Integrated Online Marketing Communication of Companies: Survey in Central and Eastern Europe

Transcription

1 In: 12th International Conference Liberec Economic Forum, Liberec, Czech Republic, September 2015 Václav Janoščík 1, Zdeněk Smutný 2, Radim Čermák 2 1 Newton College, a.s., Václavské nám. 837/11, Prague, Czech Republic vaclav.janoscik@newtoncollege.cz 2 University of Economics, Prague, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, W. Churchill Sq. 4, Prague 3, Czech Republic zdenek.smutny@vse.cz, radim.cermak@vse.cz Integrated Online Marketing Communication of Companies: Survey in Central and Eastern Europe Abstract The main goal of this paper is to present an explorative research which focused on the approach companies from a sample set to integrated online marketing communication. The paper follows various aspects of the application (instrumental approach) of selected tools Facebook, Twitter, company website as well as the linking and sharing of information content across these instruments (synergistic approach). The practical benefit of this paper for companies lies in the possibility to compare their online marketing activities with the typical company from our sample. The typical company publishes annually ten items of news on its website, links the website with profiles on social media and shares approximately a third of communication content across communication tools. This paper partially builds on previous published surveys, which focused only on the Czech Republic. The contribution extends the view by adding other countries from the same region and also compares the results with those from the Czech Republic. Key Words online marketing communication, Facebook, Twitter, Central and Eastern Europe JEL Classification: M31, L86 Introduction The article aims at presenting an explorative research of company website, Facebook and Twitter usage for (integrated) online marketing communication of commercial subjects. The research focused on companies listed in a study by Deloitte, Top 500 Companies from Central Europe 2014 (Deloitte Top 500) [3]. In spite of the fact that the sample is significantly inhomogeneous, it still represents in relation to online marketing communication successful companies from various fields. The article unfolds how these subjects use, link and communicate their messages through selected social media and websites. Besides the descriptive part of the inquiry, the article offers also a basic comparison between the behaviour of B2B and B2C oriented companies, in order to assess the difference in their modes of communication. Online marketing or the marketing activities in internet-mediated environment are along with the development of ICT and the acceptance of new technologies still more broadly considered to be a necessary part of marketing activities. Companies want to present themselves as well as their products and services within the framework of relevant internet-based services. Effective utilization of online instruments for these activities may 376

2 increase their competitiveness [12]. Internet-based technologies can be also used for better optimization of marketing activities e.g. distribution or availability problems [4, 5]. In the field of marketing communication, the activities and the tools used by companies should be linked [11]. The interlinking creates synergic dynamic and the effect can be multiplied. This may have a positive impact on the public opinion (Word of Mouth) or raise discussion concerning the need for relevant products or services (Voice of Customers) [10]. Another positive result can be the creative engagement of customers and the sharing of their own creations through their profiles on social media and other internet-based services [14]. The perspective presented here, which highlights synergic aspects of online marketing activities, is also reflected in designing the models and attitudes toward communication activities in such environment e.g. [1, 9, 13]. Within the Czech Republic, there have been surveys focused on interlinking social media with the websites of specific companies. On such basis, instrumental and synergic usage has been analysed, including further comparison with the situation in United States. The findings of the surveys include the following [11, 12]: There are significant gaps in the use of social media (the creation and administration of a profile) and its active interlinking in the framework of integrated marketing communication towards synergic effects on the level of interaction among the users of the environment. In comparison with companies in the United States, the competitiveness in using social media among companies active in the Czech Republic is relatively small. 62% of companies operating online do not interlink any social media with their websites, or they do not use them at all. The presented article strives to extend the scope on the region of Central and Eastern Europe and compare the findings with other relevant surveys. While studies such as [8] focus in relation to the effectivity of marketing on the human element and aim to identify possible limits, this explorative study focuses on instruments and their (synergic) usage by relevant companies. Such approach brings with it a practical contribution for companies: they can compare their activities with competition, identify prospective trends and generally have a basis for further comparison with surveys from other countries or regions. In this respect, references are made to analogous surveys concerning the use of online instruments. They come from the context of NGOs [2], green electricity providers [6], media and publishing companies [7], and subjects operating on the Internet [12]. After reviewing the methodological perspective and material used here, the main findings will be presented concerning the intensity of online marketing communication as distributed between companies with B2B or B2C type of business relations. Furthermore, this comparative perspective will be extended on B2B and B2C companies by stratifying their ability to make marketing synergies across different online tools (social media, discussion forum, blogs and other). Finally, these data will be concluded with a set of deductive results. 377

3 1. Data Collection and Methods Deloitte Top 500 was chosen as the sample set for the research. Although this list is labelled as addressing Central Europe, it actually covers not only Central but also Eastern European countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine). Only companies from this set were analysed. In the process of evaluation, only those companies were selected which focused on B2B (147) and B2C (183). Students from Newton College collected data manually as part of their project during October and November Data were gathered into MS Excel sheets and then aggregated and processed by the authors for the purposes of this contribution. Working with this sample set addresses relatively unprecedented material for established online communication analysis. This research can thus form a basis for further study of online marketing within this dynamic region with its specifics. The values which were observed and analysed cover a basic range of data concerning company websites, Facebook and Twitter. Such basis provides elementary information for explorative research. The purpose of that is to address relatively new material and point towards its basic empirical patterns. Due to the explorative nature of this research, the range of the data and even their values, a relatively rudimentary comparison is made. 2. Research focus The evaluation of social media focused on the main Facebook and Twitter profiles of relevant companies, which were used for online marketing communication. Other profiles, such as those used for technical support, were neglected. 23 values were observed, ranging from the properties of the companies themselves (business relation, type of industry) to quantitative data concerning their social network profiles (number of posts, likes or comments in a period of time). The scope of the original values was limited to problems concerning the research focus of this paper. The initial research questions include the following: How often do the relevant companies publish news on their websites? What proportion of companies from the sample set link their social media profiles with their website? How much does the content published in the news feed coincide with that of Facebook or Twitter profiles? For the purposes of a wider discussion and the inclusion of results from other surveys, two secondary research questions were added: Which companies actually use online marketing more effectively? What is the typical practice in using the selected online marketing tools? 378

4 3. Results and Discussion This section presents results concerning publishing news on websites. These have a specific informational position. They represent not only a default overview of the company itself or its products and services (default information channel), but primarily they from a certain core to which other online marketing activities are attached. In relation to websites, the survey focused on the number of news items published on a company website in a year, and on the distribution of this factor across companies. Around 32% of companies do not use news feeds at all. The other extreme is more than 100 items of news a year, published by 5% companies. 27% (B2C) and 40% (B2B) companies produce up to 10 items of news a year. 27% (B2C) and 18% (B2B) companies publish between 10 and 40 items of news per year. It can be concluded that one third of the companies do not use news feeds and that the majority of all of them creates less than 10 items of news per year. The hypothesis concerning the B2C and B2B division was that the former should have more motivation to use news feeds. This must be rethought, since according to our findings there is no significant difference between those two groups (Figure 1). It can be added that at least one item of news per year was observed in a very similar percentage of companies from both groups. Fig. 1: Standardized graph of distribution of the number of news items on the websites of selected companies (9/2013 9/2014) as divided by their orientation between B2C and B2B (axis X represents percentage of companies while axis Y the number of news items per year). 379 Source: own The sample includes predominantly large companies with immense financial possibilities. Thus it can be presumed that with smaller subjects there would be more significant differences between B2B and B2C companies. In spite of that, the hypothesis is confirmed. The next section focuses on linking company websites and selected social media. The aim is to compare the results with other surveys in the Czech Republic.

5 The basic assumption was that B2C companies interlink their websites with relevant social media more often. As can be seen in the Figure 2, this hypothesis was confirmed. Approximately twice as many B2C than B2B companies did so. Compared to Czech companies, this is indeed a high percentage. In the Czech Republic, 39% of companies [12] (sample of 4584 subjects) link their Facebook or Twitter profiles, while in the present research it is 69%. This trend follows the development of the United States, where 74% companies (without any distinction between B2B and B2C) link their social media with websites [11]. This similarity between results from the United States and Central and Eastern Europe may be caused by globalization (on factual or virtual level), since the majority of companies listed in Deloitte Top 500 are international companies following world trends in online marketing communication. Fig. 2: A organizations that don't use the social media in question (Facebook, Twitter); B organizations that don't link their websites with the social media; C organizations that link the company website with the social media 380 Source: Authors Figure 2 provides a general idea about synergies in online marketing communication. In B2B sector the values are extraordinarily similar. One third of companies in the sample do not use social networks. A slightly larger number of companies use them but without integration with their website and the remaining third integrate them with their website. On the other hand, B2C companies are more effective in such integration. The research also focused on the way in which the companies link communication activities across different marketing tools to achieve integrated marketing communication. The selected time period was one month, during which individual profiles and websites were examined. On the basis of individual assessment of published information, the companies were divided into four groups according to the similarity of published content. The assumption was that B2C companies would actively share content across the selected tools. Results are shown in Table 1. The initial assumption was not confirmed by the results. The results are similar for both groups of companies, with a few differences. The first difference (8%) is the percentage of companies that have different information contents on Twitter and Facebook. More B2C companies have different contents on Facebook and Twitter profiles, compared to B2B companies. The second difference concerns the similarity of communication content on Twitter and Facebook profiles, which is more than two thirds. Very similar content is presented by 10% more B2B companies than B2C companies. In this case, it may also result from an attempt to simplify work, rather than a strict compliance with the

6 principles of integrated online marketing communication. Because in this case a part of communication content should be specific to a particular tool. Tab. 1: Percentage of companies that do not share or to some extent share communication according to the principles of integrated online marketing communication (communicated messages should be used across the communication tools used by a company) Sharing content between: No similarity Less than 1/3 1/3 to 2/3 More than 2/3 B2B B2C B2B B2C B2B B2C B2B B2C website and Facebook profile 50% 47% 26% 30% 15% 14% 9% 9% website and Twitter profile 61% 60% 21% 17% 12% 13% 6% 11% profiles on Facebook and Twitter 42% 50% 23% 24% 19% 21% 16% 6% Source: Authors Based on the results, it can be concluded that about a half of the organizations (B2C or B2B) publish the same content on their websites and profiles on Facebook or Twitter. Only in the case of similarity of content between Twitter profile and company website, the same content is published by 40% of companies. This may be due to the specificity of Twitter e.g. higher frequency of tweet publication in contrast with news on the website. Despite the above results, the approach may be considered satisfactory in the sample of companies. Approximately a half of the companies meet the principles of integrated online marketing communication. In conclusion, it is important to stress the limitations of the presented results not only with regard to the sample (as mentioned above), but also in terms of the number of monitored tools used for online marketing activities (profiles on Facebook, Twitter and the website of the organization). Conclusion From the perspective of this survey, it can be generally concluded that the use and linking of online marketing communication tools of companies in the region of Central and Eastern Europe is relatively good. Although the entire survey cannot be compared with similar research (concerning methodological perspective or data sample) realized in respect to different regions, the values themselves seem to support such conclusions. In spite of all this, selected results were at least partially compared with some studies in the Czech Republic and the USA. Even within this sample, which consists predominantly of medium and large successful companies, there is still room for improvement. Although there is linking of profiles on social media with websites in companies from the USA, what can be improved is mainly spreading the same content through different tools. In this case the situation is about fiftyfifty and this state can be identified as a potential competitive advantage for companies that are better able to apply the principles of integrated online marketing communication. The research questions are answered bellow. 1. The first research question: How often do the relevant companies publish news on their websites? 381

7 Approximately a third of the surveyed organizations did not have or did not publish any news on their website in the selected time period of one year. Most companies had up to ten news items per year, which seems as a reasonable number. 2. The second research question: What proportion of companies from the sample set link their social media profiles with their website? 69% of the companies from sample set link their websites and profiles on Facebook and Twitter. This result is close to the results for top companies in the USA. 3. The third research question: How much does the content published in the news feed coincide with that of Facebook or Twitter profiles? Approximately a half of the companies in varying degrees share the information content of the communication across studied tools. From the presented point of view it is appropriate to adapt to the specifics of each tool. For example, in the case of Twitter, there is expected a higher frequency of tweets than in the case of posts on Facebook. It is therefore not appropriate to have the same contents of communication, but at least one third of information should correspond. Additional research questions concerned the differences between B2C and B2B organizations and related to the above mentioned assumptions. It can be concluded that B2C companies are more motivated to communicate their messages. Therefore, these companies had better results in the number of news items published on their websites. Furthermore, these companies also more often link their website with the monitored social media than B2B companies. But the results are comparable in content sharing across selected tools. Based on the answers to the three main research questions, the typical use of selected online marketing tools can defined. The typical company from the sample annually publishes ten news items on its website, the website is linked with profiles on social media and approximately a third of the communication content is shared across communication tools. Our findings entitle us to close our paper with stating that the companies within the region of Central and Eastern Europe are following the general trends of integrated online marketing. The results are comparable to other regions of the developed world, although it still leaves enough space for further intensification. Moreover we may assume that there might be evolving new paradigm for online marketing since the integrated marketing trend (using more platforms and interlinking their content) is still on rise, nonetheless we are lacking unequivocal outcomes. Moreover we see that the concept is not pursued universally, not even among bigger companies that definitely do have the resources and can evaluate the possible benefits of integrated online marketing. From methodological point of view we suggest to open the filed of inquiry beyond first-hand data (quantitative analyses of social network usage) and take into account qualitative perspective that can extend our assessment considering online marketing strategies. Acknowledgements This paper was prepared thanks to the grant VSE IGS F4/18/2014. The paper was also processed with contribution of long term institutional support of research activities by Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, University of Economics, Prague. 382

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