16 - Is E-Commerce fast becoming a subset of Digital Marketing?

Well, as I was working through some post purchase engagement programs for a customer, a ludicrous thought struck me.. What happens if you try to explain the difference between a email campaign and a Ecommerce application to a marketing manager who just woke up after a 15 year coma –let’s say the dot com bubble was the last IT disruption he experienced? The person trying to provide enlightenment has my best wishes and no – I would’nt want his job. The guy most probably will come unstuck!!

Let's look at this purely from what the customer sees –yes ..yes and yes …I said “sees” as in visually engagement and not from a holistic consumer experience. The working components of a marketing message in no particular order of priority, goes this way in my opinion , give or take a few.



Looking at this infographic, it is almost impossible to say if this kind of engagement or solicitation to buy is happening over a web site, a mobile or a plain old Email –maybe this framework works for a “Physical flyer” too.
The only difference is that the tools for rendering each of these facets are radically altered if you consider this happening in an Ecommerce system or a simple promotional campaign. E-commerce systems of course, come with more capability on live engagement like chat and support services that are possible since the whole experience is at real time. In my experiences, implementing and building engagement platforms across Digital Commerce, Marketing, Personalization Engines and DMPs I have the seen four critical changes over the years that make the subject line of this post line closer to truth maybe even inevitable in the near future. Every one of these features I have listed are “hand crafted” sophisticated add–ons that needed a crack technology team to build and manage even as early as 5 - 6 years ago.

Product Design: Over the years, E-commerce products have moved on tremendously in terms of features – they are no more a collection of dynamic product pages backed by a simplistic inventory system. They are bundled in with capabilities aka “ Business Usable” capabilities to manage

1. Content – Dynamic and Personalized
2. Look & Feel
3. Promotions – Product, Customer, Category Levels.                            

External Functionality: E-commerce Integrations
The caption sounds technical but really the today’s e-commerce ecosystem does come with add on subscription products to achieve the following and much more. Some typical on demand features are around.

1. Payment & Tax Management.
2. Logistics and SCM.
3. Product Recommendations & Ad Management.
4. Anonymous User Identification & Tracking
5. Advanced Search capabilities & Transactional Messaging.

 Cloud: The Great Leveller: Well, all the features listed above do need a strong IT team to keep the engine chugging but the combination of an Ecommerce Application in collusion with a hosted infrastructure –is probably the biggest technology disrupter ever. An e-Tailer or a retailer with aspirations to sell online can get onto the online band wagon for as low a subscription as 30$ USD per month and walk out a month later if things don't work out - sans a dent in his pocket.

 New Kid on the block: The CMTO: A new breed of techno-marketing professionals are taking over –some of them coming through with a deep IT back ground with an added stint in product or retail marketing and still others more from the old school but quickly catching up on best in class technology concepts. In a Nutshell, they understand both worlds and come with the right balance of creative, customer engagement, marketing, selling and technology skills – and they are ready to take on the numbers as well !!

Reorganization : The fourth factor is today maybe recondite, but some organizations especially ones that look ahead are internally reorganizing to suit the changing ecosystem. We do see new leadership roles in Digital Business – the portfolio mandated to managing Global Digital Footprint for the brand – be it digital,multichannel or omni channel engagement, customer centricity, online selling via first party or resellers and in a nutshell manage P & L for online sales –B2B or B2C.