Wiser.About.Web – From A Flowers Website To An Academic Text
We were surprised this week to receive mail from one of the leading academic publishers, Pearson Education’s Higher and Professional Education Division seeking our permission to reproduce a copy of our website image for a new edition of Chaffey et al’s book, Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. We assume that the book shows our online marketing in positive light and it certainly gives us some confidence about our efforts… :D
Although we are florists in the traditional sense, at the heart of our business model is a website which makes shopping an enjoyable experience for our customers. Arena Flowers has always prided itself in offering unique customer focused experiences and believes that technology plays a significant role in achieving this. Since its inception we have envisaged customer needs and requirements and tailored our website accordingly. We have continually sought customer feedback and worked extensively to make improvements to make ordering flowers and gifts an incredible experience for the customer. Everything from the website interface to product display, shopping cart and the checkout is an intuitive process. We have leveraged the features of Web 2.0 to make Arena Flowers website, an enjoyable experience while ensuring the highest security standards to protect our customers from Internet fraud.
However, that represents one dimension of our website. Like all other online businesses, it is vital for Arena Flowers to be found by customers and we rely extensively on Internet marketing to achieve this. The Internet has changed the way we interact with our stakeholders. It is a vibrant and rich advertising medium full of opportunities despite being multi-faceted. It requires a variety of strategies to be woven together to succeed. The significant aspect of Internet marketing is the ability to to deliver relevant content to consumers at the right time. On the web, marketing and communications has shifted from the one size fits all approach of traditional advertising to delivering the right information at the right time to help consumers in making a decision.
The crux of our Internet marketing strategy is marketing for search engines. Search is an intrinsically buyer-led medium, which is flexible and responsive to consumer tastes. Research indicates that Internet users rarely type website addresses into the browser bars — they locate them through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask or Live. Therefore it is necessary for Arena Flowers to promote search rankings by improving our website’s structure and content. It is important for us to appear as near as possible to the top of search engine results for a set of keywords. We achieve this by investing in considerable time and resources to research and identify a number of measures including keywords, onsite content, external link partners etc while ensuring that the structure of our website is search engine friendly to warrant a listing.
Apart from search engines, we focus on other broader Internet marketing strategies to insulate our reliance on search. Online mediums such as blogs, podcasts, streaming video, etc are changing the way consumers research and buy products and services, necessitating Arena’s presence on such mediums. Furthermore, We also have a number of additional systems in place including Affiliate Marketing, Social Networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo etc, Comparison shopping, newsletters etc. We constantly evolve with the web 2.0 medium to strengthen our web presence. These initiatives help in getting prospective customers to Arena Flowers.
From the beginning, we have strived to strike the right balance between technology and design to benefit from the important and powerful marketing channel – the Internet. Through the Internet, we are committed to engage in a personal relationship with our customers to provide them value added service. We regularly measure our Internet marketing efforts internally and we feel happy to see an increase in the number of visitors to our website, conversions, sales, customer feedback etc. But We certainly feel privileged when we get appreciated by an unexpected quarter – to be cited by an academic text on Internet marketing. It highlights the success of our Internet marketing efforts and motivates us further to take it to the next level.
While we ponder on our Internet Marketing Strategy, please ensure that you pick a copy of Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice to help you grow your online business!
Similar posts: If you enjoyed this post, you may find our other posts on UK Online Green Awards – Winner: Arena Flowers and Silver Gilt Award Winning Flowers at Hampton Court Flower Show 2008! Gold in 2009? interesting.
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Filed under: Marketing, Matters Webby, Setting up on September 9th, 2008
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Hello.
I agree with the avenue you are taking in terms of your marketing and the importance of customer feedback. I work for a company that provides survey services and social media monitoring. We have been amazed at the response of companies looking for someone to monitor the different blogs such as twitter and facebook regarding any remarks either for or against their company. I believe this is definitely going to be even more important in the coming years!
Becky
Ann Michaels & Associates.
Hello Becky,
Many thanks for the comments.
With the spread of the use of broadband Internet connections, the web certainly differentiates itself from other marketing mediums in facilitating interactivity. Social media offers plenty for businesses, while giving an active role for consumers. The opportunities are endless.
That’s a great summary of your online communications strategy which will be really interesting for my students.
I’d like to include that in an update to another of my books on E-business/E-commerce Management that I’m currently working on.
Its great how Internet pureplay businesses like yours are able to experiment and trial approaches more readily than the dinosaurs.
Thanks again for letting me use a case study by the way.
Dave Chaffey
Hello Dave,
Many thanks for the comments and we are glad we get another mention. :D
I think the reason for businesses to trial and experiment is because of the uncertainty associated with Internet marketing. What was best practice a couple of years back is seen as blackhat SEO these days (Paid Links for example). Businesses have to be on their toes to stay ahead and it is a tough battle!
We will look forward for your interview next week Dave!
Cheers.