E-Commerce and E-Business
Technology has transformed the business landscape, especially since the start of the 21st century. No matter a company's size, technology has become an integral component for most organizations, particularly in the development of management and marketing information systems and company websites. Technology has been of great help to marketers in better understanding their customers' preferences, behaviors, and purchase trends, allowing them to design the most effective marketing strategy based on this intelligence. Meanwhile, the internet has resulted in the development of social media platforms like Facebook, enabling networking among consumers and with organizations that profoundly affect how marketers interact with their customers. The internet has also enabled the boom in electronic commerce (e-commerce) and the emergence of many online marketers, from Amazon to Etsy. This chapter discusses how e-commerce and e-business have increasingly become necessary components of business strategy and strong catalysts for economic development. However, technology continues to evolve, and organizations must keep pace to maintain their competitive edge.
Case study - Fjordland’s 2015 Christmas campaign
One-line summary
Fjordland decided to run their Christmas marketing campaign exclusively on Facebook. The results showed a rise in sales, improved engagement and a substantial decrease in cost per click. All of this was achieved on a third of the usual campaign budget.
The challenge
Fjordland, a Norwegian food manufacturer, produces easy-to-make dinners and dessert dairy products. For its last three Christmas campaigns, the company offered a quiz on its website to introduce users to its Christmas products. In 2012 and 2013 the brand had used TV and banner ads to direct traffic to their site. In 2014 they included social media, in the form of Facebook. The results for Facebook were very promising.
The aim of the 2015 Christmas campaign was to focus the brand’s attention and budget on one channel, maximise the number of website visitors and increase sales.
The solution
Fjordland chose Facebook as their single channel of focus for their 2015 Christmas campaign, because of its high levels of reach and engagement.
Fjordland researched its target audience and identified that they liked polls, product related promotions and meal suggestions. The brand strategically used this information to create content using these elements featuring a pair of Christmas elves. The Facebook campaign, which was optimised for desktop and mobile, included video, photo ads and link ads. The Facebook ads and posts directed customers to the Fjordland quiz website, for the chance to win a holiday.
The results
Having a Facebook only campaign proved highly profitable for Fjordland. Their website traffic doubled, they saw a 14% uplift in year-on-year sales and experienced a 90% decrease in cost per click. All this was achieved on a third of the budget of previous years, providing an incredible ROI.
The power of social media is evident. Social media, and Facebook in this instance in particular, are more efficient than traditional banner ads with regard to reach, engagement and cost per click. For Fjordland, Facebook had even beaten TV advertising.
The Digital Manager at Fjordland noted the ’always on’ nature of Facebook and its incredible segmentation possibilities made it a powerful and efficient channel. They were exceptionally pleased at the results of choosing to focus on Facebook as an exclusive channel for this campaign (Digital training academy, 2016). To read more about this, look here: www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/casestudies/2016/06/switch_from_tv_and_banners_to_facebook_ boosts_sales_for_fjordland.php#more