E-Commerce Advances in Marketing

Question: Internet marketing includes all the online activities a business conducts via the worldwide web with the aim of attracting new business, retaining current business and developing its brand identity with increased market share. As a newly appointed SEO Graduate at BP Global, you are required to investigate how Internet market segmentation can be used as a marketing approach to target potential customers. identify how the eight elements of the business model can be used as a promotional strategy to reinforce BP Brand within the Oil and Gas industry. Answer: Introduction The current oil and gas industry has become much volatile and considering the dynamic business environment. It is not only essential for todays oil and gas companies to focus on offering distinctive products and services to customers, but also to market their products in a unique manner. This report is mainly focussed at investigating the use of internet market segmentation as a marketing approach for BP Global for the purpose of targeting potential customers. In addition to this, the report also details out the use of eight elements of the business model as a promotional strategy for reinforcing the BP brand in the Oil and Gas industry. Findings and Analysis Use of Internet Market Segmentation as a Marketing Approach to Target Potential Customers Internet market segmentation is a perfect grouping of corporate or potential private consumers and it is basically a simple group of internet customers that a business target to attain its market goals. In other words, it is a process of dividing the whole market into different groups of people who have similar needs. In this regard, the fruitful market segmentation that BP Global can utilize may include geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation and behavioural segmentation in which the location is of prime importance (Robinson, 2014). Hence, it is highly recommended that BP global should distribute its internet customers geographically with the main aim to target potential customers. Apart from this, demographic segmentation includes the variables like age, sex, gender occupation, education and many other aspects while psychographic segmentation is set of factors like similar attitudes, lifestyles and values. In addition to this, behavioural segmentation uses occasions and degree of loyalty (Charlesworth, 2014). The above segmentation market can help BP Global to divide its customers on the basis of age, similar attitudes, likes, dislikes and gender. This would help to target particular customers who are in need of such products and have the ability to enhance the market share of BP without any kind of difficulty. On the other hand, some of the internet marketing strategies which BP Global can utilize in order to target potential customers may include: E- Mail marketing: BP can stay in touch with its customers through e- mails as customers can mail the company during their requirement of oil or gas so that services can be provided to them on time (Weaver, 2013). Social media marketing: This is one of the best platforms as it helps an organization to maintain healthy relationship between itself and its audience. This makes the users to trust an organization and this platform has the ability to represent BP as an honest and transparent company among its customers. For instance, with the help of Twitter, oil and gas professions can easily track industry conversations and remain on top of market trends with the effective use of hash tags. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): Search engine optimization is one of the most cost effective ways to attract large number of customers towards the services of a company. it is evident that unpaid search engines usually get up to 70% of users clicks. Hence, BP Global can enhance its market share by updating the content regularly and popularizing the site with some relevant industry information. This would attract maximum number of users in order to use the services of company (Weaver, 2013). Digital Presence: it is also very fruitful to ensure the effective marketing strategy of BP Global as company can provide regular information to its customers with the help of this perfect platform. Also, company can inform about its regular and changing policies with the help of digital marketing (Bowen, 2014). Powerful Animation: A project description through an effective video or a fly- through video is an excellent example of how companies in the oil and gas industry such as BP Global can provide its consumers a deeper knowledge and understanding of their work. Use of Eight Elements of the Business Model as a Promotional Strategy to Reinforce BP Brand within the Oil and Gas Industry Value Proposition: This element of the business model is concerned with defining how the products or services of BP Global will fulfil the needs of customers. In order to use it as a promotional strategy, it is essential that BP Global should consider that merely concentrating and elucidating about the unique features of its products will not be enough to distinguish the brand in the competitive Oil and Gas Industry (Slaughter, Bean and Mittal, 2015). It is requisite that BP Global should emphasize the overall experience of using its products. The company should make it explicit to customers that its every brand has its own heritage and personality and how all the brands represent, exemplify or offer tremendous energy to its customers (Hassan, 2012). Revenue Model: In order to reinforce the brand, BP Global can use sales revenue model, in which products are sold online for the purpose of offering convenience to customers. The company can initially offer certain consumer products online to get better attraction of consumers in the oil and gas industry. To earn revenues from this mode, it is required that the company keep the prices of its products more competitive. Market Opportunity: The recent oil and gas market is ruled by international economic turmoil, aggressive competition, and mind-numbing price changes due to which to tap market opportunities, it is essential for BP Global to be in altering its business models. The OG landscape is prominently reshaped by a powerful emerging trend, i.e. the horror of climate change and a potent effort to trim down CO2 emissions as well as to reduce fossil fuels (Pwc, 2016). Therefore, to be a leading brand, BP has to take consequential steps for a sustainable business and operate successfully in a highly carbon-constrained world. In this regard, BP should reassess its business strategy so that the company can be refocused towards a sustainable environment. Competitive Environment: The competitive environment of BP Global is highly intense because of the presence of strong competitors like, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corporation. These competitors have equally large business operations like BP. The revenue of Exxon in 2014 was $364.8 billion, while Shells was $419.4 billion and BPs was $353.57 billion (Agnihotri, 2015). This implies that these firms are largely profitable and thus, provide cutthroat competition to BP Global. Therefore, for reinforcing its brand, BP has to market its products in a unique and distinctive manner, the company has to adopt internet marketing mediums and it should price its products more competitively to be the leading oil and gas company. Competitive Advantage: BP Global can win over its competitors by introducing a superior product at lower price than its competitors. Most of the companies which are involved in oil and gas industry are focused on developing policies to utilise digital technologies and data analytics in order to transform the whole industry. BP can take the first mover advantage by updating the information and data of company digitally on a regular basis (Hana, 2013). Market Strategy: the foremost aim of any oil and gas company is to stay reliable and safe all the time and BP Global also runs on the same principle to keep all its operations safe and reliable. In context to this, the company can work to ensure competitive project execution with the main aim to deliver projects efficiently and safely (Ferrell and Hartline, 2013). Organizational Development: BP global mainly aims to work safely and maintaining a balance between capital discipline and quality execution in order to deliver value to its customers. Also, it makes sure to please its employees and satisfy them with fringes, work environment and other benefits. The organisational structure of BP Global is very strong and work effectively as it deals in trade natural gas, liquefied natural gas power and other natural gas liquids which needs complete supervision to avoid further risks Management Team: The management team of BP Global is really efficient in which Bob Dudley is the main Group Chief Executive and he has been working here since the year 2009 and he became the group chief executive in the year 2010. On the other hand, Dr Brian Gilvary is the Chief Financial Officer of company who fulfils his responsibilities perfectly. He has been working for the company since the year 1986. This shows that the management team of BP is very effective and works well for the welfare of company. Conclusion To conclude it has been mentioned that the above report has suggested effective internet marketing strategies and use of internet market segmentation for BP Global. It has been discussed that the company can use e- mail marketing, social media marketing, SEO, powerful animation, etc. for targeting potential customers. The discussion in the report has also elucidated the use of eight elements of the business model for strengthening the BP Global brand in its sector. References Agnihotri, G. 2015. A Closer Look At The Worlds 5 Biggest Oil Companies. [Online]. Available at: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/A-Closer-Look-At-The-Worlds-5-Biggest-Oil-Companies.html [Accessed on: 29 July 2016]. Bowen, G. 2014. Advances in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, and E-Services. IGI Global. Charlesworth, A. 2014. Digital Marketing: A Practical Approach. Routledge. Ferrell, O. C. and Hartline, M. 2013. Marketing Strategy, Text and Cases. Cengage Learning. Hana, U. 2013. Competitive Advantage Achievement through Innovation and Knowledge. Journal of Competitiveness. 5 (1), pp. 82-96. Hassan, A. 2012. The Value Proposition Concept in Marketing: How Customers Perceive the Value Delivered by Firms A Study of Customer Perspectives on Supermarkets in Southampton in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 4 (3), pp. 68-87. Pwc. 2016. Oil and Gas Trends. [Online]. Available at: https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/perspectives/2016-oil-and-gas-trends [Accessed on: 29 July 2016]. Robinson, M. 2014. Marketing Big Oil: Brand Lessons from the Worlds Largest Companies. Springer. Slaughter, A., Bean, G. and Mittal, A. 2015. 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