E-commerce and International Trade Network Marketing

11.3 E-commerce and International Trade Network Marketing

It is not mature to make full use of e-commerce currently because the network infrastructure, the level of information technology in enterprises, the qualification

Introduction to E-commerce

of the e-commerce personnel and the legal environment conditions are not up to standard. It is a realistic consideration to carry out the network marketing in the international trade through the Internet.

11.3.1 The Foundation of Internet Marketing

Network marketing, which is based on the foundation of the Internet, is a necessary part of enterprises’ overall marketing strategy. Network marketing is the basis of e-commerce. According to the development of Network marketing, it can be divided into three stages: no-site marketing, web-based network marketing and e-commerce marketing.

(1) No-site marketing is the primary stage of network marketing. This is the stage most companies have experienced and the duration of this period may vary significantly for different enterprises.

(2) Establishing one’s own website is the foundation of e-commerce, which is an advanced stage of network marketing. Information can be disseminated and gathered through the website, data mining, trade negotiations and consumer services can also be done through website.

(3) Complete e-commerce stage: Online transactions and online payments can all be fully realized through the e-commerce systems. Therefore complete electronic transactions of the international trade are realized.

Network marketing of the international trade gives the buyers more choice than that in the past. They can, in accordance with their individual characteristics, search for the commodities worldwide and compare the performance, quality and price in a wider range without any geographic restriction. More relevant information, range from small bags to big houses and villas can be collected through access to relevant website belonging to different enterprises.

Marketing can enable the exporters to carry out invisible network operating and operating without the limitation of business space. With the technology of electronic data and electronic data transmission, international trade network marketing enables the import and export businessmen, wherever they are, to communicate with their trading partners around the world placing orders and concluding transactions, and this information exchange is fast, accurate, two-way. Network marketing can enable exporters to display their products in the network showroom almost without any restriction. No matter how big the exporting capacity is, network marketing can adapt to it without enlarging the operating space. And the form of operation is also very flexible. In this way you can easily sell various types of commodities worldwide.

Network marketing can make commodity information and trade standardize: the standardization of commodity information makes it easier to send and receive information and facilitate understanding and recognition of these messages which are translated in mind without misunderstanding, thereby enhancing trade

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efficiency and lowering the cost of information exchange. The standardization requirement for commodities trade in the network marketing for the international trade is much higher than that in the traditional marketing. Being similar with that of price terms used in the international trade, the standardization for commodities trading can shorten the transaction process, and reduce transaction costs.

Network marketing can also make commodity marketing individual, low-cost, and break through the limitation of time and space. According to the information of importers, exporters should establish websites to the taste of importers in terms of the characteristics of products and special needs of the importers like Amazon. When the importer’s first visit to an exporter’s website, he saw that the website which everyone else saw. But after the importers logged in a few times (for example, since the fourth time), he will see a website specifically designed for him. The information he was most interested in has been put in the most obvious position and the information that failed to attract him disappeared. One of the most attractive advantages of international trade network marketing is that it can reduce the cost of the transaction, and speed up the transaction process. It can also reduce the cost of procurement. The integrated information transmission and information processing system enables the information to be updated online, thus greatly reduces the printing, packaging, storage and deliver costs and cut the marketing and research costs. At the same time it can improve efficiency and greatly reduce the operating cost. The international trade network marketing can greatly reduce communication costs since the cost of e-mail communications can almost be ignored compared with the cost of international telephone and fax. Internet can break through the limitation of time and space, and online information can be obtained in any place. Therefore, through network marketing, marketers can timely communicate with customers 24 hours a day without interruption.

11.3.2 Network Marketing Tool

Network Marketing tools used in the international trade involve information processing and transmission technology, including e-mail, search engines, Web technology and knowledge discovery technologies, etc. Of course, these technology cannot only be used in the international network marketing, but also in domestic business activities, and they play a greater role in the former one.

1. E-mail

It is commonly used all over the world. Almost all enterprises have their own e-mail addresses, since e-mail application does not cost much money and a large number of free e-mail services in cyberspace can be used. It is a common opinion that e-mail is a killer user of Internet. Sending and receiving e-mail is the most important and frequent thing in the common application of the Internet. The main purpose of ordinary people’s using the Internet is to send and receive e-mails as

Introduction to E-commerce

well. E-mail combines the advantages of the traditional mails and fax— It is speedy, convenient and does not need expensive long-distance call expenses and postage. According to the Silicon Valley Times, Forrester reports that in the latest marketing activities, more than 70% of businessmen consider e-mails as an effective marketing tool and that e-mails will play more and more important role in the network marketing.

E-mail has become an effective marketing tool for its huge coverage and superior functions over the original communication tool. In daily work, e-mail advertisings are often received and it is reported that the responding rate can reach 20% shows the tremendous power of e-mail for marketing, which has the advantages of low cost, conciseness, friendly and one to one marketing.

A principle should be followed when using e-mail in marketing: mail to those potential clients who made the first contact with you and those who provide the same product as you do. For example, if you are a garment exporter, then you can firstly send e-mails to the garment importers in other countries. They will not complain about receiving valuable information. The following points deserve one’s attention as well: try to obtain useful e-mail addresses, use pure ASCII text format to express business information, convey the most important information first, take the document name as the subject, make your e-mail as short as possible and carefully check your mail before sending it.

2. Search engine

Search engines, known as the Internet navigation signs, classify all the Internet information and become a most important way to find useful information. According to statistics, more than 70% of foreign businessmen use search engine to look for exporters. The search engine used in international trade network marketing has functions in two aspects. Firstly, the enterprises can find their own potential clients, and take the initiative to get in touch with them. Secondly, with

a search engine, potential clients can find the enterprises if the enterprises have set up their own websites or home pages. Then, search engines will become a channel through which buyers and sellers may communicate with each other.

To make full use of the search engines, we should make clear the principles for designing and organization of them. The internationally famous search engines have their own basic designing and organizing principles and processing system. The marketers in the international trade enterprises should have a correct understanding of them and a good command of the necessary skills in using search engines.

Search engines are important marketing tools for exploiting market that need full understanding and good application. General search engines are designed to search information in following sorting principles: Key words in the website are prior to those in the title, those in the title are prior to those in the text, and those in the previous part are prior to those in the latter part. Therefore, you should put the key words of core part of your business into the website title. In addition,

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many search engines rank the enterprises according to the different amount of fees paid by them, which is a way some search engine websites make profits. We should notice that the enterprises that are placed in the top part may not necessarily be the most powerful enterprises, nor may they be the most closely related businesses.

Some commonly-used Chinese Search engines are as follows: http://www.baidu.com http://www.sohu.com/ http://www.sogou.com/ http://e.pku.edu.cn http://sina.com.cn/ http://cn.yahoo.com/ Some commonly-used English Search engines are as follows: http://www.google.com http://www.yahoo.com http://www.altavista.com/ http://www.excite.com/ http://www.webcrawler.com/ http://www.infoseek.co.za/ http://www.lycos.de/ http://www.embl-hamburg.de/HotBot.html

3. Log File

Log File is a daily file generated by the server to show statistics of the visits to a website. It uses the special three-dimensional analysis software Web trend to analyze the amount of visits to a specific website. Log file is an important tool and an important reference for international trade network marketing. It is the obligation and duty of the ISP to produce log file periodically when hiring a virtual host. You may get a lot of useful information through the log file and the following are some of them:

General Statistics (or counter): Number of Successful Hits for Entire Site, which is an accurate visit data. Number of Page Impressions (visit by the number of pages): The more successful design the website be, the more times the website

be visited, and the more it can attract people’s attention. At the so called age of attention economy, the more attention is attracted, the more the chances of success of one’s enterprise. Average Number of User Sessions per Day (number of visitors entering website). Average User Session Length (average time visitors staying at a website). Number of User Sessions (the number of visitors entering the site). User Sessions from a special country (the ratio of the number of visitors from a particular country). International User Sessions (percentage of international visitors, as an international trading company, percentage of international visitors is an important indicator to judge whether a website is reasonably designed). Most Active Organizations (organizations with larger number of visits. Which countries

Introduction to E-commerce

are visitors from? Visits from the foreign companies have special significance for the trading company engaged in the sales of industrial products to the international market). Top Search engines (They provide the information about the search engine and key words used by the potential clients to find your website. If your website has been registered in the search engine, you will find the search engine your potential clients used to find you). Most Requested Pages (the most popular page requested to be visited): After a period of testing the most requested page can be set as the home page.). Least Requested Pages (the page with the fewest request for visit): After a period of time of statistics, if the page with least visits remained to be the same, the page can be replaced by other pages. Top Entry Pages (It shows the page entered by the user to visit your website: The pages with the largest number of entry can show what information is valuable to potential clients and what information fails to arouse their interest). Top Paths Through Site (When visiting the site the line which is most frequently linked up can be used as a reasonable judgment for the classification of different content modules of a website.). Most Submitted Forms and Scripts (The frequent use of the forms and scripts made in the website shows that the interaction mechanism with potential customers is a more reasonable). Most Accessed Directories (From the directory with the largest number of visits can show the most attractive module to the customers).

Web trend can generate about 30 data items. In addition, it is more effective to use the data automatically generated by virtual host and other free services provided by statistical analysis together. We should review these data regularly and we also need to make a comprehensive analysis of the data over a period of time and sum up the information for a week on average, keep the latest development of the website and the customers, and adjust website design and the services provided to continually enhance the effectiveness of Network marketing.

4. Mail List

Mail List, an important Internet tool, is used for the exchange and dissemination of information among groups in which managers can send information while users can only receive information.

Information can be sent directly to each member whose e-mail account is in the mail list. Mail list can prevent junk mail more effectively than news group can. However, if one e-mail account is used to join the list of many items, a large number of e-mail messages still cause obstruction and might affect the normal communication. Therefore, it is advisable to use different e-mail account (preferably with more space for the free e-mail) to subscribe different mail lists.

For subscribers, instead of spending a lot of time gathering all the relevant information on the website, they can join the mail list they are interested in and check their emails to get information such as the updating of a website, latest information in this industry and product information. Meanwhile, they can obtain the information concerning their competitors by subscribing their competitors’

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mail list. For example, if you are interested in the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization on intellectual property protection, you can mail your subscription to the World Intellectual Property Organization and receive regularly the mails about the agenda and contents of the meetings for intellectual property protection organized by the World Intellectual Property and the legal protection of intellectual property rights and so on. You can also mail your own views and opinions to the meetings or make further inquiries on the details.

Mail list is of great significance for international trade enterprises and it is even regarded as a decisive factor for the success or failure of their business. It can be used to provide product information and improve customer relationship. If your business is engaged in the international trade, you may register a mail list at the relevant international website. In this way, you cannot only receive information related to this industry, but also send, through mail list, the information concerning your products or advertising messages to other companies who are interested in these messages. The effect of such e-mail, which aims at relevant clients, is much better than advertising.

The amount of subscribers is a main factor for the success of mail list marketing. However, different types of mail list have different measurable standards. For public readings or news items, 20,000 subscribers might not be necessarily large, but for some specialized fields, perhaps 500 has been very successful, for example, for the sale of aircrafts and large ships, the mail list with 50 subscribers may have been a huge success. In marketing the “positioning” is often stressed, and the higher the degree of positioning of a mail list, the greater the value of its sales. As for enterprises that produce consuming products, the number of registered mail lists will be great, while for enterprises making industrial products, the number of those will be very small.

For most readers, it is not necessary to understand the working principle of mail list.

You may first usually select the mail list which you’re interested in among mail list catalog (Mail lists can be found on the websites of American online, USA Trade online. NETEASE, 163.com etc. and other relevant websites), then enter the e-mail address and click on “subscribe” button, and the subscribing is finished. To ensure the accuracy of users’ information and avoid false subscription, it is sometimes necessary to confirm the information of subscribers. System will not add the user to the list until the confirming information is received.

As staffs engaged in network marketing, they need not only to subscribe mail list from other websites but build their own mail list. So it is necessary for them to understand the way to create mail list. It can be realized by either operating mail list program at their own website servers, or using mail services provided by the third party.

Suppose you need to send mails (such as electronic magazine) to all your mail list subscribers through easylink, you can just send it to mylist-abcexp.com.cn. A few minutes later, you will receive a confirmation mail automatically produced

Introduction to E-commerce

by the mail list at easylink— “information which needs to be processed by the managers”. You may reply to the mail after confirmation of your own mail, and all the rest are up to the easylink electronic publishing system. Perhaps a few minutes later, all the subscribers will receive your mail.

As for how to create a high-quality electronic magazine, how do you attract customers to join your mail list and how to use the marketing function of the mail list, different people have different opinions and methods.

11.3.3 Network Marketing Technology

Any international trade enterprise needs marketing skills in order to maximize the use of the Internet and obtain the best economic returns whenever it is in the stage of understanding Internet, establishing website or mature e-commerce application. The following are some of marketing skills.

1. The stage of understanding Internet

Free publication of supply and demand information: On the Internet, many websites provide free platform for enterprises to release supply and demand information (such as the Asian Resource website—www.asiansource.com). Some websites also allow enterprises to set up free online stores. Many website allows users to release information free-of charge, and the information will be released at certain position according to the characteristics of products or services related. Sometimes this simple method will bring about an unexpected effect. You may pay only a little bit for the Internet access, and would probably have made tremendous gains. This is the charm of network marketing!

Directly sending information to potential customers: The Internet is a sea of message in which people should search for the information in accordance with their needs. The Internet, as a marketing tool, can be used to find information about the potential clients, and then deliver the information to the targeted potential clients for the purpose of marketing promotion. For example, the sellers can find information about the buyers through the online information platform and frequently visit the economic and trade information network and electronic bulletin boards (such as the Import and Export Website—http://www.wbe.net/, the Asian resources website —http://www.asiasource.org/. the buyers’ website — www.buyers.com, the website of Alibaba —http://china.alibaba.com/ ) to find potential clients. You may introduce your products or services to them through the contact information shown in their demands.

Search potential customers by search engines: You can also seek your potential customers by means of search engines, which is suitable for raw materials, semi-finished products and group purchasing products. You may inquire about the relative companies using a search engine or classified catalog. According to the result the search engine returned, you may choose to visit some websites of

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potential customers to be aware of their operating scale, geographic location, product structure and contact information. Then you may contact them respectively according to their specific business scope. However, pay attention not to send too many e-mails to a potential customer; otherwise it would seriously affect your corporate image.

Join professional trade information network: This approach is similar in some aspects to the previous way of “free release of supply and demand information”. The difference lies in that some professional websites can provide more services, for example, a fixed site (generally not independent domain name), and the design of simple website. Professionally classified information network makes it convenient for the customers to search for the information of suppliers, and registering in such information network will help visitors to this website find you more easily. But it is sometimes necessary to pay certain costs for such services, so it’s proper for the companies engaged in the international trade to have a try.

Join industry information network: An industry information network is a web portal offering information of the whole industry, pooling the resources of the entire industry for suppliers and customers. It is also a convenient platform for suppliers and buyers to understand the industry information, and a specialized virtual market. So it is a necessary means of network marketing provided such a professional information network has already been established in your field, and it is necessary for you to register in such a network even if you have set up your own website.

Establishing your own online shop can be a very complicated or simple task. Many ISP provide free service of establishing customized websites. You may forward your requirements step by step and the website will generated a fairly good online shop for you according to your choice of the functional requirement in each step.

2. Network marketing stage

How to conduct a comprehensive marketing after websites’ establishment becomes

a critical issue. First, you should make your customers familiar with your marketing website, which involves the issue of use and publicity of websites, and potential customers know it.

(1) Publicity of web sites: Except updating the websites, many companies set them aside after their establishment. It is really a pity since the establishment of a website is just the beginning stage of network marketing. It is the point to attract potential clients by interaction through the Internet, which will be fundamental for the further development of e-commerce. Making more customers know your websites is as important as making them know the name and telephone number of your company. If a potential customer knows your website, once he needs your company’s products, he would have to take the initiative to visit your website and contact you, while you can stay home waiting. The specific methods include registration at a search engine, exchange of advertisements, advertisement

Introduction to E-commerce

campaigns and combination of the old and new media. You may use some small specific skills or give full play to your imagination and creativeness to generate some specific skills, for example, small screen, rewarding sale, automatic recommendation and website popularization. Since most visitors enter your website through by search engines, the first step is to ensure that visitors can find you through the major search engines. You must make your potential customers

be able to find your website through main search engines. First, register your website in search engine. Different search engines have different registration methods, so before registration read carefully the instruction or seek professional help. Also, an appropriate domain name is also crucial. Attention is needed to use the key words most frequently and naturally in your webpage and title because the search engine retrieval system (HOTBOT) give priority to domain names, and then come the title and the first paragraph in an article.

(2) Searching business opportunities by means of Internet: It is common to use search engine to inquiry about economic or business information by entering keywords (imports and exports products, electronic components, medical equipment, business and investment) in the search box. This may be free, but the efficiency is low because you will find so many entries with so simple introduction. A more effective way is to use the mail list provided by a website, and entering the type of information you are interested into the proper category of mail list, and you will receive mail correspondence, which saves time and labor. Of course some websites also charge for such service.

(3) Analysis of customers’ needs: All international trade companies should well use statistical reports and statistical principle of e-mail, with correct method, to analyze whether your customers are interested in your products, which part they are interested in, where they come from and how long they spend reading your webpage. This information can help analyze specific demands of specific customers. It makes you know which country’s customers are interested in which items. This will guide you to take practical measures in accordance with the market requirements so as to avoid the tremendous losses resulting from the wrong decision-making, which is difficult to achieve in the traditional marketing.

(4) Establishing customer groups: It is also very important for international enterprises to build up their own customer groups. It is very convenient using website and mail list to establishing one’s own customer groups. When you have accumulated hundreds of e-mail accounts of potential clients, it will be a big asset. If customers added to your mail list voluntarily, it will be much more profitable than copying the directories.

(5) Market exploration and research: The information in the Internet is varying every second. This provides a cheap and effective way to conduct market research and exploit new markets. It makes one conveniently understand all aspects of foreign market. It may provide the most direct information for the international trade enterprises to make decisions and export goods. This invisible process of marketing investigation and exploration is efficient and low-cost, and it also increases the popularity of the website and enterprises.

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(6) Effective control of the market: It is crucial to let your clients know you are the best trade partner. If all the information on cost reduction, new technology adoption and improvement of product and service quality are publicized on the web site, the existing customers can have a continuous understanding of the development your enterprise. They will feel they share with you your development, will trust you more and be more confident in your enterprise. So it’s a good habit to update your website regularly.

(7) Internet marketing: It is an important aspect of Internet marketing to establish a good image before the public and provide product information to them. Marketers can send information products and services in two ways through the Internet. First, in order to make the information about new products and service manners known to the clients in a timely manner, you may send the information to the new groups in the Internet (There are network companies specialized in creating and maintaining new groups). Second, you may sponsor the important meetings, public information, government and non-profit activities and issue advertisement pages in them. Of course, the activities you sponsored should be related to your products and services.

Good network marketing needs many Professional personnel who know both network technology and the international trade. In the Internet era, the competition between enterprises is finally the competition of their professional intelligent persons. Enterprises’ competitive position and its long-term competitiveness are decided by their discovery and cultivation of professional personnel. The key is to train personnel who are good at both foreign trade and network.