E-commerce Website Marketing Strategy: A Comprehensive Report

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Table of Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Implementation plan...................................................................................................................3
Social marketing Campaign.......................................................................................................5
Privacy in social networks.........................................................................................................7
Mobile presence.......................................................................................................................10
Recommendations....................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13
List of tables
Table 1: Different dimensions of privacy from customer and organisation perspective...........7
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Executive summary
The report contains information about the e-commerce website and the marketing strategy
that should be utilized by the e-commerce website to engage the customers on the website.
The channel for the advertisement is discussed in the report. The most common of the
advertisement channel is the digital form that is most common in recent times. The
implementation plan for the e-commerce website will be discussed in the report so that the e-
commerce company can use the right methodology to connect to the customers. The
advancement in technology and the usage of the smartphone led to the usage of the
smartphone for digital marketing. The marketing comping selected for the e-commerce
website is the social marketing where the company can attract most customers. The usage of
the mobile and most used application will be undertaken for the advertisement of the products
from the e-commerce company.
Introduction
The report discusses the e-commerce company and the set-up of its website. The
implementation plan of the website is selected as the SDLC (system development life cycle).
The major steps undertaken are the system analysis, a building of the system, system testing
and maintaining the system. The marketing campaign for the e-commerce company is the
social marketing where the engagement of the customer is highest. The method for digital
marketing used is through smart devices such as smartphones and tablet where the customers
are connected largely. The privacy in the social network is discussed so that personal
information cannot be used illegally by any e-commerce company.
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Implementation plan
The e-commerce company that is going to be designed is based on the SDLC (systems
development life cycle) that is generally used for the development of the information system.
The e-commerce presence is going to be developed after understanding the objectives and the
scope of the e-commerce company. The development of the streamlined structure of the
proposed e-commerce presence in e-commerce company can be done effectively through the
SDLC. SDLC will help in providing clearly-defined process from getting from point A to
point B. The e-commerce website will be prepared where the quality will be highest, and the
cost will be relatively low. The developing, altering, maintaining the software will be known
in the report (Chauhan Rana & Sharma 2017, p. 267-272). The stages of the system
development include planning, design, building, testing and deployment. There are some
popular techniques of system development such as:
 Waterfall methodology
 Spiral model
 Agile model
 Iterative model
 V-shaped model
 Big-bang model
The development of the E-commerce company will be done by lowering the software
development cost and time of production, but the quality of the software will be increased.
The divergent goals of this development model are achieved by removing the tactical
limitations of the development process of the software. The deficiencies are evaluated,
requirements of the new software model are defined, the software system is designed, testing
is done for small group and at last the website is made a life for the end-user (Selvarani &
Sankar 2016, p. 355-363). The stages of the SDLC are as follows:
1. Identify: The current practices of the e-commerce website are examined and the
components that are not required are analysed. This information is received through
the study of existing e-commerce websites as well as the stakeholders such as
customers, experts from the industry, salespeople and programmers. The information
gathering process can get all the relevant data from the associated stakeholders. The
collected information from the stakeholders and the client is used to get the weakness
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of the current system so that the work can be done on the improvement of the system
(Farhan & Mostafa 2018, p. 1-6).
2. Planning: The requirement of the client is examined and the steps to overcome the
weakness of the existing model are examined. The stage is all about what is required
on the e-commerce website. The cost of the e-commerce website is determined along
with the required resources. The risks that are involved with the development process
are examined to prepare a management plan for the softening of these risks. The
document stating all the software specification from the client side and the
examination are prepared at the end of this specification report (Sakthivel 2017, p. 56-
59).
3. Designing: The specification document prepared at the end of the planning phase is
used to develop a design plan which will be used to prepare the website of an e-
commerce company. The prepared design plan is reviewed by all the stakeholders of
the e-commerce company so that the feedback and suggestions can be received for the
design and necessary changes can be made. The feedback from the stakeholders is
important to be included in the report. this stage cannot be failed as the failure of this
stage will have the cost overruns and the project may collapse if the worst situation
arrives.
4. Building: This stage will include the generating of the actual code of the software to
design the required website. The attention provided to the previous stages will result
in the zero complications at this stage (Weber 2016, p. 3857).
5. Testing: The testing of the designed website is done. The prototype is tested for any
type of defect and the deficiency. The defects and the issues are fixed so that the
required outcome is received. The fixing is continued until the original specifications
are met.
6. Deploying: The prototype is used for the end users for the first time. The feedback of
the end-users will be used to make any last minute changes in the website. The
adjustments are made according to the feedback of the end-users.
7. Maintenance: The implementation of the website never goes perfectly with the plan.
Therefore, the software must be enhanced and updated according to the changes in the
real world. The changes that are required in the system should be made regularly. The
updates are important to keep the software updates as per the technological and other
changes that are made in the real world. This is an essential part of software
development. The performance of the software system should be increased with the
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help of the updates and the advancements that are made in the software system (Dora
& Dubey 2015, p. 8-10).
Social Marketing Campaign
The social marketing campaign is a challenging job for any organisation. the e-commerce
company must prepare a well-laid plan for the social marketing campaign. Marketing the
product or the service for any organization is one of the most important factors in engaging
the audience with the organisation. The conventional marketing techniques have been fallen
since the introduction of social marketing and digital marketing. The social marketing helps
in reaching out to the customers on a large scale. The creative campaign of different
organization has helped them make progress in sales (Ashley & Tuten 2015, p. 15-27). There
are five stages of the social campaign:
1. Fan Acquisition: The first step in social marketing is the acquisition of the target
audience. The social marketing must appeal to the potential audience so that the
customers can get engaged in the product provided by the e-commerce company. The
plan should include the potential customers to whom the services might provide an
advantage or benefit them. The target audience must be classified according to the
services offered. The result of the campaign must be known. It is important to know
the strategy to keep the customers engaged in the services of the e-commerce
company. The sight of the target audience must not be lost by the e-commerce
company.
2. Engagement: The customer engagement can be best guaranteed if the marketing is
done in a proper manner. Defining the goals and problems of the company along with
defining the target audience is the first part of social marketing. The e-commerce
company must choose a better strategy so that the audience can get connected to the
goals that are set by the e-commerce company. The goals must be defined by the e-
commerce company. The target audience must be defined by the company to get the
maximum engagement to the services provided by the company. There are different
ways through which the target audience can be defined. The general information of
the target group of audience is collected to understand their behaviour and marketing
plan is made accordingly.
3. Amplification: Once the goals of the e-commerce company are set and the target
audience is known then the implementation of the social marketing plan can be done.
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The proper tracking system that can be used to track the progress made by the e-
commerce company in engaging the customers must be implemented. The track of the
progress will help in understanding the way in which the customers are engaging with
the e-commerce company and its product. Measures can be set to measure if any
progress is made to engage customers. The measures will also be used to know if the
objective of the marketing plan is reached or not. The progress will give information
about customer engagement. If any part of the plan is not working out, then the
modifications can be made in the marketing to improve the performance of the
marketing strategy (Andreasen 2018, p. 3-19).
4. Community: The aim of social marketing is to develop and integrate new marketing
concepts for the group of people or community. These marketing strategies may help
the group or community of people in different ways. The behaviour change
component must be present in a good social marketing plan to change the behaviour
of the customer and get connected to the e-commerce company. The meaning of
social marketing is to make a marketing plan that will be utilized for the greater good
of society. The social marketing is different from conventional marketing as
conventional marketing is all about the financial growth of the company. The
different media channels can be utilized by the e-commerce company so that the
social message is sent to more and more people of society. The social tools integrated
with other tools such as traditional media channels are used to engage the community
to a social cause.
5. Sales: The number of internet users is increasing day by day around the world.
Approximately, there are 3.8 billion users of the internet in today's world. The number
is increasing. The number of active social media users is 2.4 billion. Therefore, the
social media and the social marketing plan is one of the components that can be used
by the e-commerce company to increase their sales. With the help of the digital
marketing plana and overall marketing strategy, more and more people can get
connected to the brand and the sales of the services and goods can be increased.
Increasing sales is the goal of all the business companies.
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Privacy in social networks
The social media is playing an important factor in the personal lives of the general
population. The importance of social media is increasing day by day in the lives of the
common man. That’s why it is more important to have privacy on social sites. The social
media can have good as well as the bad impact on the daily lives (Ilia, Polakis,
Athanasopoulos, Maggi & Ioannidis2015, p. 781-792). Some of the concern of the privacy on
the social network are:
 Hacking the account and impersonating as the user
 Harassment and stalking
 Compelling the user to overturn the password
 Crossing the line of marketing and intruding into the personal life
 Privacy concern with the location-based services
These are some of the issues that may arise because of the social network. There are some
prevention tips that can help to solve these issues. Using strong and different passwords for
different accounts might help in safeguarding privacy. The public devices must be ignored for
using social media accounts. The geolocation of the devices can be stopped by turning off the
GPS services of the device. The unknown links from the other users of the social media can
contain virus and malware that can hack the social accounts without the user knowledge. The
two-factor authentication can be used by the users to secure the accounts and passwords to be
stolen by the attackers. There should be minimum personal information stored on a social
media account (Kokolakis 2017, p. 122-134).
The perspective of security for social media is different for the company and the user. The
perspective of the customer and e-commerce company is provided below:
Table 1: Different dimensions of privacy from customer and organisation perspective
Dimension Customer’s perspective Merchant’s perspective
Privacy Can the personal
information be controlled
What use of the personal
information collected from
the user can be taken? Is the
personal information of the
user utilized in an improper
manner?
Authenticity The authenticity of the entity
that they are connecting with
is not sure.
The question about the real
identity of the user
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Availability Can the site be accessed The issues about the
operation of the site
Confidentiality Are the messages read by
some other entity other than
the recipient
Can be messages be seen by
someone other than the
person authorised to see
them
Non-repudiation Can be party deny the acts
committed by them
Can the customer deny
orders from their site?
Integrity The question about the
alteration of the information
by the customer
The issue of data alteration
on the site without
authorization
The e-commerce company have 3 points that are vulnerable to the security breach namely:
 Client
 Server
 Internet communication channel
The vulnerable points can be attacked in different ways to steal the crucial information. The
DOS credit card theft can be done at the credit card bank. The SQL injection can take place
between the transaction of credit card bank and merchant bank and the database server and
online store. A customer list can be hacked from the online store. The web beacons and the
Wi-Fi listening wiretap can be used for the communication between the customer and ISP.
There are some of the common threats that can attack the online information of the customer
and website. These threats are mentioned below:
 Malicious codes
o Exploit kits and exploits
o Mal-advertising
o Drive-by downloads
o Worms
o Virus
o Trojan horse
o Ransomware
o Botnets
o Backdoors
 Potentially unwanted programs
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o Adware
o Spyware
o Parasites in browser
 Phishing
o Scams on e-mail
o Social engineering
o Identity theft
o Spear phishing
 Hacking
o Crackers and hackers
o Hacktivism
 Data Breach
o Corporate information being lost to outsiders
 Cybervandalism
o Destroying the websites
o Defacing websites
o Disrupting websites
The advancement in the technology has provided a solution to the security threats that may
occur. The cryptography can be used by the developers to protect the internet
communication. The SSL, Wi-Fi, VPN, TLS can be utilized to protect the channel of
communication. The networks can be protected using firewalls, IDS, IPS and proxy servers.
The protection of the client and server can be provided using the OS security and anti-virus
software. The implementation of these security plans might safeguard most of the network
and the e-commerce database from getting attached. The regular upgrades and patches would
still be required if the continuous management of the security is required (Acquisti,
Brandimarte & Loewenstein 2015, p. 509-514).
The steps that can be included in developing the e-commerce security plan are:
1. Performing the risk-assessment
2. Development of a security policy
3. Implementation plan can be developed
4. Security organization can be created
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5. Security audits can be performed
Mobile presence
The advancement in technology has led to the increased use of the mobile phone around the
world. There are billions of mobile users across the world. The use of smartphone and tablet
has been increased. The users use the devices such as smartphone and tablet many times a
day. This excessive usage of smart devices has led to the creation of digital marketing and
mobile marketing. There are different forms of mobile marketing such as an advertisement
from the banners, advertisement in the form of rich media and the advertisement in the form
of video. There are some advertisement and advertisement done through games and other
online reachable content. The marketing can be done by sending the information through the
e-mails and texts to the customers. The customers visiting the stores at different locations can
also get messages for the promotion of the store and products. The quick response codes of
the mobile and various payment techniques are also used for marketing. The coupons are
distributed at some physical stores and digital coupons are also available for various devices
(Park & Sundar 2015, p. 121-128).
The growth of technology and mobile commerce has led to an increase in sales of online
retailers. The statistics show that the average growth of m-commerce sales is about 5 times
the growth of the physical stores across the world. The increase in the growth of the m-
commerce is recorded from 2014 when the smartphones were at the peak. It is recorded that
an average user spends about 40% of the time for entertainment purpose, he spends about
15% on social media and about 70% of these activities take place from home. The fastest
form of growing source for the revenues for the e-commerce companies is from tablets.
About 47.5 % of the people that shop online first do the research and then shop, about 42.2%
of the people do not research about the product to make a purchase form mobile, about 34.5
% of people use tablet to purchase products from online site, about 28% of mobile and tablet
user look for the retailer information online and about 13% of mobile and tablet user compare
the price of the products before making the purchase. This shows that the mobile and tablet
are the growing source of revenue for e-commerce companies (Park 2018, p. 25-34).
The advertisements that are placed in an application are increasing in recent times as more
than 80% of the population spend its time on top 3 application on a smartphone. The
advertisements are placed in between the most popular apps so that the customer can click on
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the advertisement and make a purchase. The revenue of the e-commerce website can be
increased through this. The top applications are targeted by the e-commerce companies to
place the advertisement. The placement of the advertisements is done in the immediate
activities and the interests of the customer to increase their sales. The digital form of devices
that are being used by the customer is desktop, tablets, TV and smartphone where the
advertisements can be placed for the engagement of the customer. Most of the people that
own multiple devices use more than one device to complete the action. For example, the
customer watches the advertisement on TV, search for the product on the smartphone and
make the purchase from the tablet. There are some market implications of digital marketing.
There is a requirement of consistent branding, the marketing should have a responsive design,
but the digital marketing also has increased complexity along with increased cost. 39% of the
marketing is done through the mobile devices using the dominant applications like Facebook
and Google. The top revenue collecting firms from online marketing from the mobile are
google then Facebook, twitter, yahoo, apple, Pandora, YP and all others. The advertisement
can be done in the form of search ads, ads from the display, video advertisements, SMS and
e-mail advertisement. The mobile version of the e-commerce sites is also useful in marketing
strategies for e-commerce companies (Ayob, Wilson-Evered & McGrath 2017, p. 205).
Nowadays, many companies have adopted the 3D style of advertisement through mobile
devices. The marketing campaign from the mobile includes mobile version website, brand
pages on the Facebook and Twitter, versions of advertisement from display for the mobile, in
the form of interactive information that is directly aimed at the mobile device owners. The
engagement of the customers is measured through the likes, page views, posts, unique visitors
and time on site by the user. Thus, the mobile presence has increased the revenue of the e-
commerce companies compared to other conventional methods (Yang & Lee 2017, p. 548-
571).
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