national political and cultural institutions. This trend of the globalized public sphere is not only as a geographical expansion form a nation to worldwide, but also changes the relationship between the public, the media and state (Volkmer, 1999:123). "Virtual communities" are being established online and transcend geographical boundaries, eliminating social restrictions. Howard Rheingold (2000) describes these globalised societies as self-defined networks, which resemble what we do in real life. "People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk" (Rheingold cited in Slevin 2000: 91). For Sherry Turkle"making the computer into a second self, finding a soul in the machine, can substitute for human relationships" (Holmes 2005: 184). New media has the ability to connect people with same interests and appeals. While this perspective suggests that the technology drives and therefore is a determining factor in the process of globalization, arguments involving technological determinism are generally frowned upon by mainstream media studies. Instead academics focus on the multiplicity of processes by which technology is funded, researched and produced, forming a feedback loop when the technologies are used and often transformed by their users, which then feeds into the process of guiding their future development.

While commentators such as Castells espouse a "soft determinism" whereby they contend that "Technology does not determine society. Nor does society script the course of technological change, since many factors, including individual inventiveness and entrpreneurialism, intervene in the process of scientific discovery, technical innovation and social applications, so the final outcome depends on a complex pattern of interaction. Indeed the dilemma of technological determinism is probably a false problem, since technology is society and society cannot be understood without its technological tools." (Castells 1996:5) This, however, is still distinct from stating that societal changes are instigated by technological development, which recalls the theses of Marshall McLuhan. Manovich and Castells have argued that whereas mass media "corresponded to the logic of industrial mass society, which values conformity over individuality," (Manovich 2001:41) new media follows the logic of the postindustrial or globalized society whereby "every citizen can construct her own custom lifestyle and select her ideology from a large number of choices. Rather than pushing the same objects to a mass audience, marketing now tries to target each individual separately." (Manovich 2001:42). Social movement media has a rich and storied history (see Agitprop) that has changed at a rapid rate since New Media became widely used (Chris Atton). The Zapatista Army of National Liberation of Chiapas, Mexico were the first major movement to make widely recognized and effective use of New Media for communiques and organizing in 1994. Since then, New Media has been used extensively by social movements to educate, organize, share cultural products of movements, communicate, coalition build, and more. The World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity was another landmark in the use of New Media as a tool for social change. The World Trade Organization protests used media to organize the original action, communicate with and educate participants, and was used as an alternative media source. The Indymedia movement also developed out of this action, and has been a great tool in the democratization of information, which is another widely discussed aspect of new media movement.Some scholars even view this democratization as an indication of the creation of a "radical, sociotechnical paradigm to challenge the dominant, neoliberal and technologically determinist model of information and communication technologies." A less radical view along these same lines is that people are taking advantage of the Internet to produce a grassroots globalization, one that is anti-neoliberal and centered on people rather than the flow of capital. Of course, some are also skeptical of the role of New Media in Social Movements. Many scholars point out unequal access to new media as a hindrance to broad-based movements, sometimes even oppressing some within a movement. Others are skeptical about how democratic or useful it really is for social movements, even for those with access. There are also many New Media components that activists cite as tools for change that have not been widely discussed as such by academics. New Media has also found a use with less radical social movements such as the Free Hugs Campaign. Using websites, blogs, and online videos to demonstrate the effectiveness of the movement itself. Along with this example the use of high volume

blogs has allowed numerous views and practices to be more widespread and gain more public attention. Another example is the on-going Free Tibet Campaign, which has been seen on numerous websites as well as having a slight tie-in with the band Gorillaz in their Gorillaz Bitez clip featuring the lead singer 2D sitting with protesters at a Free Tibet protest. Another social change seen coming from New Media is trends in fashion and the emergence of subcultures such as Text Speak, Cyberpunk, and various others. In 1984, Rice defined new media as communication technologies that enable or facilitate user-to-user interactivity and interactivity between user and information. Such a definition replaces the "one-to-many" model of traditional mass communication with the possibility of a "many-to-many" web of communication. Any individual with the appropriate technology can now produce his or her online media and include images, text, and sound about whatever he or she chooses. Thus the convergence of new methods of communication with new technologies shifts the model of mass communication, and radically reshapes the ways people interact and communicate with one another. in "What is new media?" Vin Crosbie (2002) described three different kinds of communication media. He saw Interpersonal media as "one to one", Mass media as "one to many", and finally New Media as Individuation Media or "many to many". When the meaning of interactivity crosses ones thought, it is assumed that it is only prominent in the conversational dynamics of individuals who are face-to-face. This restriction of opinion does not allow us to see its existence in mediated communication forums. Interactivity is present in some programming work, such as video games. It's also viable in the operation of traditional media. In the mid 1990s, filmmakers started using inexpensive digital cameras to create films. It was also the time when moving image technology had developed, which was able to be viewed on computer desktops in full motion. This development of new media technology was a new method for artists to share their work and interact with the big world. Other settings of interactivity include radio and television talk shows, letters to the editor, listener participation in such programs, and computer and technological programming. Interactive new media has become a true benefit to every one because people can express their artwork in more than one way with the technology that exists today and there is no longer a limit to what one can do with ones creativity. In understanding new media, interactivity can be considered a central concept, but different media forms possess different degrees of interactivity, and some forms of digitized and converged media are not in fact interactive at all. Tony Feldman considers digital satellite television as an example of a new media technology that uses digital compression to dramatically increase the number of television channels that can be delivered, and which changes the nature of what can be offered through the service, but does not transform the experience of television from the user's point of view, and thus lacks a more fully interactive dimension. It remains the case that interactivity is not an inherent characteristic of all new media technologies, unlike digitization and convergence. Terry Flew (2005) argues that "the global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new

media" (Flew 2005: 101). Interactivity is prominent in these online video games such as World of Warcraft, The Sims Online and Second Life. These games, which are developments of "new media," allow for users to establish relationships and experience a sense of belonging that transcends traditional temporal and spatial boundaries (such as when gamers logging in from different parts of the world interact). These games can be used as an escape or to act out a desired life. Will Wright, creator of The Sims, "is fascinated by the way gamers have become so attached to his invention-with some even living their lives through it". New media have created virtual realities that are becoming virtual extensions of the world we live in. With the creation of Second Life and Active Worlds before it, people have even more control over this virtual world, a world where anything that a participant can think of can become a reality. New Media changes continuously because it is constantly modified and redefined by the interaction between users, emerging technologies, cultural changes, etc.

1.3. ONLINE MARKETING NOTIONS. EFFECTIVE MARKETING Online marketing (also known as e-marketing, web marketing, and Internet marketing) is defined as using the World Wide Web to market products or services. Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising and sales. Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, mobile advertising, and Web 2.0 strategies. There are five key components to effective marketing: 1. Awareness. Marketing builds awareness. You can have the best service or product in the world, but if nobody knows, there is no point. Awareness can come from many sources including advertising, search optimization, referrals, online marketing, traditional market- ing, word-of-mouth marketing, and, in these online days, word-of- mouse marketing. 2. Communication/information distribution. Marketing communicates, educates, and informs. Getting a message in front of current and prospective customers is the key to success. Communication can serve as information distribution (pricing, value, competitive value, distinction, product/service information, sharing, directions, videos, testimonials, photos, how to find you, etc.). Communication can also serve as a way to help educate current or prospective customers so they understand the full value that you provide and why they want to do business with you. Communication is a critical component of marketing.

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3. Connection. Meaningful marketing makes, builds, and sustains relationships, and all relationships are ignited with a meaningful connection. Successful marketing helps build know, like, and trust factors. Buyers of a product or service need to know, like, and trust you, the product(s), service(s), and organization. On the web, connections are shared by positioning expertise, evoking pas- sion, distributing content, using the show me, dont tell me power of video, voicing values, and much more. Connections count for most of marketing success. 4. Service. Marketing is about serving before selling. Service is the most commonly overlooked form of online marketing, and can be the most powerful. Customer service helps close new sales and cultivate repeat sales. The best customers are current customers - service support reminds customers why they want to work with your organization. Being a service superstar on the web can yield mega results and leave the competition scratching their heads. Marketing strategy needs to include web use (website, e-mail, social media, and more) for the best customer service. 5. Sales. There is a saying that everyone is in sales. Marketing supports sales whether youre trying to sell yourself for that new job, sell products/services for an organization, or inspire donations or volunteers to support a nonprofit. Think of web marketing as a trusty sidekick that will help build relationships and close sales. To achieve this, all the previous points (awareness, communication, connection, and service) must be part of the marketing puzzle. The old rules of marketing involved a one to many approach. One message was distributed in a scattershot fashion to appeal to as many potential customers as possible. The sell to the masses and live with the classes approach still works. However, today online marketing allows for a much more targeted one-to-one relationship. Online marketing is not about the tools themselves (like websites, e-mail technology, blogs, social media, TV, magazine ads, and public relations). It is about how they are used to build relationships. Whether you are in B2B (business-tobusiness) marketing or B2C (business- to-consumer) marketing, you need to embrace the new rules of P2P (people- to-people) relationship-centric marketing. That is where the money is. We are living in a time-crunched society that is addicted to immediate gratification. Online marketing serves this I want it now mind-set. Everyone under 50, and a lot of people over 50 (who are growing younger while living longer), realizes that the web is the key to immediate information and wish fulfillment. No matter what age your target market is, they are online, so your marketing needs to follow them. The growth of the World Wide Web has changed the way we approach marketing. The power of online marketing can be accessed by anyone anywhere, as long as they have a device (computer, phone, TV, car console, tablet, etc.) with an Internet connection. There is no elitism on the web (most of the developing world accesses the Internet via their phones.). Relationship tools that were once available only to big businesses with big budgets can now be accessed by anyone at the touch of a button. Benefits of web marketing include: Twenty-four/seven availability to information and sales and product support

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Worldwide visibility Direct sales (no need for a storefront) Targeted market, or riches in the niches (finding and serving people who want specific products and services with a click of their fingertips) Competitive advantage (to open new markets, save on operating costs, take calculated risks, get found faster, connect better, and serve/sell harder, leaving competition in the dust) Customer acquisition and retention (using all five marketing musts mentioned above to gain and keep customers). Our best customers are our current customers. Savings in costs and human resources (automating processes, using the web to answer customers questions, streamlining order processing) Immediate tracking to measure, optimize, and spend money where it counts

There sometimes exists a confusion in the sense that e-Business, e-Commerce and e-Marketing are thought to be the same thing. That is definitely not the case. Below, each of the terms previously mentioned are explained: e-Business is a very broad entity that deals with the entire system that comprises a business that uses electronic medium to perform or assist its overall or specialized business activities. e-Commerce is best described in a transactional context. So for example an electronic transaction of funds, information or entertainment falls under the category handled by principles of e-Commerce. Technically e-Commerce is a part of eBusiness. e-Marketing is also a part of e-Business that involves electronic medium to achieve marketing objectives. e-Marketing is set on a strategic level in addition to traditional marketing and business strategy.

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CHAPTER 2. ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS MODELS, CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, MIX, TOOLS AND CHANNELS
2.1. ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS MODELS Brokers are market-makers, assisting transactions, bringing buyers and sellers together. Brokers play a frequent role in business-to-business, business-toconsumer, or consumer-to-consumer markets. Usually a broker charges a commission for each transaction it enables. The formula for fees can vary. Brokerage models include: Marketplace Exchange -- offers a full range of services covering the transaction process, from market assessment to negotiation and fulfillment. Exchanges operate independently or are backed by an industry consortium: Orbitz, ChemConnect. Buy/Sell Fulfillment -- takes customer orders to buy or sell a product or service, including terms like price and delivery: CarsDirect, Respond.com. Demand Collection System -- the patented "name-your-price" model pioneered by Priceline.com. Prospective buyer makes a final (binding) bid for a specified good or service, and the broker arranges fulfillment: Priceline.com Auction Broker -- conducts auctions for sellers (individuals or merchants). Broker charges the seller a listing fee and commission scaled with the value of the transaction. Auctions vary widely in terms of the offering and bidding rules: eBay. Transaction Broker -- provides a third-party payment mechanism for buyers and sellers to settle a transaction: PayPal, Escrow.com. Distributor -- is a catalog operation that connects a large number of product manufacturers with volume and retail buyers. Broker facilitates business transactions between franchised distributors and their trading partners. Search Agent -- a software agent or "robot" used to search-out the price and availability for a good or service specified by the buyer, or to locate hard to find information. Virtual Marketplace -- or virtual mall, a hosting service for online merchants that charges setup, monthly listing, and/or transaction fees. May also provide automated transaction and relationship marketing services: zShops and Merchant Services atAmazon.com. The web advertising model is an extension of the traditional media broadcast model. The broadcaster, in this case, a web site, provides content (usually, but not necessarily, for free) and services (like email, IM, blogs) mixed with advertising messages in the form of banner ads. The banner ads may be the major or sole source of revenue for the broadcaster. The broadcaster may be a content creator or a distributor of content created elsewhere. The advertising model works best when the

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volume of viewer traffic is large or highly specialized. Portal - usually a search engine that may include varied content or services. A high volume of user traffic makes advertising profitable and permits further diversification of site services. A personalized portal allows customization of the interface and content to the user. A niche portal cultivates a well-defined user demographic: Yahoo!. Classifieds - list items for sale or wanted for purchase. Listing fees are common, but there also may be a membership fee: Monster.com, Craigslist. User Registration -- content-based sites that are free to access but require users to register and provide demographic data. Registration allows inter-session tracking of user surfing habits and thereby generates data of potential value in targeted advertising campaigns: NYTimes. Query-based Paid Placement - sells favorable link positioning (i.e., sponsored links) or advertising keyed to particular search terms in a user query, such as Overture's trademark "pay-for-performance" model: Google, Overture. Contextual Advertising / Behavioral Marketing -- freeware developers who bundle adware with their product. For example, a browser extension that automates authentication and form fill-ins, also delivers advertising links or pop-ups as the user surfs the web. Contextual advertisers can sell targeted advertising based on an individual user's surfing activity. Content-Targeted Advertising - pioneered by Google, it extends the precision of search advertising to the rest of the web. Google identifies the meaning of a web page and then automatically delivers relevant ads when a user visits that page: Google. Intromercials - animated full-screen ads placed at the entry of a site before a user reaches the intended content: CBS MarketWatch. Ultramercials - interactive online ads that require the user to respond intermittently in order to wade through the message before reaching the intended content: Salon in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz. Infomediary model - data about consumers and their consumption habits are valuable, especially when that information is carefully analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. Independently collected data about producers and their products are useful to consumers when considering a purchase. Some firms function as infomediaries (information intermediaries) assisting buyers and/or sellers understand a given market. Advertising Networks -- feed banner ads to a network of member sites, thereby enabling advertisers to deploy large marketing campaigns. Ad networks collect data about web users that can be used to analyze marketing effectiveness: DoubleClick. Audience Measurement Services -- online audience market research agencies: Nielsen//Netratings. Incentive Marketing -- customer loyalty program that provides incentives to

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customers such as redeemable points or coupons for making purchases from associated retailers. Data collected about users is sold for targeted advertising: Coolsavings. Metamediary -- facilitates transactions between buyer and sellers by providing comprehensive information and ancillary services, without being involved in the actual exchange of goods or services between the parties: Edmunds. Wholesalers and retailers of goods and services. Sales may be made based on list prices or through auction. This constitutes the Merchant model. Virtual Merchant --or e-tailer, is a retail merchant that operates solely over the web: Amazon.com. Catalog Merchant -- mail-order business with a web-based catalog. Combines mail, telephone and online ordering: Lands' End. Click and Mortar -- traditional brick-and-mortar retail establishment with web storefront: Barnes & Noble. Bit Vendor -- a merchant that deals strictly in digital products and services and, in its purest form, conducts both sales and distribution over the web: Apple iTunes Music Store. The manufacturer or "direct model", it is predicated on the power of the web to allow a manufacturer (i.e., a company that creates a product or service) to reach buyers directly and thereby compress the distribution channel. The manufacturer model can be based on efficiency, improved customer service, and a better understanding of customer preferences: Dell Computer. Purchase -- the sale of a product in which the right of ownership is transferred to the buyer. Lease -- in exchange for a rental fee, the buyer receives the right to use the product under a terms of use agreement. The product is returned to the seller upon expiration or default of the lease agreement. One type of agreement may include a right of purchase upon expiration of the lease. License -- the sale of a product that involves only the transfer of usage rights to the buyer, in accordance with a terms of use agreement. Ownership rights remain with the manufacturer (e.g., with software licensing). Brand Integrated Content -- in contrast to the sponsored-content approach (i.e., the advertising model), brand-integrated content is created by the manufacturer itself for the sole basis of product placement. In contrast to the generalized portal, which seeks to drive a high volume of traffic to one site, the affiliate model, provides purchase opportunities wherever people may be surfing. It does this by offering financial incentives (in the form of a percentage of revenue) to affiliated partner sites. The affiliates provide purchase-point click-through to the merchant. It is a pay-for-performance model -- if an affiliate does not generate sales, it represents no cost to the merchant. The affiliate model is

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inherently well-suited to the web, which explains its popularity. Variations include, banner exchange, pay-per-click, and revenue sharing programs: Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com. Banner Exchange -- trades banner placement among a network of affiliated sites. Pay-per-click -- site that pays affiliates for a user click-through. Revenue Sharing -- offers a percent-of-sale commission based on a user clickthrough in which the user subsequently purchases a product. The viability of the community model is based on user loyalty. Users have a high investment in both time and emotion. Revenue can be based on the sale of ancillary products and services or voluntary contributions; or revenue may be tied to contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services. The Internet is inherently suited to community business models and today this is one of the more fertile areas of development, as seen in rise of social networking. Open Source -- software developed collaboratively by a global community of programmers who share code openly. Instead of licensing code for a fee, open source relies on revenue generated from related services like systems integration, product support, tutorials and user documentation: Red Hat. Open Content -- openly accessible content developed collaboratively by a global community of contributors who work voluntarily: Wikipedia. Public Broadcasting -- user-supported model used by not-for-profit radio and television broadcasting extended to the web. A community of users support the site through voluntary donations: The Classical Station -WCPE.org. Social Networking Services -- sites that provide individuals with the ability to connect to other individuals along a defined common interest (professional, hobby, romance). Social networking services can provide opportunities for contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services: Flickr, Friendster, Orkut. Users are charged a periodic -- daily, monthly or annual -- fee to subscribe to a service. It is not uncommon for sites to combine free content with "premium" (i.e., subscriber- or member-only) content. Subscription fees are incurred irrespective of actual usage rates. Subscription and advertising models are frequently combined. Content Services -- provide text, audio, or video content to users who subscribe for a fee to gain access to the service: Listen.com,Netflix. Person-to-Person Networking Services -- are conduits for the distribution of user-submitted information, such as individuals searching for former schoolmates: Classmates. Trust Services -- come in the form of membership associations that abide by an explicit code of conduct, and in which members pay a subscription fee: Truste. Internet Services Providers -- offer network connectivity and related services on a monthly subscription: America Online. The utility or "on-demand" model is based on metering usage, or a "pay as

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you go" approach. Unlike subscriber services, metered services are based on actual usage rates. Traditionally, metering has been used for essential services (e.g., electricity water, long-distance telephone services). Internet service providers (ISPs) in some parts of the world operate as utilities, charging customers for connection minutes, as opposed to the subscriber model common in the U.S. Metered Usage -- measures and bills users based on actual usage of a service. Metered Subscriptions -- allows subscribers to purchase access to content in metered portions (e.g., numbers of pages viewed): Slashdot.

2.2. ONLINE BUYING BEHAVIOR Understanding the mechanisms of virtual shopping and the behavior of the online consumer is a priority issue for practitioners competing in the fast expanding virtual marketplace. This topic is also increasingly drawing the attention of researchers. Indicative of this is the fact that more than 120 relevant academic papers were published in 2001 alone (Cheung et al., 2003). Given the continuous expansion of the Internet in terms of user numbers, transaction volumes and business penetration this massive research endeavor is not surprising. More than 20 per cent of Internet users in several countries already buy products and services online (Taylor Nelson Sofres, 2002) while more than 50 per cent of US net users regularly buying online (Forrester Research, 2003). These developments are gradually transforming e-commerce into a mainstream business activity while at the same time online consumers are maturing and virtual vendors realize the importance and urgency for a professional and customer-oriented approach. Yet the Internet meltdown at the end of the 1990s and plenty of more recent anecdotal and empirical evidence indicate that many online rms still do not completely understand the needs and behavior of the online consumer (Lee, 2002) while many of them . . . continue to struggle with how effectively to market and sell products online (Joines et al., 2003, p. 93). As in the case of traditional marketing in the past, most of the recent research and debate is focused on the identication and analysis of factors that one way or another can inuence or even shape the online consumers behavior; a good deal of research effort is focused on modeling the online buying and decision-making process (Miles et al., 2000; Liu and Arnett, 2000; Cockburn and McKenzie, 2001; Liao and Cheung, 2001; McKnight et al., 2002; Joines et al., 2003; OCass and Fenech, 2003). While many researchers do not see any fundamental differences between the traditional and online buying behavior, it is often argued that a new step has been added to the online buying process: the step of building trust or condence (Lee, 2002; Liebermann and Stashevsky, 2002; McKnightet al., 2002; Suh and Han, 2002; Liang and Lai, 2002). An important contribution in classifying the increasingly growing number of research papers on the subject of the virtual customers behavior is the study of Cheung et al. (2003). The ndings of their comprehensive literature review are summarized in a model depicting the main categories of factors affecting the online consumer.

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The study identies two groups of uncontrollable factors consumer characteristics and environmental inuences as well as three groups of controllable ones: (1) Product/service characteristics. (2) Medium characteristics. (3) Merchant/intermediary characteristics. This classication underlines the fact that most researchers endorse the suggestion that like in traditional markets the interaction of controllable and uncontrollable factors underpins also the online decision-making process (OCass and Fenech, 2003). Several academics and practitioners have identied the online shopping experience or virtual experience as a crucial e-commerce marketing issue. Tamimi et al. (2003) dene the online shopping experience as a process of four stages describing the successive steps of an online transaction. Considering that an online customer is not simply a shopper but also an information technology user (Cho and Park, 2001) one can argue that the online experience is a more complicated issue than the physical shopping experience: the Web experience can be dened as the consumers total impression about the online company (Watchre Whitepaper Series, 2000) resulting from his/her exposure to a combination of virtual marketing tools ...under the marketers direct control, likely to inuence the buying behavior of the online consumer (Constantinides, 2002, p. 60). The Web experience embraces elements like searching, browsing, nding, selecting, comparing and evaluating information as well as interacting and transacting with the online rm. The virtual customers total impression and actions are inuenced by design, events, emotions, atmosphere and other elements experienced during interaction with a given Web site, elements meant to induce customer goodwill and affect the nal outcome of the online interaction. It should be noticed here that the Web experience is important not only for Web sites marketing products or services but also for sites targeting customers interested in informational content (news, weather, sports etc.), sites acting as online intermediaries and generally to all types of Internet ventures competing for the attention of the online public. The Web experience as a major parameter of customer inuence is crucial for dot.com-type rms but also for multi-channel vendors. For traditional rms expanding their business with Internet presence, the quality of online experience they deliver is an issue requiring special attention: poorly designed and dysfunctional Web sites are a potential threat not only to the companys virtual aspirations but also a hazard for their physical activities. According to the Dieringer Research Group half of all adult Internet users who have abandoned online orders seem to have changed their opinion about brands due to negative online experience, while 60 per cent of those online adults whose opinions changed, switched brands at purchase, whether they bought via the Net or at a brickand-mortar store (Nua Internet Surveys, 2002). Research also underlines the synergic effects of the positive Web experience on customers making use of a companys Web site next to its traditional channels.

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Based on the collection of online and either in-store or catalog trafc of US retailers in 2002 NielsenNet Ratings (2003) found that compared to average Internet users, customers visiting well designed Web sites like J. Crews and Bloomingdales are ten times more likely to visit the brick-and-mortar stores; visitors of NiemanMarcus.com are 18 times more likely to visit a Nieman Marcus physical store than the average net user while for Coach Shops this gure goes up to 27 times. The primary means of delivering the Web experience is the corporate Web site. Sites delivering superb Web experience are designed in a way not only addressing the clients product needs and expectations but also assisting the customers through the steps of the buying process. In that respect the back-ofce e-commerce infrastructure (OKeefe and McEachern, 1998) is also of crucial importance. Web sites must be seen therefore as vital instruments of customer service and persuasion rather than simply as online brochures or catalogues of the companys products. This study presents the results of the review of 48 academic papers selected from a large pool of articles on consumer behavior in online environments. The criterion for the paper selection was the focus on studying the effects of controllable (by the online marketer) factors on the online buying decision-making process (see Appendix). The papers selected for the review were published after 1997 in 28 academic journals and ve conference proceedings. Out of the 48 papers, 42 (88 per cent) were published between the years 2000 and 2003 and six (12 per cent) between 1997 and 1999. The majority of papers were drawn from the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, the Journal of Consumer Marketing, the Journal of Information Management and the Journal of Internet Research. The controllable elements identied in the literature as inuencing the online buying behavior were grouped into three main categories and ve sub-categories, each one including several of these elements (Table I). The selection of papers, review and allocation of the Web experience elements to one of the above categories and subcategories was done by the author, in order to ensure the conformity of the selection criteria; a minimum of one literature reference was necessary for including a given component in the classication.

Table 1. The Main Building blocks of Web experience and their sub-categories

(Source: http://www.escp-eap.net/conferences/marketing/2008_cp/Materiali/Paper/Fr/ Candan_Yarar.pdf)

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The denitions used in describing the main building blocks of the Web experiences, as basis of the classication are the following: - Functionality factors: factors enhancing the online experience by presenting the virtual client with an good functioning, easy to explore, fast, interactive Web site. Functionality includes Usability and Interactivity elements. - Psychological factors: web sites must communicate integrity and credibility in order to persuade customers to stop, explore them and interact online. Psychological factors are those playing a crucial role in helping online customers unfamiliar with the vendor or unfamiliar with online transactions to overcome fears of fraud and doubts as to the trustworthiness of the Web site and vendor. - Content factors: factors referring to creative and marketing mixrelated elements of the Web site. These factors exercise a direct and crucial inuence on the Web experience. They are divided in two sub-categories: Aesthetics and Marketing mix.The above terms reect the nature and/or the effect of the Web experience elements on the buying process. As an example the policies regarding the use of customer data by online vendors and product return policies, factors likely to affect the customer trust, were classied as psychological issues while design and atmosphere, typical aesthetic elements were considered as elements of the Web site content. A few remarks on the results of this review: the total number of literature references per Web experience factor and the frequency of references for each component per subcategory can be found in the Figures 2-7. The number of references could be indicative of the importance of each factor but these numbers must be seen and explained with some degree of caution. The relative importance and the effects of the different elements of the Web experience during the online buying process are separate questions that this study was not meant to address; answering these questions is an issue for further research. The classication is normative and descriptive, meant to present the total picture of an extensive and fragmented research. Finally it should be noticed also that the order of listing of the three categories neither reects any hierarchical ranking nor is meant to be associated with any particular steps of the decision-making process.

2.3. THE ONLINE MARKETING MIX A broad view of the Internet Marketing Mix can be illustrated as follows:

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Figure 1. Internet Marketing Mix

Social Media Marketing

Search Marketing

Conversion Optimization

Corporate Website

(Source: Rob Vadim, 2012)

Social platforms are doing more than driving buzz. Social outlets like blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are driving purchases; travel; and romantic, political, and other real-world decisions. As social networks grow, so does the power of wordof-mouse chatter to shape consumer conversations. Social media works like a virtual cocktail party where all attendees can discuss your products, services, experiences, and new ideas. Marketing is all about building relationships, and relationships start with communication. Communications students learn the rule You cannot not communicate. Conversations will take place about your organization whether or not your organization is an active participant in social media. New web tools, such as blogging, micro-blogging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning), podcasting (BlogTalkRadio), video distribution (YouTube), event coordination tools (Meetup), wikis (Wikipedia), photo sharing (Flickr, Photobucket), and product review sites (Epinions), allow firms to communicate, educate, and share information directly with their current and prospective customers. Social medias direct communication distinction serves and supports organizations as it brings the people you want to attract directly to you, allows them to connect with each other, and makes direct communication possible. Many marketers ask if social media is more for business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, but the answer is that social media is all about people-to-people (P2P) marketing. Social media makes communication a conversation so you can share, receive feedback, and connect on equal ground with the target markets.

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When consumers are empowered with information and support, they feel powerfulthey trust you, buy from you, and stay with you. Social media collaboration transforms consumers into prosumers (consumers who have done enough research to have gleaned some professional-grade knowledge). In an era of social media, prosumers (not companies) make, shape, or break purchase patterns. Companies do not sell things, people sell things. With social media, online collaboration sells companies products and services to each other, often without the company initiating the collaboration. Organizations can ignite collaboration for marketing by creating and/or joining communities. By doing so, they can listen and connect to their target customers and build a free forum to bring a community of like-minded people together. People want to connect, converse, and belong to groups. Online collaboration equals marketing acceleration. A community under your organizational brand can be a huge marketing booster. The most important reason that social media works as a marketing tool is because its fun, more exactly its entertaining. People want to go where they feel they belong, have a voice, are listened to, and enjoy themselves. You need to be where your target mar- kets are, and these days the masses are on Facebook, Ning, Twitter, LinkedIn, Photobucket, YouTube, and more. Why? Because they are fun. Remember the Will It Blend? campaign by Blendtec? It was a perfect example of social media marketing in brilliant action. The campaigns videos were relevant (they showed the product), were entertaining (they blended an iPhone!), and were viral. People could easily share the fun with friends due to the ease of social media sharing. Search engine marketing, (SEM), is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Search engine optimization(SEO) "optimizes" website content to achieve a higher ranking in search results, for example, by incorporating specific keywords or links associated with the website. Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including SEO, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on just paid components. SEM is the wider discipline that incorporates SEO. SEM includes both paid Search results (Adwords) and organic search results (SEO). SEM uses Adwords, pay per click (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to contact a company directly with one click), article submissions, advertising and making sure SEO has been done. A keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM, but not necessarily at the same time. SEM and SEO both need to be monitored and updated frequently to reflect evolving best practices. In some contexts, the term SEM is used exclusively to mean Pay per click advertising, particularly in the commercial advertising and marketing communities which have a vested interest in this narrow definition. Such usage excludes the wider search marketing community that is engaged in other forms of SEM such as Search Engine Optimization and Search Retargeting.

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There are four categories of tools to help you optimize websites: 1. Keyword research and analysis: (a) Make sure the site can be indexed in the search engines; (b) find the most relevant and popular key terms and phrases for the site and its products; and (c) use those key phrases on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic. 2. Website saturation and popularity: show how much presence a website has on search engines through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on each search engine (saturation) and how many times the site is linked to by other sites (popularity). Generally, the more Web presence you have, the easier it is for people to find your site. It requires your pages containing those keywords people are looking for and ensure that they rank high enough in search engine rankings. Most search engines include some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. The followings are major tools measuring various aspects of saturation and link popularity: Link Popularity, Top 10 Google Analysis, and Marketleap's Link Popularity and Search Engine Saturation. 3. Back end tools (including Web analytic tools and HTML validators): Web analytic tools can help you to understand what is happening to your website and measure your website's success. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can deliver conversion-related information. There are three major tools used by EBSCO: (a) log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ; (b) tag-based analytic programs WebSideStory's Hitbox; (c) transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues ensure your website meets W3C code standards. Try to use more than one HTML validator or spider simulator because each tests, highlights, and reports on slightly different aspects of your website. 4. Who Is tools: show you who owns and operates various webites, can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues. Useful tools include Who Is Source, ARIN. Read a competitor's source code to look for hidden clues, Use Web analytics tools to find out more about your customers, Use the source code and Who Is tools to research legal issues. Conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization is the method of creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the goal of increasing the percentage of visitors that convert into customers. It is also commonly referred to as CRO. Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors by reducing your visitor "bounce rate". Some test methods enable one to monitor which headlines, images and content help one convert more visitors into customers. There are several approaches to conversion optimization with two main schools of thought prevailing in the last few years. One school is more focused on testing as an approach to discover the best way to increase a website, a campaign or a

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landing page conversion rates. The other school is focused more on the pretesting stage of the optimization process. In this second approach, the optimization company will invest a considerable amount of time understanding the audience and then creating a targeted message that appeals to that particular audience. Only then willing to deploy testing mechanisms to increase conversion rates.

2.4. ONLINE MARKETING TOOLS Ones of the most efficient and used tools for online marketing are as follows: 1.Google Analytics - Getting traffic is only half the battle. Analytics will tell you how to make your pages perform better and bring in more sales. Knowledge is everything on the web. 2.Google Adwords - Google Keyword Tool -Picking the right profitable keyword phrases it the first step to earning revenue from the web. Use this handy Google Adwords tool to find keywords and phrases. 3.Social Bookmark Buttons -Social Bookmarking has become very important for getting targeted traffic and for getting higher rankings. Let your visitors bookmark your content in all the social bookmarking sites. 4.WordPress Blogging - Using Wordpress blogs is very beneficial. They are SEO friendly and search engines really like and favor them. One of the easiest ways to create profitable websites and adding helpfull plug-ins makes them even more useful. 5.YouTube Videos - Videos are the future of marketing on the web, so using YouTube videos to promote your site or product is a no-brainer. Also important for SEO reasons because Google will place a popular video on their first page listings, almost instantly. 6.Twitter - Simple, direct and very effective for getting your message on the web and into search engines. You must include this social book-marking/messaging site in your poromotion and online marketing. 7.Alexa.com - The Web Information Company - Alexa will give you valuable information on your site and your competitors. 8.Search Engines - Hands down, getting rankings for your lucrative keywords in the major search engines are still the most valuable marketing tools you can have in your tool-kit gearing your marketing and promoting towards Google still pays off handsomely. 9.Google Webmaster Central - Get data about crawling, indexing and search traffic. Receive notifications about problems on your site. See how many people found your site in search results, and how many people clocked on it.

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2.5. INTERNET MARKETING CHANNELS Some of the most common channels used for marketing on the internet are: 1. Search Engine Optimization - When you type a keyword into Google, two types of results come up: paid and unpaid. Unpaid search results rely on algorithms that determine the relevancy of your website compared to the search terms. Where you land on these unpaid search results depends on search engine optimization (SEO). Solid SEO can determine how high up you appear in the search results, often called your page rank. According to Forrester Research and Lee Odden, search marketing outlays (pay per click and SEO) will reach $20.7 billion in 2011. 2. Pay Per Click Campaigns - In 2008, search industry stats showed that paid ads accounted for 30 percent of search traffic click through. When your websites SEO doesnt lead to a high page rank, pay per click (PPC) advertising can get your site above the fold. Just be careful. PPC campaigns can burn through a ton of cash and generate a negative ROI unless you know what youre doing. Also keep in mind that success in 2011will require that you leverage both SEO and PPC efforts to lower click costs and increase page rank by having both channels work in sync. 3. Social Media Marketing - Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. Heard of em? Thats because they are the type of marketing tools that can reach millions of your target market. For example, if you arent advertising on Facebook, at minimum you need to set up a corporate profile page that engages with current and potential customers. To use these tools to their full advantage, you need to understand the demographics and mind sets of each of the major social media channels. Choosing the correct strategy for each channel matters since social campaigns used incorrectly can create a backlash. In 2011, Forrester predicts that companies will invest $1.2 billion in social media marketing. 4. Affiliate Marketing - The 2010 holiday season generated a record return of $32.6 billion for retail ecommerce. A huge chunk of those returns went to affiliate marketers. However, many merchants are unaware of the potential for performancebased marketing.

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Graphic 1. Affiliate Marketing Example

(Source: http://www.revenews.com/search-engine-marketing/the-10-internet-marketing-channelscrucial-to-your-success-in-2011/)

Commission Junctions (CJ), a leading affiliate marketer, recently shared its numbers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2010. The results show that businesses are missing sales opportunities if they fail to include performance-based marketing in their internet marketing strategy. Comparing same store sales, sales driven through CJ outpaced overall comScore sales numbers. Performance-based marketing comes with few risks at a low cost since companies only pay out if a desired action is met. Success, however, requires that companies hire an experienced affiliate manager to manage their program and to create a positive experience for you and your affiliates. Without proper management, performance-based marketing can dilute your brand, misrepresent your products, not perform at all or override other marketing efforts entirely. 5. Shopping Channel Management - The recession and its economic challenges change the way people buy. Customers look for the lowest possible price, daily deals, coupons, and any other potential savings. People also have less time to shop around. Shopping search engines like Nextag.com, Google Product Search, and Shopzilla.com remain popular picks for buyers who want to simplify their shopping experience. With one click, potential customers can see all the merchants who sell the desired product filtered by tags such as price, rating, description, and image in one convenient location. Google Product Search remains the most popular, according to SearchEngineLand.com, followed recently by TheFind.com. 6. Mobile Marketing - In 2011, well see mobile marketing make its breakthrough. Still in its infancy, millions of smartphone users are clamoring to get the best applications and mobile technologies available. Huge opportunities await the companies that understand the potential of affordable mobile stores, advanced applications, and wide-spread usage. Even banks now understand the power of mobile. In 2011, over 150 million people will use their mobile devices for banking.
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This channel and others like it, show huge growth potential over the next three to five years. You can set yourself apart from your competitors by getting brand into the hands of your biggest fans. 7. Video Marketing - Billions of people share and view original videos at YouTube, Founded in 2005, YouTube stands as the third highest ranked search engine in the world, after Google and Facebook. YouTubes serious sticking power comes with the benefit of being free. But how do you create that one video that goes viral? What elements do you need to take your video from 100 views to 10 million views? This question gets asked by marketers every day and companies spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions trying to master the medium. Despite the challenges, you cant ignore video. For 2011, TechCrunch projects that online video advertising will grow by 50 percent and hit $11.4 billion in the next five years, outpacing the growth of traditional TV advertising. 8. Email Marketing - According to MarketingSherpa, when integrated with emerging marketing channels such as social media, email appears to have unlimited potential especially when combined with multiple improvement tactics now available through various sources. As one of the most simple, effective, and sometimes overlooked marketing channels, email marketing is inexpensive, highly lucrative, and does a great job of solidifying brand loyalty for current customers. Dozens of email distribution networks offer exceptional services, including free templates, ongoing support, and recommendations for high delivery, open, and click through rates. MailChimp.coms service still stands out from its competitors with its free monthly options, easy-to-use interface, high-converting templates, and useful reporting tool. If email marketing is not something youve tried, now is the time to get help and get it done. 9. Display Advertising - Display advertising can be a great option for companies with a larger online marketing budget. Also referred to as banner ads, you find a site with high traffic (calculated as unique visitors) whose audience fits your target market. You then pay the site to put up a featured banner ad for your brand. Display ads drive targeted traffic back to your website and help establish your brand in buyers minds. Placing banner ads can also help with search engine rankings since the ads create a link back to your site, increasing your websites authority in search engine algorithms. Google predicts that by 2015 display advertising will reach $50 billion. 10. Online PR and Article Marketing - According to PR Newswire, 84 percent of journalists like to get pitched via email. In addition to email, these journalists also use Facebook (79 percent), LinkedIn (64 percent), and Twitter (58 percent) to search out potential stories. Beyond full-time journalists, a few million bloggers also want good stories to publish. Taking the time to create and distribute press releases and articles can help promote your business through these channels, both online and offline. Not only are bloggers looking for a good story, but both online and offline media (publishers, editors, writers) are looking online for their next big story. There are several free article and PR distribution sites exist, however the well-known, paid-distribution networks, like PRweb.com are great options for fast and furious media reach.

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CHAPTER 3. ONLINE CREATIVE STRATEGY

3.1. MEASURE AND CONTROL One way to develop well-written objectives is to use the SMART approach. Developing specific, measurable objectives requires time, orderly thinking, and a clear picture of the results expected from program activities. The more specific your objectives are, the easier it will be to demonstrate success. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Relevant, Time bound, Specific. The specific part of an objective tells us what will change for whom in concrete terms. It identifies the population or setting, and specific actions that will result. In some cases it is appropriate to indicate how the change will be implemented (e.g., through training). Coordinate, partner, support, facilitate, and enhance are not good verbs to use in objectives because they are vague and difficult to measure. On the other hand, verbs such as provide, train, publish, increase, decrease, schedule, or purchase indicate clearly what will be done. Measurable implies the ability to count or otherwise quantify an activity or its results. It also means that the source of and mechanism for collecting measurement data are identified, and that collection of these data is feasible for your program or partners. A baseline measurement is required to document change (e.g., to measure percentage increase or decrease). If the baseline is unknown or will be measured as a first activity step, that should be indicated in the objective as baseline to be determined using XXX database, 20XX. The data source you are using and the year the baseline was obtained should always be specified in your objective statement. If a specific measurement instrument is used, you might want to incorporate its use into the objective. Another important consideration is whether change can be measured in a meaningful and interpretable way given the accuracy of the measurement tool and method. Attainable/Achievable - The objective must be feasible with the available resources, appropriately limited in scope, and within the programs control and influence. Sometimes, specifying an expected level of change can be tricky. To help identify a target, talk with an epidemiologist, look at historical trends, read reports or articles published in the scientific or other literature, look at national expectations for change, and look at programs with similar objectives. Consult with partners or stakeholders about their experiences. Often, talking to others who have implemented similar programs or interventions can provide you with information about expected change. In some situations, it is more important to consider the percentage of change as a number of people when discussing impact. Will the effort required to create the amount of change be a good use of your limited resources? Relevant relates to the relationship between the objective and the overall goals of the program or purpose of the intervention. Evidence of relevancy can come from a literature review, best practices, or your theory of change. Time bound - A specified and reasonable time frame should be incorporated into the objective statement. This should take into consideration the environment in

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which the change must be achieved, the scope of the change expected, and how it fits into the overall work plan. It could be indicated as By December 2010, the program will or Within 6 months of receiving the grant, ...

3.2. ONLINE MARKETING TRENDS 3.2.1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING GOES MAINSTREAM In 2010, corporate use of social media reached atipping point. Companies will become more sophisticated in their social media marketing usage as they get more experienced. As part of this evolution, social media will extend throughout organizations, namely customer service. Further, social media advertising will come into its own and yield relatively stronger results as happens with any new advertising platform. It's also largely attributable to the ability to tightly target audiences based on social media activity. Graphic 2. Social Network Ad Spending Worldwide, 2009-2011

(Source: eMarketer, July 2010)

Instead of trying to reach broad targets of demographic groups, investing in paid media we find valuable organic content becoming more powerful, ranking higher by search engines and shared by passionate communities. Need more facts to back up the growth of social media? According to Harris Interactive: 1 2 9 out of 10 (87%) online adults use social media Highest percentage (22%) uses social media less than 1 hour per week
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Highest percentage of 18-34 yr-olds (17%) uses social media 6-10 hours per week Table 2. Time Spent on Social Media

(Source: The Harris Poll, October 21, 2010)

Its indicative that the evolution of social media is not just with the tools. The real leading indicators will be how social media gets utilized in the real world, not how marketers want it to be used. And because were living in an over-communicated society with competing and conflicting information, true engagement in this on-demand world will be the biggest challenge moving forward.

3.2.2. VIDEO MARKETING BECOMES MAINSTREAM At the 2010 Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo, Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR revealed that: 1 Americans watch more videos a month on YouTube than they conduct searches on Google

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A video is 50 times more likely to get a first-page Google ranking than a text page

If those finding arent stunning, coming from an SEO perspective check out Pew Internet Researchs recent study indicating that 7 in 10 adult internet users (69%) have used the internet to watch or download video. That represents 52% of all adults in the United States. Table 3. The State of Online Video

(Source: PRC-Internet & American Life Project/Princeton Survey Research Associates International Omnibus Survey, June 18-21, 2009)

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According to a recent Edison Researchs study indicates that during an average day, Americans age 12-24 spend two hours and 52 minutes on the internet, making the web the media format American young adults spend the most time consuming. Television closely follows with a daily average of two hours and 47 minutes. In addition, as opposed to TV ads, online videos are trackable and can be viewed repeatedly attracting the long-tail viewers while allowing you to measure the exact impact of the video and participate around it in the comments section or on blogs. The bottom line is that although video (YouTube) marketing isnt anything new, its gaining more momentum now because the cost of video production are dramatically reduced today than it was a few years ago. You can now purchase high definition cameras (such as the Flip HD) for under $150 which creates amazing looking videos. Even the new iPhone4 has HD videos that enable everyone to become a video producer at all times. Keep in mind that you should consider video marketing tactic to support your overall marketing campaign not the other way around if it doesnt fit into your strategy. Success video marketing strategy focuses on attracting the right audience with a topic or theme thats video-worthy and can be compelling! The take away: Were in the middle of a media evolution where technology has fundamentally changed the way we consume media and interact with one another. Its not about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google, iPhone or iPad; it never has been. Its about how these tools and platforms support what you want to achieve with your business. Social is just a label, the real challenge is figuring out how to deliver optimal customer experience that builds meaningful relationships between you and your customers. Am I missing anything here? Please leave your comments and questions, Im interested to hear how youre using internet to market your business, products or services. Mobile marketing is about engaging your customers and prospects on their mobile devices. It covers text message marketing, or SMS, apps, location-based marketing and mobile websites. The proliferation of smartphones is the main driver of this trend. In fact, it is predicted that by the end of 2011 there will be at least 140 million smartphone subscriptions in the United States. To say "you can't ignore this" would be an understatement. So let's start with the mobile Internet. The mobile Internet is where Web-enabled smartphones do their browsing. About 20 percent of Google searches are originated on mobile devices right now. Google also dominates the mobile search market.

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So what can you do to take advantage of the mobile Internet long before your competitors? You have to realize the mobile Internet exists. Browsing a website on your desktop or laptop from a broadband connection in your home or office is a much different experience than browsing from a mobile device. As you may have experienced, most sites move slowly, are hard to read and sometimes their content can't even be displayed on the small screen. What's the problem? These sites are not "mobile" - which brings the need for a new player to the Internet marketing game.

3.2.3. MOBILE WEBSITES Mobile websites are meant to fit the small screens of smartphones and mobile devices. The key difference is found in the layout of the site. Graphics, text, offers, navigation and information is presented in a different way. And when it's done right, the browsing experience for viewers is many times better than if they were viewing a traditional website from their mobile phone. So how does a prospect or customer get to a mobile site? There are few ways. One way is through the use of "quick response," or QR codes. These codes can be scanned by your smartphone and take you to a mobile site. A quick note: At the time of this writing, Google is looking to replace QR codes with a new technology that uses "near-field communication" instead. Another way someone can arrive at your mobile site is by doing a search. Then, when your mobile site is properly installed, a piece of code detects the mobile browser and serves the mobile version. You can also get traffic to a mobile site via text message and email marketing by providing links in your communications. The trend setters in the mobile Internet world are the big retailers - think Best Buy, Target and Amazon. Beyond having mobile websites, these retailers conduct mobile commerce or "m-commerce." Their customers buy right from their phones while on the retailer's mobile site. For the small business who may not be concerned with conducting mobile commerce, a good mobile Web presence with lead generation and basic mobile search optimization would put you way ahead of your competition. Unfortunately there are still many, many small-business owners who are totally unaware of this trend. It's easy to get started with mobile Web marketing via mobile sites, but be sure your current traditional site is pulling its weight. 3.3. GANTT CHARTS Gantt Charts are useful tools for analyzing and planning more complex projects. The characteristics of such charts are: Help you to plan out the tasks that need to be completed

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 Give you an overall picture of the project timeline and status so it can help you to see if you are or not on schedule. Give you a basis for scheduling when these tasks will be carried out Allow you to plan the allocation of resources needed to complete the project Help you to work out the critical path for a project where you must complete it by a particular date. A Gantt Chart can be constructed easily using a few steps. The first step consists of laying out a list of all things that you plan doing in your project. Next step relates to estimating the time required to complete the tasks laid out in the previous step. The third step consists of putting everything above mentioned, in order. But that is not all, you should take note of dependencies.(tasks that depend on others to complete;tasks with prerequisites). After obtaining the ordered list, and knowing how long everything will take, you need to reduce the list without loosing any specificity. A good practice is to add a bit of time as a contingency measure, for unexpected surprises. That way it can be sure that the time will not be exceeded. Each task must be plotted on the graph paper, showing it starting on the earliest possible date. It is drawn as a bar with the length of the bar being the length of the task. The tasks must be scheduled in a way that is sequential. It must be ensured also that that dependent activities do not start until the activities they depend on have been completed. Table 4. Gantt Chart Example
Project Plan MONTH 1 Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 (Source: Rob Vadim, 2012) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

When a project is under way, Gantt charts are useful for monitoring its progress. It can immediately be seen what should have been achieved at a point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back on course. This can be essential for the successful and profitable implementation of the project.

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CHAPTER 4. ONLINE MARKETING CAMPAIGN STRATEGY/ PLAN FOR CITY BUSINESS CENTRE TIMISOARA
4.1. BUSINESS/COMPANY INFO The emergence of the City Business Centre office complex brings the offer of office space to the level of increasing demand imposed by the high-paced growth of Timioara. City Business Centre offers a European setting to top corporations as it became the very business heart of the community. Harmonious work environments are, first, profitable investments for companies. The comfort and elegance of the work environment boosts creativity, dedication and team spirit. City Business Centre has the mission to provide more than just office space. It makes people happy of their offices. All pervasive usability with a touch of class. Nature in the embrace of modernity. Light bringing to life every corner of the building. This is what we call focusing on people. The architecture, utilities and services of City Business Centre has reinvented physical comfort and peace of mind at work. City Business Centre (CBC) in a nutshell 5 buildings with 43.000 sqm office space restaurant public services (banking, medical, etc) underground parking green areas & pedestrian zone central location 24h lobby security

Grand ideas need grand spaces. The news City Business Centre fuels the ambition of being a regional economic centre. The new building offers global corporations a world class office space in Timioara. The five structures spanning on 43.000 sqm at the very heart of the city will provide everything for businesses under one roof. This is not just another address, but a true corporate city of headquorters, institutions and services. The core of the regional business life. (Source: http://www.business-centre.ro/?p=about-us)

4.2. TARGET AUDIENCE & PERSONAS The current customer base, more specifically the tenants of City Business Center Timisoara consist of big company names such as: Alcatel-Lucent, Deloitte, IBM, Microsoft Romania, Vodafone, PwC, etc.

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Also there are services companies that have public working schedule: Air Service, Aquarium Restaurant, ARDAF insurances, BCR, Grigoras Medical Centre, Eve City Lounge, Nomasvello, Reiffeisen Bank and more. The feedback given by the tenants of CBC over time overlapped in many aspects with one another thus managing to create a shared image of what makes CBC stand so great and unique and why would any company want to seek offices in the business centre: well located convenient location at the heart of the city high quality services and premium facilities enables dynamic,flexible and mobile workspace better working conditions improve communication and day-to-day operational efficiency modern and professional best facilities in Timisoara location services and workplace satisfaction creates added value for businesses more than just an office building modern bright and environmentally friendly office space aesthetically pleasing office space 6th floor grass terrace

Service Analysis - CBC features: CBC has a central location, in the heart of Timisoara, a fast growing city Romanias most European city. The citys public transportation routes converge near CBC: 5 tram lines, 1 bus and 2 trolley bus routes, thus making it easy and quickly reachable for clients but also for employees. City Business Center has 5 buildings with over 43.000 square meters, it has office spaces and pedestrian gallery so it is ideal for diverse company types and sizes. It also has a food court that means quick and immediate access to food as a service for employees of the tenant companies sure is a great feature of the system of buildings. So in lunch breaks, employes dont have to travel long distances, thus saving energy and avoiding rush-meals or on the go meals. The 700 parking spaces makes sure and effort free parking availability for building inhabitants. Green areas are also present - ideal for relaxation of stressful days. CBC has great flexible/expandable office spaces so they can be in accordance with businesses needs. It also features a multifunctional conference center for up to 250 participants. The built in conference centre comes in handy for tenant companies who wish to organize conferences: close to own offices, and disables the time consuming need to plan and find a place to host the conference. Through the worry and stress free enhancements for tenant companies can be mentioned: power system backed up by diesel generators
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 emergency backup units security assured by quality personnel and state of the art 24 hour video surveillance, anti-burglar glass. The ventilated spaces and air conditioning systems, the pleasant workspace with healthy daylight everywhere, the green terraces and the lifts ensures healthy and comfortable workplaces for tenant firms employees. Last but not least CBC has 7 fixed line operators and seven optical fibre solutions which greatly facilitate communication. Other offerings like: travel agency, banks, medical centre, pharmacy, coffee shop, business restaurant and lunch restaurant, cover a large area of services that might be needed some times by tenant companies employees. In conclusion, the services offered by City Business Center are aimed at companies multinational or local, large or medium/small, who want a central location with quick access, high quality and diverse services built right in as part of the feature rich environment that CBC wants to be and offer, thus aiming at companies that would want a worry free quick start as part of this workplace. As productivity from the start is very important in business nowadays, companies are tending to avoid settling concerns and difficulties that may occur in the process, and want just to dive in and concentrate on just what they do so they can perform at full potential. Therefore resulted the need for complex buildings with feature packed services like CBC. Of course not all firms have the need for such spaces, but for the ones that have a fair amount of employees and aim at quick growth, the CBS offerings may seam very appealing.

4.3. SMART OBJECTIVES & THE BUDGET ! Because it is very important to know exactly what we are doing or what we are wanting and what we can achieve we need 2 elements that guide us through the campaign: SMART objectives and the budget: SMART OBJECTIVES 1. Increase web-site traffic by 50% 2. Increase the CBC website number of back-links from 16 to 50. 3. Reach 200 followers on Twitter 4. Obtain 50 referrals/month from Twitter 5. Reach 100 subscribers on Youtube 6. Obtain 50 referrals/month from Youtube 7. Reach 1000 fans on Facebook 8. Double the existing average amount of referrals/month from Facebook 9. Increase email list sign ups through social media channels by 500 names 10. Create presentational video clips of CBC buildings showing off the offerings and also videos of the upcoming buildings that are under construction.
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11. Create one article and video per month to tell stories about the impact of CBC organization, and new tenants testimonials and feedback

THE BUDGET
Website redesign (header re-imagining + add social media links to website + web page module rearrangement) Unique Value Proposition creation Google analytics setup Google analytics monitoring Google Adwords campaign Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Initial Setup Search Engine Optimization (SEO) monthly fee Facebook ads, sponsored stories Facebook monthly administration (user feedback, content management) Twitter account creation + initial setup Twitter promoted tweets Twitter monthly administration (user feedback, content management) Youtube Channel creation + initial setup Youtube Channel monthly administration (user feedback, content management) 100 euro 20 euro

100 euro 50 euro

200 euro /month 300 euro 100 euro /month 200 euro /month 70 60 euro /month euro

100 euro /month 60 50 80 euro /month euro euro /month

Build network with other bloggers and media sites 100 euro /month Paid Backlinks + managing exchange of Backlinks Get articles published on high trafc sites (3 articles/month) 30 50 euro /month euro /month

Initial setup budget 680 euro Total monthly budget 990 euro

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4.4. ONLINE MARKETING MIX & TOOLS. 4.4.1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS USED FOR THE CAMPAIGN Tools used for marketing on Facebook: a. Profile picture - Its very important to choose and put the best picture forward, the picture that best communicates the essence of CBC. Figure 2. City Business Centre (CBC) Potential Facebook Profile

(Source: Facebook Screenshot Edit, Rob Vadim, 2012)

b. Adding friends - Adding friends everyday spreading the word that CBC is on Facebook. Figure 3. Facebook Add Friend Symbol

(Source: http://www.thefatlossninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/facebook_add_friend.jpg, 2012)

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c. The Wall - Posting messages about new tenants in the buildings, the construction progress of the new buildings and so on, generally relevant information to potential or current customers.

Figure 4. CBC Facebook Profile

(Source: http://www.facebook.com/CityBusinessCentreTimisoara, 2012)

d. Photo albums and videos - Create albums of different aspects of CBC: the finished buildings outside and inside spaces, the construction progress of the unfinished buildings, conference and meetings of the CBC staff, charitable events, news article photos, and so on.

Figure 5. CBC Facebook Albums

(Source: http://www.facebook.com/CityBusinessCentreTimisoara/photos, 2012)

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e. Facebook Ads - For promoting CBCs webpage and Facebook page. Using Facebook ads will help connect with more than 800 million potential customers, and allows to target the audience by interest. This tool also has budget control options so the daily budget can be adjusted anytime. f. Sponsored Stories - for highlighting news feed stories about specific interactions people have had with CBC as Sponsored Stories for better chances that their friends will see. Figure 6. Sponsored Stories Example

(Source: http://www.insidefacebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Sponsored-Stories.png, 2012)

g. Questions - Adding periodical questions with multiple options so that valuable feedback can be obtained from friends or fans.

Figure 7. Questions Example

(Source: http://ssdigitalmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Facebook-Questions-image.jpg, 2012)

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h. Chat and direct wall reply - last but not least, getting directly in touch with people is beneficial for higher conversion rate and maintain current customer base. Figure 8. Chat Example

(Source: http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotosash4/3239_111958751728_20531316728_2617614_7651025_n.jpg, 2012)

Tools used for marketing on Twitter: a. Create a promoted twitter account for CBC - for rapid follower-base growth of individuals or companies interested in CBCs offering.

Figure 9. Example of promoted twitter accounts

(Source:Rob Vadim, 2012)

b. Again, Profile Picture - Its very important to choose and put the best picture forward, the picture that best communicates the essence of CBC.

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c. Promoted Tweets - to amplify CBCs messages with targeting to search results and user timelines that enables reaching the right person in the right place at the right time. Figure 10. Example of promoted twitter accounts

(Source:Rob Vadim, 2012)

d. Share information and photos of different aspects of CBC: the finished buildings outside and inside spaces, the construction progress of the unfinished buildings, conference and meetings of the CBC staff, charitable events, news article photos, and so on. e. Questions - Ask questions of followers to obtain valuable insights and show that you listen. f. Reply - respond to compliments and feedback of followers.

Blog and Youtube The existing official presentation website of CBC has implemented in it the function of blogging which is a good opportunity to set up a CBC Youtube Channel because if you can blog about it you can make a video about it, so the opportunity of converting from Youtube medium must be taken advantage of.

Figure 11. Articles to Video on Youtube Conversions

(Source:Rob Vadim, 2012)

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In other words every article published in the blog can be made a video of and published on the CBCs Youtube Channel. Youtube as a tool offers user comments and reply function so you can get valuable insight from people. It also has the link and unlike counter which works very well as a statistical insight, and besides that Youtube also offers some more statistical tools and informations regarding audience by demographic and geographic indices; Other essential tools offered that should be implemented in every campaign are: Youtube email newsletters to subscribers and Subscription invitation after friend request approval.

4.4.2. SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) TOOLS USED FOR THE CAMPAIGN a) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) The process of getting traffic from organic, editorial or natural listings on search engines as it is defined by some, SEO, is crucial for getting higher rankings on search engines. The rankings are generated by certain factors - signals that must be taken into account. So the current standing of the online presence of City Business Center must be evaluated and analyzed in order to see the stance of those determining factors. And after that measures will be taken to meet those factors and solve certain un-SEO friendly problems. The basic factors for SEO are included into the so called Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors : Figure 12. The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors

(Source: http://searchengineland.com/seotable, 2012)

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These factors are divided into: on the page SEO ranking factors that are oriented more on website architecture and the quality of content: relevant keywords in html titles, relevant meta descriptions, headers with relevant keywords, URL-s with meaningful keywords to page topics, engage by content to stop quick bouncing-off of visitors, etc. off the page SEO ranking factors: elements influenced by readers, visitors and other publishers. blocking - blocked sites by searchers damage trust. violations - spam techniques may cause ranking penalty or ban. A very great tool for analyzing SEO factors is SEIntelligence. It basically downloads every page of the target website. Upon analyzing with the tool, http://www.business-centre.ro - the official website of City Business Centre, has various SEO problems on almost all pages. Some of the most important ones: there are 252 pages that do not have any keywords. (when each page should be optimized for 2-4 keyword phrases.) there are 252 pages that do not have a description tag. All pages on the website should have a unique description that accurately describes the content on the page. there are 247 pages that use the same title City Business Centre. All the pages on the website should have a unique title that accurately describes the content on the page. Figure 13. http://www.business-centre.ro SEO Analysis

(Source:Vadim Rob, 2012)

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b) Paid inclusion (also known as sponsored listings) Google Adwords - Google Keyword Tool -Picking the right profitable keyword phrases it the first step to earning revenue from the web. Use this handy Google Adwords tool to find keywords and phrases. Enabling ads to appear on google search and other search sites, websites the people visit, to specific audiences. A very good tool to increase awareness. Other elements in the mix include: E-mail marketing with E-mail newsletters and Direct emails; and direct payed advertising on some high traffic sites with business news, sites of business newspapers and sites of TV channels.

4.4.3. MONITORING AND CONTROL TOOLS a) Google Analytics Google Analytics - is a powerful tool for obtaining and monitoring website relevant statistics. It has some valuable Audience features such as (Hourly Daylily Weekly and Monthly) Visits, Average Visit Duration Bounce Rate, Pages/Visit Unique Visitors and New Visits counters that can be visualized in different ways. You have the option to explore these numbers by Demographics (by Language and by Location), by Behavior (New vs Returning, Frequency & Recency, by Engagement), by Technology (by Browser & Operating System or Network), by Mobile Devices, and other user defined filters. Figure 14. Google Analytics Dashboard for www.business-centre.ro

(Source:Vadim Rob, Google Analytics - CBC, 2012)

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Google Analytics also offers statistics for Adwords Advertising campaigns, Traffic Sources, Content and Conversions Analytics. This tool is really useful for gathering knowledge for making the webpages perform better so CBC can bring in more customers. From analyzing the data it can be noticed that from February to June there exists a constant number of visits/month around the value of 850. Also the number of unique visitors on the same time span is closely to 3/4 of the number of total monthly visits. Figure 15. Audience Overview - www.business-centre.ro

(Source:Vadim Rob, Google Analytics - business-centre.ro, 2012)

The total number of visits for the February to June 2012 period for businesscentre.ro is 3499. Taking into account the engagement statistics, it can be noted that 1831 visits which represents 52,33% of total visits, are of a duration of 0-10 seconds. This number is relatively important because it shows that almost half of the total visitors may be visitors that landed on the site by accident, or were searching for something else. That means that the actual number of real visitors in average for a month is of 420 visits, a number that can benefit from some substantial improvement. Those visitors are important to, though, because they could also be potential clients.

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Figure 16. Engagement - www.business-centre.ro

(Source:Vadim Rob, Google Analytics - business-centre.ro, 2012)

The traffic for the above stated period came specially from organic search (82.14%) 10.26% came from referrals and 7.60% where direct traffic. Paid search traffic is missing. From the 7.60% of the referrals meaning around 360 visits, just approximately 90 were referrals from social sites, more exactly 65 visits from Facebook, 9 from Delicious, 4 from LinkedIn, and 1 from Twitter. Clearly the social media presence is very weak and must be improved.

Figure 17. Traffic sources - www.business-centre.ro

(Source:Vadim Rob, Google Analytics - business-centre.ro, 2012)

b) Alexa.com - The Web Information Company - Gives information about search analytics. High impact search queries for business-centre.ro:

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Figure 18. City Business Centre statistics on Alexa.com

(Source:Vadim Rob, Alexa.com, 2012)

A high value of impact factor indicates that the site is getting significant organic search traffic for queries containing the phrases above despite high advertising competition for these phrases.

4.5. ONLINE CREATIVE STRATEGY 4.5.1. WEBSITE RELATED CREATIVE STRATEGY Testimonials needed to be peppered throughout the website so they are read for better usability. Also testimonials always confer greater trust and reliability for the company. The social media links for each of the CBC profile pages must be visible and available on the main site. Currently there is no linkage from the CBC website to any of the available social media profiles. There are a lot of problems regarding Search Engine Optimization. The factors must be put in order to conform with the requirements so that the website can score better search engine results from which organic traffic is derived. The selling message (the value of the services) was not fully communicated on the website; need to make a USP (Unique Selling Proposition), have more sales messaging that communicate value. The header portion of the website has free, unused space that can be taken advantage of. Its one of the most important areas of the site because that portion draws the most attention to viewers. So it must be used wisely. Therefore my approach on this would be a floating unique selling message or a combination of unique selling message on the first image slide and different messages on the other
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slides communicating, in a combination of text + relevant photo, the selling features of CBC, the strengths. A very fitting USP for City Business Centre would be: The Premium, Flexible, Swiss Army Knife of Office Space Your Company Deserves. Figure 19. Site Header Revamp

(Source:Vadim Rob, 2012) Web page module rearrangement for better visibility of important aspects and better proportioning of content side modules: Figure 20. Site Module Rearangem

(Source:Vadim Rob, 2012)

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4.5.2. OTHER CREATIVE STRATEGY ELEMENTS & GANTT CHART Display ads purchased on advertising networks and also create and start google adwords campaign. Purchase backlinks from governamental, educational, and other high rated/ traffic sites or make backlink exchange. Facebook page managed with more updates. For wider social integration a Twitter account must be created, also a YouTube Channel created to share video clips and increase awareness. Interlinkage must be done of all social network profile websites and the official website. This is good for SEO as well for the visitors because they can get from one social network to the other or from one social network to the main website, easily. Online press releases that are created and sent weekly to online PR distribution sites. This is really important because it confers confidence and trust and boosts awareness for City Business Centre. Need to build network with other bloggers in industry to get awareness by the target market, post comments on their blogs, make mentions of complementary blogs in social media to win friends and influence people. Train of in-house staff about SEO and paid search and hire of several outside consultants to help and work with the traditional publicist; daily paid search management. Weekly blogging and weekly web analysis reviews to understand patterns and make improvements. Monthly website updates to keep testimonials current also, monthly search engine optimization management and monthly newsletters send.

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Figure 18. Tasks with their deadlines

(Source:Vadim Rob, 2012)

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CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS The present paper can be viewed as a strategy, a plan, even a proposal for an online marketing campaign for City Business Centre, the flexible office environment provider from Timisoara, Romania. I have chosen the subject of Online Marketing because there is a worldwide fast increasing trend towards internet media and there is a extremely large number of individuals who use the Internet, therefor throwing your business in such a place and effectively using the ways of internet marketing is a big opportunity to anyone who ultimately seeks higher returns. Moreover Ive chosen the subject because it is somewhat relatively exotic for Romanian businesses. (especially small/medium ones). By target audience analyzation it can be concluded that the services offered by City Business Center are aimed at companies multinational or local, large or medium/ small, who want a central location with quick access, high quality and diverse services built right in as part of the feature rich environment that CBC wants to be and offer, thus aiming at companies that would want a worry free quick start as part of this workplace. As productivity from the start is very important in business nowadays, companies are tending to avoid settling concerns and difficulties that may occur in the process, and want just to dive in and concentrate on just what they do so they can perform at full potential. Therefore results the need for complex buildings with feature packed services like CBC. The general, at large objectives of the campaign revolve around improving the online presence of City Business Centre through social media sites (existingimproving Facebook presence, and entering and building presence on other new social media sites for CBC like Twitter and Youtube) & non-social media sites (blogs, online press, city portals, etc.), and building an effective advertising campaign. All of these actions, will increase web-site traffic as well, and in the end it will result in higher customer conversion rate. The current real visitor count for www.business-centre.ro is half of the total visitor count. By adopting an optimal online creative strategy and proper tools like the ones presented in previous subchapters, the number of real visitors can gain a much better share of 3/4 from the total visitor count. Social media is a very important factor in the year 2012 for internet marketing. The social media status for CBC for the analyzed period was very poor. Only 1.75% traffic was derived from social media sites, thus the social media presence takes a center stage importance in the online marketing campaign. The time frame on which the analysis of City Business Center online presence has been conducted was of 4 months, therefor an efficient 4 month online marketing campaign was projected, by the end of which all the stated objectives can and will be met. At a time when Internet usage is growing at a pace faster then ever, in a world where many individuals are spending tremendous amounts of time on the Internet, not taking advantage of the online medium for marketing is a missed opportunity for any company or individual. Therefor, having invested in building and maintaining a strong online presence will eventually result in higher returns.
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REFERENCES: CHADWICK, TERRY BRAINERD (JULY 2005), "HOW SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING TOOLS CAN WORK FOR YOU: OR, SEARCHING IS REALLY ALL ABOUT FINDING, FIRST OF THREE ARTICLES", INFORMATION OUTLOOK. CHARLESWORTH, ALAN (2009), INTERNET MARKETING - A PRACTICAL APPROACH, BUTTERWORTH-HEINEMANN, OXFORD, UK. JAAKKO SINISALO ET AL. (2007). "MOBILE CUSTOMER R E L AT I O N S H I P M A N A G E M E N T: U N D E R LY I N G I S S U E S A N D CHALLENGES", BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT JOURNAL 13 (6): 772.DOI:10.1108/14637150710834541 R A P PA , M I C H A E L , B U S I N E S S M O D E L S O N T H E W E B , DIGITALENTERPRISE.ORG/MODELS/MODELS.HTML SARAH V. BUNDY, THE 10 INTERNET MARKETING CHANNELS CRUCIAL TO YOUR SUCCESS IN 2011 SMITH, S.E. (4 OCTOBER 2011), "WHAT IS MASS MEDIA?", CONJECTURE CORPORATION. THOMAS, LORRIE (2011), ONLINE MARKETING, MCGRAW-HILL, US. THOMPSON, JOHN B. (1995), THE MEDIA AND MODERNITY, CAMBRIDGE, POLITY PRESS IN ASSOCIATION WITH BLACKWELL PUBLISHER LTD. US H T T P : / / W W W. C D C . G O V / D H D S P / S TAT E _ P R O G R A M / EVALUATION_GUIDES/PDFS/SMART_OBJECTIVES.PDF HTTP://WWW.CLICKZ.COM/CLICKZ/COLUMN/1935424/ONLINEMARKETING-TRENDS-2011-INCLUDED HTTP://WWW.BUSINESS2COMMUNITY.COM/ONLINE-MARKETING/4INTERNET-MARKETING-TRENDS-FOR-2011-04120 HTTP://THERESEARCHWHISPERER.WORDPRESS.COM/2011/09/13/ GANTT-CHART/ HTTP://WWW.MINDTOOLS.COM/PAGES/ARTICLE/NEWPPM_03.HTM HTTP://WWW.NHBR.COM/BUSINESSINSIGHTS/916510-277/THE-BASICSOF-MOBILE-INTERNET-MARKETING.HTML

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