This document discusses analyzing the online marketplace for an organization called i-to-i. It covers: 1. Creating an internet-specific SWOT analysis and online marketplace map to understand key players. 2. Defining main customer types and personas for i-to-i based on preferences, behavior, and influencers. 3. Identifying relevant partners, competitors, and intermediaries like portals, affiliates, aggregators and blogs to benchmark against.

1. Understanding the online marketplace
Dr Dave Chaffey for University of Derby 2011

2. About Dave Chaffey
 Strategy &
analytics Qualifications
www.smartinsights.com
 Search
& conversion Best Practice
Books

3. Use Smart Insights to help
you on the module:
www.smartinsights.com
The RACE digital
strategy
framework
http://bit.ly/smartstrategy 3

4. What we need to cover in
online marketplace analysis

5. Our case study : www.i-to-i.com
 Multichannel business with
significant proportion of leads
and sales generated online
 Audience in 4 key markets:
 UK & Ireland
 US
 Europe
 Australia & NZ
 RoW
 Course popular with gap
year and career break
students
 15,000 trained annually
online or on weekend TEFL
 Use full range of digital
channels integrated with
call-centre sales
5

6. Why bother? What do we get from
online marketplace analysis?
What would the Ecommerce manager of i-to-i need to know
about the main marketplace players?

7. Tutorial / assignment homework
 1. Create Internet-specific SWOT
 2. Create marketplace map
 A. Define main customer types to target
 B. Analyse consumer behaviour:
 Online preferences – platforms, what they want?
 Buyer behaviour
 Search behaviour
 C. Identify relevant partner sites
 D. Find competitors and benchmark

8. Step 1. Output from tutorial – Internet SWOT
Strengths: Weaknesses:
Opportunities: SO Strategies WT Strategies
Threats: ST Strategies WT Strategies

9. Internet SWOT example
9
Source: Chaffey et. al. (2009) Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice
FT-Prentice Hall. 3rd edition. With permission. Pearson Education.

10. Another Internet SWOT example
10
Source: Chaffey et. al. (2009) Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice
FT-Prentice Hall. 3rd edition. With permission. Pearson Education.

11. Internet five forces analysis – does this help?
Bargaining More choice +
powers of Soft-lock in
Comparison sites
customers
Power of Threat of
The business
suppliers subsitutes
Extent of rivalry
Threat of new
between
entrants
competitors
Porter, M. (2001) Strategy and the Internet. Harvard Business Review. March 2001, 62-78.

12. http://www.ruderfinn.com/rfrelate/intent/intent-index.html
Start with the customer!

13. How do you spend your time online?
 Which of these activities have you
completed in the last 6 months?
1 Upload personal photos
2 Upload video
3 Managed a social network profile
4 Written own blog
5 Used microblog (Twitter)
 6 Rated blog
 7 Commented on blog
 8 Rated / reviewed product
 Rank the activities in order of importance

14. See http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Social_Media_Usage_Statistics

15. Digital marketing isn’t just the Internet
Microprocessors are going into many different devices
...and 3 screens are now becoming mainstream...
When I want it and Where I want it.
Source: Lisa Harris (www.lisaharrismarketing.com)

16. Touch screen mobiles are becoming popular
...and so will Internet video on mobile devices...
■ Its not so much the iPhone but ...and 3G “all you can eat”
the large touch screen that has connections.
produced the first
usable Internet
browsing mobile
device...
UK phone networks forecast that half of UK will have
large screen Internet mobile phones within four years.
Source: Lisa Harris (www.lisaharrismarketing.com)

17. Mobile and App OVP
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/marketing-opportunities-from-mobile-apps

18. Tip. Create an online marketplace map to
understand your customer influencers
Key
Point
Step 2. Online marketplace map
Key
Point

19. Step 2a. Identify 4-6 personas
Forrester Research on “site design personas”
 Ethnographic researchers averaged
 21 i/views per project for 4
personas, $47K
 $10K to 100 i/views for 8 personas,
$500K
 Examples:
 Ford uses 3 buyer personas at
Ford.com
 Primary persona „Marie‟ – just beginning
car shopping process, hasn‟t settled on
brand, doesn‟t know about cars, needs
Help!
 Staples.com has 7 for shoppers
 Microsoft had 7 for Windows XP
 Segment on key
characteristics/behaviours
 “Seeks high quality”, “Seeks low
cost”
 “Starting evaluation”, “Final
decision”
 Occasional visitor, frequent visitor
http://carsonified.com/blog/design/how-to-understand-your-users-with-personas/

20. 20

21. For each persona define preferences for:
 Platforms
(web, email, mobile)
 Platform usage (hours)
 Content consumption:
General site types &
category-specific
 Social media - content
creation & participation
 Search behaviour
 Trusted brands

22. Scenario-based usability test example

23. Key influencers / information sources

24. Step 2a. Main customer types for i-to-i

25. Finding current customer segments, partners
using www.google.com/adplanner

26. B2B and B2C targeting examples

27. 27

28. Understanding keyphrase behaviour for brand
and product preferences
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/tools-for-benchmarking-competitor-visitor-numbers/
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/seo/keyword-research-process/
http://www.smartinsights.com/search-marketing-alerts/best-link-analysis-tools-for-seo-and-online-pr/
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/online-pr-social-media/online-reputation-management-software/

29. Need to understand Internet impact
on buyer behaviour – how does it change?
Figure 7.9 A summary of how the Internet can impact on the buying process for
a new purchaser
See Chapter 2

30. Some changes to buyer behaviour
+ Viral
marketing
& E-PR
Behavioural targeting
- Brand
less important
+ Brand
more important
+ Paypal and
Google sales
SearchComparison UGC
recommendations
through social networks

31. Behaviour evolves with Experience
E-mail; Research Visit Buy Buy at
Search travel, company goods; auction;
engines; films, / brand visit gov’t Download
Surfing jobs sites sites software
Immediate 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year
Fast: extensions of
PC use; read-only
information
Medium: research
for complex
decisions
Slow: technically
complex or
financially risky
Source: Forrester Research. Analysis of Consumer Technographics 1999-2003.
Base: Online consumers. Years mark average time needed for consumers to start activity

32. Step 2d Understanding online intermediaries
Portals = gateway = publishers
Example:
Affiliates – compare prices
 Example:
Aggregators = price comparison sites
and review sites = Revoo
Example:
 Blogs
Example

33. Step 2d. Competitor benchmarking
Think of when you use a site online –
what affects your experience and
perception of brand?
Brainstorm 10-20 different
characteristics of a site that the affect
brand experience and then group them
into 5 or 6 different areas you could
use for benchmarking

34. What’s important to whether you
buy again from a brand or site?

35. What makes an effective online brand?

36. Trust factors

37. What do site users care about (1)
 Fogget al. (2003) asked students to review
sites to assess the credibility of different
suppliers based on the website design. They
considered these factors most important:
 Design look 46.1%
 Information design/structure 28.5%
 Information focus 25.1%
 Company motive 15.5%
 Usefulness of information 14.8%
 Accuracy of information 14.3%

38. 1e
Defining your OVP Key
Point
OVP - Online Value Proposition
 Reinforces core brand proposition and credibility,
but messaging shows:
 What can a visitor get from your online brand that…
 They can‟t get from you offline?
 They can‟t get from competitors?
 Communicate message forcefully:
online and offline
 Examples:
 „Compare. Buy. Save‟. Kelkoo (www.kelkoo.com)
 „Earth’s biggest selection‟. Amazon
(www.amazon.com)
 „Search the largest inventory of cars and trucks on
the Internet. More than 1.5 million listings, updated
daily’ (www.autotrader.com)
Write down your online value proposition

39. www.i-to-i.com OVP
39

40. Gaining site and business innovation ideas
through Uservoice

41. Remember to review integration = Key
Supporting channel-switching behaviour
Point
41

42. Benchmark main types of digital
communications tools used by competitors

43. How can
social
media
help
SEO
and expanding
awareness?
Source:www.theconversationprism.net

44. Prioritising through the digital marketing radar
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy-alerts/prioritising-digital-marketing-radar/

45. Thank you! Let’s Connect!
Questions & discussion welcome
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