Reap the Rewards of eMarketing /eBusiness Integration
Smart businesses are learning how to exploit the synergies between their “Marketing” and their “Business Operations”. Executives are taking a fresh look at how these two sectors can fit together to create lasting cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness for their entire business.
Faster, Cheaper, Better Advertising
Few can argue that the Internet is the most cost-effective and cost efficient marketing tool available. More and more companies are using their website and web promotions to advertise faster, cheaper, and more measurably. With the advent of Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Campaigns, Email Marketing, and Affiliation Strategies, the ability to seek, find and draw niche markets has never been this easy.
The Secret Marketing Benefit
A well executed website can also make all traditional marketing more effective as well. Since the website can be the single source for all your company information, all other marketing and advertising material can be more focused, less cluttered, and therefore, more effective. Since the detailed information is available on your website, you don’t need to burden your brochures, your magazine ads, or your radio spots with a lot of the same detail. You now have the room to reinforce one or two clear, focused messages and drive prospects to the website for the deeper information.
The Web – Simply a Better Business Tool
Ecommerce or not, good use of the web can reduce your costs of operation and streamline internal and external processes. There are a great many packaged and custom solutions that can automate, consolidate or eliminate many tedious business functions. Your existing software can be reconfigured or replaced so that information can flow with greater ease through a web based system. There are 3 immediate advantages to doing business through the web.
- Information can be entered or retrieved from anywhere in the world.
- Browsers become the common user-friendly interface, rather than the complex interface of a specific software program.
- Database information becomes easily-accessible and updatable by all departments keeping information current and consistent.
When Marketing and Business Live in Harmony
It’s no secret that marketing needs to be a driving force behind many of today’s businesses. The days of “Build it and they will come” are long gone. The best companies continuously gauge the needs and wants of people to decide which products and services to offer. With this in mind, it is easy to see how strong marketing research, analysis and strategy all need to be intimately linked with the daily operations.
Consolidating Information is Key
The Internet provides a common receptacle where all marketing and business processes can efficiently deposit their information, and where it can be easily and quickly retrieved for analysis or for use. By creating a web-based, database system, companies can cut wasted money and time spent on redundant data-entry, tedious tasks, and manual collation. But the real benefit of a central web-based system is in the speed, flexibility and accessibility of all information. When all company data can all be collected at, edited in and accessed from one single source, you have the means to streamline most business processes for a long time to come.
Examples of eMarketing/eBusiness Synergy
The following list describes those processes that can reap the greatest benefit from a symbiotic relationship between marketing and operations. In most of the following cases the shared web-based system can streamline marketing / advertising initiatives while trimming operational costs and hours.
- Hotel Reservations
- Inventory
- Estimates and Quotations
- Scheduling and Time Keeping
- Market Research
- List Building and Maintenance
- Archiving
- Sales Support
- Sales Tracking
- Research and Development
- Content Management
- Procurement
- Supply Chain Management
- Corporate Culture
- Training