So lets talk e-marketing! What is it all about and what's the point.
But first lets go back a step... is there any point in marketing. Does anyone care that a company tells you to buy the product?
after all marketing is just selling people S**T that they don't need right??
I hate this look at marketing...but thats just me. People need stuff and marketing is just a great way to facilitate the communication.
That being said, if i asked you who do you believe more a company telling you they have a miracle product, or your friend has said he/she just used a miracle product who are your more likely to believe?
I think most of us would pick the friend everyday of the week. It is for this reason E-marketing is so damn important.
in latter posts i will talk about a personal experience i had having to promote a small business, so stay tuned for that.
WOM, Word of Mouth or as its now sometimes refereed to as World of Mouth. As the internet is becoming the new world...and the internet allows someone to talk about any product at any time!
When you want to find out about a product, you open up Google and search, you can post a question to yahoo answers or check out what people are saying on Facebook and Twitter.
If your a company to not be a part of this..well that is just crazy.
Many companies now days have a Facebook page for their business. This is a great place for customers to leave product reviews, and discuss new products, where to buy and overall it allows companies to get a good understanding of their consumer base.
My question is what happens when companies take advantage of this medium and use it to manipulate customers.
Recently, I purchased some perfume for my girlfriend (now fiance) from an online shopping website. I searched for the perfume (CK Euphoria) on price compare websites. I found this one company which sold the perfume for about $50 I jumped at this offer as in other places I had seen it retailed for up to $100. I ordered the product, and was impressed with their speedy delivery process.
They then sent me an email saying join our Facebook page and if we get over 5000 fans then we will give a $50 voucher to all fans. No terms of conditions, other than one small post saying details will follow. This was a great success with over 5000 people joining in just a few days many of who suggested to their friends on Facebook to join. I too having had a recent positive experience joined this page. However, once the terms of conditions came out it became clear it was a scam. The $50 voucher was split into $5 and $10 vouchers and did not include shipping costs. Needless to say the outrage was palpable.
below is a sample of just a few comments as taken from the companies Facebook page
Perhaps ShoppingSquare needs to understand a little more about social networks...
55 minutes ago · Flag
Its also basically saying that you have to make 3 orders to get the $20 credit.
You also required to spend a minimum of $20 to get the $20 credit.
As well as paying shipping for 3 different items.
You also required to spend a minimum of $20 to get the $20 credit.
As well as paying shipping for 3 different items.
55 minutes ago · Flag
You people are lame, if you don't like the deal, then don't buy anything. I use shopping square to buy things... not to read stupid shit.
52 minutes ago · Flag
Fail marketing... This has just lost customers, trying to trick people is not the way to go. Wording was misleading and announcing T&C after people had signed up... Sigh
49 minutes ago · Flag
Dislike
40 minutes ago · Flag
@Rachel. No need for sarcasm, and if you want my vouchers you're welcome to them
35 minutes ago · Fla
On non-promo items I can get cheaper elsewhere w/o the stupid voucher. Funny how online shops can have fanboys defending them tho. Or can they
The last comment which I have highlighted brings me to my main point about WOM. The internet is a great place to get your voice out to the world. However, it is all too easy to create fake usernames and passwords, and fake email addresses and log into Facebook, Twitter or even websites like truelocal.com.au and post reviews and disguise yourself as an actual user of the product-when in fact you are the owner or an employee of the company.
Whilst, there are mechanisms in place to prevent this.
it is often very easy to pick a fake. For example if you click on a profile of someone you suspect being fake, there are many tell tale signs. For example, often the person has little or no activity on their wall, yet they comment actively only on one companies fan page, they have few or no friends and have a generic or no facebook profile picture.
This can have major negative effects and also undermines many of the major benefits of the internet.
Marketers have to stay clear of these temptations. Genuine WOM cannot and should not be artificially created. it is unethical..but whats more has the ability to seriously damage the entire industry.
If anyone has any good examples or any comments whether or not they think its ethical please comment bellow.
Noam
