Three Keys for an E-Business Plan

Professors Amit and Zott have created the “eValue framework” that presents four “key value drivers” that every e-business plan should have for potential success: Efficiency, Complementarities, Lock-In, and Novelty.

I would like to add three “key value drivers” of my own: First Impression, Clear Position and Customer Service (CS) & Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

First Impression - With any e-business, its website is its front door and it’s the one opportunity an online business has to make a good first impression. I think that it’s essential to design a powerful and effective website that is highly interactive, easy to navigate, user-friendly, bandwidth economical, and intuitive. Most of all, an e-business should have a sticky website that encourages click-through; conversion; and promotes repeat visitors and in turn repeat business, and have search engine visibility with excellent SEO.

Clear Position - There are multiple types of e-commerce business models* including B2B; B2C; C2C; P2P; and even m-commerce, and e-revenue models, including advertising; subscription; transaction; sales; and; affiliate. Because of this it’s important for an e-business to establish a value proposition and identify specifically what type of e-commerce business it intends to be and how it intend to earn revenue. This also needs to be extremely clear to the customer who visits the website (see First Impression).

CS & CRM - It’s imperative that any e-business emphasize its vehicles for Customer Service in its business plan. According to AJ Consulting, there’re two main elements of CS, Transparent Availability and Interactivity. “Transparent Availability” means that customers “should always be able to contact you immediately and in turn you must be able to access them” as well. Interactivity means a way for customers to exchange information, and the easier this is the more likely customers will submit needed information. A CRM system, in tandem with CS, will help an e-business build a database about its customers to segment customers, match customers’ needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of products/services, know what other products a customer has purchased and to make further recommendations for others, among many other benefits.

What do you think? Can you suggest any others?

Sources:

*E-Commerce (6^th Edition), Chapter 2, Kenneth Laudon, Carol Guercio Traver
e-Marketing: The essential Guide to Online Marketing (2nd Edition), Rob Stokes

“What’s Important for an E-Commerce Business Model?”, E-Marketing for Sensible Folk

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=254

AJ Consulting  Communication & Interactivity: Two Key Elements of  E-business Customer Service

Entrepreneur.com

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Cookies Crumble

If given the opportunity to opt-out of having my consumer information, i.e. cookies, IP address, location etc., collected without my knowledge for behavioral advertising, and maintaining some degree of online privacy, I would definitely opt-in. I like the fact that I’ll be given a choice and not have my information surreptitiously captured and stored without my knowledge or permission; so my cookies crumble. But if I were to see this Advertising Option Icon on different online ads I’d probably have no idea what it means and most likely not select it for fear of it actually being some sort of spyware or phishing tool. I think many others will either not notice it or avoid it for the same reason.

As an aside, it’s a decent logo. What the icon represent is an “i” for information and the arrow for forward, therefore, “information forward.”  

Considering that the Option Icon is scheduled to begin this fall, I haven’t heard much buzz about it. I know about it now because it’s being blogged about on e-marketing for sensible folk but wasn’t aware of it before. Have you heard about it? I think people’s awareness, or should I say lack of awareness, is going to be one of the biggest issues for this option icon. It’s ironic that this program has been formulated by the nation’s largest media and marketing associations as part of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, yet it’s had the least amount of advertising and promotion. But I believe with the right, long-term awareness campaign it can gain the needed attention and as sensible folk said, become the “next big Internet seal of approval.” Eventually, it might just possibly become a standard for trusted as sites, especially for large and highly visible national companies.

Why, I say this? Because beginning it’ll be monitored and compliance enforced as well as consumer complaints managed and resolved by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). National companies like AT&T, for instance, are obvious targets for enforcement and will more than likely adopt the program. Smaller, local businesses that advertise on local niche sites may go unnoticed and therefore may not bother to register for the program.

Which leads to my next question: how do the CBBB and the DMA intend to monitor the tens of thousands of online advertisers on the millions of websites? Doesn’t this seem like an overambitious intention? And knowing this vastness will many advertisers simply opt-out?

Sources:

Ad Group Unveils Plan to Improve Web Privacy, New York Times.

Welcome to the online home of the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, About Ads.

Spies Like Us?

So the scenario is this: thousands maybe millions of CCTV cameras hidden in stores, business, and streets across a country; the public is encouraged to join a game as the viewing crime-fighting audience; crime-fighters monitor the cameras and when they spot a crime they click their way to points and possibly win a monetary prize.

Sounds like the plot of a bizarre SciFi movie, right? Well, as incredible as this sounds it’s actually the premise of a business model called Internet Eyes, initially launched in the UK in 2009 and on a three month trial now. What’s even more incredible is that it’s not new. According to disinformation a very similar, failed concept called Texas Virtual Border Watch Program was launched in Texas in 2008.

Naturally, depending on your perspective your opinion on this scheme will vary. Some business owners support the idea if it can help protect their businesses. On the other side, there are those who raise the questions of privacy and victimization.

“Armadillo by the water” was one of the comical reports that came through the Texas Watch program. Can you imagine on Internet Eyes, “Lad loitering in the fag aisle.”(by the way a fag is a cigarette). I think turning crime fighting -- packaged as a game -- over to the hands of untrained citizens could be disastrous and potentially dangerous. People, motivated by the prospect of winning £1000., could be tempted to make bogus reports, invade people’s privacy snooping an spying and even victimize others, something British civil rights groups are very concerned about.

It’s already unnerving to know that you’re being watched by security personnel while shopping but to be watched by millions of pairs of paranoid, greedy eyes is disconcerting. Talk about an Orwellian experience.

Sources:

Morevee

Daily Mail Reporter

disinformation

Read:

TFTS

1984

E-Marketing for Sensible Folk

Evolution = Extinction

Whoknows or remembers the song

“Video killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles? If only they knew in 1979 how relevant their song would be 2010. Since then CDs have killed records and tapes, DVDs have killed TV; now BlueRay is killing DVDs, MP3s are killing CDs and digital media is killing print media.

Ask yourself (many of you may not even know what these are), where is the 8-tracktape, or the audio cassette or the VHS or the vinyl record?) Extinct! Where is the pager, typewriter, zip drives, and floppy discs? Extinct! All extinct? Here's a cool blog to see more: web designer depot. What other once popular devices can you think of that are now extinct? To me it exemplifies that with evolution comes extinction – living proof of the theory of Creative Destruction.The president has been set.…

 

Internet killed the print media star?

I say yes, and here's why:

Sure we know how popular things like Kindle have become for downloading books and yes we hear of bastions of the newspaper industry going out of print or about the recent massive layoffs, right here in Florida, of another string of Miami-Herald employees -- leaving one to wonder about the fate of your Sunday delivery. So the question about the future of non-internet media is: will it be completely replaced; will it too become extinct? 

 

the real reason dinosaurs became extinct...

All these mentioned items that have become extinct were because of an evolution of improved technology. So in the instance of newspapers, where the Internet is the improved technology for accessing news on a global scale, in real time, I would say yes the newspaper has become a dinosaur, and in five to 10 years we'll be saying "remember when…?" The newspaper has simply lost relevance in a digital world. Added to which newspapers make their money primarily from advertising sales and to a lesser extent product and subscription sales. If advertisers see no benefit in positioning their ads in papers and readers stop purchasing in favor of the online option then without a doubt newspapers will join the ranks of the extinct. Added to this are the high production and distribution costs for papers and magazines as compared to the cost of the digital option, this alone will usher in its fate. People have other options now for obtaining information in a more dynamic format that’s convenient and affordable (even free). BUT (yes there’s a but) as far as books becoming obsolete, I don’t think they’re on the way out just yet. Digital books are convenient but I actually prefer the feel of turning the crisp pages of a new novel, nicely bound in its cheesy glossy cover, over staring and squinting at my computer or iPod screen. And for studying, I want a hard copy to streak with fluorescent highlighters and scribble notes, a digital book could never replace that for me. Of course I’m not everyone, which do you prefer?

Internet killed the TV and celluloid stars?

I say yes to TV, no to movies (at least for now) and here's why:

The best thing that ever happened to TV is DVR and online options like Hulu. I can watch my favorite series (and there aren’t many) without a zillion annoying commercials. What does this mean for TV’s business model? Will advertisers continue to produce million dollar commercials and then spend as much for placements that are going unnoticed to audiences that are choosing other mediums? Probably not, and TV as we know it will be radically changed. I'm sure we can all think of various reasons but part of enjoying and experiencing movies is actually going to the cinema and watching it on the larger than life screen with family/friends and nothing can replace that. Avatar on your iPad just isn’t the same as in 3D on Imax; now that’s entertainment!

Read: The Great Extinction of the American Newspaper