MODERN TRENDS IN COMMERCIAL MARKETING IN SLOVAKIEN COMPANIES

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Štefan Majtán

Ekonomická Univerzita v Bratislave

MODERN TRENDS IN COMMERCIAL

MARKETING IN SLOVAKIEN COMPANIES

Introduction

Despite the fact, that we do not dispute other important processes in the current period, which have a significant impact on marketing, we incline to the opinion of most marketing experts, that the most important modern trend in marketing during the last period is associated with the rapid development of the use in modern information technologies, especially in marketing communication, simply called internet marketing. In this paper we present the actual state of Slovak companies. Information is the result of several investigations in our de- partment − currently covered by a grant project of the Scientific Grant Agency supported by Slovak Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport and the Slovak Academy of Sciences with no. 1/0100/13 “Exploring the impact of current phenomenon to the world economy marketing activities of companies”.

1. Internet marketing and its tools

Rather than identifying the specific findings of the survey, we briefly out- line the theoretical basis. We have identified them with the idea that “the internet can be used not only as a means of transferring data and information, but also as a direct selling tool and interactive medium of marketing communication”¹. It has evolved as a new way of marketing and communication, called the internet marketing. The term − internet marketing by Stuchlík and Dvořáček “means the use of internet services for the implementation and support of marketing activities”². Mohammed extends this definition; internet marketing is “the process of

1 H. Machková, A. Sato, M. Zamykalová: Mezinárodní obchod a marketing. Grada Publishing, Praha 2002, s. 53.

2 P. Stuchlík, M. Dvořáček: Marketing na Internetu. Grada, Praha 2000, s. 16.

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Štefan Majtán 90

building and maintaining customer relationships through online activities order to facilitate the exchange of ideas, products and services that meet the objectives of both parties”³.

Definition, the number and classification of internet marketing tools is not uniform, so we created our own list of the most frequently reported and the most used tools in practice. Some instruments are mutually interconnected and they are classified into different subcategories, depending on perspective, which are closely related. To simplify and facilitate the understanding we only present the list of them and we start from the breakdown of the English terms, under which these tools are generally known and increasingly normalized in Slovakia. For the most important online marketing tools we consider:

− Search Engine Marketing,

− Social media Marketing,

− Banner advertising,

− Affiliate Marketing,

− Email Marketing,

− Viral marketing.

Except referred the internet offers many additional opportunities for commercial marketing. Public relations of company might be built up by the online publication of press releases, technical case studies, articles etc. Company can use not only its own but also other websites or be actively represented through the online media as a form of promotion. Variety of online seminars or work- shops can be effect via internet. Various consumer’s internet competitions can be used as a form of sales promotion. Higher number of company’s website visits could be achieved by applying for various catalogues, while several are for free.

Moreover, internet provides relatively easier and faster market research.

2. Applications of internet marketing in Slovak companies (survey results)

The aim of this survey is to determine the extent to use of selected Slovak company’s opportunities of internet marketing and how they are perceived them.

In view of limited range of this paper we present only brief information about the sample and methodological procedures of the survey and its evaluation, em- phasizing that this research has been adequately addressed so that we can consider the findings as relevant.

3 R. Mohammed: Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in the Networked Economy. McGraw- Hill/Irwin, New York 2002, s. 4.

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MODERN TRENDS IN COMMERCIAL MARKETING… 91

The companies operating in Slovakia were the object of the survey. Two basic criteria have been determined for basic set of questionnaires: companies must be registered in Slovakia and must represent one of the forms of companies or cooperatives. Some of other characteristics of the examined companies (size, ownership, industry, target markets, etc.) that might affect the specific relationship to the internet marketing are evident from the findings presented below. The questionnaire survey we conducted on the sample by 147 companies, which represent the basic set. We choose regional selection method, where we set the basic statistical units and sorted them into groups (areas) according to the selected criteria (economic activity) and intra we subsequently applied a simple random selection of those statistical units. The aim was to achieve a more representative research sample than using just random. Respondents were approximately 1,300 companies and only 11.31% was a rate of return.

Quantitative methods were used for an evaluating the empirical survey, in particular: economic mathematics, statistics and economic statistics. In the proc- essing of questionnaires and its evaluation we primarily used Excel software, where apart from basic mathematical and statistical functions, we applied the fil- ters and to increase the transparency we used a table (simple and contingent) and graphs for the presentation of results.

The following is a short summary from the findings of the investigated questions in the area of internet marketing.

Having the company’s website is fundamental for the use of a number of marketing internet tools. In the survey sample there are 90.48% of the companies present on the internet via own website. Websites do not have implemented 20% of micro and 7.32% of small companies, while larger companies have it implemented all of them. Similarly, the website is not implemented only from 2.70% of companies with significant impact of foreign owner, compared to 11.82% with domestic majority owner. Dependence on whether companies oper- ate only in Slovakia or abroad has not been confirmed.

Very important for a business website is its location at the top positions on the search engines while one from the option is search engine optimization (SEO). This tool is implemented in 47.62% of the interviewed companies. Ex- amine SEO is meaningless in companies that have not implemented own websites. Of those who have it implemented, use SEO just 52.63% of companies.

From the test of independence we could observe that there is no relationship to any of the identifying characteristics of companies. We observe moderate ten- dency in the ownership, where there is about 15% of more SEO companies with a strong influence of foreign-owned companies as the majority owner.

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feedback as the main advantages of internet marketing. A ranking of these two benefits mutually draped after considering assigned weights. The third place be- longs to the multimedia character of the internet within the response rate, but in terms of the significance it even decreases to 4th place.

Table 1 The advantages of internet marketing

Advantages of internet marketing

Share of companies

(%)

Absolute ranking

Share of points (%)

Weighted ranking

Relative low costs 54,42 2 24,28 1

Interactive communication 29,25 5 10,5 5

Greater focus and more accurate targeting 30,61 4 14,44 3 Velocity of feedback and information updates 55,1 1 22,44 2

Multimedia character 36,05 3 13,91 4

Measurability of efficiency and the results obtained 15,65 6 6,04 6 A simpler entry into new markets 15,65 6 5,64 7

Others 4,76 8 2,76 8

Source: Own survey.

We also investigated how many companies access to effectiveness analysis of internet marketing, and we also focused on the reasons why the companies have not used it. Various responses are captured in the graph 4. Summarily only 38.10% of companies deal with success analysis of internet marketing tools and 51.79% of those companies deals with it irregularly. However, if we exclude companies which have not implemented the internet marketing (34.01%) only after recalculation we would find out that more than half of the companies (57.74%), which use internet marketing manage their effectiveness too. Service companies use this effectiveness analysis three times more irregularly, but also a little more regularly, compared to manufacturing companies. The primary reason why manufacturing companies do not investigate percentage of internet marketing is because by almost half the cases are not implemented (47.83%), but only by 23.91% of the companies is supposedly needed (in service companies only 9.52%). We may also observe some differences by size of companies. Most active in this area are large companies (59.09%), then small companies (43.90), followed by medium sized (34.48%) and finally micro companies (27.27%). Surprisingly, 18.18% of large companies do not evaluate internet marketing because they do not know how. The second phenomenon, which is observed, is that the companies with a strong influence of foreign owners analyze the effectiveness of internet marketing by 17.71% more than domestic companies with majority owner.

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lar internet marketing researches and surveys in other countries. It also allows other researchers to make conclusions which are generally valid and applicable during the current time period. It is undeniable fact that total internet usage con- tinues growing, so its importance rapidly grows across all business sectors and industries. We managed to establish within the analysis of internet marketing that its contribution to commercial marketing activities is indeed beneficial. It is relatively inexpensive form of marketing, which is more or less opened to all businesses. Companies which are actively using these tools, benefit from it sig- nificantly more than companies with passive attitude towards it. Internet marketing can be therefore considered as a modern trend in today's commercial marketing practice.

References

Machková H., Sato A., Zamykalová M.: Mezinárodní obchod a marketing. Grada Pub- lishing, Praha 2002.

Mohammed R.: Internet marketing: Building Advantage in the Networked Economy.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York 2002.

Stuchlík P., Dvořáček M.: Marketing na Internetu. Grada, Praha 2000.

MODERN TRENDS IN COMMERCIAL MARKETING IN SLOVAKIEN COMPANIES

Summary

Generally, the most dynamic trend in marketing for the last period is the radical development of information technologies − especially in marketing communications, called internet marketing. This paper presents the results of a survey that provides a comprehensive view on the current situation in Slovak companies according to their internet marketing development process. The introductory part of this paper contains the summary of basic theoretical knowledge about modern internet marketing. We used this knowledge also as a basic basis for the following practical research. We based this research on the assumption that the most significant online marketing tools are Search En- gine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Banner Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing and Viral Marketing. Despite the findings that in several areas of internet marketing Slovak companies are still below the average of modern economies, it be- comes clearly recognized modern trend of marketing also in our market environment.