E-marketing or online marketing implies any kind of marketing that is facilitated online via websites, online stores, and other online tools. It can be inclusive of social media, blogs, advertisements, email campaigns, and so on. Ecommerce or electronic commerce, on the other hand, is a type of online business that involves commercial transactions, information exchange, and business transactions through a wide network using the internet. Although e-marketing and ecommerce are closely related to each other, they are not the same. In this article, we will be discussing e-marketing and ecommerce in detail to get a clear view of both the simple, yet the most essential form of business.
What is e-marketing?
E-marketing is the practice of directing online shoppers to an ecommerce business and convincing them to invest their money in purchasing products and services online. Some of the leading e-marketing strategies include SEO or Search Engine Optimization, website affiliation, and customer retention. Although there are various similarities between e-marketing of an online site and marketing of a brick and mortar store, the former has a face a few unique challenges such as:
- Grabbing online shoppers attention to visit their store in the first place.
- Marketing the store to online customers without any physical components or convincing salesperson.
Moreover, online shopping has got some additional perks as well, such as faster shopping process, effective customer-management tools, easy-to-navigate websites, and so on. The investments for an online store is considerably low as compared to an offline store if employed with the right e-marketing strategies.
What is the role of e-marketing?
E-marketing is a tool that businesses employ to get access to a broader target market and fulfil their customer requirements efficiently. There are various forms of e-marketing today. From them, social media marketing and content marketing is useful for ecommerce business by facilitating the CRM or Customer Relations Management. The CRM is what brings sales growth and aids in customer retention which is extremely important for your ecommerce business. It is CRM that helps you get data analytics that provides you with essential insights and data of the customer behaviour. This gives a competitive advantage to ecommerce businesses to improve their services and enhance their business.
What is ecommerce?
Ecommerce, also known as electronic commerce is a medium that facilitates buying and selling of online products and services using an electronic medium –the internet. Since the inception of the internet, the number of trade and transactions fulfilled has increased exponentially. Moreover, the different types of ecommerce business such as Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Business (C2B) and Consumer to Consumer (C2C) influence the shopping interests of the online shoppers. The developments in the online technologies and the internet, the gap between traditional markets and online markets are narrowing down with time. Ecommerce has essentially created a wide networking environment for businesses as well as consumers to revolutionize the ecommerce market. Ecommerce has been widely used by consumers from across the globe and acted as the core to create substantial growth in the online market.
What is the role of ecommerce?
Be it affiliate marketing, be it online payment services, or be it ecommerce stores, the use of e-business to bring in customers and generate revenue has been the baseline. Although e-business and ecommerce are interchangeably used, they both are different. E-business is any business that is facilitated online using the internet while an ecommerce business is the purchasing and selling of goods and services online. Ecommerce today has an important role in how businesses function. While ecommerce focuses on the customers’ satisfaction, e-business is what builds the network for the businesses so as to satisfy the customers. Following are a few essential roles of ecommerce:
- People now do not need to spend days and hours in finding a store that sells the products or services they require.
- It helps to enhance the logistics and inventory management sectors.
- It reduces the transaction costs as well as boosts the efficiency of the sales.
- It has played an important role in increasing transparency of the product and service prices that can help customers make an informed decision.
- The real-time updates in the supply chain management help businesses as well as manufacturers to keep track of the stock in order to provide smooth customer services.
Every year, the ratio of ecommerce sales is significantly increasing. The volume of sales in an online ecommerce store is incomparably higher than that of a brick and mortar store. This number is supposed to go higher with the lockdowns and restrictions in many cities, states, and countries due to the worldwide Corona Virus Pandemic.
What is the relation between e-marketing and ecommerce?
There is a clear difference between e-marketing and ecommerce. The way both functions are what make them different. As the word says, ecommerce is the process of buying and selling products and services online. There are various forms of selling online; through the website, social media platforms, online store, and so on. You can choose any mode of selling if you are having sellable products and it will be under the umbrella of ecommerce business. The moment your search for a product or service, you would get oceans of websites selling them. All you need to do is choose a suitable website, select the product offered, make the payment and it will be delivered to your doorstep at the earliest. This is how an ecommerce business functions; customers can get products from the stores, make the payment, choose the shipping method, add the delivery address, and purchase products; all without the hassles of going to physical stores.
The products that are to be sold online in the ecommerce business are to be marketed to the audience so as to get visibility and sales. There is no point in creating a beautiful website, adding high-quality sellable products, but not making efforts to let them reach the right audience. After all, it’s not about getting visibility from all the internet users, but getting from the right viewers that can potentially become your customers to bring you sales, profits, and more importantly your business revenue. This is when e-marketing comes into action. E-marketing is what aids an ecommerce business to create a bridge between the products and the target audience. E-marketing, also known as digital marketing is the heart of an ecommerce business that lets businesses create a strong bond with their customers by understanding them as well as by adding values to the products sold. Some of the best examples of e-marketing are social media marketing, and affiliate marketing. E-marketing is a way to know whether the products sold on the ecommerce platform are reaching the right audience at the right time.
As you might have noticed, e-marketing and ecommerce go hand-in-hand. Eventually, e-marketing is what helps ecommerce bring sales. It is understood without saying; e-marketing is an integral part of the ecommerce business.
Conclusion
E-marketing and ecommerce, both, have secured their position in the technological world. Today, the success of any business depends on e-marketing as well as ecommerce. Therefore, both are equally essential and beneficial for a business. E-marketing and ecommerce involve electronic transactions. Both solutions are an easy and economical way of promoting any business. E-marketing is associated with ecommerce through various business models. While e-marketing deals with business transactions via the internet, search engines, and emails, ecommerce includes business transactions through different electronic mediums such as ATMs, debit cards, credit cards, mobiles, etc.
Now that you are well-aware of the difference and relation between e-marketing and ecommerce, it is time to conclude the discussion. Ecommerce businesses are equipped with many marketing tools. With the right use of e-marketing, you can create marketing campaigns that are specially designed for the growth of your online store and to attract the right set of visitors. In order to create a stunning website for your business, you can consider investing a portion of your marketing amount for subscribing with Builderfly Ecommerce Platform. It is a comprehensive platform that lets you sell products online with a beautiful ecommerce store as well as a native ecommerce app. The best part is, it offers a 14-day free trial period so as to let you explore the features offered; after which you must upgrade your plan by choosing a suitable pricing plan. Additionally, you can make your store live after subscribing by connecting your real domain name to the store created.
