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The Internet Bullseye Marketing Modelsm is a framework that can provide you with a detailed assessment of the potential roadblocks to profitably selling your products and/or services on the Internet. (Read an overview of the model. Go to the Scorecard.)
 
The Internet Bullseye Market Modelsm Scorecard for 

Member Services from ACERT
(The Association of Campus Emergency Response Teams of Canada)

Bullseye
The Internet Bullseye Marketing Model Contains 99 Criteria to Help You Determine if Your Offering is an e-Commerce:
Gold Mine
Gold Mine
or Land Mine.
Land Mine

How can this model help your company?
 

        Product or Service Being Scored on this Page

Company Name:  Association of Campus Emergency Response Teams of Canada (ACERT)

Industry:  Charitable Sector, Emergency Health Services

Product Name:  (Charity) Member Services

City and Country of Operations:  London, Ontario, Canada (virtual office)

Countries Being Targeted:  Canada


Note1: The "% Score" refers to how close the score for that row came to being a perfect fit for Internet e-commerce (score of 100%) or how close it came to being a very bad fit for Internet e-commerce (score of minus 100%). The score is calculated for each row as follows:
If "Actual Score" is a positive number:  Actual Score  ÷  Maximum Score  X  100  =  Percentage Score.
If "Actual Score" is a zero: Percentage Score is zero as well.
If "Actual Score" is a negative number:  Actual Score  ÷  Minimum Score  X  Negative 100  =  Negative Percentage Score.

Note2: "Rank" refers to a ranking order of the percentage score column starting with the criteria that is the best fit for Internet e-commerce (rank = 1) to the criteria that is the worst fit for Internet e-commerce (rank = 6).

Note3: The Internet e-Commerce Fit is calculated by using the “Sub-Total” numbers in Table 1.

The Internet Bullseye Marketing Model

Plotting the Final Internet Bullseye Marketing Model Score Results

Once you have calculated the score for the e-commerce fit of your offering and the e-commerce readiness of your company, you are ready to plot the final Internet Bullseye Marketing Model results on the two-by-two chart shown below. In the case of Member Services from ACERT, the final result would be plotted in Quadrant #3 at the intersection of 28 (x-axis) and 34 (y-axis), marked by a red "X" with a circle around it on the image below.

Bullseye Results Chart

Notice the four quadrants labelled 1 through 4. The most desirable score is highlighted by the bullseye graphic in the top right corner of quadrant 2 – the offering is an excellent fit and the corporation is highly ready. Score results that land in any other quadrant require an aggressive set of e-business strategies and tactics in order to improve your chances of e-commerce success.

A result in quadrant 4 requires your company to focus on improving your corporate e-commerce readiness. A result in quadrant 1 requires your company to focus on improving your offering fit. And a result in quadrant 3 requires your company to focus both on improving your corporate e-commerce readiness and on improving your offering fit. Or, in some cases (especially results in quadrant 3), it may make more sense to forsake Internet e-commerce and pursue other objectives such as e-branding and moving your prospects through the sales cycle.

In the case of Member Services from ACERT, ACERT should focus on improving both their offering fit and their corporate e-commerce readiness in order to improve their chances of e-commerce success. ACERT could also choose to abandon their online e-commerce plans and instead focus on the earlier phases of the sales cycle and on e-branding. Since Member Services falls in quadrant 3, but very close to the origin, it still may be feasible for ACERT to proceed with an e-commerce strategy. The difficulty will be needing to improve on two dimensions (i.e. offering fit and corporate e-commerce readiness)  in order to increase their chances of success.

Analysis

1.  Reasons Why This Offering is a Good Fit for Internet e-Commerce

These criteria of the Internet Bullseye Marketing Model suggest that Member Services from ACERT are a good fit for Internet e-Commerce:

ACERT has an already established vertical portal, or vortal, web site. This is mostly because the organization operates in a virtual fashion, with a virtual office, Board members and staff spread throughout the country and members (customers) who access information and services via the Internet because it is easier and faster than traditional methods of distribution. ACERT has no known online competitors.

This makes e-Commerce a natural area of investigation. ACERT primarily targets existing customers as it has an extremely loyal customer base. ACERT gains approximately one new member each year. It expects growth to be much more substantial in the next 3-5 years however.

ACERT's members are youth - they are college and university students. Therefore, they are technologically savvy, but they aren't known to make purchases on the Internet as frequently as the baby boomer generation. However, college and university students are known to have a large disposable income.

Finally, although ACERT didn't score extremely high on any criterion in the Corporate e-Commerce Readiness section, it also didn't have any negative scores in that section. Therefore, ACERT is Somewhat Ready as an organization for e-Commerce and especially in the area of existing internal knowledge base for e-Commerce.

2.  Reasons Why This Offering is a Poor Fit for Internet e-Commerce

These criteria of the Internet Bullseye Marketing Model suggest that Member Services from ACERT are a poor fit for Internet e-Commerce:

The major obstacle that ACERT faces is that it is a very small and young organization. It has been in existence for about 6 years and has been a registered charity for 4 of those years. Its human resources are very stretched (all staff are volunteers) as are its financial resources, with annual revenues of less than $10,000. Low revenues affect the ability of ACERT to create and maintain an e-Commerce web site, advertise its online offerings, and maintain the back end infrastructure (i.e. hardware) required for the web site.

Also, the charitable sector, and specifically the Member Services that ACERT provides its customers, often require (or at least benefit from) a personal touch between the charity and its members. ACERT has already experienced this phenomenon through increased e-mail use and decreased telephone use.

3.  Tactics that ACERT Should Implement in Order to Improve Their e-Commerce (and/or e-Business) Success Rate

These are some specific tactics that ACERT should implement in order to maximize their e-Commerce success:

The first step that ACERT must take before an e-Commerce launch is strengthening its e-Branding techniques. It should thus create a detailed strategy to this end and operationalize it well before the e-Commerce web site is developed. Coupled with this is a general increase in marketing and advertising of the organization's offerings and purpose. Some of this can be subsidized (partially) by government grants.

A cost-benefit analysis is another step that ACERT must take before venturing into e-Commerce. With few current customers it may be best for ACERT to begin planning for e-Commerce but put off implementation for another 3-5 years once the customer base begins to increase.

Since Member Services from ACERT often require the use of the 5 senses or a trial period, the best way to combat this obstacle is to offer money back guarantees on all online offerings and have a component of the offering (such as a couple of chapters out of the "Start a Team Package") available for free for a trial period. This is of course to improve acquisition of new customers and wouldn't be necessary for existing members.

Creating strategic alliances with other organizations is something that ACERT has been wanting to do for about 2-3 years now, but it hasn't been able to allocate the appropriate resources. If ACERT is serious about e-Commerce it will have to strengthen its alliances, and create new ones, so its online presence and offerings can be distributed beyond ACERT.ca

Making some enhancements to the current web site (prior to adding e-Commerce functionality) can also be of tremendous benefit to ACERT. It can make customized web pages for its members and it can also enhance its free offerings to increase traffic to its site. After all, as a charity it has a mandate to support, promote and advocate emergency care on Canadian post-secondary campuses. This mission statement says nothing about catering only to its members.

Finally, as noted above, operating over the Internet results in a loss of the personal touch. People want interaction, and ACERT needs to still provide that "service" with its offering. It can do this by placing a telephone call or sending personalized e-mail messages after an e-Commerce sale has been made.

Credits/Author
The author of this report is Alex Drossos. It is based on the Internet Bullseye Marketing Model created by Tom Vassos. Alex Drossos completed this work as partial fulfillment towards an MBA degree at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. This report was written for the course called Marketing in Electronic Commerce, taught by Tom Vassos, author of the book Strategic Internet Marketing. There are also several more research reports available that cover the results for other products and services. Your feedback is welcome.

© 2002 Alex Drossos
© 2002 UofEbusiness.com