Factors to Consider for Digital Marketing

This report studies the case of Boo.com, a digital company that gave its initial steps in London a company that was founded in 1998 by founders Malmsten and former model Ms Leander “who wanted to create the premier online location where the cool and chic would be able to buy their clothes” (Wray, 2005).

The company fundamentally failed for the fact of wanting to do too much in an area not yet prepared to receive such a colossal step in technology for that time, also decisions without the appropriate infrastructures as per logistics to extend the business to several other countries, rather than focusing in one country initially, internet payed still additional problem as at the time the internet was still connected via dial-up modems making the access to it very costly and slow, at times with disruptions (Wray, 2005).

Today with the abundance of digital media platforms and technology, boo.com would of succeed as the strategies would benefit the platform in a much effective means, also the cost would have been more cost efficient.

This study will evaluate all aspects of digital marketing to make it a success.

1. Differences between Traditional and Digital Media

There is a great deal of controversy in relation to Traditional and Digital media, up to date companies still struggle to decide which sort of proposal to use for small companies perhaps the Traditional will give more visibility once it operates locally. Equally, it will depend on the budget of companies willing to invest the size and niche of the business may determine which approach will be adopted for the desired marketing (Raychale, 2018).

The observable difference amidst traditional and digital media is manifested through the methods used to publicise, traditional media uses conventional media, as radio, TV, Outdoors, local and national newspapers, Flyers and Ads in weekly magazines. However, traditional media is a costlier process (Saini, 2018).

Digital media uses a multiplicity of internet platforms to promote marketing they constitute on the following; Promotional advertise via email, social media, i.e.: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, networking sites such as LinkedIn, paid pop ups and new technologies i.e. mobile phones, tablets, etc. Consequently, this process is significantly cheaper than its traditional counterpart, also it is worth noticing the timing to achieve results from the traditional method may take weeks if not months to obtain factual results, on the other hand , digital marketing brings results almost instantly (Saini, 2018).

1.1 Traditional marketing progression

Despite the progression on the past few decades, however, the process remained essentially the same. The marketing technics used today still relays on the notorious 4 Ps Price, Product, Place and Promotion.

All prosperous business recognises the need to elaborate an appropriate sales channel. By implementing the 4Ps of marketing, business can effectively see results by its implementation.

Figure 1: 4Ps Marketing Mix

A brief analysis on the 4Ps that influences all paths of the marketing techniques (Raychale, 2018).

Product – In manner to achieve an effective marketing begins by a good perception of the tangible product or intangible service that satisfies the needs of the market.

Price – The total cost of the product depends on several factors, cost, supply demand and profit margin.

Place – Traditional like conventional marketing depends deeply on having the product in front of the target audience at the right place and time. Price also plays an important factor.

Promotion – Depending on the method applied to for the product to the customer is called promotion, any way that helps to give and gain more visibility is also known as promotion.

However, Digital marketing might look different but, in its essence, although it emphasises more on the fourth P of Promotion, it does not neglect the other Ps. The others are definitely not left aside and are used to (Raychale, 2018).

1.2 The disadvantage to traditional media

The disadvantages of traditional media are immense, there is almost inexistence interaction between methods used and the consumer. Having stated this, the method used is more of an ornamental just, so customers are aware of the brands presence in the market expecting customer to adhere.

It is vastly known the costs traditional media incurs specially when using radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, the printing also as its lateral costs like the distribution of it, in case of brochures and so forth.

The greatest disadvantage of this process is that it can hardly be measured leaving little or no space to understand the campaigns impact (Cave, 2016).

1.3 The benefits of digital media

Whilst traditional media is still effective today. The growth of technology as acknowledged the fact for the goods and services to become known in the market. The fast-growing technology is allowing business to connect to its public in a way never seen before. Hence, the importance to analyse drawbacks of the traditional media prior to invest in it (Raychale, 2018).

Figure 2: Marketers state the biggest drawbacks of traditional marketing (Lyfe Marketing)

However, with the digital technologies and its platforms, the marketing can be produced by focusing on particular audience demographics, can be age related, geographic, gender and interests. Becoming therefore a furthermore effective campaign. Additionally, the target audience can opt on the way they want to be approached, by the diversity of platforms available and preferable, YouTube, blog posts etc. Digital is cost-efficient, data and results are easily recorded with the support of insight tools and google analytics. The most important is also real time results (Cave, 2016).

1.4 Digital marketing importance to Boo.com

Following the analysis of the differences between traditional and the digital marketing, additionally, after a comprehensive research on documents and sites around Boo.com, a company that invested heavily in its own platform, is manifestly evident that boo.com would have additional advantages with the use of digital marketing set in the current scenario, with the variety of platforms and technology available.

Its evident that boo.com commenced its trajectory fundamentally without any platforms that could support its operation, as generally recognised as at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Therefore, after a brief analyse the digital media and recent technologies are the ones that appear to be adequate for the success of the company.

The proposal for the option is the one that shows more adequate and for the fast and complex required by the company, were the traditional method would not benefit at all, as proven at the time of the company’s existence as the traditional method was already in place and is not tuned to environment of a company such as boo.com, additionally, it could not provide the necessary feedback as digital the fast return is also one of the needs for a company such as this, also the targets can vary from and with digital demographics can easily be applied and focused to its targeted audience.

2. Website optimisation Techniques applicable to Boo.com

For a current evolution of boo’s website there is a need to make use of Customer Rate Optimisation (CRO) tool, to improve and understand what customers are looking for.

2.1 Customer Rate Optimisation (CRO)

CRO is used to build a compelling user experience to a website to create a visitor’s interest to the website and create an action created in the website for them to act as intended. This could be anything like purchasing from the website, subscribing to newsletters, registering for company services, requesting a free trial and so forth.

“Various elements include optimizing on-site design or landing page, testing different versions of content, improving visual experience for better CX and UX, and other measures” (Grover, 2018).

At this point a detail on the process for Conversion Rate Optimisation, needless to say that at same time is necessary to evaluate the entire process and for the outcome to come as desired.

Bellow for a better understanding an easy way to establish every step of the process (Moogan, 2014).

Figure 3: The conversion rate optimisation process

Data Gathering

At this initial stage the gathering of data can be collected from 3 different areas.

The Company

The company or website is the initial process to understand the steps to adopt for each stage of the process of data gathering.

Questions should be clearly stated:

Why does the company exist?

It is advisable to start by question about the company why in the perspective of structure linking.

It is at this stage that a deep research into the company and understand what makes it to stand out from other companies. This is not only to find Unique selling Propositions (USPs), it goes beyond that, it takes a deeper look into the companies culture and of the DNA of the company. The reason for it is the consumers buys and the communication it describes just the same as its product. There is always attraction for certain companies for its products, however, is more the attraction to the company that keeps people returning rather than anything else (Moogan, 2014).

The company’s goals?

This is one of the vital points to consider and its motives ought to be evident. There is a need to reflect on the data collected and the tests about hitting these targets. There will be times when some targets will make no sense than others. These are also known as micro-conversions and may include material that will contribute to a bigger target. A good example for it is the company may discover that consumers that have signed up for newsletters or emails are more inclined to become a recurring customer, rather than does who don’t do it. Consequently, micro-conversion as role to get people to sign up to email list or newsletters (Moogan, 2014).

Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) of the company?

In comparison to competitors that sell similar or same products, how does it make the company different? At this stage some benefits of USPs are if companies cannot rival. Some of it can be by offering free delivery. However, companies can always match soon follow and provide the same (Moogan, 2014).

Common Objectives?

At this stage it is imperative to make some surveys within the sales team and query them on the way they sell the product, what is the impression relating to how do USPs work? Also, are the sort of objections they have towards the product. One other way is to talk to customer services and understand what kind of issues they have to deal. These people are also able to provide what consumers like the most and what sort of suggestion the customers prefer the most and the positive feedback and suggestions to product improvement (Moogan, 2014).

In case of the use of live chat, there is also a way to gather feedback. Many companies sometimes look to this scenario and gather information (Moogan, 2014). As known Boo.com used Ms Boo to interact with customers (Wray, 2005).

Website

At this stage the focus is just on the website and to see what data is collected to inform the trials.

During this process it is important to gather detailed mapping from customers of the sales process from start to the end considering every step of the process between the consumer and the website and any marketing material such as emails.

At this stage is now possible to develop and test for problems that might occur at every step of the process to resolve them.

At this stage it is important to start a enter into the analytics review funnels if they do not exist yet. Here it is of importance to verify the drop-off points subsist and initiate an investigation on to why it is happening. However, some technical issues may be the cause of the drop-offs in conversions, it is important to be at the minimum of segmenting data possible through the browser in manner to find solutions.

Traffic Breakdown

• Consider the quantity of traffic the website obtains. This may have an impact on the testing. Low traffic can impact on how long the test takes to complete.
• The Demographics that the website attracts here google analytics and also enable demographics and interest Report.
• Similarly, the technologies used plays also a vital role as the trend may also differ from what sort is in use at this stage it is of high importance that websites also adapt to mobile friendly to capture audience.

Figure 4, where data comes from?

Customer

This is probably the most interesting part of area to cover to gather and may well be the area of most impact. At this stage is where the data starts to get collected via many several processes.

Can be collected by Google consumer surveys, Quaraloo also available for mobiles, survey monkey, AYTM and also usertesting.com this are some examples that can be used (Moogan, 2014).

List Hypothesis

At this point it is were from the data gathering to define what needs to be tested or what is desired to test. A variety of tests can be performed. It is also important to define what sort of customers visits the website, the demographics also there is a need to understand how their minds are focus in relation to the purchasing cycle.

Segment testing is also very important as it can define which sort of browser can be select in manner not to affect the website (Moogan, 2014).

Experiments:

Wireframe test designs

At this particular step is were the testing starts! Here it is possible to use the sites Optimiser and Visual Website optimiser.

It is also important to analyse the following are the transformations affecting directly my hypothesis? The changes are still keeping the design on-brand, also are changes technically doable? Additionally, for this last case it exists a few tools that are available like Balsamic and Mockingbird (Moogan, 2014).

Design implementation

As stated above in this section its systems that can be used are Optimizely and Visual Website Optimiser. It is also good to keep the design simple rather than complex, the greater the complexity the harder it is to set the design live.

Moreover, in certain cases it is possible to line the limit the proportion of traffic that will be sent to the testing page.

Targets of the experimental phase

• Testing variations are live and getting traffic
• Complete cross-browser test
• Correct traffic segmentation and a set traffic location

“Many of them require no coding, provided the use a platform (such as Shopify) with simple editing features, and their basis in neuroscience means they work with customer’s hard-wired cognitive biases to increase conversion rates” (Ligier, 2018).

3. (SEO), (SMM) and Content Marketing, Boo.com critical analysis

For a better analyse on how boo.com could implement the tools to make the website visible and optimise it, However, it needs to accommodate all the relevant aspects as described below.

3.1 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Content Marketing

This a perfect scenario for Boo.com, could easily implement SEO, SMM in manner to create brand awareness and Content Marketing. “SEO is a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.” (Fishkin, 2018)

Organic SEO

A brief understanding of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Is the process of attaining the top positions or rank in an organic or natural listings of the web page like shown on the figure 5 as  the central sentence of the search engine result pages (SERPS) through a variety of key words or key phrases entered by the users (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016).

In addition to listings that establishes the relevance of the performed search, also on the text as other relevant factors that will improve the performance as the SERPs that equally are of importance in relation to search. Google defines these terms as part of a proposed action also known as universal search or blended search. These are attributes that boo.com should adopt, also PPC adopt discussed in point 4 bellow.

Figure 5, Google Search Engine Results Page

3.1.2 Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media is the use of programmes where hypothetical customers interact directly. Social Media Marketing or SMM is the place where marketing companies market their services or products from a specific company or brand. SMM is the kind of place were brands can attract new and interact with current customers. Given the multiplicity of Social media platforms and its interaction allows the brand to extend the reach of content through various platforms. SMM allows the marketing strategy to be pushed which also pushes the content and determines people from their current state.

Do to SMM is a sort of marketing that allows to promote a brand or company with the help of its interaction and sharing of content, which makes it a sort of personalised sort of marketing. Through sharing and engaging companies can initiate brand engagement through one click method of sharing and brand awareness, Consequently, marketers should keep conversion and maintain sharing business-related content. For an indirect campaign of products, the brand should start conversation and stimulate users to share amongst participants for a sounder CRM. Through SMM small companies are able to build in a large skill brand awareness (Braun, 2017).

3.1.3 Content Marketing Strategy

A brief explanation on Content Marketing. There have been dramatic changes to the Content Marketing, becoming additionally active and amusing. On several social platforms it is needed to have a budget to evidence any impact. No matter what it must echo within users or quickly it will become part of the past. Trends on content media has been dictated by social media, updates such as Instagram stories or Facebook auto play, and video as YouTube. Brands must keep the pace with changes and swiftly adapted in manner to keep relevance and achieve the goal that is the targeted audience (Nagel, 2018).

3.1.4 KPIs and Metrics to Monitor SEO, SMM and Content Marketing

SEO:

A definition of KPIs, KPIs are metrics that measures and provides coherence to a campaign or business.

One of the most important aspects of KPIs becomes apparent once it measures SEO and Digital marketing.

Bellow 9 KPIs that should be observed diligently (Murray, 2018).

• Organic Sessions
• Keyword ranking increases
• Conversions
• Bounce Rate
• Pages / sessions
• Average session duration
• Loading page time
• Top exit pages
• Crawl errors

SMM:

SMM or KPIs are measures used by marketing to measure the performance of SMM campaigns. SMM is a vital part in any company to attract business to any website (klipfolio, 2018).

Top list KPIs for to track in modern SMM

• Likes
• Engagement
• Growth followers
• Social Interactions
• Social sentiment
• Social visitor goals
• Social shares
• Web visitors from social channel
• Social visitors conversion rates

Content Marketing:

Content Marketing can take many shapes. KPI is simply a calculable degree that accompany can use to measure performance across time. Besides, a company is also able to view if a particular content is performing or not performing as expected (Izea, 2017).

Depending in the factors a company should focus on here are a few that can be used.

• Unique users/visitors
• Time spent on site
• Visitors location
• Social shares
• Type of technology used
• Generated leads
• Number of new followers/subscribers

A brief description of KPIs, please refer to point 6 were it is going to be further discussed.

4. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Online Display and Video advertising

Pay-per-click is executed the same way as the normal advertise, however, the term [ad] is display in a square net to the link of the page that contains a specific phrase typed by the user. A sequence of funded links with the text ad are displayed above of the listings (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016).

Figure 6, Pay-per-click (PPC) format display

On the other hand, online display marketing is a sort of advertising that comes in numerous diverse formats. Incorporating banners, these incorporates banner ads rich media and others. Contrasting to the ads that are text-based this are advertise that are use rich content such as video, audio and images to relate a message advert (Marketing Land, 2018).

This would have helped boost boo.com with all this content plus the videos and the social media would attract much attention to the site making it more visible. PPC would of also give a better indicate to Boo for it the company should follow the next 6 critical mechanisms, Campaigns, Ad Groups, Keywords, Negative keyword, Ad text and Landing pages.

Figure 7, Search Term: Keyword:

Figure 8, AdWords account

4.1 Investment:

Selecting and budgeting for digital mix, is complex and very diverse it needs an understanding how and where to invest in a diverse digital media. There are some main measures that can be found on model campaigns it is important at the setting of a campaign to understand the measures of the visitors interested in a particular site for it there is a need the use of the range of VQVC measures, Volume Quality Value and cost of visitors. In Fig.9 shows each step of the campaigns showing from the less sophisticated to a more complex range (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016).

Figure 9, Measures used for setting campaign objectives or assessing campaign success in sophistication from bottom to top

On average campaigns Marketing campaigns expenditure on average vary from 0 to 40% of the revenue generated. In some cases, companies don’t spend nothing, however, they have a built-in customer base, or they are in an excellent location, in which they don’t have the need for marketing (Gwaltney, 2018).

4.2 Laws and guidelines

The website as to comply with the current legislation or face the consequences. Bellow a list of 7 legal compulsory requirements a company needs to comply in manner to maintain the business and the website with the legal requirements (Hallam, 2018).

And they are as follows: Business Identity, the right of users in relation to their data, the company policy and procedures, consumers protection, accessibility, cyber security and protection of personal and respect in relation to copy rights © (Hallam, 2018).

5. Email Marketing

To use of email marketing boo.com could implement and provide additional brand visibility and leverage.

As commonly known that email marketing allows to promote products and/or services, additionally, it is used to cultivate relations with probable consumers. The two biggest advantages of the email marketing are the fact that is inexpensive and ease. “It’s also extremely easy to set up and track an email marketing campaign, making it a very accessible type of marketing for small businesses.” (Ward, 2018).

In an increase usage of social media platforms, email marketing is still stronger than its counterpart with a good content easy to understand and focused on the product providing.

6. Analysis of digital marketing methods

To improve boo.com one of the methods important to use is the web analytics with it would give the company a best connection to its customers once they could provide information that could be captured and used to best improve the website.

6.1. Web Analytics

The significant factor of web analytics is that it allows the company to grow with the data the customer traces when visiting the website or blog, and the interest shown, of whom allows the company to optimise the website with the data collected, also will allow to grow profit and increase the traffic on the website. What will it do? Will allow the data analytics to identify the user’s behaviour and their demographics, gender, behaviour traffic sources and so on

One of the easy ways to collect the analytics is through Google Analytics account. (Kumar, 2017).

6.2. Customer retention

Customer retention is a set of actions a company performs, in manner to retain the customer and keeping them from leaving creating therefore a growth. Customer retention starts when the user interacts with the company and the company through the trace left by the customer, will do everything to keep the customer hoping to create customer loyalty.

How to measure customer retention? During any period of time, retention rates measure the percentage of the customers retained in your site. An example of the formula explained, “Applying this formula, if a business starts a month with 500 customers and loses 40 but gains 80 customers, at the end of the month they have 540 customers. The retention rate for the month is (540 – 80)/500 = 92%.” (Kumar, 2017)

Figure 10: Formula to calculate retention rates (Pointillist)

Regarding measuring steps please refer to step 4.1. the technology that can be adopted by the customer are website that is mobile friendly as customers are more involved the new technologies. The relevant laws and legislation should be adopted in manner to protect the company and the customers.

Conclusion

As stated at the introduction Boo.com was to advance for the time. However, their example helped on the improve digital environment seen today, it is a fact that if the company was around today, they could benefit from the array of technologies and the visibility that digital marketing provides today.

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