NDMC Niche Digital Marketing Consultancy

Online Strategies for Company X

The Launch Framework

Before you attempt to launch any outdoor event campaigns – create a

launch plan to serve as a framework for the online marketing strategies to be

implemented.

Launch Framework

CompanyX’s business plans, objectives and aims in alignment with the website and vice versa

Target market

Online channels

ROI and metrics

CompanyX.com

Business Goals

The aim of the CompanyX’s website should be to:• Generate leads• Gain exposure• Save time and money• Up the revenue• Directly interact with the target market

Research

• Firstly when researching the market, CompanyX should ask the following questions:

• What are the environmental opportunities and constraints?

• What competitive edge do your competitors have over CompanyX? What online services do they offer?

• What do customers want and or need? How can CompanyX deliver to their expectations and match if not exceed their competitors offering? How can CompanyX gain customer loyalty?

Who is the target?

Target MarketHow to reach your target market?

Online research has revolutionised research.

The growth of online technology has given companies the opportunity to reach their target audiences in a speedy and cost effective manner.

Your audience is online, so why not talk to them online?

Online Market Research

BlogsBlogs can be used as a tool to drive market research,

product and service development. Essentially, a blog will create a community around itself of the type of readers (target market) that CompanyX can get opinions, ideas and feedback from.

When using blogs as a means of targeted research, CompanyX can:

• Interact with its readers• Administer polls and surveys• Ask for feedback on past and current event and

ideas for future events

Virtual focus groups

• These can take place ‘virtually’ over the internet in the same way as they do offline.

• CompanyX can use a typical online group of 10-14 respondents, a moderator and an observer.

• The group will meet over a secure web site that was set-up for this research purpose. The moderator will post the questions that the respondents will be encouraged to add their comments and answers whilst observers watch the proceedings.

Social Networking Sites

• Social media is in heart of the online marketing operations of any successful business.

• From a business perspective, it influences how we promote and share information, evaluate products/ services and rate companies and their campaigns.

Social Networking Sites

• CompanyX can use social media as a means of qualitative research as it delivers on insight and knowledge (Smitthee, 2009).

• It is an opportunity to listen to what the target market have to say about the company, its services, the latest trends in the outdoors market and consumer preferences to say the least.

• Engage with online communities

Social Networking Sites

• When studying customer behaviour in a social media setting, CompanyX is able to answer the following questions:

How can CompanyX influence the customers’ perceptions?

What can be done to optimise the brand and its events?

And how can this be reflected in promotions and marketing campaigns?

Recommendations

Do the Research and Cater to the Customer Avatar (Target Market)

According to Wilson (2010): “understanding what a customer avatar is and more importantly applying it to your marketing is one of the most powerful things you can do to move past your competition and connect directly with more prospective clients.”

• CompanyX can utilise this concept in their online marketing strategies.

Customer AvatarFor CompanyX to achieve the ultimate aim of

having loyal followers, it should consider the following 3 steps.

1. Build a customer avatar• Who is the ideal customer? What are

psychographics and demographics of these students and young professionals?

• What are their needs and wants for outdoor events?

• What messages can be created by CompanyX to drive them towards action? (ie signing up for event updates, social network influence (ie SNPs), event attendance etc)

Customer Avatar2. Next, the company must understand how and when the

customer will take ‘action’. • What’s the target market’s biggest desire? Example: It

could be that they want readily available information about CompanyX’s future events.

• What is the target market’s biggest problem? Example: They have too many choices. It is no longer easy to distinguish between the right event or company for them amongst fierce competition.

• How can CompanyX address their desires and problems? Example: Giving the customer ‘visibility’ of how events are created. Convincing the customer that the company’s services are created around them and that they are at the ‘hub’ of operations, thus highlighting their importance. Rewarding of customer loyalty through various promotions and loyalty points, discounts etc.

Customer Avatar

3. Review your online marketing strategies so that they reflect the customer avatar

• Just by uncovering the answers to the questions in point 2, CompanyX can uncover improvements that they can make almost immediately to their online strategies, including:

• Company website• Keywords rankings and search engine

optimisation (otherwise, company websites may be ranked for the wrong customer keywords)

• Social network sites and fan pages (ie Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogs etc)

• Pay per click

Exposure, exposure, exposure

• All future promotion of the website, CompanyX and its events must be highly visible to the target market.

Exposure• Publish. List an event once and then publish it across the web

(ie social networks, blogs, online communities, event listing sites)

• Track and measure. Track all company events as they appear in top search engines (ie Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask Jeeves)

• Target the market. Use intelligent publishing so that events only appear on relevant sites where the target market frequents

• Update and evaluate. Update information frequently so that the target market is best informed and evaluate sites’ popularity. Also evaluate content and message popularity.

The Way to Go is Social!• Decide on the content to be communicated

and communication frequency.

• Ensure that the message to be communicated is consistent thorough promotions .

• Track the number of visitors who have clicked on a promotion, visited a blog, liked a fan page (Facebook) or tweeted/ re-tweeted a message (Twitter). This will enable CompanyX to see what updates are working and not working.

A successful company website

CompanyX should view its website in terms of ‘layers’:

• CompanyX’s philosophy – To engage, connect and listen with its customers (ie students and young professionals) and keeping them up-to-date with the latest outdoor events. The website will serve as a hub for all CompanyX-related information.

• Technology – CompanyX must invest in the right technology/ platform that will enable it to get its ‘philosophy’ across and grow with the company. The website’s interactive nature should be highlighted along with its ability to link to multiple online media (ie it must be social media friendly).

• Business elements – Aims and objectives of the website. How will it be promoted? What are its different uses and by whom? How will the return on investment (ROI) be measured?

• Look and feel elements – This will include: branding, graphics, website structure and navigation.

• Content – A key area of focus that is to be continually reviewed and updated accordingly.

Optimisation

• It is in CompanyX’s interest to make sure that the website is ‘optimised’ for the people who really count- its readers and customers.

• A visitor’s site experience should be as straight-forward and as simple as possible with minimal waiting or search time.

Key Performance Indicators

SMART Goals

• Return on investment (ROI) measurement• Analytics• Word cloud analysis• Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Return on investment (ROI) measurement

• The website itself can offer ROI information and as a means of tracking ROI. Analytics programmes (ie Google analytics, Webtrends, Yahoo! analytics) are easy to integrate with a company website. They provide information within a specified timeframe of the number of site visitors who are considered: direct traffic, referrals from other websites and or search engines.

Analytics• The website hosting company/

vendor can advise on the best analytics programme to accompany the site and help enhance its functionality.

• CompanyX can use analytics to improve marketing effectiveness, concentrating on areas that need further promotions and exposing areas that need more attention.

Word cloud Analysis

• 'Tag clouds' or word cloud analysis count the occurrence of words and display the size of these words based on their frequency.

• It can be used on surveys and focus group answers to analyse their transcripts.

• Results are displayed in graphs to give a visual perspective of the words that respondents and site visitors utter the most.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

• Keyword searches are a great way of finding out what the customers' thinking process is and the purpose behind their searches.

• It also gives an idea of what stage of the information search they are in, whether it is the early inquisitive stage, the focused and specific search stage or the comparison and purchase stage.

To Expand or Not to Expand? A Social Media Dilemma

• Having too many choices is a dangerous position• With the advancement of technology, companies get caught up

with the increase in the number of online marketing channels. • They end up spreading themselves thin with the integration of each

new medium. • It is best for CompanyX to identify the online strategies and

channels that work best for and with the company and utilise those one or two at a time before adopting something new.

• The best choices are the easiest to implement, bringing the company the greatest ROI at the lowest cost.

Any Questions