Clarks Company Digital Marketing - Case Study Example

Clarks Digital Marketing Company background Clarks is an international shoe designer, manufacturer and retailer from the United Kingdom. The fashion designing firm has enhanced its international market through the use of technology such as digital marketing where the company sells its products through online virtual stores. In the past, Clarks has overcome challenges such as volatile market conditions, lack of financial flexibility as well as questionable planning. That is why the firm has become one of the largest private companies in the United Kingdom with a massive global presence through the extensive employment of digital marketing (Jones, 2012 p, 192-193). Clarks has a massive digital presence in Europe and the United States. The fashion designing firm is a force to reckon with online. The company’s sales through their proprietary transactional website have grown and currently comprise 3 percent of total sales. By January 2012, online sales accounted for £45.9m. To tackle international digital markets, Clarks launched a site in the US in 2012 as well as a site in Indian in 2013. In Europe, Clarks trades online through an English language site which transacts in Euros, as well as using local language sites in countries such as Holland, Germany and France. The firm plans to improve digital presence to be a truly global brand (Rowley, 2009 p. 348-369). The company’s customer base is dominated by male and women of age aged 18 to 40. The demographic factors are vital for digital marketing as the customers are educated. Therefore, they have high preferences for online shopping through media marketing. Most of the customers are upper class and connect to social networks and this improves the success of Clark’s digital marketing strategies (Rowley, 2009 p. 348-369). Clark’s online stores sell different shoe designs that include Clarks walking shoes, Clarks’ casual shoes as well as Clark’s business casual shoes (Onlineshoes, 2014). Online business has been a success for the company in building its international brand through distinctive products that include the Desert Boot, Wallabee and desert Trek. There are many other unstructured collections of shoes for men, women, boys and girls. The company’s product line includes boots, slippers, sandals, casual and sport shoes as well as bags (Jones, 2012 p, 192-193). Digital marketing strategy had been a drive towards the realization of massive digital presence for the business. It all begun in 2010 after the appointment of the current CEO, Melissa Potter, who drove the re-organization of the company’s business operations. She launched an online business for the company, and it has made Clarks a global brand. Digital presence has enabled the company to offer its products to customers in over 50 different countries through selling its products online (Siddiqui, 2003 p. 345-355). Digital presence Clarks has various Digital marketing strategies. The first digital marketing strategy for Clarks is the use of social media. The commonly used social media platforms include Facebook and Twitter, where the company conducts shoe design campaign, which allow consumers to work with Clarks through drafting of mock-up creations. In digital marketing, social media is the new “word of mouth.” In this case, the firm cares about customer needs through Facebook and Twitter. Customers also engage with the business and gain more information on new products and designs through social media. Clark’s engagement with customers through social media is conversational. They can recommend products to others through social media. People on social media chat, post, and socialize with friends. That is why the designing firm uses social media to know more about potential customers’ wants, needs, as well as recommendations (Siddiqui, 2003 p. 345-355). More than half of Clark’s online consumers are multichannel shoppers. It means that they make purchase decisions from both online and in stores. The use of Mobile is very influential in the shopping process. The firm’s brands are active in Facebook, Twitter, as well as YouTube. Social media has been effective in two ways. They include driving awareness for Clarks brand and engaging with followers. Overall, social media has been a success, but Clarks has not pushed hard to sell their products through social media channels (Varadarajan, & Yadav, 2002 p. 296-312). Another digital marketing strategy used by Clarks is mobile marketing. According to Spencer (2011), Clarks launched a mobile marketing site that was designed and built by Mobile Interactive Group (MIG). This implies that Clark’s online customers are able to browse as well as buy products through their mobile. The firm’s digital marketing strategy is focused on Multichannel retailing so that customers can have a wide range of choices. Therefore, use of mobile retail space by Clarks allows the company to deliver a seamless user experience to online customers. The firm ramped up its mobile commerce strategy by partnering with Udozi and launching a mobile app for customers to engage and interact with the business. This app helps customers to locate the nearest Clarks store and locate the particular products that the customers have seen online or at in-stores (Chilton, 2013). Customers can use the platform to find the shoes they want and then use the app to search for store details such as location, opening times, and contacts and browse items. On the same day, customers can collect chosen products in Clarks after ordering. Therefore, mobile commerce increases customer interaction with company brands. It ultimately improves shopping experiences due to convenience and efficiently between customers and the retailer. Otherwise, customers that use this app may not have shopped with Clarks. Therefore, Clarks has a strong presence in mobile marketing and has stood up against market rivals (Hines & Bruce, 2007). Thirdly, Clarks also advertises through online fashion magazines such as Details, GQ, Cosmopolitan, as well as Glamour. The company has been able to attract more fashion forward customers. Others include advertisements in magazines that include GQ or through online at AskMen.com and ELLE. Clarks has increased recognition in the fashion world in the past few years through showcasing their Spring/summer range of products in the ELLE online magazine. The ELLE campaign indicates that Clarks is a high fashion company with renowned comfortable shoes that everyone wants! In the magazine, Clarks print ads include chic and classy shoes showing how the business leads in high street fashion (Cater, 2014). Clark’s digital presence is also enhanced by search engine marketing and particularly through Amazon. Clarks styles and brands feature are available on the Clarks Amazon shop. In 2013, the company launched the Clarks kids that made the company footwear products for kids available on Amazon. Kids will buy their shoes from the Clarks Amazon shop. This improved digital presence as a company can now promote kids footwear collection and foot measuring gauges for toddler as well as juniors at home through the Amazon Clarks shop. Therefore, the company increased online customer base, especially as parents prefer to purchase children products through Amazon. The site has features such as the size guide calculator for online shoppers to input foot measurements for the best shoe size. The final digital marketing strategy for Clarks pulls digital marketing. Clarks promotes its products digitally through use of the company’s proprietary website. The website contains information on new product designs and brands that over a wide range of choice for online purchasers. Online customers navigate the website to view content that may include new product information, available offers such as discounts and as details on ordering and delivery. Promotional campaigns display on the web page as well as web banner ads that may include video, animation or audio. The Clarks website offers interactive features such as store details for online customers to access all information they need on particular products. Product ordering, purchase and delivery can be done on the website, and this has improved the company’s digital presence. The website has search feature for customers to search their specific brands and sizes. To improve on online purchase, the site offers free shipping, 100 percent price guarantees, free return shipping as well as no sales tax. Customers can offer review on featured company products. Competitors’ digital presence Clark’s competitors also have their own digital marketing strategies, some which are similar and others that are different. The first competitor is Primark’s, a cloth retailer in Europe and the United States. Primark’s products include footwear; women wear menswear and many forms of clothing. Primark has limited online presence compared to Clarks. The company’s website has limited information as well as limited online product presentation. The website does not even contain a search engine and is not user friendly. The site does not also offer online customer services hence no online interaction with customers. The only digital platform for Primark is through social media, mainly Facebook. Other sites used by the company include Ethical Trading web pages. The Primark website does not have transactional features and, therefore; the company is limited in digital presence. Customers cannot engage in e-commerce as the website design does not promote the company brand. Primark online presences, as well as customer interactions, are very low and limited (Rowley, 2009 p. 348-369). The other competitor is H&M. The company operates in the high street and has more digital presence compared to Primark. With a customer base of between 16-24-year-olds, most of them interact and shop online through the company well designed website for online transactions. H&M also uses social media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote their brand. H&M is a direct competitor ton Clarks online sales in the UK. Its website showcases offers, all new styles, and celebrity endorsements along with new products for online customers. Products are categorized according to styles, trends and seasons while there is also a virtual dressing room. H&M website is as detailed and informative as Clarks’. H&M has increased customer conduct as well as trading hours through their interactive and user-friendly website (Rowley, 2009 p. 348-369). The final competitor is Internacionale. The company promotes their brand online through twitter, Facebook and their proprietary website. In the begining, their website was basic and could not be used to promote their products. However, they have redesigned the website for more product categories and user friendliness during access. They have also installed an image store feature for the display of products to online shoppers. The website offers online promotional features that include web exclusive offers, following of celebrity fashion with business products, as well as blogs on trends. Internacionale is strong in digital marketing and has good web experience for online customers leading to a trusted online brand that is also shared through twitter and Facebook (Rowley, 2009 p. 348-369). Importance of customer insight from keywords Keywords search starts with words typed into the search box. It is a highly relevant process as well as high return activity in the search marketing field. The activity of ranking the "right" keywords can lead to success or failure in online marketing through the website. The detective activity of searching for the market keyword demand is important for learning the terms and phrases for the organization to target with Search Engine Optimization. Key word search also helps to learn more about the customers as a whole (Cui, & Hu, 2011p. 100-103). Also, keywords entails getting the right visitors to a company’s website. Keyword searching is important for the prediction of market shifts, responding to changing market conditions. But mainly, it is important for the production of products, services, as well as content that is being sought after by active web searchers. Keyword searching, therefore, helps in understanding customer motivations in almost every niche. For an online footwear store such as Clarks, a keyword is worth to the website. It can show whether most sales come from visitors that search for either "brown shoes" or "black boots." Webmasters can access the keywords typed by visitors into the search engines and the keyword search tool assists in finding this information. Keywords research is important in for the company’s search engine optimization as it creates relevance. In the website, the importance of the information increases if the key phrases appear in the title category or as the headline or subheading. The links to the page also come from relevant pages along with the use of relevant anchor text. The words research is also important as it increases the popularity. Popularity is how the page has been referred by other people. Therefore, every reference to the links increases popularity. Hence, for relevance and popularity, a business needs to make sure that they create content with the relevant keywords as well as phrases that are associated with the subject (Cui, & Hu, 2011p. 100-103). Search engine and pay per click Search Engine Marketing increases the Visibility of Clarks websites in search engine results pages (SERPs). The most common search engines include Google and Amazon and they demonstrate results depending on the query by the web visitor. Clarks can sue Search engine marketing to make the company’s website listing more well-known for relevant keywords. For example, Clarks has already used Amazon as a search engine marketing through the Clarks Amazon stores. In China and Japan, Clarks uses the Baidu search engine as it is the most preferred by the target audience. This Search Engine used by Clarks firms in China acquires more customer traffic as customers can buy a page of search results for Clarks brand for quarterly charges. However, Google is the largest used search engine in e-commerce. It has less internal search as well as quick navigation through the use of links to purchase content/graphics (Sen, 2005 p. 9-25). In the Clarks website, the company can still advance its search engine optimization for more editing of website content, its HTML for more relevance to exact keywords, as well as removal of and barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. The best strategy is to build high quality websites that engage and persuade visitors for high site conversion rate (Sen, 2005 p.9-25). I would not recommend that that Clarks employs paid advertising by Pay per Click. Pay per click directs traffic to the company website and advertisers have to pay the owner of the website for clicking the advert. The search engines have key words for the target market to advertise products. However, this internet advertising strategy has many recorded clicks that may not be valuable to the advertiser. Also, PPC has many accidental clicks on ads and results to immediately quitting of the new site immediately (Malaga, 2007 p. 68-82). Long tail The long tail describes niche marketing through the internet. It involves shifting from a small number of mainstream products, as well as markets to a huge number of niches along the tail. Through use of the internet, distribution and production cost fall, making it not necessary to lumps company products into one container. During the period of reduced constraints, in physical space and reduction in distribution bottlenecks, there has been an increase in demand for narrow-target goods. The market for products that are not physically available in stores is increasing. It has led to increased potential for small business goods that do not sell through traditional retailing and such small aggregate markets rival existing large markets. For Clarks, the hits are the shoes that have dominated the international market and the niches that the new small business that have the new potential for growth in the future (Anderson, 2008 p, 267). Traditionally, stores stock the hits to maximize on shelf space. However, through internet marketing, a business such as Clarks could store virtually everything. Niches product is the many i.e. the Long Tail, compared to the hits that are favored. Long tail can be achieved through online marketing; however, Clarks offers the consumers an infinite choice of their niche products. Evidence shows that consumers like to shop the niches because the products satisfy utility, and most consumers usually have a narrow interest that has not been satisfied to stocking of hits (Keillor, 2007 p, 142). Clarks should grab the idea of Long Tail where the offer unlimited shelf space through online marketing. It could help the consumers to access information and products that are not in the physical store shelves. The Long Tail concept improves the benefits of a company’s digital presence. The online marketing increases customer through choices. However, most companies provide a way of helping the online purchasers to find the product they need. Crucial ingredients of the company’s online sites include filters as well as recommender systems to assist customers find the niche products they are seeking (Anderson, 2008 p, 267). Clarks should employ the Long Tail concept in the digital marketing strategy since it has several benefits. Firstly, Clarks could minimize the cost of distribution. Thus, minimize consumption costs that include wideband internet connections. Long Tail connects consumers and taps online purchasing habits and matching them with the products of their interest (Anderson, 2008 p, 268). E-marketing tools & Recommendations The main long-tail marketing strategies of Clark included new media marketing, buzz marketing, viral marketing, pay per click, search engine optimization and demand-side platforms. There are many e-marketing tools that have already been used by Clarks (Tuckwell, 2011 p 47). The first e-marketing strategy that Clarks does not currently use and which would increase their digital presence is online video content. Online video ads can be a success due to the increase of interest for online videos among many active internet users. Clarks should try to advertise using online video ads. The company should create brief and captivating videos that online customers can forward to each other. However the online videos should not be corrupt with other business ads and should specifically be designed and hosted by Clark only to ensure that content is not distorted. It will prevent disruptions and navigation to other away from the site. The use of online videos that are brief is cost-effective since they can be shared among customers, a concept called viral advertising. It is whereby each new user begins with viewing the online video ads and advertising moves to other people with whom that user interacts (Leskovec et al., 2007 p.5). Secondly, online videos are cheap to produce eve with limited financing. The design and aesthetics of the video are critical for unique customer experience. The second digital marketing tool that I recommend for Clarks is the use of blogs where visitors can interact. Blogging will lead to more increases to visitors to the Clarks website. Therefore, the company’s website should have an integrated blog feature. It will help customers to share, useful and relevant information. In creating the Blog, Clarks should ensure that readers can subscribe through RSS and email, share information through social media as well as interact with the blogger through commenting on posts. The blog should have posts that create real online buzz in order to generate online traffic to the company’s website and ultimately result to in store transactions (Sultan, & Rohm, 2004 p. 6-19). The two recommended strategies can succeed in increasing the company’s digital presence. It is also important to maintain an editor’s blog in order to send strong messages to other business. Legal Aspect of Digital Marketing Tools One major issue of online marketing is publishing the Terms of Service on the company website. It puts customers on notice as to certain limitations as well as the conditions they are consenting by using the company website. Terms of service govern relationships between the business and user who interact with the website. Terms of Service are unique to a specific company (Albarran, 2013 p. 122). The website is the intellectual property of the business. The company has to retain Intellectual Property ownership through protecting processes, templates and systems by employees. Employees go into a contractual agreement with the company at the onset of their term of hire so that they protect company work products from competitors. References Albarran, A. B. (2013). Management of electronic and digital media. Australia, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Anderson, C. (2008). The long tail: why the future of business is selling less of more. New York, Hyperion. Carter, G. (2014). Clarks advertised in ELLE – don’t be surprised! Retrieved on 3rd May 2014 on http://www.concrete-online.co.uk/clarks-advertised-elle-dont-surprised/. Chilton, C. (2013). Clarks Shows Commitment to Mobile With New App. Retrieved on 3rd May 2014 from http://blog.dynmark.com/blog/clarks-shows-commitment-to-mobile-with-new-app Cui, M., & Hu, S. (2011, September). Search engine optimization research for website promotion. In Information Technology, Computer Engineering and Management Sciences (ICM), 2011 International Conference on (Vol. 4, pp. 100-103). IEEE. Hines, T., & Bruce, M. (Eds.). (2007). Fashion marketing. Routledge. Jones, T. (2012) Innovating the edge. USA: Routledge. Keillor, B. D. (2007). Marketing in the 21st century. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Leskovec, J., Adamic, L. A., & Huberman, B. A. (2007). The dynamics of viral marketing. ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB), 1 (1), 5. Malaga, R. A. (2007). The value of search engine optimization: An action research project at a new e-commerce site. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO), 5(3), 68-82. Onlineshoes. (2014). Clarks. Retrieved on 1st May 2014 from http://www.onlineshoes.com/clarks-b_id13 Rowley, J. (2009). Online branding strategies of UK fashion retailers. Internet Research, 19(3), 348-369. Sultan, F., & Rohm, A. J. (2004). Evolving role of the internet in marketing strategy: an exploratory study. Journal of interactive Marketing, 18(2), 6-19. Sen, R. (2005). Optimal search engine marketing strategy. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10 (1), 9-25. Siddiqui, N., O’Malley, A., McColl, J. C., & Birtwistle, G. (2003). Retailer and consumer perceptions of online fashion retailers: website design issues. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 7 (4), 345-355. Spencer, A. (2011). Clarks Steps into Mobile Commerce. Retrieved on 3rd May 2014 from http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/clarks-steps-mobile-commerce/#t6Y0DJF2wuPaUor1.99 Tuckwell, K. J. (2011). Integrated Marketing Communications (3rd ed.). Toronto:  Pearson  Canada. Varadarajan, P. R., & Yadav, M. S. (2002). Marketing strategy and the internet: an organizing framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30 (4), 296-312. Read More