Digital Marketing Strategies to promote Fashion Antidote Website - Essay Example

Developing Digital Marketing Strategies to promote Fashion Antidote 0.0. Introduction Fashion Antidote Facebookpage is one that is concerned with the promotion of the latest. Through this page, feedback from its customers and clients on the performance of the company is got directly. The main interest in developing a digital marketing strategy for Fashion Antidote Facebook page came with the interest this group had in fashions and fashion designs (Fashion Antidote, 2012). In addition, Fashion Antidote Facebook page is a well-established fashion company that has many customers both in the field and in online (Fashion Antidote, 2012). As well, the group has the feeling that Fashion Antidote needs to upgrade its website and especially their Facebook page to be able to be at purr with current fashion trends (Fashion Antidote, 2012). As well, with increased innovation at the fashion school, there is need to expose all these to customers so that the company can grow. This means that if Fashion Antidote Facebook page has a fashion show or unique fashion taste it wants to share, the Facebook page is the best way to share all these (Fashion Antidote, 2012). Thus, this paper aims to develop a digital marketing strategy to be used by Fashion Antidote in upgrading their website in order to gain new customers and gain more. In doing this, the paper will focus on literature from different sources like magazines, journals, websites, fashion blogs and even other fashion websites. 1.0. The Concept of Digital Marketing Strategy 1.1. Digital Strategy Understanding the concept of digital strategy in this case is very vital if a good strategy must be developed. Digital strategy is that overall approach that a company takes after making a decision that they want to invest in online business in order to achieve their goals (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). It can involve building the reputation of the business online especially with the focus of being a leader in the area of business (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). This can also extend to overarching digital strategy of a business in order to migrate the major sales transaction from online to offline (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). In the development of such a strategy, a company is required to have one major goal as opposed to numerous goals even though there is no much restriction in this (Ryan & Jones, 2012). For the Fashion Antidote Facebook page in this case is to be able to capture the latest fashion trends and use it to improve the company’s reputation online (Ryan & Jones, 2012). A clearly written digital strategy for business helps that particular business to map out tactics that the company plans to enable it fulfills the strategy (Ryan & Jones, 2012). This will go along with constant examination of the potential activity or tactic that supports the overall strategy stated. If it does not support the strategy drawn, then it is left out (Ryan & Jones, 2012). A good digital strategy also needs to clearly state who the target audience is. This includes stating the sectors involved, the geographical locations of the audience and even the job titles (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01). For the Fashion Antidote, the first targets are those located in London and particularly East London. The extension is normally drawn to those in other parts of the world and majorly users of the Fashion Antidote website and Facebook page. This will also include a clearly stated account of the target audience’s motivations, drives, needs, habits and preferences (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01). Lastly but most importantly, the strategy should also look at the size of the market being addressed and go further to articulate how its success will look like in the end (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01). 1.2. Digital Marketing Strategy Once one has a strategy to employ on the business, a digital marketing simply outlines the tactics that are to be used alongside the plan (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). This includes the campaigns, timings and the deliverables that will determine the period for the implementation of the plan (Ryan & Jones, 2012). An example is having a mix of general outgoing tactics one plans to employ. In the plan, the target audience is normally defined together with their habits and preferences. Thus, the tactics would involve designing or improving website, optimizing communication for search engines, social media interactions (Ryan & Jones, 2012). Other includes promoting special seasonal offers, creating new packages and services to meet customer needs (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). This should not leave out promotion of news service such as twitter to manage customer service enquiries or competition (Wind & Mahajan 2002, 06). The plan actually outlines when all these will be run (Ryan & Jones, 2012). A digital marketing plan focuses much on the traditional marketing principles by making use of the opportunities and challenges offered by technology and digital medium (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01).. Being high empirical, the strategy remains to be the strongest. Through the strategy, the company involved can watch behaviors, actions and actions paths until the results are realized (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01). The plan should as well have a framework to test its ability to remain flexible and dynamic in medium that changes more often (Venkatesh, Carpenter & Allen 2012, 01). 2.0. Fashion Antidote Digital Marketing Strategy In a digital marketing strategy for Fashion Antidote Facebook page, there must be a clear definition of the identity of the site, the services they offer, the reasons for the services as well as the manner in which the services are offered (Fashion Antidote, 2012). As well, the customers of the business must be well defined as well as their needs and wants (Fashion Antidote, 2012). The competitors of the business are not something to leave out as this plan is going to be modeled (Fashion Antidote, 2012). The Fashion Antidote Facebook page is a fashion site that offers fashion info in the fashion industry (Fashion Antidote, 2012). The fashion site serves those who are interested the latest designs. It does this by offering pictures and news on events that deal with fashions designs and shows (Fashion Antidote, 2012). The marketing is done by posting photographs of such fashion designs on their website as well as Facebook page. Fashion Antidote has the strength in that it already has over 300 likes on its pages with several comments being made on every design being posted (Williams, 2014). This creates for it an opportunity for it to expand the site to include larger events and shows (Williams, 2014). As well, it has the opportunity to become the largest site when it comes to issues of fashion (Williams, 2014). Figure 1 A look at figure one gives the strengths of the Fashion Antidote Facebook page that actually assures it of future growth. The current likes on this page stands at 345 daily with new page likes standing at 0.3%. this is after only four postings were done. There is an indication of an opportunity here that if more postings that are relevant can be done then there will be numerous likes. This will mean more customers sand web viewers visiting this page. This is similarly reflected on the graph below that shows an onward trend for the Facebook page. Figure 2 Considering the information in figure 3, there is also an indication of a growing onward trend especially with respect to those who are engaged with the site. The statistics show a growing trend in the number of people visiting the site thus there is need for a promotion of the site to have more viewers. 2.1. Objectives The objective of developing this strategy is to enable Fashion Antidote to reach out for its customers by taking advantage of the technological advancements that exists. The plan will help in developing the Facebook page of the Fashion Antidote thus giving more room for consumers to share on their experiences. 2.2. Website Promotion Strategies Fashion Antidote Facebook site will employ certain online marketing strategies like the use of social media, Search engine optimization, e-mail marketing among others (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). All these are meant to promote the Fashion Antidote website or Facebook page. 2.2.1. E-mail Marketing Fashion Antidote Facebook page will use e-mail marketing to deliver business messages to its audience. This will start by first creating accounts to its clients who will have to register and become members in the website (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Through this Fashion Antidote can easily contact the customers. The reason for this strategy is that it is cost effective to the company. As well, it highly targets almost all customers and is easily customizes on a mass scale and measurable (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). This advantageous part of e-mail marketing rates it as the best digital marketing strategy for the company (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). The Facebook accounts can as well be a tool to get the contacts of the customers and reach them with the latest news. Another reason why e-mail marketing is recommended for Fashion Antidote is because it is a good avenue for the company to build relationships with customers who are potentials and existing (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). It will thus assist the company to put more emphasis on customer retention. In addition, it will also maximize on the value of these customers thus contributing to its rapid growth (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Fashion Antidote has got segmented sectors of customer base in which e-mail databases can easily take care of. Direct messages can easily be sent to these sectors in order to get desirable results (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 2.2.2. Online Advertising Fashion Antidote has both a website and a Facebook page, which are good avenues for online advertisement. This involves developing search engines within the Facebook page so that customers can easily find information that they need (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Through the e-mails, online advertising will be achieved by placing the ads on the e-mails being sent to the customers (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Online advertisement will also be done through social networks like twitter and Facebook. The Google display network is another way to achieve online advertisement for the sake of marketing products (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Fashion Antidote will rely on online advertisements in order to increase its sales. The online advertisements done through e-mails and social media will raise brand awareness online (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Online advertisement will give the company an opportunity to interact more with customers in a continuous manner unlike traditional advertisement or non-interactive (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). This is because users of these forms of media through which advertisement is done can get a chance to give comments about the advert. For example, on Facebook, they can easily comment in a series of entry thus the company should employ that as a means. The best way for Fashion Antidote is to sub-divide the customers’ base along geographical lines, specific markets and contextualization (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 2.2.3. Affiliate Marketing Considering that the aim of these strategies is to promote the Fashion Antidote Facebook page, affiliate marketing would be another good approach. The company will decide on using finders’ fee for those customers who give any referrals (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). This will highly promote the website as well as the Facebook page for Fashion Antidote. If the customers introduce a new customer, visitor or subscriber into these websites, they get rewarded. Thus, if Fashion Antidote really wants to brand its products and acquire more customers, then they need to use this strategy (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Online, affiliate marketing is widely used to promote websites, with the referrers being rewarded for every visitor, subscriber or customer provided through their efforts. It is thus a useful tactic for branding and acquisition (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 2.2.4. SEO This is a strategy used to create a site that the search engines will rank as relevant for a given period (Ryan & Jones, 2012). The principle behind the use of this as a strategy is because of the millions who click on the pages that appear on page results for Google and Yahoo. It thus offers a big deal, good enough for Fashion Antidote to carry out marketing. Building such as SEO will require Fashion Antidote to select relevant keywords and match them with relevant content. Thus, a SEO should include the relevant keywords, the content to be shared, an easy to load website, images and content and links from other websites (Ryan & Jones, 2012). The Fashion Antidote will aim at upgrading its website and Facebook page in order for them to rank high on the search engine results pages (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). The company will thus pick up the concept of SEO of working within the parameters set by search engines to ensure that search engines index it especially when users search for an item that is relevant to a product or service (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). One of the achievements of this strategy is acquisition thus ensuring that the organization appears in the search results. In turn, the results will easily reach the potential and existing customers (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). This means that any search engine that has been optimized by the company must be clear, relevant and well designed. The search engine actually ensures customer retention as it gives them a unique user experience (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 2.2.5. Social Media This is another way of tying SEO and content marketing such that the search engines can take into consideration the number of times a page is shared (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). The only thing that Fashion Antidote needs to know is that social media does not necessarily need a large number of followers. For example, Fashion Antidote has almost 300 people who share on Facebook. Thus, interacting with this little number and creating a community with them is the primary goal of Fashion Antidote. These sites should thus allow the existing customers as well as the potential ones to ask questions; voice their concerns; and even complain (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Once these issues are obtained, the company can then easily address them in a professional manner. As well, the sites should allow the company concerned to provide the users with interesting content. For example, Fashion Antidote will post information on the latest fashion designs in the market. Another point is that social media is a consumer generated media and exists in form of texts, visuals and audios (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Normally, the social media sites create a platform for people to share. In the past decade, social media has changed the face of online marketing. They have enabled companies including Fashion Antidote to create links and connections in a manner that has never been experienced before (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Fashion Antidote would benefit much from this strategy because it would ensure that proper branding of its products are done. In addition to that, it will raise awareness of the brand and even give the consumer a chance to be involved in the marketing through collaboration. The social media sites as well exhibit a viral and shareable nature in a manner that they provide a crowd-sourced feedback through graphs and social analytics system (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). With reference to the above strategy, Fashion Antidote plans to add tags to its website and Facebook page in order to make users find it easily. Furthermore, setting up group discussion pages on the Facebook would be another positive move (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). People would be able to discuss and comment on the products posted online in order for the company to establish customer tastes and preferences. For example, the company can do this by posting sales news for online shop. Moreover, the Fashion Antidote intends to establish a relationship with other fashion blogs to have a variety in their products. Within the social media, Fashion Antidote will develop slogans on both Twitter and Facebook. These slogans will act as a tool for promotion of the products such that customer awareness of the products will be highly raised. 3.0. ORM The Fashion Antidote has a plan of carrying out its online reputation management (ORM by monitoring its brands. It will thus measure and manage the conversations that are taking place around it online (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). This strategy has been recommended because of the manner in which it can place some effect on the reputation of a brand. The Fashion antidote thus intends to listen to conversations carefully with the aim of managing its situation in the market (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). When queries and complaints arise, the company will be able to provide the customers with relevant responses and information (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 4.0. Web PR As Fashion Antidote will be exchanging value with many stakeholders around it, strategies will have to be put in place to have a set of functions that will foster the company’s ability to appreciate and respond to the customers adequately (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Thus, setting up a PR online means that information will be freely available to the customers and to wider audience other than customers (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). Thus, if Fashion Antidote employs this approach, it will be able to connect easily with its customers, encourage brand awareness, expose the customers to new products as well as SEO efforts (Wilson, 2011 & Alton, 2013). 5.0. Customer Acquisition and Retention In order to acquire new customers and retain the existing ones, Fashion Antidote will focus on creating more social sites like YouTube pages to ensure that a wider audience is targeted in the promotion process. The company will also use Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) to attract Chinese dressing fashion fans. Now, the company has around 200 followers, and around 70 followers do pay a visit to our Page every day. One major challenge that the company will face in this strategy will be getting to have one on one interaction with the new customers at the fashion houses so that they have the real fashion experience (Jean, 2011). Most of them will not be real customers but just admirers. This can as well be countered by inviting them to shows and events. In the promotion of the WEIBO, we will create a forum blog for followers to interact and create tags for people to find the company easily (Baran et al 2008, 345). 6.0. Looking Forward Into The Future In future, the Fashion Antidote is going to set up a professional website that will be able to take care of all the information, visual images and reports on the company. The websites shall have the column for events and shows, careers, customer care services online. The company will also have a corporate fashion magazine that will have the most important but latest fashion models and designs (Wayland & Cole 1997, 245). In the future as well, the company will charge the users of its website especially in getting brand sales information and advertisements to make a profit. This will also include upgrading the Weibo page with the aim of capturing the Chinese market. 7.0. Conclusion Digital marketing strategy is an interesting area, which can create a huge impact on the sales of a company if utilized properly. Before drawing a digital strategy, there is need for an analysis of the company’s strength and weaknesses, opportunity and threats to be discussed. This will give room for the company to identify the areas that need boost in terms of meeting its objectives. The Fashion Antidote Facebook page is an example of a company that has highly invested in this area and even plans to do more in future. In a general opinion, the use of SEO, social media and the others in website promotion will turn out very successful considering that the company has an already existing website and Facebook page. The use of social media together with e-mail marketing sounds more convenient for the site to tremendously grow. There is need to Fashion Antidote Facebook page to use these mechanisms in reaching out for more of its passive customers and bring them to buy and leave comments for the sake of growth and development of the company. The future of the site also lies in the strategies that it will implement when doing marketing and when trying to reach out for its customers. Already there is an indication that the site has a growing trend when it comes to its viewers. The daily growth can be taken care of well and maintained if the company does an analysis on what the customers like. The room for discussion on the Facebook page together with the likes can give a very good raw data as to what will entice the customer to continue being a member of the site. References: Alton, Larry. (2013). The Basics of Online Marketing Strategy in 2013. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved from < http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-basics-of-online-marketing-strategy-in-2013/66623/> on March 7, 2014. Baran, J. R. et al. (2008). Principles of Customer Relationship Management. Cengage Learning. Fashion Antidote. (2012). About Us. Retrieved from http://www.fashionantidote.com/about-us on March 7, 2014. Jean, P . (2013). Develop Customer Acquisition & Customer Retention Strategies. 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