Digital Marketing Strategy - Essay Example

Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 1. Introduction 3 2. Brief Overview of GAME’s Current Digital Marketing Strategy 3 3. Development of Digital Marketing Strategy 4 3.1 Enhancement of GAME’s Website 5 3.2 Launch of GAME’s Corporate Social Responsibility Blog 7 3.3 Improvement of Existing Digital Marketing Activities 8 4. Conclusion 9 References 10 Executive Summary The establishment of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is a critical factor for attaining organizational success in today’s competitive business environment. The purpose of this report is to propose an enhancement of GAME’s current digital marketing strategy to aid the company’s achievement of organizational goals and objectives. The strategy focuses on existing and new digital marketing instruments and basis the conclusions on their effectiveness and possible implications for the firm. 1. Introduction The purpose of this analysis is to propose an enhanced digital marketing strategy for GAME which is a UK based gaming retail organization which commenced its operations under the ownership of The Game Group Plc. in 1991. By briefly evaluating the current digital marketing activities of the firm, the content of this report is guided through the identification of limitations in the organization’s current digital marketing policies so as to generate an examination on how the firm can improve its strategy for fulfilling organizational objectives. Furthermore, the report also draws the establishment of an effective and successful digital marketing strategy by focusing on setting SMART objectives. According to Richman (2011), the establishment of precise and well-defined organizational objectives is important for acknowledging and taking into account what the firm hopes to achieve by the implementation of a specific strategy. Thus, the setting of objectives must fulfill the criterion that has been set by SMART objectives such that the aims should be “…Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic and Time/Cost limited” (Richman 2011, p. 65). 2. Brief Overview of GAME’s Current Digital Marketing Strategy With regard to the prior assessment which was conducted in relation with GAME’S current digital marketing strategy, the conclusions of the report were able to establish that the organization’s website is marked and characterized by certain limitations and weaknesses that must be addressed effectively and immediately as a part of the enhancement and improvement measures in GAME’s present digital marketing policy. Most importantly, the conclusions of the report were able to outline that while, the organization’s website provides potential visitors with an extensive amount of information on the homepage, there are several weaknesses in website functionality and features which maybe preventing visitors from fully accessing online material and benefitting from the availability of the medium. From a concise perspective, it can be identified that problems in GAME’S website include 1) issues with loading timings of the website 2) a clogged-up user interface 3) unnecessary and time-consuming website effects 4) lack of user functionality on multiple platforms such as smartphones and tablets and 5) the possibility of the occurrence of website misdirection because of generic domain name. In addition with the conducting digital marketing operations through the official GAME website, the company’s existing digital marketing strategy includes the launch of active Facebook, Twitter and Youtube pages to promote its online presence within the extensive gaming community within the United Kingdom. 3. Development of Digital Marketing Strategy According to Perrey and Spillecke (2012), with regard to the implementation of digital marketing strategies it is critical for firms to recognize the notion that of maintaining and establishing digital objectives which must be developed, progressed and prioritized as an organization moves forward and modifies its corporate aims in relation with the changes in the external environment and the competitive nature of the industry. Moreover, during the process it is also important to constantly evaluate how the company’s digital marketing tools have been interacting with the market situation to aid the achievement of designated objectives. Thus, this aspect is of fundamental significance for GAME if it intends to maximize the potential of its digital marketing strategy. In terms of managing the organization’s objectives and aligning them with the digital marketing strategy it can be identified that by the implementation of the proposed digital marketing policies, GAME aims to increase its market share in the United Kingdom by 5% and be able to achieve this goal within the period of 6 to 18 months. 3.1 Enhancement of GAME’s Website As stated previously, there are certain weaknesses in the execution of GAME’s official website that maybe preventing the organization from capitalizing on potential of an official website as a pivotal tool and technique of the overall digital marketing mix. According to Barker, Valos and Shimp (2012), a website has the ability to play several roles as a part of the overall digital marketing mix and the new digital marketing strategy aims to enhance the current website of the organization in a manner which allows the company to expand the reach and scope of the website. Barker, Valos and Shimp (2012) assert that a key role of a company’s website is to act as a traditional medium of advertising and meet respective advertising goals. These objectives are distinctly related with informing the customer about the specifications of a product or pursuing the customer to make a decision to purchase the product (Kurtz and Boone, 2010). Therefore, if GAME wishes to expand the scope of its website and employ it as tool of traditional advertising then it must address present issues in extensive loading timings and busy web pages which may deter users from logging on to the website and browsing for products. Moreover, Barker, Valos and Shimp (2012) postulate that companies can also use their websites as sales promotion tools by launching contests for customers to participate in and sign-up for company newsletters by submitting their demographic information such as age, gender and location. The benefit of this action would be that the generated information can be later quantified by the company through statistical software and utilized for future marketing purposes. For example, if the collected data reveals that the company’s target audience is largely males who fall in the age bracket of 18-24, then the firm could launch a contest whose winning prize is a game which is particular popular or most bought in the specific age category of 18-24 year old, male gamers. Additionally, this information can also be utilized for formulating consumer behavior surveys to develop a clearer picture of the company’s target market. An interesting element which has been found missing on GAME’s official website is that the organization has failed to incorporate the element of using its website as a tool for public relations. In their examination of current trends in digital marketing and specifically those which are associated with the development of websites, Morris and Goldsworthy (2008) claim that many organizations have not been able to realize the vast potential of websites in acting as a source of promoting the brand image of a company by promoting the PR agenda of the firm. In the case of GAME, which is a gaming retailer in the UK and operates exclusively in an industry where PR trends are not considered to be a top priority realizing the importance of using the company website as a public relations tool may turn out to be driver of the firm’s unique competitive advantage. For example, GAME could use its website to condemn illegal or unsuitable behavior in the gaming industry by focusing on issues such as piracy and the issues that are associated with video gaming addiction and excessive exposure to video games, especially amongst children by launching a blog that focuses upon highlighting corporate social responsibility issues in the gaming industry and linking the blog to the official website. This aspect has been assessed in detail in the succeeding section of the report. Lastly, the renaming of the company’s domain name is imperative to enhance ease of access and ease of search on platforms such as Google and Bing because the name GAME is too generic and yields multiple and unrelated results when typed. 3.2 Launch of GAME’s Corporate Social Responsibility Blog The notion of promoting corporate social responsibility within the gaming industry is specifically rooted in reducing the indirect hazards of exposure to video games that children may be subjected to because of the display of violent content in certain games (Andersen, 2004; Hotho and McGregor, 2013). Subsequently, another issue of fundamental and critical concern which has plagued the video game industry is that of piracy. As stated by Wolf (2008, p. 220) the negative outcomes that are attached with the phenomenon are that “Piracy popularizes video games in the short term but hurts the video game industry and culture in the long term”. The presence of such issues within the gaming industry calls for raising awareness amongst customers and consumers of the product who maybe unaware of such problems that are prevalent within the market. Therefore, by taking a conscious decision to fight the ills which are present in the industry in which GAME operates, the company would be acting upon positive principles and aid in the betterment of the industry by shedding light on issues of concern and those matters which have not been examined or raised previously within the market. Additionally, GAME’s effort through the launch of the blog would also enhance the image of the company in the eyes of the customers who may recognize the organization as being the only one amongst several competitors such as Ebay, Amazon, Playstation Store and Xbox Store Online which is taking the effort to highlight issues and problems within the industry and also showing a determination to resolve those issues in the most effective manner possible. Therefore, the launch of this blog would allow GAME to significantly increase its brand image in the market through successful market positioning within the minds of the consumer (Kotler and Armstrong, 1991). This implies that by launching the GAME CSR blog the company would be creating a distinct perception within the minds of the target audience who then would be able to distinguish between GAME’s products and services and possibly label them as being better and more suited in comparison with the competitor’s products thereby, leading to higher sales for the business. 3.3 Improvement of Existing Digital Marketing Activities As an online gaming retailer, digital marketing elements are of critical significance for GAME because its primary channel of operations is based upon conducting and managing activities through an online platform. At present, the official Facebook page of the company has over 527,000 ‘likes’ however, O’Reilly (2014) reports that the truth behind the concept of Facebook page ‘likes’ and ‘reach’ is different such that for pages that are marked by 500,000 likes or above reportedly have their posts seen by only 2 per cent of the individuals that have actually liked the page on Facebook. As stated by O’Reilly (2014), this concept is termed as ‘organic reach’ and is plummeting day by day in reality because of numerous factors including excessive competition on Facebook and over-sharing of data. Given this situation the only viable option for GAME to maximize the potential of its Facebook fan coverage is to pay for increasing organic reach or perhaps raise the payment for reaching a wider audience if the company is already abiding by this strategy. 4. Conclusion While, GAME maintains a strong online presence in terms of promoting its digital marketing strategy and exercising it widely to attain a larger share of the UK gaming market it can be stated that the company is yet to capitalize on the full potential of the digital marketing tools, techniques and instruments that are present at its disposal. Given this view, this report proposes an enhancement of the company’s website to improve its roles as a source of traditional marketing, sales promotion and most importantly public relations. Moreover, it is also identified that the launch of GAME CSR blog could act as a positioning tool and improve the company’s brand image in the eyes of its clientele. Consequently, the organization’s marketing must also be examined by conducting an evaluation of current instruments. As suggested in the report, the possibility of a decline in the company’s Facebook page’s organic reach is alarming and must be resolved immediately. 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