Internet marketing is a method of promotion done solely over the internet. Internet marketing refers to advertising and marketing efforts attempted by businesses. Internet marketing can be done through web marketing, email marketing and social media marketing.
Web marketing is done over e-commerce websites (websites where people can trade for products and services) and through promotional or informative websites.
Email marketing involves both advertising and promotional marketing efforts via e-mail messages to current and prospective customers.
Social media marketing is marketing efforts done via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
innocent started up in 1999 after they sold some of their smoothies at a music festival. They put up a large sign asking people if they thought they should quit their current jobs to make these smoothies, and put out two bins with one saying ‘yes’ on it and the other saying ‘no’ in front of the stall selling the smoothies. The people voted with their empties by placing their finished bottle in whatever bin they chose to answer with. At the end of the festival weekend the ‘yes’ bin was full and work commenced the following day as they resigned from their jobs.
Innocent originally marketed their product through simple billboards which they tried to place strategically across the capital and over the UK. Innocent didn’t see too much success with the billboard advertisements, and decided to create a low budget television advert. The creators explain on their website how they made and edited an advert in a single day with a budget of £500. Although the advert reached a large audience, they lacked the budget and tools to be able to get across what they truly wanted the world to know about innocent. Eventually, innocent released an advertising campaign which really did make a difference, and they couldn’t have done it without the help of internet marketing. Innocent released two advertisements which they posted on their online social media sites, the ‘chain of good’ campaigns (click links). Innocent posted the chain of good short films on their Facebook and Twitter pages, and it spread like wildfire. Using internet marketing, specifically social media, innocents short films went viral. The benefit of using social media sites to market advertising campaigns over more traditional methods such as television adverts is that social media has the ability to reach a larger audience than a television advert ever could. In addition, it is beneficial financially as companies don’t have to pay for the right to show an advertisement on their own social media page, however they would have to pay for air time if they wanted their advertisement on a television or radio. The short films drew a lot of positive attention to innocent as viewers were now aware that they were an ethical business as viewers may not have been aware that 10% of all sales go to their own charities. The short film drove sales and innocent reached their highest sales in quarter, shortly after their film was trending on Twitter. With lots of shares on Facebook and retweets on Twitter, innocent had officially called the short film their best marketing campaign yet, this shows the power that internet marketing can have if it is done correctly. The advertisement is still available on their YouTube channel and on their website, the video still continues to gain views, resulting in further sales for innocent due to the video.
The Chelsea Foundation, which was founded in 2010, brings together the Football in the Community and the Education department along with the club’s other charitable and community activities, including environment and anti-discrimination projects. Chelsea are one of the world’s leading football social responsibility program, the Chelsea Foundation uses the power of sport to motivate, educate and inspire. However, for the first two years of the foundation being in place, the Chelsea Foundation appeared to only be available to children of the local community, as the advertising campaigns for the charity consisted of just simple billboards, posters and flyers outside Stamford bridge (Chelsea’s football home ground). Although the foundation is helping underprivileged children and doing good, they are only doing it for the local community, and a business such as Chelsea FC has the finance to support charitable campaign which can be global, therefore accessible for children in Asia and Africa, where football really can make a difference. In 2012, everything changed, the Chelsea Foundation website was launched. The website gives people outside of the local community to get in touch and create links with one another. The extra funding came from Chelsea allowing people to donate via the Chelsea Foundation website, and creating the Chelsea lottery, a contest where fans can buy tickets for £2 and all money raised goes directly to the Foundation. Chelsea encouraged fans to donate to the Foundation through posts on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account. As Chelsea has over 36 million followers on Facebook and almost 4.5 million followers on Twitter, there is no doubt that the posts on their social media sites encouraged a lot of people to donate, which resulted in schools and training grounds being built not only across the UK, but over the rest of Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. The difference which internet marketing made for the Foundation and for children across the world is astonishing, before the website was introduced in 2012, Chelsea was restricted to helping local children in south west London, since then, with the help of internet marketing and social media sites, the Chelsea Foundation has become a significant name in the charity world.
Businesses will evaluate and revaluate themselves using the 7 p’s. The 7 p’s are price, promotion, physical environment, people, product, process and place. Businesses continuously revisit the 7 p’s as consumer needs are always changing therefore the business as to alter its marketing strategy.
Through their website, innocent have allowed consumers to create and personalise products, to give the product more of a personal feel to it. This is beneficial for the consumer has they can edit the product to make it better suited to them, which is something a lot of businesses don’t do. This may encourage the customer to make a return sale, which is beneficial for innocent, as they have potential to make another sale. Having personalised products available on the website may be able innocent gain some loyal customers. Customers can also give feedback directly to innocent about what they thought about the product. As innocent have made an effort to ensure they have great customer service, they take great care when responding to customers feedback. When innocent sends a real response to the customer, instead of a half-hearted automated response, it lets the customer know that innocent do care about the customer, which helps raise the level of customer service. The feedback can also give innocent new ideas when innovating their products as customers sometimes offer suggestions for new smoothies or other products.
The internet is valuable in terms of expenditure for businesses, as customers can buy directly from the website and have it delivered right to their front door, this means businesses do not have open up as many stores, which means less overheads. Specifically to innocent, the internet is cherished as they make a lot of sales via the website which is preferred as they don’t have to pay distribution costs export the product to the businesses they are being sold at, nor do they have to lose some money on the product as the store may take a cut of the money for selling it. Innocent have to stay competitive with their pricing, as other smoothies such as ‘naked’ and ‘juicy water’ are never far behind in terms of sales. Customers can easily check online which is the cheapest through price comparison websites so innocent have to statically choose their price for their products. If they set it to low, their sales figures will drop, if they are set to high, loyal customers could be lost to the similar and cheaper brands.
Before the internet, consumers would have to visit a store to make a purchase, since then the way we access and purchase products has changed completely. Businesses are more accessible as we don’t have to visit a store anymore, we can purchase the product from our computer or mobile phone. This is advantageous for innocent and the Chelsea Foundation, both companies, although different benefit from the internet. With their websites they are now able to reach a huge market as people can access their website. Before the Chelsea Foundation website was launched in 2012, they struggled to collect donations as the only opportunity for people to give donations was on a match day at Stamford Bridge. Now however, Chelsea can spread the word of the foundation via social media sites, and people can offer donations from their home. The website being that much more accessible raised donations which allowed the Foundation to help a lot more children globally.
Innocent originally marketed and promoted their products through billboards and television adverts, whilst Chelsea only advertised their charity through billboards, posters and flyers. Using internet marketing has been hugely beneficial for both businesses, as they can promote their products to larger market. Using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses can promote their marketing campaigns to all of their followers, for free. The only problem with promoting through social media sites is once the a post or tweet has been made, it is out of the businesses control. Some marketing campaigns can be slated online by users and be negative for the business as they can damage their reputation which results in a loss of customers, and therefore sales.
The process for purchasing the product has changed for businesses all over the globe. Consumers do not have to visit stores anymore as they can simply buy products online. This makes it easier for people to buy products as they can do it from their own home. Although this is beneficial for when it comes to purchasing the product, some websites can be misleading as to what they are selling and customer could end up with a product that isn’t what the website made it out to be. People can now order a product of innocent instead of going to a store such as Waitrose to buy the product. As this is more accessible for people innocent have to opportunity to sell products as they can reach a larger audience. With the internet, Chelsea have a website where people can offer their donations online instead of travelling to Stamford Bridge to pay in a donation. If charities make it easier for people to donate, they will be more likely to as people will not want to go through a lot of hassle to donate to an organisation.
It has become popular for businesses to make their website is accessible and mobile friendly for mobile devices. Some businesses make an app so people can access the website in a different format. It is important for business to make sure their website can be accessed via mobile devises as people can frustrated and stop using the businesses services if it is not laid out properly. An example of this is the Facebook app, although the website when used on a computer is easy and simply to use with a slick layout, the mobile app is slow which puts users off.
Chelsea have created an app, which can be downloaded from the android Google play app store and the apple app store. They have also created a mobile friendly website, which means when the website is accessed through a mobile device, it has different format to a computer, to make it easier to browse the website on your mobile. On the app, users can watch highlights from games and see all news regarding the team. From the app, you can find out about the Chelsea Foundation and also offer donations.
When a website is filled with lots of information via word, it can be too much to read and the majority of time users will ignore the cluttered mess of huge paragraphs filling the screen. It has become popular for businesses to use videos to give users information. Videos can give the same amount of information whilst remain attractive to the user. Innocent often post their updates of the company and information on their products via video. Innocent are a relatively new company, and often use modern marketing technique such as internet marketing. Due to this, it was important for them to keep up with current trends such as using videos to replace texts.
Innocent originally had an updates page on their website, now however they have a YouTube channel which can be accessed through their website.