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The importance of brand online

The Internet presents a ‘ double-  edged sword’ to existing brands. A consumer who already 

has knowledge of a brand is more likely to trust it, but loyalty can be decreased because the 

Internet encourages consumers to trial other brands.

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Chapter 8  Digital marketing

 The activity illustrates the importance of building brand awareness for an e-commerce 

service in a  cost-  effective manner at the same time as achieving good levels of service quality. 

(Success factors for building a brand online are described further in  Chapter   9   .) Key aspects 

of creating a positive customer experience are: 

   

● 

  Content quality (Can the customer easily fi nd relevant, up-to-date content? Are there errors?).  

  

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  Adequate performance of website infrastructure in terms of availability and download speed.  

  

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  Ease of contacting a company for support.  

  

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  Quality of response to email enquiries and fulfi lment quality.  

  

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  Acknowledgement  of  customer  privacy.  

  

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  Refl ecting and supporting the characteristics of the offl  ine brand.   

 Managing the technology and customer database necessary to deliver service is a key aspect 

of digital marketing and requires close interaction between marketers and the IS department 

or  external  consultants.   

  Actions 

 The actions component of digital marketing planning refers to activities conducted by man-

agers to execute the plan. Questions that need to be resolved when specifying actions include: 

   

● 

  What level of investment in the Internet channel is suffi  cient to deliver these services? 

What will be the payback?  

  

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  What training of staff  is required?  

  

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  What new responsibilities are required for eff ective Internet marketing?  

  

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  Are changes in organisational structure required to deliver  Internet-  based services?  

  

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  What activities are involved in creating and maintaining the website?   

 At this stage a digital marketing plan will be finalised to summarise actions that need to 

occur. An example of what appears in a typical digital marketing plan is presented in  Box   8.5   . 

This also acts as a summary for the chapter. 

 

 

Actions 

 Box  8.5 

 A typical digital marketing plan framework