In their book titled ‘Marketing Excellence’, Chaffey and Smith (2001) developed the 5s of digital marketing to provide a more effective internet marketing strategy.
Their model is focused on increasing brand presence, client engagement and ultimately boosting online transactions through 5 objectives:
Sell - > distribute your product and services online
Serve - > provide value to customers
Speak - > attract and engage customers with outstanding content
Save - > help where customers save time and money via online channels
Sizzle - > build and enhance your brand online
There are clear benefits to be achieved with the implementation of the 5s.
Let’s have a look at them individually.
1. Sell
This is the ultimate goal for any organisation. E-marketing can enhance both sales experience and sales volume, boosting the bottom line. Focus your efforts and budget on developing effective online sales channels.
The main objective here to develop a sell strategy is to increase their sales volume, reduce costs, achieve higher distribution efficiency and compete online more effectively.
2. Serve
Provide a great online service to your customers. Be present and responsive, offer a real time service.
The ‘serve’ objective can be delivered via online chats for assistance, transactions or complaints. The level and quality of online services can be measured through customer satisfaction scores and levels of interaction.
3. Speak
To develop your business online, you must engage with prospects and clients with relevant content. Content marketing has become one of the most effective tactics to lead generation.
The first objective here is to attract customers and raise brand awareness. So produce and distribute engaging content through the channels that are more relevant to your customers, like social media, e-commerce sites and micro sites.
4. Save
Time and money are key factors that influence purchase decisions.
Customers today can get information very quickly and make their purchase online at any time from anywhere.
5. Sizzle
Last but not least is your ability as a business to improve the online user experience online.
This strengthens your brand and leads to increased business via referrals.
Chaffey and Smith’s model of the 5s in digital marketing can be a great framework to attract and retain your customers online.
So listen to your clients' needs and provide an always-on, interactive and easy-to-use service.