Applications of ICT in Marketing
Market research
Customer databases (see notes on applications of ICT – Customer Service) also a useful mine of information for marketing and operational purposes – NB this would be a form of secondary market research, as the data has not been gathered for the purpose of market research. In fact, sophisticated analysis of these databases is often known as data mining.
ICT can be useful in helping with primary market research, such as on-line surveys and questionnaires. Firms that run Ecommerce websites can request customers to participate and often offer some kind of incentive for doing so, such as a code that can be entered for a discount at their next visit.
Targeted marketing promotion
Customer data can provide marketing with a very powerful means of closely targeting
- Direct mail
- Email and
- Telemarketing
Campaigns can be refined to choose only people meeting the right criteria for a given product or service, hopefully improving the response rates to the campaign. One reason that consumers find ‘junk mail’ so irritating is that much of it is poorly targeted; whereas many do buy as a result of receiving information about products they are actually interested in.
Also see the revision notes about CRM under ‘applications of ICT in customer service’.
On-line advertising
Many businesses advertise through ‘banners’ and similar advertisements on other websites. This offers potential customers a quick and easy way to respond to an advertising message. Of course there is so much on-line advertising that careful targeting is essential, otherwise effort is wasted. The good news is that large popular websites such as Google (and Tutor2U!!) have very sophisticated systems to help ensure that advertisements on their websites are presented according to what the particular ‘surfer’ seems to be looking for on that website. Payment for web advertising tends to include an element linked to the number of ‘click-throughs’ – in other words the number of surfers who actually click on the advertiser’s link.
Corporate websites
Most medium to large business, and many small businesses, maintain a website. This would usually include basic contact information as well as key marketing messages about the business and its products. The website offers a good place to keep public relations information such as press releases and other announcements.
Of course, many websites are also an electronic store – see also the revision notes about applications of ICT in electronic commerce.
Geo-demographics
This is a software package that overlays demographic data over a map. For example, a retailer might choose its location partly on the basis of the demographic make-up of the local population. This could help them to place their store in the most convenient place for a suitable size of target market.
Demographics is all about measuring and classifying populations according to criteria such as; age, sex, income, level of education, household composition, car ownership and so on.
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