‘Traffic building’ is the process of increasing the number of people who will visit an e-commerce web site. It covers many of the techniques shown in the ‘green’ boxes on slide 10 of this week’s (week 9 CRM) slides.

 

Specifically for your chosen web site, describe the main types of online marketing communications that it could use for traffic building. Justify how each of these types is applicable to your site. Deadline is 6 pm Friday as originally indicated.

 

Search Marketing

 

As researched in my previous blog Schuh appears in search engines. When searching I searched for a popular brand of shoes sold by Schuh, this was Irregular Choice. I was able to find the website easily through Google as it appeared third on the list, but I had to search through two pages in Yahoo before I found the link to their page. By being high on Google’s list this increases the traffic to the website, it leads to this as more people would view the site even if they were not particularly looking for that shop. The sponsored part that is in the search engine is the part where the site has paid for to display it. Every time a user clicks to enter the site then the company has to pay the search engine, giving it the name “Pay Per Click” this system is in the search engines benefit to show the site in the results.

 

Online PR

 

This includes all the other means of contact with their potential customers.  Schuh offers a number of things for the customers, this includes a forum, it can be found at: forum.schuhstore.co.uk, in this forum it includes a number of topics for potential customers to view and add their comments. Schuh also have a Bebo, MySpace and Facebook page, all of these pages contain information on the company, and it also means that if people come across these pages while their on their own page this means that it could lead to increasing business.

Schuh also offer a mobile service, this means that the user can actually shop for shoes on the go! They can log onto www.schuh.mobi from their mobile phone so they can look at all the latest styles to arrive in Schuh and if they just have to have a pair then you can even buy them using your mobile.  

 

 Online Partnerships

 

Schuh have an online partnership with Republic, Schuh have a link to Republic’s website and Republic has a link to the Schuh website. This partnership also continues offline by sharing premises.

This partnership relates well as Republic sells only clothes and Shuch only sells shoes, this means that people can get shoes to go with the products that they have purchased off the republic website.

 

Interactive Ads

 

Schuh only advertises on Republic’s website. I have found no other websites who advertise for them. Schuh could increase business by advertising on other websites. Although a number of people would not access the website using an advertisement as the think that it could have a virus within it.

 

Opt-in Email

 

Schuh have a mailing list for customers to sign up to, this emails customers with their newsletter to show what new products have come into stock. This could also increase business as customers could look at the newsletter and see a pair of shoes that they like but had no intention of buying. This is a visual reminder for the customer to visit the site and to see if there is a product that they might like to own.

 

Viral Marketing

 

Schuh have an option on their site to email a friend a product that you think that they might like. This could increase the business to the company as it could entice someone to access the website who would not have thought about accessing the website.