The e-marketing changes also need to include a customer forum area where the cafe's management asks for ways to improve and make their business more attractive to younger families. In keeping with the idea of making the cafe more accessible to younger families and students, offering free WiFi is a must-have. Students would stop in before classes started at the local high school to finish up homework, bringing their families for breakfast. In keeping with the change in image to being more innovative, free WiFi would attract a younger and more affluent customer base over time. Free WiFi would also be heavily promoted on the website as well.
The greatest measure of a successful e-marketing strategy is the ability to connect with and build collaboration with customers (Nadeem, 218). Web 2.0 technologies, tools and strategies as defined in Table 1 of the Appendix of this document need to also guide SMB's continual refining of e-marketing strategies to ensure they stay connected with customers and prospects. For Rockwell's specifically, the need to attract younger, affluent and Web-savvy customers will spell the difference between staying financially viable or not within the next five years. Research supports that the greater the level of e-marketing the greater the Return on Customer (ROC) investment (Nadeem, 218).
Brodie, Winklhofer, Coviello, Johnston, et.al) Rockwell's is in need of a complete refurbishing of their product and positioning strategies to ensure their new marketing campaigns will attract and retain a younger and more affluent family customer base that is Web-savvy.
Conclusions
Rockwell's Cafe and Bakery is much like the majority of SMBs in the U.S. And globally. With a small but loyal customer base and the Disneyland Resort being a major customer for their specialty cakes, Rockwell's has been comfortably myopic in their marketing efforts. Yet the customer base is aging rapidly and this small business must embrace aspects of e-marketing that immediately make them a viable choice for younger, affluent families in the city of Villa Park and Orange if they are to remain viable. Only by relying on an increasingly higher level of effort to also bring innovation to their services in the cafe (like offering free WiFi) and the developing of new menu items can Rockwell's hope to win over new customers. Ultimately Rockwell's need to realize that revitalizing their entire business to be more innovative and relying on e-marketing to assist in promoting their more innovative image is critical for their long-term viability.
Bibliography
Josh Bernoff, Charlene Li. "Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web" MIT Sloan Management Review 49.3 (2008): 36-42. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest 12 Jun. 2008
Roderick J. Brodie, Heidi Winklhofer, Nicole E. Coviello, Wesley J. Johnston. "Is e-marketing coming of age? An examination of the penetration of e-marketing and firm performance. " Journal of Interactive Marketing 21.1 (2007): 2. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 9 Jun. 2008
Mike Cooke, Nick Buckley. "Web 2.0, social networks and the future of market research. " International Journal of Market Research 50.2 (2008): 267.
ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest 7 Jun. 2008
Audrey Gilmore,...
"E-marketing and SMEs: operational lessons for the future. " European Business Review 19.3 (2007): 234-247. ABI/INFORM Global. 16 Jun. 2008
Andrew P. McAfee. "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. " MIT Sloan Management Review 47.3 (2006): 21-28. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 11 Jun. 2008
Mohammed M. Nadeem. "How E-Business Leadership Results in Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Lifetime Value. " the Business Review, Cambridge 6.1 (2006): 218-224. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 10 Jun. 2008
O'Reilly, Tim. What is Web 2.0. Design Patterns and Business Models fo the next generation of Software. Tim O'Reilly. September 30, 2005. Accessed from the Internet on June 14, 2008 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Appendix
TABLE 1:
WEB 2.0 APPLICATIONS
Applications
Descriptions
Blogs
Online diary or journal entry on the Internet, which primarily supports text, photo (photoblog), video (vlog), and audio (podcast) formats
Google, AOL, and Yahoo offer free blogging platforms
Mashup
Web service that gathers related content from more than one source
IBM's mashup applications enable project managers to match team resources with a map to identify the geographical locations of the resources
Peer-to-Peer Networking technique for effectively sharing music, audio, and text files
Napster and Gnutella are popular peer-to-peer networks
Real Simple Syndication (RSS)
Feed-based technology that, with the aid of an RSS reader, enables users to subscribe to newly released content such as text, Web pages, sound files, photos, and video
RSS feed may contain the full content, for example a podcast, or simply a link to the content
Social Media
Encompasses all online tools (blogs, podcasts, Wikis, social networks, vlogs) and Web sites enabling people to share content, such as text, audio, picture s, and videos
Popular social media sites include YouTube (video) and Flickr (photos)
Social Networking
Web sites that permit users to create online networks and communicate with friends and colleagues
Social networking sites include MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Friends Reunited, and business networking sites include LinkedIn and Ryze
Tagging
Allows users to bookmark or rate online content to share their recommendations with other online users
Typically used by publishers of media sites attempting to benefit from users' recommendations
Popularized by sites such as Digg and del.icio.us, which enable users to publish, categorize, and share their bookmarks
Wikis
Enables users to create and edit the content of a Web site, leveraging the expertise of online users
Consumer Wikis enable users to comment on content, in addition to editing content
Wikipedia, a community Wiki encyclopedia, includes approximately 1.3 million English-language articles
Sources: (Josh Bernoff, Charlene Li. et.al.) (O'Reilly, et.al.)
