Integrated E-Marketing Plan: Developing an E-Marketing Plan for Competing in the Electronic Global Marketplace

Prepared for Rhapsody- online music subscription

By: Carla Lowman

Date: June 25, 2011

Table of Contents

Starting an e-business in the Electronic Global Marketplace: Completing an Integrated e-Marketing Plan............1

Executive Summary.............................................................................................................................................................3

Selection of the e-business for the Project......................................................................................................................5

Environmental Analysis of the Marketplace...................................................................................................................6

Targeted Market Segmentation..................................................................................................................................... 13

Consideration of Placement Decisions......................................................................................................................... 14

Consideration of Product Decisions...............................................................................................................................16

Consideration of Pricing Decisions.................................................................................................................................18

Analysis of Innovative Promotional Communication Tools........................................................................................20

Implementation and Measurement of Strategic Goals..............................................................................................24

Conclusions and Recommendations ............................................................................................................................27

Appendices ......................................................................................................................................................................28

Executive Summary

This is my first attempt to execute an e-marketing plan for the online subscription Rhapsody. As I put the plan together, it looks as though my attempt has been successful, and I am very proud, that I did not give up when it was difficult to understand what I was executing as a whole. Rhapsody was the first music subscription service to offer unlimited access to a large library of digital music for a flat monthly rate. It started in December 2001 and has been growing since, along with several competitors including the Channel Captain, iTunes, who out sold Rhapsody because of the introduction of the iPod.

In the e-plan you will see an Environmental Analysis of the Marketplace, which will include: the economy, political and legal factors, socio-cultural factors, technological factors, Micro-environmental factors about the e-business and a SWOT analysis. In this section of the e-plan, what was very interesting to me and stood out was the buying ability, an economic factor. Real One the company behind Rhapsody, pioneered in the development of the latest technology in digital media. They spend 30% of total revenues on research and development technologies to keep up in the market. This would include Targeted Market Segmentation I found out that user status, a database that collects consumer activities, is the most powerful base for segmenting the digital marketplace, along with demographic and lifestyle segments. Using the database of demographic information and the consumers lifestyle will help the business target potential customers through their musical interests.

In the consideration of placement decisions, I discovered a new term in the digital marketplace called "The Long Tail." A Table of the Anatomy of the Long Tail is included in the appendices for your viewing. This long Tail has proven to be a great benefit in profitability for online digital media. A Bricks-and -Mortar store cannot hold the vast amounts of physical CD's. Its different for digital stores they can hold millions of music media that are rarely listened to, waiting to be downloaded or streamed into someone's ears to enjoy and the long tail has proven that in the Global Marketplace there are many consumers worldwide that are doing exactly that.

Also included in my e-plan will be consideration of product decisions and pricing decisions. In the product decisions I will discuss the Market-Mix, features and services that Rhapsody offers, the Brands identity and the extended qualities of the e-business. I will discuss the method to establish price and price reductions. I will attempt to identify discounts and justification for them also, the profit margin, because of todays technology and continuous changes and upgrades, the margin tends to fluctuate.

This is why an analysis of innovative promotional communication tools will also be in my e-plan to explain advantages and disadvantages of internet-supported communication tools and non-PC Electronic Communication tools.

Lastly, will be the implementation and measurement of strategic goals, along with my conclusion and recommendations.

Selection of the e-Business for the Project

I have conducted an extensive online research of the Music Industry and I have identified an underperforming company that would benefit from an e-marketing plan. My choice is Rhapsody. I will first describe what has happened to the music industry concerning the sales and distribution of music since the age of the Internet.

Technology and the Internet have drastically changed the way consumers purchase music, or how they acquire the music. Along with the World Wide Web came piracy, illegal downloading music files free. Napster is a well-known website that affected the sales and distribution of major record companies in a negative way, this model was a person-to-person (P2P) model with no purchasing involved, people sharing files with people. Napster allowed free downloads of millions of songs at the consumer's fingertips. These new developments in technology: Mp3