KEY SUCCESS FACTORS IN DIGITAL MARKETING IN SERVICE INDUSTRY AND THE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES: A CASE STUDY ON FLEUR DE CHINE AT SUN MOON LAKE

Abstract

The digital marketing environment is formed because of the popularity of network infrastructure, the enhancement of connecting bandwidth, wireless network, the dense coverage of mobile signal base stations, the decrease of connecting charge, and the increase of mobile phone users and network users. Enterprises attempt to grasp the opportunities for such new marketing media. Nevertheless, digital marketing cannot unchangeably transplant the marketing experiences of traditional mass media because of the numerous varieties and different properties, with which the users would change the behaviors under digital environments. Such factors, on the other hand, connect and affect each other that it might yield the twice results with half efforts by understanding the idea of digital marketing, mastering the characteristics of digital marketing media, and realizing the key success factors in digital marketing to develop the strategies of digital marketing media combination. The department supervisors and employees in Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake are investigated in this study. Total 120 copies of questionnaires are distributed, and 77 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 64?. The research results show the hierarchical weight ranking of the assessment indicators as 1. Interesting Title, 2. Low Technical Requirements, 3. Customer Privacy, 4. I nstant Information, 5. Personalized Characteristics, 6. Exclusive Interoperability, 7. Entertaining, 8. Clear and Simple, 9. Omnidirectional Options, 10. Cross-industry Cooperation, 11. Marketing Integration, 12. Request for Response, and 13. Customer Exclusive Notes.

Headnote

Abstract

The digital marketing environment is formed because of the popularity of network infrastructure, the enhancement of connecting bandwidth, wireless network, the dense coverage of mobile signal base stations, the decrease of connecting charge, and the increase of mobile phone users and network users. Enterprises attempt to grasp the opportunities for such new marketing media. Nevertheless, digital marketing cannot unchangeably transplant the marketing experiences of traditional mass media because of the numerous varieties and different properties, with which the users would change the behaviors under digital environments. Such factors, on the other hand, connect and affect each other that it might yield the twice results with half efforts by understanding the idea of digital marketing, mastering the characteristics of digital marketing media, and realizing the key success factors in digital marketing to develop the strategies of digital marketing media combination.

The department supervisors and employees in Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake are investigated in this study. Total 120 copies of questionnaires are distributed, and 77 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 64?. The research results show the hierarchical weight ranking of the assessment indicators as 1. Interesting Title, 2. Low Technical Requirements, 3. Customer Privacy, 4. I nstant Information, 5. Personalized Characteristics, 6. Exclusive Interoperability, 7. Entertaining, 8. Clear and Simple, 9. Omnidirectional Options, 10. Cross-industry Cooperation, 11. Marketing Integration, 12. Request for Response, and 13. Customer Exclusive Notes.

Key words: service industry, digital marketing, key success factor, development strategy

Research Background and Motivation

The development of the Internet has networks become an essential element in the life. Life information or interpersonal information could be propagated through networks, which therefore become an important channel for the public collecting information and are gradually developing more diverse application services. The progress of the Internet makes new changes for business models and marketing in hotel service industry. With the trend of applying electronic systems and the fiercely competitive environments in hotel service industry, enterprises need to master customer demands and behaviors in time. The Internet provides a favorable transaction and communication channel, which allows the communication between the enterprise and customers through the interactivity of the Internet so that the provided products and services better conform to personal demands and enhance the message exchange among customers. The customer word-of-mouth therefore generates different benefits. The future development of online service businesses is expectable. How could hotel service industry provide the most valuable services in the fiercely competitive global market? In addition to provide richer tourism information and quality services to attract the purchase of consumers, the establishment of corporate image and brand awareness is also a key factor in the development strategies. More than three-fourth of online shoppers mentioned that the purchase of products related to a tourist hotel relied on the online information. In this case, it is worth noticing to reinforce consumers' purchase confidence and the wordof-mouth of hotel service industry with favorable digital marketing.

Marketers are losing the confidence in the complex marketing environments and media environments. Traditional marketing gradually passivates the marketing effectiveness that the emergence of new marketing tools and media are urgently eager. To some degree, digital marketing brings the expectation. Since 2009, advertising agencies and media agencies have turned such expectations to strong involvement (Adm DigitalxCreative, 2010). When the network infrastructure becomes popular, the formation of digital environments is closely related to the life (Cotler& Rizzo, 2010; Kim, Jeong, &Lee, 2010). The emergence of various digital marketing media technologies forces an enterprise searching for new digital marketing models and re-confirming the status of the enterprise in digital environments. The digital marketing competition becomes the contest of virtual channels; one understands more of digital marketing and masters the characteristics of digital marketing media could have better advantages. Meanwhile, how virtual channels are treated, how digital marketing is executed, how digital marketing media are operated, and what the key success factors in digital marketing are in hotel service industry are the primary issues in this study.

Literature Review

Definition of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a different marketing based on the essence of marketing that the meaning of marketing is first understood in this study. American Marketing Association (AMA) defined marketing as the organizational function, which generates a series of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers, and managing customer relationship as well as has the stakeholders of an organization acquire profits (Solomon et al., 2006). Kotler (2009), a marketing scholar, proposed 12 concepts for marketing, including (1) Marketplace, Marketspace, and Metamarket, (2) Marketers and Prospects, (3) Needs, Wants, and Demands, (4) Product, Offering, and Brand, (5) Value and Satisfaction, (6) Exchange and Transactions, (7) Relationships and Networks, (8) Marketing Channels, (9) Supply Chain, (10) Competition, (11) Marketing Environment, and (12) Marketing Program (Dwivedi & Merrilees, 2013).

Huang (2009) pointed out digital marketing as a non-traditional marketing model. Generally speaking, marketing activities using information technology and digital instruments could be regarded as digital marketing (Blickle et al., 2009). Digital marketing is affected by marketing, technology, and economics; and, an enterprise could foresee and plan the Internet marketing architecture according to the trend of digitalization, networking, and personalization (Liu, 2007).

Lin (2009) called the marketing behaviors in the digital era as e-marketing, i.e. an individual or an enterprise transmitting data, information, knowledge, and intelligence through digital instruments, largely selling to consumers through formalization, and further changing the purchase decision for marketing activities (Lin, 2009). It was stated in Business Next (2011) that evolution appeared when digital media channels were used for most marketing in a company. Digital media channels could be addressed and allowed marketers proceeding continuous, two-way, and personalized conversations with consumers. Chiang, the executive and business supervisor of Medialand, considered that digital marketing presented the characteristics of viscous and loyal media, high interactivity, smaller restrictions to the production scale, and the sole medium whose effectiveness could be inspected (Business Next, 2011).

When discussing digital marketing, the difference with traditional marketing is often associated. Comparing to traditional marketing, Huang pointed out three characteristics of digital marketing. (1) High Efficiency. Informatization instruments could assist marketers in the vertical and horizontal integration. (2) Penetrating Power. Various types of media and communication channels allowed marketers more easily contacting with potential customers. (3) Interactivity. The realtime information measurement allowed the potential customers' demands being more accurately and personalized responded (Chailom& Kaiwinit, 2011). Accordingly, the three characteristics of digital marketing proposed by Huang (2009) are utilized as the research dimensions in this study.

Key Success Factors In Digital Marketing

The interactive and interdisciplinary characteristics of digital marketing constantly warm up the digital marketing effect. The key of digital marketing is to allow an enterprise's advertising information being highly exposed. To effectively achieve the anticipated digital marketing effect, the characteristics of digital marketing media need to be thoroughly understood. Nonetheless, there are various types of digital marketing media, and the classifications are distinct that different discussions about digital marketing media have been proposed.

Flanagan (2003) proposed several methods to enhance digital marketing effects with electronic mails.

(1) Interesting mail titles. A welldesigned mail title would urge people to read, and a lengthy title which could reduce reading willingness should be avoided.

(2) Establishment of customer exclusive notes. The list of all customers and potential consumers should be firmly mastered for filing the database so as to deliver electronic mails with distinct information to different customers.

(3) Seeking allowance and maintaining customer privacy. The Opt-Out function should be provided for customers in the first electronic mails in order to respect the choice of customers, and the personal information in the list could not be spread or sold to others.

(4) Entertaining mails. Popular music or animations could be built in the mail to promote the marketing products or services.

(5) Personalizing mails with clearness and simplicity. Personalized mails could enhance the relationship between customers and advertisement as well as promote the response rate. However, the mail content should not be lengthy.

(6) Request for response. Efficient electronic mail communication could be established on the favorable relationship with customers. The receivers could be invited to click on the hyperlink to a webpage where detailed information and personalized pages are designed so that the receiver feels being respected.

(7) Not attaching files. The use of hyperlinks could lead customers to understand detailed information, as a lot of mail systems are restricted to the capacity that the attached files are often deleted.

According to the functions and characteristics of mobile phones, Wertine & Fenwick (2008) proposed 10 major points for digital marketing (Tian & Borges, 2012).

(1) To clarify the total control of the personalized device for customers. Mobile phones were highly personalized devices, with which the acceptance of mobile marketing was voluntary. Customer demands, expectations, and objectives were the driving force of mobile marketing, while the fundamental demand was "receiving agreement".

(2) Utilization of personalized characteristics in mobile phones. A mobile phone represented the "individual" of the user. The background data of the mobile phone user were the precious data, allowing businesses proceeding effective personalized marketing through mobile communications (Brown, 2011).

(3) Establishment of local mobile phones and the exterior interoperability. Mobile marketing aimed at instant satisfaction, the lock of exterior customers, and the time point of purchase behaviors.

(4) Identification of instant information really meaningful to consumers. Being clear of consumer demands and providing the required services and information could induce the active responses of consumers.

(5) Well-use of waiting time. Modern people were accustomed to use mobile devices for killing time during the waiting time. Mobile phones could relatively attract consumer attention.

(6) Not making spam message. Both mobile phones and electronic mails presented the potential of active promotion. However, inaccurate, improper, or useless messages could reduce the efficiency and trust of media. A business therefore had to avoid the marketing message becoming spam message.

(7) Omni-directional considerations of all mobile options. The point was to have consumers actively contact, cut in the points with short responses, provide consumers with benefits, and build in interactive relationship with consumers.

(8) Integration with other marketing. Marketing with mobile phones was merely a part of marketing; an overall marketing should be focused.

(9) Cooperation with other businesses. Activities beneficial to all cooperative partners in the mobile circle should be created.

(10) Being effective with other broadcast channels not meaning the effectiveness of mobile phones. It was necessary to understand the essence of mobile phones. Some TV-played films might not be played on mobile phones because of the screen scale (Nielsen, 2012).

Kotler & Armstrong (2013) stated that digital media rapidly growing globally lied in the "use" with following characteristics (Chou, 2005; Hsieh, 2006).

(1) Low Technical Requirements. The "publication" process was simplified for the easy creation of an individual, without the technical ability of webpage compiling design, and to easily use blogs.

(2) Personalized cross-platform interaction. A blog allowed the user constructing texts, links, pictures, music, and even videos to reach the media spirit and the panel autonomy.

(3) Real-time publication and sharing. A blog allowed publishing real-time message. Besides, it not only allowed the author publishing the opinions and ideas, but could have the friends exchange with each other.

(4) Multiple applications. Diverse contents covered politics, living, network technology, literature, and art comments. Moreover, a blog could be used for making network camera and news diary.

Digital marketing media would appear different results because of distinct classifications. Such abundant varieties of digital marketing media and the distinct characteristics allow the users following the characteristics to operate. Among digital marketing media, mobile phones, mobile devices, and community websites are often proposed by researchers that they are regarded as the trend of modern and future media to plan the digital marketing strategies in advance.

Hotel Characteristics

Hotels are the enterprise with comprehensive arts. Regardless the scale, they reveal the consistent goal of providing the public with services for clothing, food, accommodation, education, entertainment, and customer demands. From a part of Act for the Development of Tourism, "tourist hotel enterprises" are defined in Article 2 Item 7 as a profit-taking enterprise providing tourists with lodging and related services. Yang (1983) defined hotels as public facilities offering accommodation, food and drink, and other services. Chan (1992) considered hotels as public facilities which acquired reasonable profits by supplying services of meal and accommodation.

Wen (1993) also regarded hotel enterprises as service industry with the following characteristics.

(1) Intangibility. Services were intangible products and normally a kind of behaviors that they were more difficult to set the consistent quality than tangible products. Customers could not see, touch, and hear the content and value of services before the purchase. Sometimes, it was hard to judge a tourist hotel after purchasing the services.

(2) Inseparability. Services were close- ly related to the providers or machines. Normally, a server and the ones being served had to complete services at the same time and location. In other words, services were the process of activities, and the provision and consumption of services occurred spontaneously.

(3) Variability. Same services would appear distinct changes by time, locations, providers, and customers; besides, most services required the contact between servers and consumers. The emotion, attitudes, skills, and spirits of service personnel were different, and consumers would show different perception according to the time and space that there was great variance in services.

(4) Perishability. Services normally could not be stored. In terms of demand and supply, when demands were less than supply, abundant rooms could not be stored as stocks that the loss could not be made up. On the other hand, when demands exceeded supply, some consumers might not have available rooms (products). Moreover, excessive demands would directly affect the service quality of service personnel as well as the classification, development, and management of a hotel enterprise.

Development Strategies Of Hotels And Tourist Hotel Enterprises

According to different management systems, domestic hotel enterprises are divided into tourist hotel enterprises and regular hotel enterprises. The former refers to "a profit-taking enterprise that operates international tourist hotels or regular tourist hotels to provide tourists with lodging and related services". The latter refers to profit-making businesses, in addition to tourist hotel enterprises, which offer accommodation and rest and being licensed by the central administrative authority. This research sample, Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake, is a tourist hotel enterprise; the development is described as below.

(1) Conducting tourist hotel rating assessment. To guide tourist hotel enterprises with balanced development of software and hardware and enhance the product quality so that visitors could select the suitable consumption value, Ministry of Transportation and Communications formulates the tourist hotel rating assessment standards and has the tourism bureaus and local governments conduct the rating assessment of international tourist hotels and regular tourist hotels.

(2) Guiding the brand image of tourist hotel enterprises. According to various tax preferences in Act for Industry Enhancement, tourist hotel enterprises are guided for chains, strategic alliance, or ISO9000 certification to establish the international brand image. Tourist hotels are also guided to improve the pollution prevention and energy conservation measures so as to conform to the global trend of Green Hotel.

Research Design And Methodology

Delphi Method

According to above factors in digital marketing, Delphi Method is applied to establish the AHP criteria. Delphi Method, also named expert survey, is a communication method with which all questions are individually mailed to experts for the comprehensive opinions; such opinions and predicted questions are feedback to the experts for more opinions; and, the experts would revise the original opinions according to the comprehensive opinions. After several runs, a comparatively consistent prediction result is acquired as the decision.

Based on the system programming, anonymous opinions are applied to Delphi Method. That is, there is no discussion among experts, but merely relationship with the researcher. After repeatedly inquiring, concluding, and revising the experts' opinions about the questions, the consistent opinions are summarized as the prediction result. Such a method presents broad representativeness and is more reliable.

Establishment of Assessment Indicators

The questionnaires are sent to the experts of digital marketing in service industry through emails. Five experts in industry, official, and academia are included. Literatures and factors in digital marketing are first organized for the statistical considerations of digital marketing. Such factors with similar properties are classified into a category and delivered back to the experts for further opinions through emails for several runs. Finally, an expert would call a conference for all experts making the key success factors in digital marketing in service industry from major categories. The key factors are regarded as the AHP dimensions, and the classified criteria are made the AHP questionnaire.

Research Subjects

Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake, a fashion hotel located on the north of Sun Moon Lake, provides wide accommodation with spa, outdoor swimming pools, and free wireless Internet connection. Beautiful French windows and a private balcony to view the lake or mountains are equipped in the room. Each room is prepared tea/coffee, a flat TV, and a bathtub with natural spring. Guests could enjoy massage and beauty services in Shisedo salon and spa. There are outdoor swimming pools and water therapy hot spring in the hotel, and a hiking tour could also be arranged for the guests. Eau Cloud offers Taiwanese, Cantonese, and Sichuan cuisine, and Sky Lounge offers drinks for the guests while viewing the overall view of Sun Moon Lake. With free parking lots, Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake is about 1 hour drive from Taiwan High Speed Rail Taichung Station, and 90 min driving from Taiwan Railways Taichung Station and Taichung Airport. The department supervisors, employees, and consumers of Fleur De Chine at Sun Moon Lake are distributed 120 copies of questionnaires. Total 77 effective copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 64?.

Data Analysis Results

Assessment Indicators

Figure 1. shows the research framework of this study after being revised with Delphi Method.

Data Analysis Of Digital Marketing In Service Industry

After completing all hierarchical weights, the relative importance of the indicators in each hierarchy is distributed to present the importance of the hierarchy in the entire evaluation system as well as to generate the overall weight of key success factors in digital marketing in service industry. (See Table 1.)

Conclusion

Based on the experimental result, the questionnaire survey is analyzed as Table 1. The following conclusions are proposed, expecting to provide a definite guidance and direction for the digital marketing development strategy in service industry.

From the overall weight of assessment indicators among the key success factors in digital marketing in service industry, Penetrating Power, weighted 0.371 about 37.1% of overall weight, is mostly emphasized in Hierarchy 2, followed by Interactivity (weighted 0.322) and High Efficiency (weighted 0.307). The result reveals Penetrating Power as the mostly emphasized dimension of digital marketing in service industry.

The hierarchical weights of the assessment indicators in Hierarchy 3 are sequenced as below.

The assessment indicators in High Efficiency are ranked Instant Information, Entertaining, Clear and Simple, Cross-industry Cooperation, and Customer Exclusive Notes?

1. The assessment indicators in Penetrating Power are ranked Interesting Title, Low Technical Requirements, Personalized Characteristics, Omnidirectional Options, and Marketing Integration.

2. The assessment indicators in Interactivity are ranked Customer Privacy, Exclusive Interoperability, and Request for Response.

Among the assessment indicators in Hierarchy 3, the hierarchical weights are sequenced 1. Interesting Title, 2. Low Technical Requirements, 3. Customer Privacy, 4. Instant Information, 5. Personalized Characteristics, 6. Exclusive Interoperability, 7. Entertaining, 8. Clear and Simple, 9. Omnidirectional Options, 10. Cross-industry Cooperation, 11. Marketing Integration, 12. Request for Response, and 13. Customer Exclusive Notes. From the result, interesting titles would have consumers hard to refuse knowing the content. The formation of digital environments changes the purchase behaviors of consumers. More participation of sensory media in the digital marketing media combination could create deeper consumer experiences that technical requirements are regarded as critical factors. Consumers present strong autonomy, are used to make their own decisions, and pay attention to personal privacy that the leak of personal data is considered as the result of digital information progress. Customer Privacy therefore is a concern of modern consumers. Digital marketing is not restricted to time and locations that consumers could receive hotel information on the Internet at any time. Instant Information is considered as a great advantage.

Suggestions

From above conclusions of key success factors in digital marketing in service industry, the following suggestions are proposed in this study for the digital marketing development strategy in service industry.

1. Marketing should be planned focusing on consumers. Hotel marketing has to cater to consumer behaviors that it is suggested that hotels could plan Interesting Titles and Timely Low Price when operating digital marketing in order to induce consumer interests. The strategy of "low price" could cater to consumers' mind so that they would feel better when seeing the title.

2. Marketing interaction should allow the participation of consumers. In the marketing era, the behavior model of Web2.0 needs to be caught up in digital environments, i.e. to allow the participation of consumers, to have consumers create the marketing content, and to pay attention to the technique to prevent consumers from stepping back. It is suggested that Community Websites and Video Websites would be applied to media. Such marketing encouraging consumers uploading pictures and videos and requesting consumers sharing their blogs or Facebook could be well applied.

3. Users of digital marketing media are better consistent to product customers. The crowd contacting with digital marketing media is different. For instance, students often use mobile phones, community media, and BBS, while office workers do not contact with BBS as much as students do. What is more, customers of different products would be distinct. The media subject and the product customers should be consistent so as to have consumers reach the marketing.

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