Develop an e-marketing plan

E-marketing means using digital technologies such as websites, mobile devices and social networking to help reach your customer base, create awareness of your brand and sell your goods or services. These technologies can be used cheaply and effectively, whatever the size of your company or your business model.

The basics of marketing remain the same – creating a strategy to deliver the right messages to the right people. Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing mix. Its flexible and cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small businesses.

This guide describes the benefits of e-marketing, what the stages are for developing an e-marketing plan and also outlines some of legal issues that you will need to consider. The guide also provides a basic e-marketing plan template that you can download and use for your own business.

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The benefits of e-marketing

E-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Specific benefits of e-marketing include:

• Global reach – a website allows you to find new markets and trade globally for only a small investment.
• Lower cost – a properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
• Trackable, measurable results – web analytics and other online metric tools make it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising. See our guide on measuring your online marketing.
• Personalisation – if your customer database is linked to your website, then whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.
• Openness – by having a social media presence and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being easy to engage with. See our guide on online business networking and social networking.
• Social currency – e-marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using different types of rich media. On the internet these campaigns can gain social currency – being passed from user to user and becoming viral.
• Improved conversion rates – if you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, or go to a shop, e-marketing can be seamless and immediate.

Together, all of these aspects of e-marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.

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Building relationships with your customers

A website provides an ongoing point of contact with customers and can be a useful way of collecting information for e-marketing purposes and for building successful relationships with them.

Provide engaging content

Make the information that you provide about you and your business as engaging as possible. Think about what you can add to your website that will benefit your customers and add value, eg online discounts to the products or services that you provide.

A blog or other ‘onsite’ or ‘owned’ social media can be another way of providing more engaging content for your customers. Increasing the interest and value of your website will improve your brand and encourage visitors to come back.

For more information see our guide Web 2.0: a guide for business.

Answering frequently asked questions

Answering the frequently asked questions customers ask on your website demonstrates you’re ready to help. It may also save you time and money by reducing the number of phone queries.

Provide an email facility for queries and customer feedback – but ensure someone checks them regularly. Respond to queries promptly and let people know their comments are appreciated. This process can be automated. Provide full contact details, particularly phone numbers, for people in need of an immediate answer or they may look elsewhere.

Asking visitors to register

Many businesses ask first-time visitors to their site to register. This can be useful for gathering statistics and email addresses for direct mailings.

But asking people to register straight away may put them off. Most people will not sign up unless there is an incentive for doing so, such as an e-newsletter, special offer or access to further information that is not available to non-subscribers. Wait until they are far enough into your site to want to find out more and tell them how they can benefit by registering. Ask for the minimum details possible.

If you intend to collect personal data, there are a number of legal requirements. See the page in this guide on the legal considerations in e-marketing.

Customer relationship management

Many businesses invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve their customer services. The CRM system brings information like customer data, sales patterns, marketing data and future trends together with the aim of identifying new sales opportunities, delivering improved customer service, or offering personalised services and deals. If your website uses a content management system it may be possible to integrate it with your CRM – to provide more targeted marketing to your customers online. For more information see our guide on Content Management Systems.

A CRM system is also a very effective way of handling customer complaints and can have a tremendous effect on your reputation. For more information on CRM solutions and implementation issues, see our guide on how to manage your customer database.

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Stages in developing your e-marketing plan

It is important to recognise that planning for e-marketing does not mean starting from scratch. Any online e-communication must be consistent and work with the overall marketing goals and current marketing efforts of your business.

The main components of an e-marketing plan will typically include the following stages:

• Identify your target audience – if you identify multiple targets, rank them in order of importance so that you can allocate resources accordingly. Profile each target group and understand their requirements and expectations. This type of customer segmentation will help you choose the right tactics for your plan.
• Understand your competitors – profile your competitors and the market in which you operate. What types of online marketing do your competitors use and how well do they perform? This type of benchmarking will help you understand the environment in which you are operating. See the page in this guide on planning – situation analysis.
• Set your objectives – possible objectives could include raising awareness of your brand, improving sales or online registrations, improving customer retention, providing greater internal efficiencies such as decreased marketing costs and reduced order-taking and fulfilment costs. The objectives that you choose depend on your business needs. For more information see the page in this guide on planning – objectives and strategy.
• Plan your tactics – once you have a top-level strategy including your overall objectives, you need to identify the tactics that you want to use. The plan can also cover any other non-internet marketing activities that are being undertaken. Think about how you will measure your success – build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to enable you to assess the performance of your e-marketing activities and identify areas for improvement. For more information, see the page in this guide on planning – tactics.
• Agree a budget – careful budgeting allows you to prevent costs spiralling out of control. Identify the returns you expect to make from your investment in e-marketing activities and compare these with the costs in order to develop a cost/benefit analysis. For more information, see the page in this guide on planning – budget.

It is advisable to read through this guide before downloading the template below.

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

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Planning – executive summary

The executive summary of your e-marketing plan should provide a short synopsis of your entire e-marketing strategy. It should include highlights from each section of the rest of the document.

The role of the executive summary is to provide enough detail to interest busy senior executives and encourage them to buy in to the e-marketing plan and how it can benefit the business.

It should be concise – ideally a page in length – easy to understand, and interesting without using hype. It’s advisable to write this section of your plan after you have completed the rest.

The summary should outline the following:

• your business environment
• the key issues that have emerged from your situation analysis
• the key objectives of your e-marketing plan
• the strategies and tactics to be used
• the projected outcomes and expected return on investment

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

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Planning – situation analysis

The situation analysis section of your e-marketing plan needs to describe the context in which your e-marketing will take place. It should include an analysis of your business’ internal (micro) and external (macro) environments.

Internal considerations include your:

• customers
• market, and any trends in this
• current online proposition
• competitors

External considerations could be:

• social – how changing consumer attitudes could affect your approach
• legal – ie complying with e-marketing laws, such as data protection
• environmental – eg making sure your approach is ethical and sustainable
• political – how local or national government could impact on your plan
• technological – how advances in technology could affect your marketplace

For more detailed information on analysing your situation, download a digital marketing plan template [opens in a new window].

Once you have considered each of these, you should carry out a digital-specific analysis showing your business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For advice on this, see the page on models for your strategic analysis in our guide on how to measure performance and set targets.

Where possible you should use qualitative and quantitative data to support your analysis, as well as images, charts and graphs to illustrate your findings.

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

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Planning – objectives and strategy

The objectives you decide on for your e-marketing need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). For more information on SMART, see the page on your marketing objectives in our guide on how to write a marketing plan.

When defining your e-marketing objectives, you should think about how they will align with your overall business’ goals and your key performance indicators.

You should also consider what the return on your investment will be – this is likely to be financial, but could also include, for example:

• an improved conversion rate
• greater brand awareness
• an increase in visits to your website
• a greater market share

How you measure the success of your plan will depend on your general business and marketing objectives. This will differ from business to business.

Your plan needs to look at the whole customer journey – ie how a customer will become aware of your brand, why they will then want to visit your website and finally how easily will they be able to make a purchase or register once on your site. This can be summarised simply as awareness, acquisition and conversion. Different online tactics will support different parts of this customer journey.

Strategy

Once you have defined your objectives, you should provide a summary of your strategy, showing how you are going to use e-marketing to meet your goals. This should summarise the ‘big picture’ and lead naturally into the next section of your plan, in which you will define the tactics that you want to use. For more on this, see the page in this guide on planning – tactics.

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

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Planning – tactics

The tactics section of your e-marketing plan will describe how you will implement your strategy, and defines the channels and tools that you will use. It should define what you hope to achieve by using each tactic, how this relates to your main objectives, and how you will measure your performance.

For more information on how to measure your campaign see our guide on measuring your online marketing.

Your tactics should include:

• a summary of your digital marketing mix – what channels will you use?
• the reasons why you have chosen each channel and details of implementation
• the customer segmentation that you will use and how each channel will be targeted
• a summary of the metrics that you will use to measure performance for each channel
• what key performance indicators you will use to assess performance

Digital marketing channels available for you to use

Email – great for building relationships and keeping your customers up to date with offers, and is less intrusive than telephone marketing. However, growing concerns about spam mean you need to make sure you adhere to government regulations. For more information, see the page in this guide on legal considerations in e-marketing.

SMS (short messaging service) – almost everyone has a mobile phone, so marketing via text messaging is a viable option. However, the personal relationships people have with their phones means marketing needs to be carefully considered.

Websites – a hugely flexible option to meet any marketing need. However, with so many other websites, you need a strategy for getting yours noticed and used.

Presenting your tactics in a table will help make your summary easier to read. It may also be useful to group tactics into awareness, acquisition and conversion activities. If you are employing an agency to carry out specific parts of your e-marketing, they should feed into this section.

You can also provide an indication of cost, although this will be covered in much more detail in the next section – for more on this, see the page in this guide on planning – budget.

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

For more a more detailed overview, download a digital marketing plan template from the Smart Insights website [opens in a new window].

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Planning – budget

The final section of your e-marketing plan will outline your budget for achieving your objectives. This is best presented as a single spreadsheet, providing specific detail on:

• what you plan to spend overall
• how this will be broken down across tactics over a fixed period
• any financial key performance indicators or milestones that need to be met
• potential return on investment across channels
• a summary of projected benefits – which can be used in the executive summary

The summary of projected benefits should include estimates of how much traffic will be generated from each tactic and the number of prospects that will likely go on to convert. Try to back up your estimates with figures wherever possible. This will help justify the mix of tactics you have chosen.

You should also include an analysis of projected sales, across tactics, and the profit that each will generate. This will help you quantify the net profit from your overall e-marketing plan.

Download our e-marketing plan template as a Microsoft Word document [opens in a new window].

You can also download our e-marketing template as an ODT file by using Openoffice software [opens in a new window].

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Legal considerations in e-marketing

There are a number of regulations that relate specifically to e-marketing. You need to keep abreast of developments in this area to ensure that you are complying with the various rules.

Email and SMS marketing – regulations

There are rules covering marketing emails and SMS messages to individuals.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations introduced an opt-in consent procedure for commercial emails – which means you can only target people who have agreed to be contacted.

The rules only apply to new customers. You can continue marketing to existing customers provided they can opt-out of future messages and the marketing messages cover similar products and services.

You must also clearly mark your emails with your contact details and include a valid return email address.

For more information, see our guide on e-commerce and the law.

Your website

All websites should carry your company’s registered address and company (or charity) registration number.

Using cookies

Cookies are text files that are stored on a user’s computer when they visit a website that uses them. Thereafter, the cookie sends information back to the website and can be used to monitor browsing preferences of users, eg types of goods searched for, pages visited and length of dwell time on each page.

Since 26 May 2011, businesses must tell visitors to their website that they use cookies and obtain their consent. You must also tell your site users how you use cookies.

You can find out how to comply with the law on cookies on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website- Opens in a new window and find out how the ICO intends to enforce these regulations.

You can find how to manage cookies on the All About Cookies website- Opens in a new window.

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CASE STUDY

Here’s how I developed and implemented an e-marketing plan

Operating directly out of London’s Covent Garden Market, Fruit For The Office provides daily fresh fruit deliveries and gifts to offices, households, schools, shops, hotels and restaurants. Founder Daniel Ox describes how his e-marketing plan played an important role in turning the market-stall based company into a thriving nationwide delivery business.

What I did

Get the branding right

“Four years ago, our family business of fruit stalls in prime London locations was suffering from changing consumer shopping habits and the rise of the supermarkets. However, I had noticed that more and more companies were sending staff out to purchase quantities of fruit for general consumption in the office. I did some market research and financial forecasts to quantify the market potential and refine the target audience and became convinced that we could re-focus the business on this area, offering quality produce and an efficient delivery service direct to the customer’s premises.

“I realised that e-marketing was going to play a key role, simply because of the huge growth in internet commerce. I also felt that there was no point in jumping hastily on the bandwagon. I wanted to start with a great brand around which the marketing could be built and which would immediately inspire customer confidence. Branding was particularly important because we were the first company to specifically target fruit for offices and because the product itself is quite hard to differentiate from what future competitors could offer.

“Utilising my research and comparisons with other successful food brands, I worked on the brand image with a trusted design company to formulate a company name and logo, an overall design blueprint and key marketing messages.”

Put the online infrastructure in place

“E-marketing has to start with a good website. We already had a static one-page site to publicise the fruit stalls, but it wasn’t up to the mark. Working with our design agency, we started again from scratch, planning in meticulous detail, testing pages for usability and search engine optimisation and ensuring we would be able to easily add content in future.

“Data capture and building customer relationships are essential. We encourage visitors to sign up for our regular email newsletters, by including special offers, details of food festivals and other information that’s of interest to our target market. We’re careful to abide by Data Protection laws when collecting customer details and always gain opt-in rather than automatically adding someone to our list.

“The website also includes a blog with feedback facilities, which reflects the brand personality and includes fun and informative fruit-related features plus company news such as our regular charity fund-raising efforts. We invested a lot of money in the website and a launch campaign, but it paid for itself within weeks of going live.”

Monitor, review and update

“I use the Google Analytics tool every day to help monitor our e-marketing. It gives crucial information about how people are using the website and responding to our marketing messages, so that we can refine and develop them and segment the e-marketing further to reach specific customer groups. I also use the tool to analyse the performance of our competitors. In addition, we conduct an annual e-mail survey to gain customer feedback, the results of which are fed back to all staff.

“We’re constantly reviewing and updating our e-marketing plan to keep us ahead of the competition. For example, we’re about to implement a huge data capture exercise using a bought-in database and offering fruit-related prizes as incentives to register with us. This should provide a major expansion of our own database for future e-marketing campaigns.”

What I’d do differently

Build in more landing pages

“The website has proved a highly successful e-marketing tool from day one. However I wish we’d originally built in more “landing pages” – the pages that potential customers are directed to when they type a particular keyword into a search engine.”

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