MBA Students (especially those who are majoring in global marketing) are supposed to have basic knowledge about the Internet, E-organizations, E-business, and E-commerce. In order to analyze an e-commerce website, familiarity with the Internet and search engines are needed. There are so many online analytic tools and packages such as site counters, Google Analytics, software offered by the web host, Alexa the Web Information Company, and so forth.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
- The Website History & Info (Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, Go Daddy, Alexa, etc)
- Mission, Vision, Value (Formal statements of organizational philosophy)
- Needs, Wants, Demands (Core concepts of Marketing of the website)
- Analyzing the Website by Google Analytics and alexa.com
Situation Analysis (Alexa the Web Information Company, Google Analytics)
- Website Analysis (Target Market & Customers, Market Share, Goals, Focus)
- Customer Analysis (Number, Types)
- Competitor Analysis
Macro-environment PEST analysis
- Political
- Economical
- Social
- Technological
SWOT Analysis
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
The Flower of Service
- Core Product (a good or service) deals with the customer’ needs (can be categorize under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs)
- Supplementary Services which add value to the core
Categorizing Supplementary Services
1) Facilitating Services (use the core service)
- Information
- Payment
- Billing
- Overtaking
2) Enhancing Services (the value and appeal of the service)
- Consultation
- Hospitality
- Exceptions
- Safekeeping (Caretaking)
Online Marketing Strategies
- ECRM (Electronic Customer Relationship Management)
- PR (Public Relation by making use of social media)
- Online Advertising
- SNS Marketing
- Internet Article Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- Email Marketing
- SEO and SEM (Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing)
Marketing Mix
- Four Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)
- Four Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication)
Short and Long-Term Projections
Conclusion
Suggestions
Two Concepts in more detail
Competitive Advantage of Visibility
SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is all about visibility of the website in search engines that gives the website a competitive advantage of visibility. For those who already have a clear understanding of SEO, some concepts such as Robots Exclusion Standard, Nofollow, Canonicalization, URL redirection, and Site map are advised to be explored. If you are not familiar with SEO, it is recommended to go through the website called seomoz.org and read the article titled ‘The Beginner’s Guide to SEO’.
Competitor Analysis
Market commonality and resource similarity have to be considered in competitor analysis.
The website’s strengths can be measured by the below-mentioned criteria.
- Traffic of the website and Pageviews, unique pageviews, pisitors, visits, clicks
- The number of links that refer to the website from other website (Reputation/popularity Measurement)
- The position of keywords of the website in search engine result pages
- The ability to satisfy the needs of users (Being user-friendly)
You may go through each steps of the table of contents, which is provided above, and write about it. You have to make sure that you have in-depth knowledge about each title, however.