Internet marketing is one of the highly used means to reach out to customers in the target and already served markets by business enterprises.

Internet Marketing
Introduction
Internet marketing is one of the highly used means to reach out to customers in the target and already served markets by business enterprises. Developing an e- marketing plan is an overwhelming task due to sensitivity involved, and the expertise required. The sensitivity involved arises because of the large number of the people involved and the potential negative implications to the performance of the marketing enterprises. Hilton Hotel is among leading players in the service and hotel industry in the world market. The company has its hotels located in countries from different regions and hence its market coverage is worldwide in nature. The success of the company in its marketing endeavors can primarily depend on the application of approaches that allows it to reach to the target market accordingly. The analysis of the concepts in e- marketing including the elements, internet marketing mix and tools, digital media communities, and customer relationship management are the key areas of focus to the paper. Lastly, an internet-marketing plan for the Hilton Hotel will be provided based on the findings about the relevant concepts.
Marketing through the Internet
The Elements of Internet Marketing
The effective application of the internet marketing is primarily dependent to the understanding of the key elements or requirements that should be involved. In this case, four key elements must be put into consideration and applied by businesses. The first element is the creation of content on the platform accessible to the majority of the target customers. The information in the content should be relevant to the target customers. The content that is information attracts a large number of readers who are most likely to refer their friends to the content. The large number of readers offers the business the opportunity to attract a large number of customers. The second element is to optimize the search engine by selecting the tittles whose key words are not only natural but offers the opportunity to appear among the first option to information search. The third element is to promote the marketing content through sharing. In this case, the readers should have the opportunity to share the content through the channels such as Facebook, Twitter and others that the market may deem appropriate. The last element refers to analyzing in which the market applied the wash- rinse- repeat approach (Miletsky, 2009). The business analyses the successful of a shared content in terms of comments, likes, and sharing. The knowledge from the analysis guides the marketer on whether to repeat the sharing, modify- it or delete it altogether.
Internet Marketing Mix
Internet marketing is a new approach used to reach out to the customers by offering the relevant marketing mix. A marketer using the internet marketing should incorporate all the necessary element of the marketing mix. Key element including the product, price, promotions and place, should be present in an internet marketing campaign. The marketer should make clear the product offer to the customer by providing proper description and the varieties that are there, and where possible provide images for the viewers to see. The marketer should particularly ensure that the key attributes that satisfy the customer’s needs are highlighted. The price of the product should be clearly states to assist the potential buyers make their decision based on their ability to pay. Online marketers should use promotional options such as Facebook, e-mail, corporate website and Twitter to inform the target customers about the offers, free sample, and new events about the companies and products offered (Miletsky, 2009). Place in online marketing concerns the sites in which a marketer places his marketing links to reach to the target market effectively.
Internet Marketing Tools
Online marketers should use online marketing tools to improve their opportunity to realize the set marketing objectives. Four tools are particularly considered primary in nature and hence the marketer should be keen to use them to boost the incorporation of appropriate elements of internet marketing. The first element is the site audit and analysis, in which the business enterprise concerned, evaluates the performance and issues within its website. The second tool is the keyword analysis in which the marketer gets to know how competitive is the keyword used as the title of the online marketing content. Social media marketing analysis tool also important in that is assists the marketer determine whether a social media site is meaning and relevant to use for business connections and sharing of marketing information (Bohling, 2006). Lastly, email-marketing tool is used to assist the marketer to reach out to both the existing and potential customers from a personal point of view.
Interactive Order Processing
Interactive order processing is part of the marketing process in which the selling company interacts with the existing customers in activities such as order processing, online confirmation, and tracking of orders. Online application such as document sharing platforms, email connections and on time chats are useful tools in facilitating activities in the interactive order processing.
Promotion using Digital Marketing Communication
Mechanics for Online Marketing
Every online marketer should strive to have their websites and marketing contents viewed by the large number of visitors. The successful realization of this objective is through the search engine optimization where the website appears among the high ranked results in search engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo among others. Upon the creation of the relevant content and selection of the best title upon which the search engines displays as high ranked, the online search are most likely to access the content. A marketer can share his/her content using different tittles that are also relevant in order to increase the opportunity to have the searcher click either of the results. The marketer with the intention to continuously reach to the target customers, should ensure that their webpage meet the quality and freshness requirements. Quality in this case is concerned with how the crawlers like the page, which is determined by popularity and similarity with query placed on the search engine. It is therefore important from the online marketers to promote their websites to make them popular and establish the most likely search keywords used by the target customers (Miletsky, 2009). Concerning the freshness, a business enterprise using their webpage for marketing and information sharing should ensure that regular updates are posted into the websites. This is because the viewers are most likely to concentrate in finding out about the new content and document updates. The old and irrelevant contents are therefore expected to be deleted as soon as they fall redundant.
Opt- in email Marketing Newsletter
Many organizations use the print-newsletters to share vital information about their business and products offered. The print-newsletters are expensive to compile due to time required in printing and the cost of stationary. In addition, the print-newsletters can only be shared to a few customers who have visited the business premises or have the copies sent to them through the post. The inadequacies of the print-newsletters are removed through the application of the Opt- in email marketing newsletter. Opt- in email, marketing newsletter involves the sending of the newsletter to the existing and potential customers through their mails. The marketer should first decide on the frequency on to which the newsletter would be published depending on how comfortable are the target readers. The marketer should then develop a database of the list of customers’ mails on which the newsletters will be shared (Roberts & Zahay, 2012). When developing the content of the newsletter, a marketer should concentrate on topics that are of interest to the readers and the marketing objectives of the company.
Opt- in email marketing newsletter, is a powerful tools because it reach out to a large pool of target market and that its cost is relatively low. However, the successful administration of the marketing tool and realization of the intended objectives depends on tactics applied. The first tactic concerns the determination of the mails that are potentially relevant where the marketer makes the sign – up and unsubscribing easy. Adding a sign – up form on the company’s home page and requesting the customers to sign- up to the page ensure that only the customers who are interested to the company sign- up the form. In addition, to incorporate individuals who are potential customers, the homage has the options on which subscribers are only required to provide their email addresses and the first and surnames. The assumption in this case is the only the interested parties are required to subscribe to the page. A welcome message to new subscribers is an important that the marketer should uphold to demonstrate a sense of appreciation. The second tactic is to send regular messages to the subscribers though the messages should sound relevant to the subscribers. The objective of regular messages is to keep the subscribers in touch and remind them about the company and its products. The third tactic is to reply promptly to inquiries from the subscribers to address and resolve disputes and complaints before they accumulate beyond control.
Online Public Relations
Public relation concerns how an organization interacts with the members of the public depending on how the company develops and maintains ties through interaction and communication. The relationship in this case can assist in strengthening the brand equity and positive reputation of the company. Online public relations as a concept arises upon the increased use of online based communication and interaction between companies and members of the public. A number of factors should be put into consideration to enhance best practice in online public relations. First, the company should provide contact information in all the material information released by its officers through the online platforms. Contact information include contact name, phone name and email addresses of the company should be provided to enable the readers to make follow- up of the information affecting their interests (Roberts & Zahay, 2012). Secondly, an organization using online public relationship should avoid deceiving the public by releasing unauthenticated and untrue information. Online-shared information is subjected to scrutiny by a large number of people some of whose can uncover the lies to the extent that the organization may not succeed in covering up. The uncovering in this case put the reputation of the company into risk. The other requirement for an effective online public relationship concern fact checking. A company should not release information to the members of the public before checking on the accuracy. The content developer in this case should not be allowed to release the information, before pertinent parties check it. Lastly, it is recommended that a company using online public relationship should stay active and timely while releasing public relations materials and information. The objective of this requirement is to ensure that the members of the public do not keep on speculating and unaware of the relevant information.
Digital Media Communities
Traditionally people belong to community depending on their relationship and geographical location. However, in the digital world, internet-based virtual communities have emerged. Individuals who are not related or coming from a giving geographical location can interact and form a community using the available online opportunities. Individuals forming a digital media community should have a common interest and specific goals and objective. The common interest keeps them together until their interests are no longer common or that the intended objectives have been exhausted. Digital media groups including file sharing sites, social media groups, internet message boards and specialized information groups can be used by business entities to enhance their performance. A business should assess the characteristic of the relevant online groups that are in existence to determine whether it is worth to join them. In addition, a business can start up an online group and build it into a community by inviting parties deemed to have a common interest on the matter under discussion. For example, a file sharing site can be developed to allow sharing of files among the relevant departments and branches. In addition, a business can join a community of companies in the same industry in a specialized information group to learn from each other on matters concerning operations and marketing.
Marketing Research to Support Electronic Customer Relationship
Customer relationship is a sensitive aspect that can affect the performance of an organization in terms of the sales volume and income earned. Customer relationship comprises of a set of business model and operating practices that are well formulated to maximize revenue from the target customers. The concept is highly applied upon the realization of the fact that customers are the core components of the business and hence a series of interactive episodes over a given time is required to build customer relationship (Muther, 2002). A single purchase is not customer relationship; it is a transactional engagement. In the modern times, customer relationship can take place through the electronic means. The data about the application of electronic customer relationship is required to assist in supporting its application. Secondary data research and a survey are important source of the required data to support the application of e- CRM.
Secondary Market Research
Secondary market research incorporates the literature analysis of the findings and incites from the previous studies. The data required in this case is qualitative in nature. The key concepts of the e- customer relationship include customer interaction centers, automated response to e- mail, sales force automation and field service automation. Customer interaction center is units established a selling company upon which customer services based issued are communicated through various electronic channels including voice, fax, e-mail and web interactivity. A team of well-trained customer service representatives is required to effectively facilitate the collection of data in reference to customer history, purchases and their contacts. Customer interaction center takes a four-step process to establish a reliable customer relationship. The process starts with the customer making a contact to the organization using either of the channels. The second step takes place when the system collects the contact information and the service that the customer requests, and integrates it to the database to determine the service response. After the verification of the data, the system determines whether a self – service or human response would be required to attend to the customers’ enquiry. Lastly the customer problem is then resolved accordingly.
Automated response to e- mail is tool used by many companies to respond to thousands of emails receives from the customers. The response to the many inquiries could be time and resource consuming and hence companies develops a system on which common inquires from the customers are responded to automatically. Sales force automation constitutes of a contact point upon which the sales people manage leads and prospects the customers to the sales pipeline. Inquiries from the customers concerning the products and services on sales are responded to using the sales force automation (Roberts & Zahay, 2012). Field service automation is an application where the sale representatives on the move interact directly with the customers; using mobile devices to assist them improve customer service while on the field.
Design an Online Survey
An online survey assists in the collection of primary data and information about the topic under the study. Designing and administration of an online survey can assist in the collection of data in a relatively inexpensive manner. A company with the intention to use the internet to collect data can use its webpage to post the questionnaires and request the web- visitors to respond accordingly. The questionnaire should be designed to attract and encourage the visitors to respond. To increase the responses a company should use strategies such as free newsletters and free membership. The questions/statements, upon which the respondent is expected to respond to, should be clear and the options for the response clearly provided. Use of graphics and visual aid can assist in designing an attractive online questionnaire that attracts responses. The identification of the potential customers upon whom the survey would be relevant is an important yet a complex undertaking. A survey should have the mechanism to ensure that the respondents whose data and collected and used in the analysis and discussion are relevant to the topic. A closed ended questionnaire on which the participants are offered multiple responses is best used in online survey to reduce the time spent by the respondents.
Electronic Customer Relationship
Electronic customer relationship is therefore an important undertaking in the modern world. Marketers should use the modern technology to reach out to the customers in a more effectively and create a long-term relationship. Long-term relationship plays a role in developing a pool of loyal customers and realization of sustainable sales and income. New e-CRM technologies assist the company to tailor customer experience to the individual customers. In support of the increased usage of the new concept, example on the number of companies that have succeeded in using Electronic customer relationship is required (Bauer, Grether & Leach, 2002). Nestle is one of the companies whose application of e-CRM technologies has been termed as a success. The application of the technologies has assisted in the reduction of number of phone calls, because the call center employees access information through the various channels into a single computer system. In another example, Amazon’s customer gets personalized recommendations for books based on the information on the customer needs as captured in the database.
Online Internet Marketing Plan
Hilton Hotel can make use of the internet marketing to improve its performance in the competitive hotel industry. An internet-marketing plan is therefore an important step upon which the management can systematically make use of the modern technologies. A number of aspects are of immense importance in internet marketing and hence should be incorporate in the plan. First, a communication strategy that assists in connecting the company and the customers is required. The communication strategy should assist in reaching out to the target market comprising of individuals, businesspersons, delegates and families going on vacations, and are likely to use the services offered by Hilton (Roberts & Zahay, 2012). Communication approaches including sharing sites, social media groups, internet message boards and specialized information groups are potential ways, which Hilton can reach to the target market. Secondly, an effective control of the communication and application of internet in marketing should be controlled. In this case, Hilton should have a well-organized and centrally controlled internet marketing system. A multi- level internet-marketing center upon which customer interaction centers, automated response to e- mail, sales force automation and field service automation are converged would be appropriate (Hamid, 2005). The internet-marketing center is critically important in that it can be used in establishing and authenticating information from various sources before sharing to members of the public and the target customers. Public relations and customer relationship will be merged into the internet marketing team to facilitate harmony and cost reduction while undertaking the important marketing activities.

References
Bauer,H. H.,Grether,M.,& Leach.M.(2002). Building customer relations over the Internet. Industrial Marketing Management, 31(2), pp. 155-163.
Bohling, T., D. Bowman, S. LaValle, V. Mittal, D., Narayandas, G. Ramani, & Varadarajan, R, (2006). CRM Implementation: Effectiveness Issues and Insights. Journal of Service Research, 9 (2). pp. 184-194
Buttle, F. (2009). Customer Relationship Management. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
Hamid, N, R, (2005). E-CRM: are we there yet? Journal of American Academy of Business, 6(1). pp. 1-7.
Miletsky, J. I. (2009). Principles of Internet marketing: New tools and methods for Web developers. Boston, Mass: Cengage Course Technology.
Muther, A. (2002). Customer Relationship Management: Electronic Customer Care in the New Economy. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Roberts, M. L., & Zahay, D. L. (2012). Internet marketing: Integrating online and offline strategies. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.