An Analysis of the Core Organisation Digital Marketing - Case Study Example

A Digital Marketing Plan for Nutеllа UK Name Institution Date Executive Summary This assignment was aimed at providing a digital marketing plan for Nutella UK Company. The plan provided guidance, directions as well as recommendations that are justified on how to develop and implement a digital marketing plan that will enable the company to grow in the next twelve months. The purpose of the company requesting the digital marketing plan proposal is to find answers that will enable it to acquire new customer while retaining the existing ones. Through digital marketing the company also wants to raise awareness of its product in the digital market for the future success of the business in UK. The plan started with describing the context analysis of the digital marketing plan. In the context analysis, the plan discussed about the PESTEL factors that influence the business in relation digital marketing. The plan provides a summary of the context analysis that discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company in relation to digital marketing. It also discussed the digital marketing tools that have been used by key competitors, customers and their behaviours in general and analysed the core organisation digital marketing. The plan also described the various objective that will achieved by implementing the digital marketing plan, the digital marketing strategies that should be used such as segmentation, targeting and positioning. The plan also presented the digital marketing mix that the organisation should use including; promotion, process and physical evidence. It also described the implementation plan as well as control ans measurement issues that should be considered. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Summary of the Context Analysis 5 Objectives 9 Strategies 10 Digital Marketing Mix 12 Implementation Plan 14 Control and Measurements 18 Conclusion 19 References 20 Appendix 1: Context Analysis 21 A Digital Marketing Plan for Nutеllа UK Introduction The purpose of this digital marketing plan is to provide Nutella UK Company with guidance, directions and justified recommendations on how to develop a digital marketing plan that will enable the company grow within UK in the next twelve months. The implementation of the digital marketing plan will help the company in acquiring new more customers to their digital platforms, retaining the existing digital customer and raising awareness of their product within the UK online market. The digital marketing plan considers the potential contribution of the digital marketing concepts as well as activities to the future success of the organisation and their digital presence in the United Kingdom. The digital marketing plan focuses on Nutella UK Company which is a brand name of a hazelnut chocolate spread. It is manufactured by the Italian Company known as Ferrero and was introduced to the market in the year 1964. It is a product which is enjoyed for breakfast in approximately one hundred and fifty countries all over the world with more than forty years in the market. In UK Nutella already has an online presence and requires a digital market plan that provides practical suggestions for planning the company’s digital growth. This digital marketing plan is described in various sections including; the context analysis (Appendix 1), the summary of the context analysis, objectives, digital strategies, the digital marketing mix, the implementation plan, control and measurement as well as conclusion. Summary of the Context Analysis SWOT Analysis Strengths The organisation already has a website online that can be accessed by consumers. This is a big strength that the company holds since it has already established a customer base with the existing customers. Digital marketing will improve its popularity in the digital market. The organisation also use social media like Facebook, You tube, Linked In and Twitter to interact with its customers. Having access to social media networks is a big advantage and strength for the organisation since it is easy to interact with customers who present their views on the position of the company, quality of their products and services. This gives a wake-up call for the organisation to see areas that need to be improved to ensure that they remain competitive in the market. The organisation also use search engine marketing which is a good digital marketing strategy that improves the accessibility of the webpages of the company in the search results over the internet. Weaknesses The website of the organisation do not have fast accessibility, the webpages are very slow to open. This is a weakness that needs to be worked to ensure that the webpages open fast when customers access them. The products of the website of the organisation are not integrated with Google Product Listing Ads so as to boost their online sales. The organisation has not optimized the search results in the search engine marketing since they use do not pay for the SEO that can make the search results of the company’s webpages to have a high ranking. The online marketing of the company also does not use arts that may improve its authenticity to the audience. Opportunities The digital era is on the increase and many consumer populations today are accessing the internet for the purpose of purchasing and selling their products online. Therefore, this is a big opportunity for the company to market its products online where customers have easy access to their website. The fact that many customers today have changed their purchasing behaviours and embrace online purchasing; the organisation has an opportunity to tap this populations by having a wide variation of digital marketing that will increase its customer base and increase its sales. Additionally, it is evident that technology is changing at a very high rate and businesses are entering the digital world whereby business is done online. The organisation cannot be left out and has an opportunity to join other businesses that operates online through digital marketing so as to remain competitive. The organisation has a great opportunity for implementing digital marketing since the key customer groups have access to technology, are frequent visitors to internet and are aware of the company’s products. Most of the existing customers have access to social media with many of them having Facebook and Twitter accounts. With their easy access to technology, customers would like businesses also to provide and sell their products online. It is evident that, customers like easy accessibility of websites, they like interacting with their suppliers; they need fast and quality products that met their needs and desires. These are key opportunities that the company considers to fulfil by implementing a digital marketing plan. Consumers want reliable organisations that deal with consumers directly. They dot need to use agents so as to access a company’s products. This makes digital marketing a big solution to these consumers and an opportunity for the organisation. By having the knowledge of its customers, the organisations will be able to improve on its products. Threats There are threats that arise from the external environment of the organisation that may influence the successful implementation of the digital marketing plan. The organisation is influenced by political factors as a result of government regulations that restrict business operations. Many of these regulations are not favourable to the business and pose a big threat to its success. The organisation success is under a big threat of economic factors such as increased inflation, exchange rates as well as interest rates that are being experienced all over the world. This increases competition in the market within which the organisation is operating and is a big threat to the business and more effort need to be done so as to overcome such threats. The organisation is also influenced by the various laws that are directly connected to digital marketing and must be adhered to for the company to successfully carry out its operations online. They include; data protection regulations, privacy and electronic communication regulations, telecommunications regulations, cookie regulations and parody laws. From the findings, it is true that, the organisation is facing a threat from its key competitors who use optimised tools and techniques to market their products online. The key competitors use tools such as search engine marketing, websites and social media. On social media, they use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, You tube and Linked In. They experience extensive interactions with their customers through social media by sharing interesting content online. This enables them to make huge sales as a result of acquiring large customer base online and understanding their needs through interaction. They have many followers with many of the customers liking their products. This enables more sales to be made online. The competitors also have websites that they use to move their products online. Even though they do not pay for the websites, their Products are integrated with Google Product Listing Ads so as to boost their online sales. This makes their products easily accessible by customers in many ways. Competitors also use Search Engine Marketing that allows their products or information of the company to have a high ranking after searching in the internet. This enables the accessibility of information about the product by customers to be easy. The competitors usually pay for the SEO to ensure the search results that appear on the search page are related to their products. SWOT Analysis Table Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Online website Use of social media Use of search engine marketing - Slow webpages - Products are not integrated with Google Product Listing Ads - Search engine marketing is not optimised - Online marketing of the company does not use arts - Many consumers have access to internet. - Customers are now embracing online purchasing - Many businesses are now entering the digital world - Key customer groups have access to technology. - Are frequent visitors to internet and are aware of the company’s products. - Many of the customers have access to social media and the company’s website - Legal factors Economic factors -Political factors - Stiff competition from well-established. competitors in online marketing. Objectives 1. To increase traffic for the organisation’s website 2. To increase followers for the organisation in social media 3. To increase more sharing of blog posts with our customers 4. To change the perception of the company from neutral to positive 5. To increase interaction with our customers 6. To increase sales online 7. To increase customer base online Strategies The strategies that the organisation can use include; segmentation. Targeting and positioning. These are explained as follows. Segmentation Segmentation of customers will enable the company to understand different groups of customers with their prospects (Varadarajan & Yadav, 296). This will enable the company to deliver communication and offers that are more relevant and thereby giving better response rates to the customer communications. The key audience for the digital marketing will focused on customers who have access to internet and purchase their products online. The organisation also wants to achieve new customers while keeping the existing ones. The digital marketing is aimed at attracting customers who want a fast delivery of service and quality products. The existing customers want online services that easily accessible and more interaction. They want webpages that open fast and more results of their search for the organisation and its products. Customers go online to search for particular products that meet their needs. They also desire quality products, they are more interested in organisations that cater for their product needs fast, they have passion for online shopping and are motivated by the availability of the products they need. With this knowledge, the organisation will be able to adjust to customer’s needs and desires so as to meet them through digital marketing. The organisation will implement fast webpages, optimise its search engine marketing and allow more interactivity with it customers online. This will enable the organisation achieve its goals for implementing the digital marketing plan. Targeting According to Easingwood & Koustelos (27), customer groups are different and targeting them must be done will a lot of creativity. The organisation should use differentiation so as to deliver certain communications and different marketing mix variable to meet their needs. Differentiation is a key element the organisation’s brand strategy since it will help in providing an opportunity as well as vision that defines a niche within the digital market sector. Through differentiation, the organisation will gain more attention from its existing customers and encourage new markets as well as audiences. The organisation should use the Ansoff Matrix to offer different directions for its product online. These will include pursuing four key elements including; market penetration, market development, product and development as well as diversification. Existing customers will be offered with fast web pages and more interactivity online. New customers will offered with a new and improved product from that of competitors. Customers will be given a forum in social media to express their opinions and views about the organisation and its products. The organisation will also capitalise on its market online by diversifying its product to new and existing customers (Kim, Nam & Stimpert, 569). Positioning The organisation will take the brand position online through online value proposition. Online digital marketing will add more value to the business in different ways (Smith, 86). The organisation will capitalise on improving its online presence and offer more variety of advertising to its customers than its competitors. The organisation will grow through market penetration because digital marketing will offer a chance for the company to sell more of its products online to the existing customer base. The organisation will also grow through market development since it will identify new markets to enter that its customers have not yet considered for gaining new customers. Digital Marketing Mix The key digital marketing mix that the organisation will use includes; promotion, process and physical evidence. Promotion This will involve extensive communication online. According to Mangold & Faulds (357), to effectively communicate online with customers, the company needs to employ better ways of increasing its popularity of its website through looking at external sources of internet advertising. This includes ways such as Pay-Per-Click advertising, affiliate marketing, offline promotion strategies and search marketing. Pay-Per-Click advertising will involve use of Google Adwords which is an online advertising program. The company needs to make a decision on a keyword that has a close relationship to its product. The organisation will also need to employ affiliate marketing by offering an incentive to other organisations that are web-based to market its product. Additionally, employing offline promotion strategies will play a big role in promoting the organisations website. This will be achieve by creating a media release regarding the organisations website and advertising using other media such as radio, cinema and TV. The organisation needs to employ search marketing such as overture and Yahoo. Overture is seen to have many sub products that comprise of its digital program. The use of sponsored search by Overture will ensure that the organisation’s advert is displayed at the top of the search engine results after customers such for specific keyword. This will increase traffic for the company’s website. Local advertising should also be used by getting the business listed in the business directory of Yahoo. This will enable the organisation achieve promotion of its product to specific regions that are next to particular search keywords. Process The digital marketing of the company will enable customers have an easy access to web content by optimising its webpages (Chaffey, Smith & Smith, 129). The digital marketing will also provide forums and options for customers to interact with the organisation directly in social media including; Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Linked in among other social networks. With the introduction of live chats, real time messaging and webinars, the organisation will be able to interact fully with its customers. Physical Evidence Constantinides (57) argues that, to ensure that the organisation’s brand identity is well visible online, it is important for the organisation to employ various effective methods of online branding including the use of; Username or URLs, profile picture, a cover photo and an online profile. URLs should be unique, catchy and easy to be remembered by customers. They should be included in the company’s blogs, website, and social media as well as in search engine marketing or even in any other area that traffic needs to be driven. If the organisation is dormant on one specific social media, it is important to provide a link where it is active, a professional profile picture for the company should be available on its website, social media and any other sections that the organisation has marketed itself online. A cover photo is also necessary to be used in social media such as Twitter and Facebook that gives a shining character to the organisation. The organisation should also have an online profile that provides a summary about the organisation and what it specialises in. Implementation Plan The implementation time of the digital marketing plan will begin in January 2015 and will be completed in December 2015. Research and Prepare This will involve identifying the search engine marketing network channels like online neighbourhoods and third party influencers. It will also involve identifying activists target habits in digital marketing. The organisation will also identify opinion leaders within the digital marketing like the key informants, digital trace and professional activity. It will also involve identifying the best digital marketing practices that the organisation can use against its competitors and their habits. Research and prepare will also involve listening and monitoring the tone of online communication so as to ensure that any material which is posted online is in tone and speaks of the online communities. This activity will also involve researching on the cost of optimising search engine marketing, payments at social media and paper clip projects for digital marketing. Engage Due Diligence The community will be given the primary focus in digital marketing. This will involve listening to the community, who offer a clear insight on their behaviour online, what they look for online, why they go online, which websites do they visit and what motivates them to makes their purchases online. This will ensure that the organisation’s digital marketing keeps up with the society together with their thoughts. The organisation will be able to gain the right message for the right engagement as well as at the right time. Monitor Blogs and Provide Feedback This activity will involve following on consumer’s conversations and threads so as to track the influencers and get to engage with them. It will also involve providing clients with feedback that they require. It will also help in getting snap short tracking reports. This will involve monitoring the digital marketing activities online to establish their success. It will involve measuring the volume of traffic online as well as the impact of digital marketing. Engage with Blogs The organisation will undertake an engagement with particular elements of the blog community for the purpose of creating conversations that are highly emotive as well as content pieces that are useful to the wider audience online. The organisation will initiate a debate to reach a broader audience who are not aware of the organisation and its products. This will involve using an emotive commentary which is powerful for customers to connect with. Enable Digital Marketing Online Consumer Relations Through This will involve listening to online conversations, identifying opinion leaders, developing content that is based on what the organisation has learned, participation, commenting as well as generating interest, becoming a resource, giving support to customers so as to build the organisations online character and using the organisations digital marketing content for online consumer. Optimise the Search Engine Marketing This will be done by increasing the organisation’s linkability, ensuring that tagging as well as bookmarking is made easy, rewarding of inbound links, helping the organisation’s content to travel, implementation of Keyword strategy incorporation, introducing a Pay Per Click strategy and developing contextual links in the content body of the organisation’s website. Reporting This will involve coming up with a benchmark report together with on-going snap-short reports that will help in measuring results of digital marketing as well as advocacy success. Implementation Plan Table Date Activity Cost Target Completion Date Date Completed 1st Jan 2015 Research and Prepare $ 120 28th Feb 2015 28th Feb 2015 1st March 2015 Engage Due Diligence $ 80 30th April 2015 30th April 2015 1st May 2015 Monitor Blogs and Provide Feedback $ 60 30th June 2015 30th June 2015 1st July 2015 Engage with Blogs $ 70 30st August 2015 30st August 2015 1st September 2015 Enable Online Consumer Relations through $ 40 31st October 2015 31st October 2015 1st November 2015 Optimise the Search Engine Marketing $ 50 15th December 2015 15th December 2015 16th December 2015 Reporting $ 30 31st December 2015 31st December 2015 Control and Measurements It is important to note that, the performance of digital marketing should be monitored against the set objectives. Various tools are available for the purpose of tracking how many times the implementation of digital marketing has resulted to new business opportunities of conversions. The control and measurements will focus on measuring the volume of traffic on the website, the number of followers on social media, the number of shares of blog posts, the impact of digital marketing on the perception of the company by customers, the volume of online sales, the number of new customers online and the extend of online interaction with our customers. The use of Google analytics should be applied to access the volume of traffic, the number of new customers online, extend of online interaction and the volume of online sales. Social media incites such as Facebook incites, Twitter incites will also be used to access the number of followers on social media. Sentiment analysis tools will also be used to access the number of shares of blog posts. The use of control areas will also be used whereby the word of mouth campaign will be run for the purpose of measuring the effect of digital marketing the perception of the company by customers. Conclusion This plan was aimed at providing Nutella UK Company with guidance, directions and justified recommendations for developing a digital marketing plan that will enable the company grow within UK in the next twelve months. It has identified the key areas that need to be looked into and implemented to ensure that the organisation remains competitive in the market. The plan also describes the benefits that the organisation will benefit from by implementing the digital marketing plan. With the implementation of the proposed plan, the organisation will be able to achieve its set out objectives of using digital marketing. References Chaffey, Dave, Paul Russell Smith, and Paul Russell Smith. eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge, 2012. Constantinides, Efthymios. "The 4S web-marketing mix model." Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 1.1 (2002): 57-76. Easingwood, Chris, and Anthony Koustelos. "Marketing high technology: preparation, targeting, positioning, execution." Business Horizons 43.3 (2000): 27-34. Kim, Eonsoo, Dae-il Nam, and J. L. Stimpert. "The applicability of Porter’s generic strategies in the digital age: Assumptions, conjectures, and suggestions." Journal of Management 30.5 (2004): 569-589. Mangold, W. Glynn, and David J. Faulds. "Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix." Business horizons 52.4 (2009): 357-365. Smith, Katherine Taken. "Longitudinal study of digital marketing strategies targeting Millennials." Journal of Consumer Marketing 29.2 (2012): 86-92. Varadarajan, P. Rajan, and Manjit S. Yadav. "Marketing Strategy and the Internet: An Organizing Framework." Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 30.4 (2002): 296-312. Appendix 1: Context Analysis PESTEL Analysis Political Analysis - There are various political factors that influence the organisation as a result of government regulations that affects the economy and the business. These include; the labour law, trade restrictions, the environmental law, tariffs and tax policy on food. Many of these regulations are not favourable to the business and pose a big threat to its success. Economic Analysis - The economy of the country is currently being affected directly by factors such as; increasing inflation rate, exchange rates and interest rates. These factors affect the business and are a threat to its success due to the competitive environment within which it is operating. Social Analysis - The digital era is on the increase and many populations today are accessing the internet for the purpose of purchasing and selling their products online. Therefore, this is a big opportunity for the company to market its products online where customers have easy access to their website. Technological Analysis - Technology is changing at a very high rate and businesses are entering the digital world whereby business is done online. The organisation cannot be left out and has to join other business that operates online through digital marketing so as to remain competitive. Legal Analysis – there are various laws that are directly connected to digital marketing such as; data protection regulations, privacy and electronic communication regulations, telecommunications regulations, cookie regulations and parody laws. Digital Marketing tools that have been used by key competitors The key competitors use tools such as search engine marketing, websites and social media Social Media - They use social media like Facebook, Twitter, You tube and Linked In. they use the social media to interact with customers by sharing interesting content online. They have many followers with many of the customers liking their products. This enables more sales to be made online. Websites – the competitors also have a website that can be accessed by customers online. They use the website to move their products online and sell them. They don’t pay for the website. In fact they use OsCommerce which is available for free. They also integrate their products with Google Product Listing Ads so as to boost their online sales. The accessibility of their website enables customers familiarise themselves with their products and buy them. Search Engine Marketing – the competitors also use search engine marketing that allows their products or information of the company to have a high ranking after searching in the internet. This enables the accessibility of information about the product by customers to be easy. The competitors usually pay for the SEO to ensure the search results that appear on the search page are related to their products. Customers and their Behaviours in General The key customer groups are those who have access to technology, frequent visitors to internet and the existing customers who are aware of the company’s products. Many of the customers are now having the knowledge of new technology and other are learning the new technology since the world of business is changing into digital. Most of the existing customers have access to social media with many of them having Facebook and Twitter accounts. With their easy access to technology, customers would like businesses also to provide and sell their products online. It is evident that, customers like easy accessibility of websites, they like interacting with their suppliers; they need fast and quality products that met their needs and desires. This is a key aspect that the company considers to fulfil by implementing a digital marketing plan. Consumers want reliable organisations that deal with consumers directly. They dot need to use agents so as to access a company’s products. This makes digital marketing a big solution to these consumers. Consumers are seen to go online mostly in the morning and evening hours. When they go online, they are looking for products that directly meet their needs and expectations. This give a chance to the organisation to sell its quality products online where there are available customers. As an existing organisation in the online market, customers expect improved services that meet their desires. They would like to make comments of the services and products offered by the organisation. This will help the organisation receive customer views and improve on its products. An Analysis of the Core Organisation Digital Marketing The organisation already has a website online that can be accessed by consumers. This is a big strength that the company holds since it has already established a customer base with the existing customers. Digital marketing will improve its popularity in the digital market. However the websites do not have fast accessibility, the webpages are very slow to open. This is a weakness that needs to be worked to ensure that the webpages open fast when customers access them. The organisation also use social media like Facebook, You tube, Linked In and Twitter to interact with its customers. Having access to social media networks is a big advantage for an organisation since it is easy to interact with customers who present their views on the position of the company, quality of their products and services. This gives a wake-up call for the organisation to see areas that need to be improved to ensure that they remain competitive in the market. The organisation also use search engine marketing which is a good digital marketing strategy that improves the accessibility of the webpages of the company in the search results over the internet. However, they have not optimized the search results since they use do not pay for the SEO that can make the search results of the company’s webpages to have a high ranking. The online marketing of the company also does not use arts that may improve its authenticity to the audience. Read More