Principles and Application of E-Marketing in SBL

6/8/22, 12:49 PM Principles and application of e-marketing in SBL | ACCA Global
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Principles and application of e-marketing in SBL
Principles and application of e-marketing in SBL

The Strategic Business Leader study guide (section on E-business: value chain)
considers e-business, with two of the learning outcomes specifically referring to e-
marketing. This article will focus on the following learning outcome:
Explore the characteristics of the media of e-marketing using the 6 ’I’s of Interactivity,
Intelligence, Individualisation, Integration, Industry structure and Independence of
location.[2]
In the SBL exam you will not earn marks for explaining the terms, but you do need to
understand them in order to apply them. Additionally, as technology and marketing
practices continue to evolve, it is important that candidates take note of the changing
environment in relation to any technological learning outcomes such as this.
The article will begin with an overview of how the characteristics of e-marketing differ
from traditional marketing, and then focuses on the practical application of e-marketing
in the context of an exam-style question.
https://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/student/exam-support-resources/professional-exams-study-resources/strategic-business-leader/technical-articl… 1/7
The characteristics of e-marketing: the 6 ‘I’s

The 6 ‘I’s refer to the characteristics making e-marketing different from other, perhaps
more traditional, forms of marketing. These characteristics are recognised for their ability
to provide enhanced results from marketing activity.
The 6 ‘I’s and how they differ from traditional marketing are displayed in Figure 1.
The ‘I’s E-marketing Traditional marketing
Intelligence E-marketing tools can be With traditional advertising,

used to gather much more businesses have no
information about a indication of how many
potential customer’s people were interested in
interests, by recording click the advert or at what point
patterns for example, and they stopped watching or
determining at what point a reading the marketing
customer loses interest. material.
This helps to inform future
product decisions as a
result.
Individualisation This refers to the ability to Traditional marketing

aim marketing directly at cannot be targeted
different individuals. The individually, only at specific
use of customised home groups of people through –
pages or responsive for example, the
advertising allows for this programme choice (TV
through technology and advertising) or publication
ensures the marketing is choice.
more relevant to each, and
therefore more likely to be
successful. This can also
be linked to the intelligence
gathered through e-
marketing.
Integration Marketing can be linked to Separate steps have to be

other activities – for taken with traditional
example, ‘click here to buy’ marketing in order to
or ‘see upgrade options’. It convert it into a sale – for

can also allow the example, make a phone
integration between call, go into a shop.
companies – for example,
book discounted services
with partner organisation.
Interactivity E-marketing is ‘pull’ Traditional marketing is

marketing in which the ‘push’ marketing with the
recipient of the marketing message being broadcast
can participate in it – for to the potential customer
example, by chatting with a rather than being sought
bot, or clicking on different by them. The aim is to try
links or entering search and ‘sell’ rather than
terms. This interactivity provide a solution to a
can lead to greater customer’s specific
intelligence. requirements.
Independence of location E-marketing can cover Whilst traditional marketing

broad geographical can cover wide
boundaries and could geographical areas this
actually allow for delivery may still need access to
of some products or local sales forces.
services – for example, Additionally, it will be
online training courses, but expensive to reach
companies still need to broader markets using
consider whether their traditional marketing as
product is suitable for different methods of
boundaryless marketing – advertising may be needed
for example, a large to reach different markets.
physical product with
expensive shipping may
not lend itself to this.
Industry structure E-marketing can lead to Traditional marketing

changes in an industry supports traditional
allowing for industry structure.
disintermediation and the
growth of consumer-to-
consumer business
models.
Figure 1: The 6 ‘I’s – comparison between traditional marketing and e-marketing
Practical application of e-marketing to an exam-style task

In SBL exams, candidates are provided with a variety of exhibits. Tasks may relate to
one or more exhibit and it is important for candidates to recognise which particular
exhibits may provide some assistance in responding to a given task. Additionally, the
task itself may provide some clues. For example, if the term ‘e-marketing’ appears in the
wording of the task it might suggest a potential to use the 6 ‘I’s within your response.
However, and this cannot be emphasised strongly enough, a model such as this should
only be used if it fits the context in which the question is being asked. Consider the
following three tasks:
Task 1 – Explain how e-marketing may be used to grow market share for ABC
Company.
Task 2 – Evaluate the benefits of e-marketing in the introduction of the new
business opportunity.
Task 3 – ABC has decided to develop an e-marketing strategy. Evaluate this
decision from a financial perspective.
Task 1 has a clear goal, specifically the growth of market share, and as such any
response should be made within that context. The wording used is to ‘explain how' so
the response needs to give some practical suggestions for this. The breadth is the entire
organisation so a number of exhibits are likely to provide some assistance with this
response.
Task 2 has different context entirely. There is no ‘goal’ of e-marketing as such; the
business opportunity is being introduced regardless so that is not the aim of the e-
marketing activity. You are simply being asked to discuss to what extent e-marketing will
be of benefit in this instance. Here, you need to consider the benefits themselves and
provide an evaluation of them – for example, how beneficial will they be? Are the
expected benefits likely to materialise, and if so, to what extent? Are there any potential
problems or disbenefits associated with the suggestions? The breadth is a single
initiative, the launch of a new business opportunity, and therefore the exhibits you need
to assist with your response are likely to be more specifically related to this business
opportunity.
Task 3 is the evaluation of e-marketing as a business strategy in its own right. The
context is from a financial perspective only, so all responses would need to incorporate
this context.
Now we need to consider whether the 6 ‘I’s can be used in response to these tasks.
Task 1 – Explain how e-marketing may be used to grow market share for ABC Company
It is unlikely that the use of all of the ‘I’s will be useful in this instance, and indeed they
may form more of the extension of the point rather than be a specific heading within the
response. For example, ‘Industry structure’ may not be applicable as this is about
growing market-share, not necessarily changing the nature of the industry, and industry
structure itself is not an explanation of how ABC Company itself could use e-marketing,
more of a characteristic of e-marketing. Therefore, it may not be useful to include in the
response.
Similarly, it would be of no benefit to discuss individualisation by simply listing the

information from Figure 1 above; this would neither explain how e-marketing would be
used (it is a characteristic, not a method), nor would it justify the inclusion in terms of
how it would grow market share.
However, consider a response to Task 1 which reads:
'ABC Company could use search functions and chatbots within their website to
determine what customers are interested in, and what questions they may have about
existing products. This could lead to two benefits for the company, enabling growth:
i) The activity itself could lead to the potential customer making a purchase, as the chat
bot may respond to their questions immediately leading to an instant purchase. The
inclusion of a ‘BUY NOW’ link would make it easy to translate the intent to purchase into
an action. Without this combination of interactivity and integration the customer may
not have returned to make a purchase. Thus, the conversion of intent to action could
lead to an increase in market-share for ABC.
ii) ABC could record and analyse the data gathered from the search terms and also the
click patterns of visitors to the website, gaining valuable intelligence. Using the
information from this analysis, the company could adjust and improve future product
offerings leading to enhanced sales, and growth in market share.'
Note how in the above response, the focus is on the ‘how’ (search functions and
chatbots) and in what way these will lead to growth. The use of the 6 ‘I’s is almost of
secondary importance but displays understanding and awareness of the characteristics
of e-marketing being employed. Indeed, some parts of the response, or practical
suggestions for growth, may make no reference to the 6 ‘I’s at all.
Task 2 – Evaluate the benefits of e-marketing in the introduction of the new business
opportunity
This lends itself much more clearly to a structure using the 6 ‘I’s (or some of them) as
headings, but candidates should not discard additional headings they believe to be
relevant. It is important to not feel constrained by a model or to try and make it fit the
task, when maybe it doesn’t in all aspects.
Task 2 may be approached in the following way:
Integration
ABC could use integration to make customers aware of its new service and encourage
them to buy. ABC could incorporate marketing into its existing website. Existing
customers could be offered an option to try the new service by clicking a link on the
website page or selecting a check box on the order page. This may lead to existing
customers also purchasing the new service in future. However, given that these are
entirely unrelated businesses it is unlikely that there will be a high conversion rate and
the benefit from this aspect of e-marketing could be very small.
In the response to task 2, the characteristic of e-marketing is used as a sub-heading. As

this question requires evaluation of the benefits, the response starts by explaining what
benefits may arise, and how. It then goes on to discuss how much of a benefit this really
is.
Task 3 – ABC has decided to develop an e-marketing strategy. Evaluate this decision
from a financial perspective
This task would be supported by financial information. Candidates would need to
determine the relevant financial data, for example an investment appraisal, from the
exhibits in the examination, in order to respond to this task.
A response to this may be as follows:
Revenue
It is suggested that e-marketing will bring additional revenue of $x million over the next
five years. Revenue is forecast to grow exponentially over those five years, which is
unlikely to be justified by an e-marketing strategy alone. Year five shows a forecast 25%
increase in revenue over the current year, in what appears to be a mature market. It is
questionable whether this revenue increase would be achieved.
In the response to task 3, notice that there is no specific detail of the characteristics of e-
marketing. The focus is entirely on the financial evaluation in relation to the strategy.
In summary, SBL candidates must take note of the context of each task before deciding
on an approach to answering. The three tasks above all include the term ‘e-marketing’
within the requirements, but the tasks would be answered in very different ways. It is
important not just to see the term and list the 6 ‘I’s but to firstly determine how important
each of those 6 ‘I’s are in responding to the task (eg not at all in task 3) and secondly,
how they can be applied to the context of the task. It is unlikely that any marks will be
awarded for simply describing the characteristics.
Written by a member of the Strategic Business Leader examining team
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6/8/22, 12:49 PM Principles and application of e-marketing in SBL | ACCA Global

Passing Strategic Professional exams

How to approach Strategic Business Leader

Principles and application of e-marketing in SBL

The characteristics of e-marketing: the 6 ‘I’s

The ‘I’s E-marketing Traditional marketing

Intelligence E-marketing tools can be With traditional advertising,

Individualisation This refers to the ability to Traditional marketing

Integration Marketing can be linked to Separate steps have to be

or ‘see upgrade options’. It convert it into a sale – for

Interactivity E-marketing is ‘pull’ Traditional marketing is

Independence of location E-marketing can cover Whilst traditional marketing

Industry structure E-marketing can lead to Traditional marketing

Figure 1: The 6 ‘I’s – comparison between traditional marketing and e-marketing

Practical application of e-marketing to an exam-style task

Similarly, it would be of no benefit to discuss individualisation by simply listing the

However, consider a response to Task 1 which reads:

Task 2 may be approached in the following way:

In the response to task 2, the characteristic of e-marketing is used as a sub-heading. As

A response to this may be as follows:

Written by a member of the Strategic Business Leader examining team

Our sites Useful links

myACCA Make a payment

ACCA mail Our qualifications

ACCA Careers Find an accountant

ACCA Career Navigator ACCA Rulebook

ACCA Learning Community Contact us

Your Future Help & support

ACCA-X online courses Work for us

Legal & copyright

Planned system updates

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