Essay: The marketing process

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the process whereby you let consumers know why they should choose your product or service between two competitors. You should do that in other to be called a marketer. All you need to do is to find the right marketing methods of formulas for the right product and services for your consumers to influence them to patronize in your product. the process whereby the interest level of the customers is high then the producers may sell their products on a limited basis to monitor sales. If product sales are high, products are then rolled out on a national level. Before products go to the market, companies must decide what styles, sizes, flavors, and scents they should sell and the packaging designs they should use. Consumers have the most decision power to make whether to patronize in the goods and services offered by the producers.
Price should also be the focus of the product. To determine the price of a product is to set it at a level comparable to competitors; if the producers can recover all linked product expenses and still make a profit. Consumers must also know the optimal price to sell their products to achieve maximum return. If the producer is introducing a new product to the system or economy, producers must determine how much the consumer is willing to pay for it. Consumer will pay so much for products. Price a product higher, and sales can drop off exponentially.
Promotion. Producers or companies uses brochures, ads, spas or computers and information to produce information to customers about their particular product for them to have much more knowledge about the product and services, also promote their wares at trade shows. . Some producers also make mistakes of thinking that marketing is just one thing, but marketing is everything that the consumer encounters when it comes to your business, from advertising, to what they hear, to the customer service they receive, to the follow-up care that you provide
Sales process engineering views marketing as “a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using various relatively new approaches
Place in marketing is the distribution. It can also be known as the where and how products are sold.
What Is the Purpose of Marketing?
1. To get the attention of the targeted consumer market.
2. Facilitate the prospect’s purchasing decision.
3. To give the customer with a specific, low-risk and easy-to-take action.
Considering all this purposes, coupons, sales and even merchandising, or how products are displayed, are part of the marketing process.as you can see, marketing is the cornerstone of every business.
These are some types of marketing, Print, radio, and television advertising are types of marketing, as are direct mail and Internet marketing. Companies that sell via the Internet optimize their web pages, so they appear higher in search engines like Google and Yahoo. Newsletters, press releases, and articles are forms of marketing used to generate leads and orders. Internet
Internet in now a day plays much more important role in our everyday life. The Internet is a worldwide network which has many computers and other electronic devices. Internet makes it possible for you to access information and communicate with anyone also does or transact business through this medium and do much more. This can be done by connecting a computer or any communicating electronic device to the Internet, also termed as going online. When we say a computer is online, it’s just a way of saying a computer or any communicating electronic device is connected to the Internet.
Web
World Wide Web is usually termed or called the Web for short. World Wide Web is a collection of different websites which you can use to access information through the Internet. The website is mainly made up of images, related text, other resources and other information.
These are some purpose of a website: a new platform, an advertisement, an online library, a forum for sharing images, or an educational site
How the Internet works
Internet is a worldwide network of physical cables, which can include copper telephone wires, TV cables, and fiber optic cables. Even wireless connections like Wi-Fi and 3G/4G rely on these physical cables to access the Internet. When you view a website, your computer sends a command over these wires to a server. A server stores websites, and it works a lot like your computer’s hard disk or drive. Once the command arrives, the server takes the website and sends the correct data back to your computer. We should always have it in mind that data is un processed raw facts whiles information s are processed facts.so when you send the information to the computer by inputting through the keyboard it becomes raw facts and these raw facts are processed in the computer to become understandable information. There are several things you can do on or with the internet, one of the features of the Internet is the ability of communication anywhere in this world, and instant communications among individuals in the world. Email is one of the most famous universal ways to communicate and share information on the Internet, and significant people use among themselves. Social media also allows people to connect in various ways and build communities online. Lot of things can be done with this internet especially when it comes to marketing among nations.
The internet is without any doubt the most important technological and communication breakthrough of the twentieth century and it has had a major impact on various spheres of modern life. It has changed the way we communicate, we seek information and we do business. During the last decade the internet went through its most important growth as a medium of global communication and exchange. From a general view, amounts of
Websites increased from 23,000 in 1995 to over 55 million in 2005. Statistics of internet driven sales over this period are also meaningful: in the US it has grown from a negligible amount in 1995 to $50 billion in 2004 and it is expected to rise at an annual rate of over 20%. The internet has allowed corporations to diversify from current distribution channels into new markets never before imagined possible. The internet being a new channel of distribution, has become an important area of interest for researchers. The academic community is therefore having a growing interest in internet marketing. This is proved by numbers of articles published per year; according to available literature reviews for the 1987 2000-time period there was an average of 19 articles per year whereas for the 2001 2004 period the average was of 160 articles per year, representing an increase of almost over 830%. The internet has transformed international business activity by providing access to instantaneous, inexpensive contact among sellers, buyers, investors and advertisers anywhere in the world. It is believed that traditional marketing strategies are becoming less effective in today s markets. There has been debate between researchers on what impact the internet will have on marketing, whether it will change marketing as we know it today or it is simply a new and evolving marketing channel. Argue that all observers do not know exactly what might be the impact of the internet on the evolution of marketing. Internet marketing research is undergoing a shift from descriptive studies (e.g. who is using the web for product search and purchases) towards research related to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing by using the internet and understanding how and why the consumers use the internet. With that trend it can be expected more and more academics will propose new or adapted theories for internet marketing. As of now, the internet marketing literature does not provide much i
nformation in terms of internet marketing theories. In this paper we try to identify the few existing theories and highlight the research work that lays the foundation of future internet marketing theories.
History of e-commerce
e-commerce began in the year 1960s, when many businesses were using the electronic data interchange to distribute among their self s documents with their competitor companies. After numbers of individual users sharing electronic documents grew in the 1980s, in the 1990s the rise of eBay and amazon revolutionized the e-commerce industry. Consumers now purchase significant amounts of items online, both from the producers and can access free information of the project with e-commerce capabilities and one another.
E-commerce applications
E-commerce is lunched using a different type of applications, like email, online catalogs and shopping carts, EDI, file transfer protocol, and web services. This also includes business-to-business activities and outreach like using email for unsolicited ads (usually considered spam) to consumers and other business prospects, as well as to send out e-newsletters to subscribers. More companies are now trying to get customers directly online, using tools like digital coupons, social media marketing and targeted advertisements.
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Online Marketing
It’s a set of tools used for advertisement through the internet. It can also be known as internet marketing, web marketing, digital marketing and search engine marketing.
Online marketing can deliver benefits as follows:
. Growth in potential
. Reduced expenses
. Elegant communications
. Better control
. Improved customer service
. Competitive advantage
Advantage of online marketing:
Low costs. Its much cheaper to buy online because variety of producers are available on the market or internet.
Flexibility and convenience: it is flexible because consumers may research for a product at their own convenient time.
Analytics: Efficient statistical results are facilitated without extra costs.
Multiple options: Advertising tools include pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and local search integration
Demographic targeting: it is so easy to locate your consumers demographically online.
Problems of online marketing is when a customer can t try out any product he or she wishes to purchase.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is a tool used to improve business in a competitive world or market whereby competition is high. We use search engines marketing tools to promote our produce or products and improving our business operations. Search engine marketing are the practice of marketing a business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages only. In results of this, we call them pay-per-click ads, they normally come in different forms or procedure, some are small, text-based ads, whiles others, like product listing ads (PLAs, also known as Shopping ads) are more visual, product-based advertisements that allow consumers to see important information at-a-glance, including price and reviews. Search engine marketing s helps and gives advertisers the opportunity to put their ads in front of targeted customers who are ready to buy at that particular time.
Search Engine Marketing tools include
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. This increases the result exposure by driving Web traffic and targeting and increased sales. There are three parts of search engine optimization.
1. Quality of traffic: getting all the attention on a particular product is not the most important thing in business. People need not come to your site because somebody is asking them to come and not quality traffic, on the other side, you have to attract customers who are genuinely interested in your products and services.
2. Quantity of traffic. With this situation, when you have the right people verifying your products and services from the search engine, it is likely for more traffic to occur. The more people you get, it means the more traffic will occur.
3. Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs.
Some Mobile advertising is enhanced and may take static or rich media display ads, SMS or MMS ads, mobile search ads, advertising within mobile websites, or ads within mobile applications or games
Email Advertising: Email advertising is an ad which entails the whole email or a portion of an email message.
Social Media Marketing (SMM): in this modern world, social media has become a wider and a bigger means of selling and looking for information. It often looks into the recent news content like news, stories, and latest discovery of what is trending or what is going on the world. It is easy to find the latest information about a product on or with the social media. Many people market their products on the internet through the social media. Social media help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people go on this platform to find social media content. Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results,
Online Advertising
Online advertising is a marketing strategy which looks at the process of advertising of your products and services online through the internet. Thinking of online advertising, we also think of paid search advertising that involves use of the Internet as a medium to obtain website traffic and target and deliver marketing messages to the right customers. Online advertising is also one of the effective ways for producers or companies of all sizes to expand their reach, find new customers, and to increase their revenue streams.
There are so many options available from PPC and paid social to online display advertising and in-app ads. online advertising can be can also be confusing to newcomers, to search by word makes it so easy for advertising. Online advertising is geared toward defining markets through unique and useful applications. Online advertising can also be known as internet advertising, meaning advertising your products and services through the internet.one advantage of online advertising is how product information is promoted quickly without geographical boundaries. A major challenge is the evolving field of interactive advertising, which poses new challenges for online advertisers. Examples of online advertising include banner ads, search engine results pages, social networking ads, email spam, online classified ads, pop-ups, contextual ads and spyware.
Benefits of Online marketing:
Internet is a useful and a helpful tool which gives you the wide access of your potential customers.in this modern world internet has become a popular tool that significant people are using, it is estimated at a billion people around the world, gradually lot of people are becoming aware and having access to it, So, here, marketing your product to the world or globally to has become so possible now a day with the help of the internet. Internet has become the only tool that can cross geographic and national boundaries.
1. Internet has made it so possible or the ability for us to be in a 24-hour contact with our customers globally on real time basis. Some time if there is a problem going on or a decision being taken or change of plans then it is easier to email to customers so that they can adjust to the situation at that particular time and helps customers to share their ideas with the company at any point in time. When it is about a product discount, internet allows them to be informed at that instant
and this may allow the customer to purchase the goods or product instantly at that discount price.
2. Cost: cost matters a lot in business, promoting of business on the internet is cheaper than other mediums of marketing. This makes it easy for small and mid-sized businesses to advertise their products freely on the internet. You can advertise your products with ads and through social media.
3.marketing on the internet facilitates business in a way that makes every decision taken works fast, it also gives an instant feedback from the customers. It also allows customers to share about their experience after using the product and services offered to them.
4.marketing on the internet saves enough time and energy or effort between the customers and their producers. Some times Instead of employing a customer service representative to answer the queries of customers, internet allows you to put all the information about the product or service on the Internet so that customers can go through it without you going through any stress.one effective way of doing business is to have a section dedicated to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the product so that customers can get all the required information about the product or the service.
5. The availability of Internet also allows your business to be available 24/7 at any time if a customer needs to know anything about the product here the business will increase sales and profits.
Limitations of Online marketing:
1. In one way or the other, internet marketing has reached far enough in this our modern day world. When starting or building a website, it turns out to be expensive depending on the person that builds you your web sit, this is expensive with the cost of the software and the maintenance.
2.some customers just use the Internet for having more information and knowledge about a product and prefer to buy it in person, they just try to have the necessary information available and later try to travel to the company by themselves without having any problem of the cost. 3. Another thing about the internet is that, Internet marketing allows or shows a customer a particular view of the product being displayed and it allows you to see how the product looks like and the necessary information about the product. There are many customers who are not proficient in using the Internet and focusing solely on Internet marketing can cause you to lose these customers.
4. Rules and regulation of the trade some times change rapidly in Internet marketing, and it needs more attention and monitoring in other for you to make sure that, your marketing strategy does not look out-of-date.
5.some disadvantage of Internet marketing is its vulnerability to fraudulent activities. There are significant scam websites out there which look like original websites and turns to fraud the customers from their money. Spamming is also one of the biggest challenges for Internet marketing and confidential data can be easily stolen by hackers.
6. Naturally Internet marketing lacks human touch involved when a customer buys a product from an internet customer. This reduces the relationship building which plays an important part in repeat sales and word-of mouth publicity.
7. Now days, Internet marketing depends much on technology, vulnerable to technical faults. If a customer clicks on your advertisement but due to a technical problem, it is unable to buy the product, he may easily or probably become irritated and take his business somewhere else. Although, there are some challenges involved in Internet marketing, it can be said Internet marketing has increased transparency and made it so easy buying products.
1.3 Research Aim and Questions
This research is conducted in other to find out how doing business online globally among nations through the internet has become more effective. This research will look at doing business between china(ASHIA) and Ghana(Africa). With the focus on a Chinese company known as TANG FURNITURE WORKS at inner Mongolia. The main objective is to do business globally especially Africa bingeing its target market.one of the tools this company has developed in recent years in attracting its customers is through the internet. This research will look at some possible effective tools to use in attracting a possible potential customer and suggest some possible ways the company can use to counter its problems. Internet marketing has become one of the main platforms where Organizations market their product and services also compete in a global competitive market and lot is done apart from competing and transacting business with it. Some small companies compete in a global competitive market and do forget to focus on developing its methods of reaching customers that appeal to a new generation and utilize the advantages of mass media. Brand recognition meet these challenges, and the challenges of brand recognition by developing a presence in popular media channels that consumers in their markets use. There are lot of processes of market or reaching out to customers that appeal to a new generation and utilize the advantages of mass media. Social networking, websites, text messaging, and online advertisements are among the most recent forms of tools used in reaching out to customers or used by organizations to appeal to their consumer markets. It is the duty of the producers to be available to its potential customers. The customer need a place to find an appropriate information about a product and service, due to this means, the company uses the internet as it sources of means to provide information to its customers where they can find the necessary information due to their search.
In this modern world, Social media has transformed customer interaction with its producers into a project that can occur any time of the day, any day of the week, and daily of the year. Organizations have the full access to their consumers even when they do not have their staff working throughout the day. Some times media is used for advertisements; however, using online sources like Facebook and Twitter can cost as little as nothing and include functionality easy to schedule and change daily or even hourly as needed. Producers benefit from the fact that they reach out to their customers with information s that are updated, timely, and interesting. This process benefits small businesses by providing exact and accurate information for marketing the organizational products and services. With recent times, many organizations are developing quickly and becoming part of the growing social media market, with smaller businesses it is not clear how this is helping them and sustaining them in operation. Not forgetting The benefits, we are likely to get from e-commerce, this benefits include its availability, the speed of access, the wide availability of goods and services for the consumer, easy accessibility, and international reach. Its perceived downsides include sometimes-limited customer service, consumers not being able to see or touch a product prior to purchase, and the necessitated wait time for product shipping
Problem Statement
There are lot of problems associated with small companies doing business globally through the internet. Some problems are, while large organizations already have developed teams or departments to manage brand name, and can afford the costs of social media and internet marketing globally, smaller organizations do not recognize the potential treats available from social media and other current developing tools for communication, because cost and time involved cannot be verified as resulting in sales and increased consumer bases. In addition, many smaller organizations are niche market specific, including geographic, resulting in a difficult reach for their organization without incurring. Marketing is a term introduced in an attempt to make people aware of moving away from transactional marketing and buil
ding longer term relationships with the customers.in addition-commerce has also some little problems which reduces customers from patronizing in your product. Even if your website has enough information for customers to see, or whether you have employed someone to design your website in other to attract customers or to expose your company does not mean customers are likely or will automatically trust your website. Beware of your website because it might be hacked.no matter the size of your website, it is likely to experience a security breach at some point in time.
Research objectives
When to go international is a big challenge for most of the entrepreneurs. Many companies expand fast. When you want to venture internationally, there are some measures you need to put in place in other for your business to be so successful in operation. These are some few questions you need to ask your self or the company before you can proceed.
How effective can business be conducted online
Dangers in doing or going global through the internet
Privacy and Security Concerns
Are there structured strategy suggestions for smaller organizations developing social media strategies?
Significance of the Study
This study will be important to the small organization(Tangs furniture company) in inner Mongolia. This research will be providing information that includes the ability for the organization to hold the online marketing system in other for the company to reach its global heights. Additionally, accurate information to be provided for the customers online in various countries. When this research is done, other companies should find the needed information which will help them to be in global business with its targeted customers worldwide and some organizations can use the information found in this research to determine if internet marketing is the best solution for their company to implement at this time in their strategic growth. Creating guidelines and expectations or potential expectations allows a business to evaluate their success during the growth for a period.
Methodologies
The focus of this study is the research, a description of the methods used in working or finding out the study, the research design and their suitability for the topic. This presents the population used, as well as the sampling method or technique engaged, data or information collection procedures, analysis and instruments used in the study. The purpose for carrying out this research was to establish whether there is an IMPACT OF INTERNET BASED STRATEGIES ON CHINESE BUSINESS AND AFRICA BUSINESS THROUGH THE INTERNET The main research question for this study was THE IMPACT OF INTERNET BASED STRATEGIES IN MARKETING BETWEEN CHINA AND AFRICAN COMPANIES
Scope of the research
This study is also aiming to understand the enormous contribution of Online marketing as a part of Integrated Marketing and to know how it efforts towards promotion in business practice and to find out some challenges in using online marketing as a tool of internet marketing. Some few recommendations can also be used for other internet marketing strategy in which other companies can or would benefit from.
Research problem
This study will look at the following problems
1.Should companies integrate various marketing tools to communicate about its products?
2. How do consumers get awareness about different products?
3.how online marketing can be so important in companies marketing. Strategy?
4. What are the reasons for growing popularity of online marketing among consumers?
5. How is online marketing advantageous over traditional marketing?
6. What are some short comings in online marketing?
Research Methodology
The first step is a research design. This is the process of planning or bringing out a strategy for conducting the research. This strategy consist of a detailed plan of how the goals of the research will be achieved. Research design is the main core and important passage in the research, with this research we will have the descriptive and/or experimental. This research used both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Qualitative research methodology was used as part of the research involved in selecting a sample population that would represent a defined population. It helps the researcher in providing answers to both various kinds of social/economic questions. Collection and analysis of the data, the researcher would have to complete the task of making inferences. Only through interpretation, researcher can also bring out relations and processes that points out findings and ultimately conclusions. Interpretation refers to the task of drawing inferences from the collected information s after an analytical study. Research findings is the device through which factors that explain what has been observed by researcher in the course can be better understood and provides theoretical conception which serve as a step for the researches. It is so important because, it will lead towards findings of the study and proper effective conclusions of the study.
Recently, study, researcher has followed Descriptive research. Descriptive research is usually describing people who took part in the study. And a fact finding approach generalizing a cross – sectional study of present situation. The major target of descriptive research is to describe events and situations on the basis of observation and other sources.
Survey Method:
This method usually the process of gathering data or information in a form of asking questions from the targeted people who we think have the desired information. Every effort should be made to state the objectives in a specific term. The survey design can be defined as the process of gathering important information from a group of selected people. In one way or the other, definition for the survey method can be by collecting information with other data collection alternatives available at that particular time to survey the researcher also in addition interviewing i.e. questionnaire, personal observation etc. Surveys are done in describing of the research studies with these tools in collection of data in helping of questionnaire techniques in most appropriate manner. This type of research studies normally has large samples. It entails conditions or relationships that exists, opinion that are held, processes that are going on effects that are evident or trends that are developing.
Data Collection:
Data collection means the process of gathering important information to about a particular product being talked about in the project.
Primary data collections are the practical experience, observations gathered from the research and for any research and used by them in statistical analysis. There are lot of methods of collecting primary data especially with descriptive researches. Some of these examples are:
1. Telephone inquiries
2. Postal/mail questionnaire
3. Personal interviewing
4. Panel research
5. Special survey techniques.
Telephone inquiries and mailing questionnaires can be said that it is one of the most effective way and fast way of gathering information and the cheapest.
Questionnaire:
The questionnaire carries a list of questions gathered through or from customers or targeted people of study. And a list of questions to be asked and spaces in which the respondents must fill in or write the answer.it is in a printed form or typed and the questions are in a listed sequence. Questionnaires was sent or in a form of mail and the respondents who the mail was sent to, were expected to reply in a written form and send it back through the medium that the questio
nnaires were sent also a little space is provided below where you can answer the question. Some times we consider questionnaires as the main important way of getting information from the customers or targeted group of people. Due to this questionnaire were drafted carefully. Hence, structured questionnaire ensures easy quantifications and understanding. With this research study, the required information or data was sampled through Sample survey using questionnaire. Our target customers were towards Online marketing. Online marketing is the main center of the research, a well composed, structured & closed ended questionnaire was prepared for customers only covering both countries’ china and Africa The questionnaire contained questions about customers choice for online marketing and other mediums of marketing and not for getting the information about the purchasing power the customer has on a particular product and the choice of brands. Even though questionnaire is a tool for data sampling, questionnaires not fully answered and didn t get a better response or non-response or was a bit high. Follow up was taken to overcome this barrier in other to retrieve these documents or questionnaires and by making sure that each questionnaire is completely filled.
Secondary data is the data collected by others in the past and used by others. It may be either being published or unpublished data. It includes the following:
1. Various publications of central, state and local governments.
2. Various publications of foreign governments or international bodies.
3. Technical and trade journals
4. Books, magazines, and new paper.
5. Reports prepared by research scholars, university economists etc.
6. Reports publications on various associations being talked about were the business and companies, economists etc. Sources of unpublished data where we had information from were mainly diaries, letters, unpublished biographies.
In this study, I used a published information and unpublished sources of secondary data.
I collected Secondary data to provide the project work with necessary theoretical back up. Information collected was related to internet based strategies, online marketing and its marketing tools. This necessary information or data was collected through research journals, reference books, business documents and content sharing websites.
Sampling methods:
Acquiring the Sampling method was undertaken for practical importance to survey the whole population size by applying rationality in selection of samples. Findings were generalized for the research. A complete literal of all products of the population is known as counting or census inquiry. But we also practically considered time and cost almost invariably lead to a selection of respondents called sampling techniques.
A sample design is a test that verifies the theoretical analysis and effectiveness in practical application and a plan for obtaining a sample from a given population.
Sampling process:
1. Sampling process is the process of defining the population: the population is said to be completely defined if at least the following terms are known, elements, sampling units, extent, and time.
2. Sampling frame: sample fame can be defined as a complete list of population units, and it is a selected list which consist of some sampling units. Some examples of sample frames are, census reports, electoral register, list of account holders.
3. Specifying sampling unit: this type of sampling contains the basis elements of the target population.
4. Specify sample method: it shows how the sample units are selected, some times sampling units are selected either by probability or non-probability samples.
5. Determining the sample size: determining the sample size or numbers of elements to be selected. Some example is, number of observations in each sample of the target.
6. Parameters of interest: during project writing, you must consider the questions of specific population parameter which are of the best interest to the company.
7. Select the sample: selecting the sample is the final step in the selection of sample process, at this point, you have to select where a good deal of field work and office work is introduced in the actual selection of sample elements:
Descriptive type of study
Throughout this study, I will be using the Descriptive type of study generally used probability sampling design (random sampling) and it requires a well structured sampling design, and instruments for collection of data like questionnaire.
In this research, I used stratified probability sampling with –
Sample size : 200 (the Sample size was selected on the basis of discussion with the research expert)
Area covered China and Africa
Sample frame business men and women, business organizations and IT expects.
Data analysis tools for research:
To analyze data which was collected through structured questionnaire, I used statistical software SPSS 17.0 and Ms.-Excel Add-In Data Analysis. Some other tools were the Statistical tools which was used for the analysis, Mean, Median and mode, Standard deviation.
Validity of the data:
This approach was used check for the validity of content which was to verify the context of how much work it covered the full domain and how clear they are. And Verification were made to assess whether questions asked to the targeted sample covered all the necessary details related to dissertation topic. The thesis adopted the descriptive research design and undertakes the survey method with questionnaire as a research instrument to collect primary data required in the research. Stratified probability sampling is the sampling tool used to select the appropriate sample. And the content of this work is used to validate the data.
Practical Relevance
Interstitial ad this type of ad when displayed a user, the user can view any requested content, in some cases whereby the user is waiting for the content to load.
Structure of the Thesis
This dissertation aims at identifying the importance of integrated marketing communication followed by the effectiveness of online marketing as a part of IMC strategy. Therefore, the objective of the research is to understand the massive contribution of Online marketing as a part of Integrated Marketing Communication and to know its splendid efforts towards promotion in practice and to find out some challenges in using online advertising as a tool of Integrated Marketing Communication. The research objectives are –
To understand the importance of Integrated Marketing Communication.
To understand the importance of Online advertising in changing market
Scenario.
To understand the reasons for growing popularity of online marketing.
To analyze the effectiveness of online marketing as compared to traditional
Marketing tools.
To identify the limitations of online marketing as IMC tool.
To attain these objectives, the methodology uses descriptive research design. Data is collected from secondary as well as primary sources. Secondary data provides necessary theoretical back up to the study collected from published or unpublished sources. Primary data is collected under Survey method using questionnaire as the main research instrument. Since Customer`s inclination towards Online marketing is the core focus of the study, a structured & closed ended questionnaire has been prepared for customers only.
The questionnaire incorporated questions related to customers preference for online
marketing and other traditional mediums for getting awareness on various brands and
Making purchase deci
sion. The questionnaire is then distributed among the sample
Selected for this study. Stratified probability sampling is used with sample size as 200 within Mumbai suburbs and sample frame as educational institutions & corporate offices.
Data collected is then analyzed with the help of statistical software SPSS 17.0 and Ms-Excel Add-In Data Analysis. Statistical tools used for the analysis are Mean, Median & mode, Standard deviation, Skewness & Kurtosis.
Statistical analysis of data put forward following conclusion
Consumers reckon upon more than one medium to get knowledge of any brand. Due to unlimited brand choices & price sensitivity, they undertake a detailed evaluation of various brands by referring more number of sources of information. So they may be using combination of various mediums like print ads, television commercials, in-store promotion to know about different aspects of the brand.
Consumers do refer various mediums to get awareness but highest preference is being given to the online media. Online media incorporates blogs, online PR, Window displays, banner ads etc. And consumers today are more exposed to these forms of online advertising as compared to advertising through other mediums.
Consumers require more information to take purchase decision but they do not like to spend much of their time for purchasing any commodity.
Consumers do require plenty of information to take purchase decision. This information may increase their knowledge and assurance on brands attributes & benefits consumers are likely to gain that will eliminate their confusion in
Choosing any particular brand. Once they obtain the required information on various brands, they take less time in the purchase of any commodity.
Consumers are well knowledgeable about various usage, functions and benefits being offered by internet. The analysis reveals there is high literacy for internet usage.
Due to its attribute of making life easier by allowing the users to have instant access with every informational, educational, interactive & entertaining material; Internet is heavily used medium today.
The most important activities to be done through internet are social networking as it connects them with others, online shopping as it offers them convenience of shopping and media sharing site as it allows them to download their favorite enticing material like songs, video, games etc.
Majority of consumers believe that companies should use online activities in their marketing efforts. Since online activities facilitate good access and higher reach to the customers; companies must take this advantage by incorporating online advertising in their marketing strategy.
Consumers are motivated to use internet as it offers them products at discounted rates, gives access to exclusive content including specific functional & emotional benefits of the brand, and allows them to give feedback about the brand directly to the company.
Survey reveals that majority of consumers have stopped preferring television commercials or print ads to get brand awareness. Thus, the popular traditional
Mediums are no longer remained first preference for the consumers to receive ad messages.
Consumers like interactive ability of online marketing not applied in case of traditional mediums like print ads, television commercials or outdoor media. Consumers like to exchange their views and share their feedback when it comes to evaluating the brand or for taking purchase decision.
Some consumers are convinced with advantages of online activities’ majority of them still feel that online marketing is unsafe as there is more scope of fraudulent activities followed by privacy issues. These may include cheating customers by offering them faulty items, giving wrong demonstrations, taking confidential information from them like bank details, credit card details and misusing the same.
It is therefore suggested that companies should not only rely on online marketing but should incorporate it as a part of IMC strategy so that online marketing can have a wider reach to the customers and its limitations will be repaired with the help of other traditional tools. As these tools will help create credibility and trust about the brand among the consumers so there will be no question of susceptibility about those brands being endorsed through online media.
The study is limited to Mumbai suburbs only but as a matter of future scope of the study; it can be extended to the other states of country. This will help no more about the effectiveness of online marketing and its contribution in Integrated Marketing Communication.
CHAPTER II
RELATED THEORIES AND WORKS
2.1 Theoretical Relevance
This study, as proposed in the first chapter, aims to explore the effect of marketing online (internet marketing) the main purpose of this chapter looks at some theories of internet marketing. These theories and hypotheses will also be revisited in this chapter. Finally, after critical exploration of the previous literature on form and meaning focused input the gaps will be identified and discussed. The chapter will conclude with the research questions. This study aims to elicit the impact and meaning focused input on internet marketing it would be pertinent to discuss initially theories/hypotheses which are referred to in these two types of input. Now a day, internet has become a bigger platform or mass media medium for our customers to communicate with their suppliers. It now represents the number one source of media for customers at work and the number two source of media at home. Customers are now moving away from the old system of communication the traditional source of advertising, radio, television, magazines, and newspapers. Buyers are now also or demand more control over their media consumption. They require on-demand and immediate access to information at their own convenience and customers have accepted the new forms or types of social media to conduct their information searches and to make their purchasing decisions
theories of internet marketing
There is no doubt that internet marketing has being on the rise, this theory is still in process being developed in both theory and content. However, lets shares this basic theories with the basic traditional marketing disciplines. These fundamental theories comprise:
Direct-response marketing theory
Relationship marketing theory
Flexible marketing theory
Direct-response marketing theory
With this type of theory, internet makes it possible for the potential buyers of a product to purchase goods and services and put their request straight to the organization or company. Some Responses consist of many exchanges between the sellers and buyers. Advantage of marketing through the internet over the traditional discipline is it can be applied, measured and evaluated. Some companies executive decision makers can form their marketing strategies more effectively to make sure their achievements will stand ahead of those of their competitors
Relationship marketing theory
Relationship marketing is process whereby one create awareness among marketers that moving away from transactional marketing and moving in to longer term relationships with the customers which turns out to be their strategic advantage to an organization, the act of
Creating relations in marketing has been observed by significant marketing people, stressing on the fact that traditional transactional marketing needs to be replaced or complemented with new frameworks that looks at the value of relations and interaction, the consumer is becoming the center of the entire bus
iness universe.
Understanding the customer and satisfying their needs should be the number one priority of the company involved in internet marketing. Such things or aims can be acknowledging through providing Hi-Tech products and services. Internet, enterprise-consumer communication is now low cost and efficient and has come to be a useful tool for significant companies and the customers. Companies are now taking orders straight from consumers through use of internet, while consumers are now personalizing their product requirements. In response, companies can now customize their products to ensure the highest possible level of consumer satisfaction. This in turn increases the profits of the companies, never the less, analyzing consumers orders helps companies to understanding the market needs and demands of the consumers. Hence, this can be categorized and dominate the markets. The main aim or reason for this is to have reduced marketing costs and an efficient reaction to the market.
Flexible marketing theory
Flexible Marketing consist of strong marketing, the enterprises takes charge in this type of marketing theory, in flexible marketing, the consumers has the purchasing power over producers. Here the consumers have the power to demand for the best product by and with the help of the internet. The interactive nature of the internet has given customers opportunity to take charge through personalization of their orders
Merging marketing theory
Merging marketing theory makes it possible for consumers to be a part of marketing process, and there are two important steps of marketing, which are customer acquisition and customer retention. The potential Customers needs should be considered a vital as the business profit. The organization should be in constant communicating with customers. Every marketing strategy should be focused on the consumers, and not on enterprises as it used to be in the traditional marketing strategies. Use of the internet as a communication channel has made marketers to establish an effective interactive relationship with the customer. Here, communication has become interactive and therefore more of interaction for the customers. Moreover, it is better suited to understanding individual consumer needs and wants.
MARKETING THEORIES THE MARKETING MIX FROM 4 P S TO 7 P S
Marketing is a continually becoming one of the discipline and as such can be one that companies are found stand still or left much behind if they are left alone for too long. One example of this evolution has been the fundamental changes to the basic Marketing mix. Where once there were 4 P s to explain the mix, nowadays it is more commonly accepted a more developed 7 P s adds a much needed additional layer of depth to the Marketing Mix with some theorists going even going further.
THE MARKETING MIX AND THE INTERNET
Marketing Mix is a tool used to determine the product or brands offering by businesses and Marketers. The internet and the marketing mix, recently this concept of Internet marketing has broadened and input significant opportunities for companies to approach their customers with. In the past, Internet has being the only tool used to contact customers and make other services.in recent times, the Internet, specifically the websites has been become a popular media tool many organizations to market their products and services to the world. The Internet is some times known as an independent and effective marketing tool. In recent times, amounts of Internet users has increased drastically, in which, Asia, the continent with the biggest population accounts for 39.5% of World Internet Users. Understanding particularly how the Internet offers new opportunities to traditional marketing model, it is important to examine it for the marketing mix traditional but still applicable.
In 1960, Jerome McCarthy introduced the marketing mix – widely referred as the 4 Ps of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Until now, it still plays an important role in formulating and implementing marketing strategy. The 4 Ps have been developed and extended to the 7 Ps with the appearance of People, Process and Physical evidence (Booms and Bitner, 1981). It provides an effective strategic framework for changing different elements of a company’s product offering to influence the demand for products within target market (Chaffey et al. 2006, 215).
However, the researchers only focus on the first main and traditional 4 Ps in this paper due to some limitations.
According to Philip Kotler (2003), Product is the solution to customers wants or/and needs. It refers to the characteristics of a product, service or brand. The Internet offers options for varying the core product, options for changing the extended products, conducting research online, velocity of new product development and velocity of new product diffusion (Chaffey et al. 2006, 217 – 222). Many digital products now can be purchased easily over the Internet via providers website. For other products, instead of providing actual products to customers, many companies publish the detailed product information with pictures or images. Thanks to this, consumers still have concepts about different kinds of product even when staying at home. Besides that, for some companies, it is possible for buyers to customize products. Dell is a typical example. Through its websites, a customer can build a laptop or a desktop with the desired functions and features. Besides that, companies also can supply more extended product user guides, packaging, warranty, after sales services in a new method. For example, new drivers or updated package for a computer or software are easily downloaded via producers websites. It brings conveniences for both of buyer and seller/ producers. In addition, it is obvious that the Internet provides a new tool to collect customer feedback quickly and accelerate new product development since process of testing new products is more rapid and effective. The information about new products will spread out more wildly and quickly.
Price is the most flexible element comparing to other three elements of the marketing mix, since it can be changed quickly to adapt to the market’s demand. Companies can use the Internet to build differential price for different customers in different countries, on IP (Internet Protocol) analytic technologies. For buyers, they can find out the price differences by visiting companies’ websites or price comparison sites. In addition to this, the Internet also reduces costs and price per product by reducing operating costs of stores and number of staffs. Therefore, the Internet is considered the most effective marketing tool.
(P S Varma et al. 2003, 135-156). Together with these advances, many new payment methods are created. The online payment method using credit cards is the most popular, efficient, convenient and flexible way for companies and customers. Bills can be paid at any time and in anywhere. Moreover, companies can cut costs by reducing paper works since the customers fill all the necessary information like their own private information and credit cards information by themselves. Beside these conveniences, online customers still have to worry about securities and privacy matters. Hence, some third parties provide services to protect consumer privacy and to secure transactions. PayPal is one of the most successful companies in this business sector.
Place in the marketing mix refers to the medium in which product is distributed to its customers. There are many distributing methods whereby goods are distributed through online selling and offered by the improvement of the Internet. It becomes so possible for customers to make their purchasing decisions anywhere and any time at a particular point in time. The Internet has the greatest implications for the Place in the marketing mix because it has a large market place. Co
mpanies now can expand their business from local areas to the whole country even to international market. They also can use the Internet to exploit new markets with low cost international advertising since they do not have to establish sales infrastructure in different countries
Promotion element of the marketing mix refers to how marketing communication are used to inform customers and other stakeholders about an organization and its products (Chaffey, 2006, 243). The Internet can be used to review new ways of applying each of elements of communication mix like advertising, sales promotions, PR and direct marketing; assess how the Internet can be used at different stages of the buying process; and assist in different stages of customers relationship management from customer acquisition to retention
THE ANSOFF MATRIX
The Ansoff matrix was invented by Igor Ansoff in 1965 and is used to develop strategic options for businesses. It is one of the most commonly used tools for this type of analysis due to its simplicity and ease of use.
As the diagram demonstrates, the matrix will give managers four possible scenarios, or strategies for future product and market activities.
Market Penetration
This strategy focuses on increasing the volume of sales of existing products to the organization s existing market.
Questions asked:
How can we defend our market share?
How can we grow our market?
Product Development
This strategy focuses on reaching the existing market with new products.
Questions asked:
How can we expand our product portfolio by modifying or creating products?
Market Development
This strategy focuses on reaching new markets with existing products in the portfolio.
Questions asked:
How can we extend our market?
Through new market sectors?
Through new geographical areas?
Diversification
This strategy focuses on reaching new markets with new products. Diversification can be either related or unrelated.
Related Diversification: The organization stays within a market they have familiarity with.
Unrelated Diversification: The organization moves into a market or industry they have no experience with. This is considered a high risk strategy.
So that s the Ansoff matrix, you can see how it visualizes your current strategic position and offers four possible routes to take next.
You should be aware however it isn t designed to make the decision for you but to open you up to the different strategies available to you. You should also remember this framework doesn t account for any external factors like available resources or risk management. So as always we recommend we use this tool as part of a larger marketing tool kit.
2.8 Affiliate marketing
It is a marketing practice wherein a business pays an online retailer, e-commerce site or blog for each visitor or sales that these websites make for their brand.
2.9 Display Advertising
This refers to advertisement banners that are displayed on other websites or blogs to boost traffic for their own content. This, in turn, can increase product awareness.
2.1.1 Email Marketing
From the name itself, this is a marketing process that involves reaching out to your customers via email.
2.1.2 Inbound Marketing
This type of Internet marketing involves sharing of free valuable content to your target market to convince them to become your loyal customer. This could be done by setting up a business blog
2.1.3 Search Engine Marketing
This is a form of marketing that promotes a business through paid advertisement that appears on search engine result pages. This includes paid placement, contextual advertising, paid inclusion or through search engine optimization.
Does the individual organization s decision depend on key elements, like: Economic or social elements? The user s level of trust in the initiative taker? Does the industry community influence the individual organization s decision? Are there other elements influencing the individual organization s decision? Is the marketing tool effective?
B2B Marketing
B2B (business-to-business) marketing is marketing of products to businesses or other organizations for use in production of goods, for use in general business operations (like office supplies), or for resale to other consumers, like a wholesaler selling to a retailer
B2B marketing techniques rely on the same basic principles as consumer marketing, but are executed in a unique way. While consumers choose products based not only on price but on popularity, status, and other emotional triggers, B2B buyers make decisions on price and profit potential alone.
Finding new ways to foster relationships through social media is currently a hot topic in the B2B marketing world. Social media platforms have opened up two way conversations between businesses. A survey showed that businesses are more likely to buy from companies they track through social media.
Tech-savvy B2B companies have continued to find innovative ways to use social media to their advantage. Cisco Systems, Inc., a leading seller of networking systems, launched a campaign introducing a new router solely on social media advertising. The launch was classified as one of the top five in the company’s history, and shaved over $100,000 off normal launch expenses.
A B2B marketing plan must be focused in delivery and broad in application. This means that while consumer marketing can advertise specifically (one mass-consumed product advertised through print, television commercials and the Internet) to a wide audience, B2B marketing cannot. Instead, it needs to brand itself broadly (through email, corporate image and technical specifications) to a specific customer.
Business marketers can develop and decide how to employ their B2B plan by identifying and understanding the importance of the following topics:
The product or service: When marketing to consumers, there is an emotional component involved. Individuals are drawn to products for how they make them feel. With B2B customers, the buyers are trained professionals who care about the quality of products, their cost-saving and/or revenue-producing benefits, and the service provided by the host company.
The target market: Many B2B marketers can focus on niche industries which reflect specialized needs. While this can make marketing a bit more straightforward, it also requires a high level of knowledge outside of marketing specialists.
Pricing: Businesses are usually more concerned with cost, value, and revenue potential than consumers. However, they can also be more readily convinced to pay top dollar as long as B2B marketers do an excellent job of convincing them that the product, quality and customer service will be worthwhile.
Promotion: B2B marketers need to be experts not only of marketing and advertising, but experts within their fields. Once this happens, they will learn the best ways to market to this field, whether it is through blogs, journals, trade shows or word of mouth. B2B marketing rarely employs traditional media like TV and radio commercials.
B2B sales representatives
What do they do?
B2B sales representatives are responsible for implementing the marketing plans that are put into place for their company s product or service. They are the ones who develop and maintain relationships with potential clients. As such, a B2B sales rep should have strong communication skills and connect with various people. They need to have an interest and talent in sales, negotiation and dec
ision making.
Education and experience
A Bachelor s degree in marketing or business administration is required to become a B2B sales representative. Generally, it is a role that also requires 3-5 years of experience in the B2B sales environment.
A B2B Marketing Coordinator
What do they do?
A B2B Marketing Coordinator organizes and implements the day-to-day tasks of building and marketing a B2B brand. This position is usually in charge of communicating with various people to set up trade shows, webinars and other events, as well as help produce written marketing materials, client lists and email campaigns. Marketing coordinators need to feel comfortable with statistics, analytics and quality assurance since they are generally responsible for the behind-the-scenes organization of an entire B2B campaign. They should also have good communication and writing skills, since they will be emailing and telephoning various contacts to set up events and promotions.
B2B
If you re a small- to midsize-sized business (SMB) and in the business-to-business (B2B) space, you know how messy the digital revolution has been for marketing and sales. Not long ago, a sale needed some sort of human interaction — even with the web. Now, from fact-finding to brand-relationship building, your customers rely on the Internet to do it all.
1. The website: Your digital kingdom.
Most companies know they need to have a website but don t recognize just how critical it is. Your website is your digital kingdom, a place where you can share your brand story, connect people directly to your company and make that all-important first impression. Make sure you online presence is up to par by having an engaging customer experience, top-notch branding and easy navigation.
2. Content: What s your story?
Most companies do a great job of explaining what they do but fail when it comes to using more dynamic content (blogs, videos, info graphics) to show how they can help. Customers respond to relevant information and education, products and services come later. If you haven’t already, begin telling your story in various formats. The more often you tell, the more likely your story will be heard.
3. Search basics: What SMBs need to know about search.
Being found through search — via search engine optimization (SEO) — requires a regular stream of high-quality and relevant content, as well as social media to boost authority and visibility. Social media often gets pushed to the side but according to this study. Seven of the top eight SEO factors are tied directly to social activity. So, get social! But keep in mind, you need to be on these social-media channels on a regular basis, otherwise, you will lose your customers’ interest.
4. Social listening: Figuring out your audience online.
Strategic social media use starts by listening to your competitors as much as your audience, so you have a complete view of what s going on in your industry. Watch what industry players and influencers say and do online, and pay attention to the tactics that engage thought leaders, competitors and consumers. A great place to keep tabs on your competition is their blog. See what they are talking about, what their customers are saying and what pain points are occurring.
Being Seen
5. Social media: Connecting your ideas with the world.
There may be no better way to connect your ideas with the world than through social media. It can be a terrific way to boost your company s visibility online. One of our strongest recommendations is to focus on sharing highly useful and targeted content s of interest to the people you want to connect with.
6. Paid media: Placing content in the right spots.
For potentially just a few dollars a day, paid advertising on platforms like AdWords along with social-media ads can have their place. If you narrow your focus to a specific keyword or phrase your typical client is looking for, an ad that sends them to a strategic landing page can be well worth the investment. If you have no clue what keywords your target demographic is searching for, Google provides information on this through its AdWords platform
7. Up cycling content: Increase visibility and your reach.
Content is often written, shared and quickly forgotten. Upcycling is a trend to reuse and rebuild previously published information to extend shelf life and boost visibility. For example, you can take a blog post you wrote six months ago and expand it in these ways:
Create a Slide share
Recap the article in a video and post it to YouTube
Republish the article on LinkedIn
Build an info graphic for more visual viewers
Expand it into a white paper
Syndicate the content to industry trade publications
8. Social selling: Moving consumers through the funnel.
While social selling allows salespeople to use social channels to share company s content directly with potential or current customers, it must be better than spam. There must be context for the information being shared, and the focus should be on starting a discussion, not pushing for a sale.
Being Heard
9. Build commitment: Like, follow, subscribe.
The path doesn t end when someone finds your company online — your efforts are wasted if someone shows up then leaves. Build commitment by making it easy to stay in touch.
Make social links easy to spot, so people can Like, Follow or share your content.
Create a simple email subscription form for newsletter or blog post distribution.
Don t forget to link to your RSS feed — some people prefer it.
For rich content like white papers or eBooks, consider gated content — a tactic that exchanges basic information for a download. It can help you generate leads and measure your investment, but use it sparingly.
10. Online engagement: A one-to-one conversation.
Digital marketing is about driving a better customer experience, earning sales and retention by focusing on the importance of one-to-one marketing. Your end goal is to start and continue discussions that lead to new brand advocates, new customers and long-term clients that ultimately become referral generators.
2.2 Marketing Theories and Related Works
2.3 Customer Relationship Management and Related Works
2.4 Technology Acceptance Theory and Related Works
2.5 SWOT Analysis
2.6 Porters Five Forces
CHAPTER III
ISSUES IN DOING BUSINESS BETWEEN CHINESE AND AFRICA COMPANIES
China is one country that has grown in a fast pace. China surprising fast growth economy offers a big chance to help in the development of some Africa countries. In the year 2008, trade between Africa and China amounted to $100 billion. And Foreign direct investment starts from China to Africa reach an amount of $5.4 billion. In one way or the other, both countries are enjoying the benefits, with the free access to raw materials, expanded markets for exports of manufactures due to the advantages of globalization, the establishment of strong relationships which could gear up profits over time and the government influence. Some leadership from African governments, particularly to strengthen domestic policies and governance some main goals of these projects are to analyze the economic exchange between China and Africa, and to outline policy recommendations to improve the benefits to both parties.
This project work looks at some policies and recommendations. The first part will show and explain China s development role in Africa over the last six years, whiles the second part will give you a brief work of the relations between these two nations today. A
nd the third section will summarize the impact of trade with China on Africa s trade, whiles the fourth reviews China s investment in African economy. The fifth section highlights the complementary between China and traditional development partners, while the sixth underlines the need to improve governance to ensure Africa derives the maximum benefit from the development opportunity provided by China. Finally, the final section provides recommendations for African countries and China, and considers how the African Development Bank Group can be instrumental in supporting the deepening of China-Africa relationships.
2. Partnership between china and Africa
China s has ever since been involved with Africa for a long time. Somewhere in the 15th century the Chinese traders visited East Africa to trade. From that time up till now, China has enlarged its cooperation framework with Africa been part of its developing countries. An example of the Chinese to investment was the $400 million, interest-free loan provided over 1970-75 for the landmark 1,800 km Tanzania-Zambia railways. That amount of money was a large sum for China, which as at that time was one of the poorest countries in the world. China although by then was one of the poorest countries in the world also tried to financed several projects, like football stadiums and public buildings.
Under the leadership or governance of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the engagement between both countries became less driven by the ideological interests and more by commercial viability. The living standards went so high with the consumption of energy and raw materials, raising China s dependence on imports of oil and minerals, but when it coms to Africa, China s trade with increased dramatically, reaching almost 10 percent of Africa s trade in 2008.
The Chinese FDI is supported by the government, who developed a strategy to go global called the Going global strategy , which helps the Chinese companies to venture globally multinationals by providing loans and other assistance to foreign investment. Chinese investments in foreign countries are often driven by companies with a good deal of ownership by central, provincial or municipal governments. Although these companies are some times in the hands of some shareholders, they often work as private entities and typically seek to increase profits and set wages of managers and workers at a competitive level.
Some Chinese banks have been involved in providing monetary services to increase or speed business and some of these banks end up investing in projects in Africa. Most well known, the China-Africa Development Fund (CADF) came in to existence in 2007 when a Chinese Development Bank (CDB)gave a $5 billion equity investment to fund Chinese companies in expanding globally, most especially Africa. The Beneficiaries are the Sino steel Corporation, China National Building Material and Hainan Airlines. CADF also supports companies in the Chinese Economic Processing Zones in Zambia and Mauritius (future zones are currently being discussed in Nigeria, Tanzania, Liberia and Cape Verde.) These investments contribute to African development while helping China to diversify its $2 trillion external assets, currently mainly invested in foreign Treasury bonds with relatively low yields.
In recent times, expansion of some Chinas commercial activities in Africa has led to a shift in public policy from a narrow focus on trade and investment relations to various development issues.
They have allocated concessional loans to Africa and emphasized the need to support Africa s efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals, to address climate change, and overcome challenges in the areas of food security, energy security and epidemic diseases. Recently China provides Africa about $1.5-2 billion a year in aid, mainly allocated to countries with longstanding political ties to China, some countries are Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali and Tanzania and the rest are the resource rich countries including Algeria, Angola, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Sudan, and Zambia.
China is also a developing country trying hard to be a developed country. The evolution of China will not mean simply copying the aid modalities of traditional development partners, including untied aid, conditionality, and budget support. In every situation there are advantages and disadvantages, China will pay increasing attention to the implications of its assistance for governance and the environment.
Unbalanced Exchange
In one way or the other China s trade and investment relationship with Africa does not benefit both countries equally. Angola is exporting about 70 percent of Africa s exports to china, whiles alternatively, South Africa, Sudan, and the DRC, and are highly dominated by raw materials like oil, copper, cobalt, and cotton. Whiles China also exports 60 percent of its products to south Africa, most other African economies have only a limited trade relationship with China. Chinese outward FDI to Africa shows same procedure with 50 percent flowing to just some few African countries like Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. The relationship between china and Africa s trade and investment relationship is unbalanced, in the situation that Africa is less important to China than other trading partners, African exports are limited by domestic constraints, due to the fact that, there are inadequate infrastructure, burdensome regulatory requirements, and they lack skilled labor unlike china. Most especially some Africa countries also sometimes faces competition from other countries in the business field. Africa has been most of china s source of raw materials, including Australia where china also invested many its minerals, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Latin America. Africa is sometimes in competition with some countries which are equally rich with natural resources and with more stable business and its political environments is sound and lower investment risks.
China s Impact on African Trade
The impact of China trade differs from size, economic structures, and quality of governance and institutions in African economies. Measuring the costs and benefits of China s trade with African countries, we compare each country s comparative advantage to what goods the country exports to the world with the commodity intensity of trade with China. Countries that export oil like Angola, Gabon, Sudan benefit from Chinese demand without facing any problem with the country. Benin export manufactures, like tobacco products, Algeria, Egypt and Kenya refined oil products, Cameroon manufactured wood products, and Mauritius processed food face Chinese competition on the global market but little demand from China. China s intense competition in manufacturing and its rising demand for oil underlines the risk that Africa may remain specialized in raw materials and thus remain vulnerable to volatile commodity prices. However, Africa also reaps substantial benefits from its commodity revenues, and China s manufactured exports reduce the price of consumer goods and industrial inputs in Africa. China also supports export with the help of Zambia and Mauritius in Africa through the allocation of Special Economic Zones, with future sites under consideration in North and East Africa. This Special Economic Zones attract many investments in infrastructure especially transport and power and export-oriented production, which could provide some help local manufacturing industries. However, for these zones to promote industrialization effectively requires integrating Chinese investments in the national production chain through backward and forward linkages. African governments also need to ensure effective coordination of donor activities to support such efforts.
African Integration and Infrastructure
Africa s integration with time become an important policy for policy makers in the African continent. In 2008, there was a financial crisis
by which this policy came to awaken and to strengthened it financial crisis many countries in Africa s economy suffered a serious economic downturn compared to other countries. As at that time, some of their main problems faced by the integration was for efficient production, inadequate transport, telecommunication, and power supply. All most yearly, infrastructure is divided equally between investment and maintenance needed in other for the country to achieve national development targets.
As at 2009, the total commitments for infrastructure in Africa was $38.4 billion, slightly up by 5.0%, from $36.6 billion in 2008. The total commitments made by Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) members for infrastructure in Africa in 2008 were $19.5 billion, half of the total volume and a significant increase, by 42.5% ($5.8 billion) compared to the previous year. Private organizations decreased again by 23.7% to about $11.4 billion, indicating a difficult investment economy China has investment mainly through the Export-Import Bank of China, also the lending arm of the Chinese government. Moreover, China has reduced most of its product competing highly with prices on goods and services for investment, due to this lower wages, there than their Western counterparts are struggling to cope with the Chinese market and they provide low interest rate loans from public sector banks. Chinese firms also have a good record for on-time completion, compared to projects undertaken by other countries. Africa can thus benefit from Chinese participation through low prices and efficient work. Such maintenance and capacity building, if these resources are not properly maintained, it is likely that new investments will not be adequately maintained. Let s look at the Tanzania-Zambia railway project, which was completed ahead of proposed time, was a beautiful engineering achievement, laying over 1800 kilometers of lanes in part through mountainous terrain and building 320 bridges, due to mismanagement and underinvestment over the last three decades, the railway company got into financial difficulties and the facilities have been under-utilized. China s investments towards infrastructure could be more supportive of African integration. China typically works on a bilateral basis in support of national infrastructure plans that may not adequately consider potential benefits from regional cooperation. In some cases, China has supported major countries, even now they are supporting some of this developed countries infrastructure ventures like the electricity transmission lines between southern African countries. On occasions, they provided a wider framework for regional projects, including in the power generation projects, power interconnection, road projects, port projects, railways and ICT networks. However, often regional projects are overlooked.
China s Impact on the Global Aid Architecture
China has had an aid since the 1950s and was then called the emerging donor , when it comes to china several government institutions are involved in concessional finance of their emerging business sector why it is difficult to Analyze the impact of China on the global aid architecture. China s aid program is estimated at between $1.5 and $2 billion. And Other flows of development finance, like preferential export credits, or government subsidies for foreign direct investment, may also looks like ODA. There are lot of critical differences between OECD-DAC and China development cooperation. The ODA as well as OOF are often provided as tied aid, while 90 percent of ODA from local business development partners is provided in an untied manner. Only Korea became a member of the DAC in 2009 which provides assistance to the African countries as well. Some Chinese goods are highly in demand as compared to those from the OECD members. Also, China do not provide assistance in budget support, which by reducing administrative costs, is high appreciated by the recipient government, as it can be an effective instrument for aid delivery. Countries like the DRC could benefit from higher investment, even on commercial terms, even though the return on the project is adequate. Greater coordination between China and traditional donors could help resolve such issues.
Governance and African Civil Society Engagement
African economies have the ability to use the opportunities offered by China to help them in the reduction of poverty and improving development. African governance and the business environment. Some African countries have implemented policies to increase the local benefits of foreign investment (including from China). Tanzania insisted on the employment of unskilled Tanzanian workers on projects receiving foreign finance, Angola required use of local construction material, and Senegal emphasized investors should partner with local firms when submitting bids. Governance provides a good example of the different perspectives of China and traditional donors. Progress will require not only leadership by African governments, but also participation and oversight by the African private sector and civil society organizations. The policy framework that would maximize the benefits from foreign investment will differ, according to the individual circumstances and institutions of each African country. Whatever policies are adopted to improve the development impact of foreign investment should be applied to all foreign investors, not just Chinese. China s concern with the policy framework, and particularly the quality of the environment, may be increasing
Chinese FDI stock in Africa (2009)
Source: Chinese Ministry of Commerce, National Bureau of Statistics, State Administration of Foreign Exchange, 2010
state capitalism to the market
Some private companies in china some times will be going after some Beijing influenced SOE investment into Africa. Nowadays China s business in Asia can be divided in to two categories, either trading or selling. The relationship between both continents governments has been focused on the macro forces or factors that are creating a bigger impact on economy and how some African rule enforcers should be having in mind to re-strategize their economic growth so that their plans can fall in place with China s own domestic economy.
China s and Africa s growth from 2004 to 2013
Source: African Development Bank
Asian to African brief information
In this modern times, east Asia has experienced a rapid growth but with Japan still taking the lead in the continents’ economy when it comes to development. Meanwhile, china s positive impact or contributions to bring inflation down by means through export trade and to reduce the cost of products.
If we implement china s fast growth to Africa, this is so difficult to implement some of this growth factors due to insufficient some infrastructure and equipment for develop the economy. An example is South Africa undoubtedly the most advanced or improved country in Africa, who is widely known for its development and internationally has the competitive business sector in Africa. However, due to the rising production and the costs in wage, South Africans has still maintained its businesses in operations but areas like garment and textile production has experienced a decline recently and this companies has been moved to Lesotho. It is surprising that some countries in the south haven t been able to make themselves attractive like South African. That was the same way china did to attract Japanese manufacturing in the early 1990s. There are still some few countries in the sub-Saharan Africa that are gradually eliminating themselves from their neighboring nations, some of these nations are Ethiopia, Ghana and Rwanda which are now trying their possible best stand out as possible exceptions.
Minimum wages or average wages in Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam
THE REASON SOME FIRMS VENTURE OVERSEAS?
The situation that leads to some firms going global in to some developing nations or countries are many and can be specifically grouped in to three main groups, this reasons can be
1.economic reasons
2.technical reasons
3.socio political
This basic reasons come together to make their reason a success for a company venturing abroad. Many people have not agreed with the fact that, most organization go global mostly for economic reasons and factors. Some of these factors been argued about
1. Increased competition leading to a loss of domestic market share.
2. Product obsolescence which, similarly, leads to a loss of domestic market share.
3. An inability to achieve economies of scale due to a saturated domestic market.
4. The provision of “push” incentives furnished by the home government and “pull” incentives offered by foreign governments to encourage investments in their national markets, and
5. Potential foreign demand backed by a strong purchasing power. The reasons for foreign investments, which was well recorded was the five perspectives; namely, economic, socio-psychological, historical, commercial and organization learning. Whatever the reasons a firm may have for venturing abroad, there must be an accrued “leverage” or advantage for the firm who is willing to operate simultaneously in more than one country. Taking part in international markets is continuously becoming a gradual process where important stages of development may often be separated. Similarly, firms may also operate in anyone or a combination of modes for developing their foreign markets.
Exporting.
Licensing.
Joint ventures.
Manufacturing, and
With the advent of aggressive international trading, the danger of expropriation in politically sensitive and nationalistic countries is real indeed. Apart from this critical state of affairs, international firms have also to contend with a whole host of protectionist trade barriers, like tariffs, quotas, embargoes, monetary barriers, and discriminatory standards, etc. Some comfort may, however, be derived from the global efforts directed towards easing trade restrictions. These take the forms of both trade and commercial treatises and the development of international monetary systems.
SUMMARY
The theories of Absolute Advantage, Comparative Advantage and Factor Endowment have provided the main explanation for the evolution of international trade. The pros and cons of each theory can be examined concerning colonialism, mercantilism and protectionism. Improvements made in communications and transport have furthered the impetus for growth in foreign trade, barter and countertrade. As in the general field of marketing, difficulties were likewise
CHAPTER IV
SOLUTION OF IMPROVING MARKETING FOR CHINESE AND AFRICA COMPANIES For ONLINE MARKETING
If you re a small- to midsize-sized business (SMB) and in the business-to-business (B2B) space, you know how messy the digital revolution has been for marketing and sales.
Not long ago, a sale needed some sort of human interaction — even with the web. Now, from fact-finding to brand-relationship building, your customers rely on the Internet to do it all.
China is one of the most important trading partner country in our recent world, it has been able to fund many projects in this developing nations and a source of pumping more money into its target economy which it wants to improve, and simultaneously, investing in necessary local development partners. The Chinese are investing heavily in infrastructure, helping improve or expand in supply of some bottlenecks and tighten competitiveness. With Chinas view on Africa, Africa is a place where they can invest for labor intensive manufacturing in the near future, due to the fact that wages are increasing so fast in china much more than Africa. Online marketing connects organizations with qualified potential customers and takes business development to a much higher level than traditional marketing. Online marketing gives us many benefits which can help both countries to do business without any fear, some of these factors are growth in potential, Reduced expenses, Elegant communication, Better control, Improved customer service, Competitive advantage. Due to these factors, online marketing through the internet base strategies is helping in doing business worldwide. The following recommendations are for African and the Chinese companies.
African Countries should:
Some Africa countries should try their possible best to improve their relationship between or with some Chinese companies who intend to aid and invest in their country. Good relationship brings or builds trust among people, so the strong relationship build can help in building of a much trusted relationship.
It is advisable to invest in a better or good technology transfer and increase the positive issues that affects foreign investment through local labor and content requirements, as is done in several African countries. Africa should be such that, they hire the right people for the right job, especially when it comes to its technology aspect of its organizations.
Win greater export diversification by identifying niche markets for African manufacturing products in China, and by expanding preferential trade access to Chinese markets.
Build negotiation capacity, first of all before a company enters in to a business with another company, it needs to obtain the appropriate legal rights or services, to make sure or ensure that, big commodity deals with China can be negotiated with favorable terms for the exporting African country.
It is necessary to build backward and forward linkages between the domestic economy and the Special Economic Zones supported by Chinese investment.
Most companies in Africa need to have a website but don t recognize just how important it is. The company s website is their digital world, it has become a place where they share their brand story, get in touch with the people directly to your company and make that all-important first impression. The company must make sure that the online presence is up to par by having an engaging customer experience, top-notch branding and easy navigation.
China should: