CyberThread dmcm team

Monday 14 March 2011

Digital Marketing Communications Management (DMCM) Assignment - Jennie's Version

Check out Jennie's DMCM assignment for analysing digital marketing communications opportunities within a digital marketplace.





Task Bi:
Spinningfields is designed to offer Manchester professionals a stylish, ‘world class’ socializing and working environment. It drives customers to the area through schemes and events such as the Yellow Discount Card and the winter ice skating rink to maximize revenue for local businesses. The DMCM (Digital Marketing Communications Management) strategy will offer a platform for existing and potential Spinningfields’ customers to interact with each other whilst raising awareness of offerings, events and schemes through discussions and reviews of their experiences. There are several approaches taken to identify the target audience for the service provided. Due to Spinningfields having a growing digital marketing communications (DMCM) presence, this has widened the market segments for the target audience.
Segmentation
Psychographic
Spinningfields will use this segment to evaluate consumers who enjoy going to bars, restaurants and socializing. It may also be based on consumers who are users of social networking. Spinningfields can target the psychographic segment by their interests. The psychographic segment can also predict trends of consumers who use social networking, and make assumptions about their lifestyle.  This approach can be heavily based on assumptions. If the consumers are unidentified, an assumption could be created and be completely wrong. Another disadvantage to this approach is the way it is more complicated to capture an audience using this approach without using a demographic breakdown.
Behavioral
Spinningfields may use this segment to monitor consumer behaviours towards search trends and what sites they are clicking onto. Spinningfields can target consumers through their online behaviors; the key terms they are searching for are vital for dividing the segment into their wants and needs. The behavioral segment can also show responsiveness to Campaigns which Spinningfields create. A consumer’s behavior also enables the organization to capture their purchase history and predict future trends.  Uing the behavioral segment may be not a reliable source due to consumer’s online behaviors being unpredictable. Although they can be monitored through Google trends, only a small amount of information is provided for Spinningfields to divide their consumers into segments. This segment may also be unreliable due to consumers searching for the same service using different terms.
Geographical
Spinningfields can identify segments through geographical units such as purchase location and the location of the organization. Spinningfields can identify their target audience, by their purchase location; this can be monitored through Google trends. With Spinningfields being a localized organization rather than a national company, it is easier to capture the audience through a community orientated feel. Although in normal circumstances, digital marketing would not use this approach to segment its customers; however, due to Spinningfields having a localized nature of the organization, this enables the company to divide its market into local geographical segments. In the digital world, the geographical approach to segmenting is not commonly used. It has the disadvantage of not being able to target consumers specifically by country, region or city, due to limitations of sourcing personal information on consumers.
Needs-based
The organization can use this approach to understand their consumer’s needs and how to satisfy them. This segment approach seeks to understand why a purchase is made; therefore Spinningfields are able to divide the market into groups of buyers whose needs are homogenous. This approach is most suited to technology companies, as they can prevent a company from developing new and unnecessary technology features.
Lifecycle
Spinningfields can use the lifecycle approach to predict a sequence in how consumers use the service.   This approach provides the organization with a greater understanding of consumer buying behaviors. By dividing consumers into segments of how they use a service, this gives Spinningfields a greater indication of how buying behavior patterns and forecast trends can be predicted. The lifecycle approach gives an understanding of consumer buying sequences; however, it does not provide any other information about the consumer. By using this approach, the needs and wants that a market requires to be divided are not available.

Demographic – Spinningfields could use this to segment its customers by age, gender and social class, however, due to limitations with sourcing this segment, the demographic approach is not applicable to digital marketing communications (DMCM).
The two segment approaches which are being focused on are Psychographic and behavioral.
Psychographic has been chosen as the segment approach. The personality segment can be broken down to consumers who like to visit bars and restaurants and are interested in purchasing a discount card. The environment surrounding Spinningfields is a built up area of offices, this enables assumptions to be made that the majority of Spinningfields consumers are professionals. Another assumption can be made from this based on the increasing use of the internet and social networking sites for businesses, that this target segment will be users of social networking. By identifying a trend through professional bodies using social media, these can be specifically targeted as Hitwise (2007) suggested that visits to sites are often prompted by discussions.
The risks and issues of this segment are as follows; Psychographic segmentation has demonstrated its use as a practical marketing tool in consumer markets. In general, more than one type of variable is used to build the segments, and demographic data is usually needed. However, due to demographics being an unreliable source in segmenting, this may cause problems when dividing the market by their personalities or lifecycles. The most serious problem is that consumers are constantly changing, so the segmentation framework needs to change to keep up. The key characteristics of this segment are people’s interests in eating, drinking and socializing; however these are not always easy to measure.
Behavioural targeting is one of the biggest opportunities provided by digital marketing. The first approach to this is to see how many people search for the key terms ‘Bars in Manchester’, ‘Restaurants in Manchester’, and ‘Discount cards Manchester’. Results from Google trends show a steady growth of people searching for these terms, therefore targeting these consumers will benefit the organisation in increasing traffic. This approach can also be segmented by behavioural patterns towards site loyalty. As the target consumer is a regular user of the social networking sites, according to Nielsen (2010), on average people in the UK spend 6.07 hours on social networking sites per month, making this target market profitable for the organisation.
The risks and issues of this segment are as follows; Due to a lack of accurate sources on website loyalty, the segments cannot be specifically identified. For example if a consumer entered a webpage and left the room for a period of time, it will not be accurate how much time they spent browsing the internet.
The three segment approaches which are being deselected are as follows; Geographical, Needs-based and lifecycle. The geographical approach is not commonly used in digital marketing. This approach would not provide information on personalities of consumers making it harder to target them. If consumers are using search terms such as ‘Restaurants Manchester’, assumptions can be made about how specific their search is. The needs-based approach is very similar to behavioural, in understanding its consumer needs. However this is more suitable to a technology company. The final segment approach which has not been chosen is Lifecycle. Spinningfields needs to target consumers by their interest, if the lifecycle approach was used this provides information on their buying sequences, and does not focus on any other information.
The risks with not choosing these segments are as follows; by not segmenting using geographical segments, this risks targeting consumers who are not part of the community. Consumers who visit Spinningfields are profitable to the service. By not dividing the market into needs-based approach, this provides risks of lacking knowledge of consumer satisfaction, and the segment targeted may not satisfy exactly what they want or need. The final segment to be deselected is lifecycle. By not using this segment approach, trends are harder to predict.
There are three personas which have been created, as a description of the type of customers who will use the service.  
·         Persona 1 – David: David is a 45-year-old financial advisor who has regular interaction with the internet. He mainly uses the internet at work. He also enjoys eating out with friends. He is a traditionalist.
·         Persona 2 – Sarah: Sarah is a 30-year-old events manager who has a lot of exposure to the internet. She is a regular user of social networking and uses the internet at work, home and using mobile applications. Sarah enjoys socializing with friends by going out for meals and drinking in bars. She is an innovator.
·         Persona 3 – Lucy: Lucy is a 21-year-old student who is studying Marketing Management. She regularly uses social networking and the internet. She is also a person who likes to try out new places to eat and drink, and is always on the lookout for discounted rates. She is a striver.
The personas above represent the three types of consumers which may use the two-way dialogue. Prioritizing the personas gives an indication, of which segment is most profitable to the service. The order is Persona 3, Persona 2 and finally persona 1.
By choosing to focus on the student segment, this gives Spinningfields a new market to target. With one of Spinningfields unique selling points being its yellow discount card, this provides students with an incentive to visit the area. If the segment approach is by interest and search terms, the students segment is more likely to fit into each category of interests’ i.e. socializing, discount cards.
The risk to choosing this segment is the challenge of targeting a new market. This is more time consuming for the service, as there is more research involved into finding out exactly what the segments wants and needs are and how to satisfy them.
Due to Spinningfields already having a large customer base, these mainly being professional bodies due to the surrounding environment, assumptions can be made, that their time spent visiting Spinningfields; will be a short visit on their lunch break. The last thing they want to do, is waste time writing a review or comment on their visit to Spinningfields.
The risks with deselecting these segments, are not aiming the service to consumers who are the main visitors to Spinningfields. By not targeting professionals, this can mean that the segment may only be small compared to a professional segment.
Task Bii:
There are two main digital marketing communication (DMCM) objectives set for the intention of this service.
Objective 1: Increase site conversion by 10% over 6 months
Objective 2: Create a platform to hold two-way dialogue between customers
To achieve these objectives, digital marketing communications are vital for approaches in how to target their main segment.
Digital Approach:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)      
Spinningfields can use SEO to increase natural and organic search for the three key terms for their service. A disadvantage of SEO for Spinningfields is the lack in accurate key terms for organic search.
Host Media      
he organisation can use this approach to increase ranking through tagging videos and pictures. If Spinningfields uses this approach, this could be a disadvantage as consumers may form opinions on the organisation before they have even reached the website.
Social Media    
Spinningfields can use social media as this provides a high level of interaction with its consumers. This also has a broad appeal to consumers due to the increase of them using social media today. Social networking is also low costing. Social media can provide a platform for which consumers can comment on the organisation, and sometimes the reviews may be negative increasing harmful brand reputation. SEO is an approach which Spinningfields can incorporate into their strategy. This is a structured approach used to increase Spinningfields position in natural or organic search. By increasing their rankings, Spinningfields can use this approach to gain more traffic naturally to their service in order to generate more consumers to the Spinningfields area. By using host media to increase conversion, this can give customers a better insight into the services which Spinningfields provide. The use of this approach can also provide direct links to the website increasing traffic and ranking in Google. The final approach is Social media. This develops a greater relationship with the organisations consumers, as it lets the business understand a consumers likes and dislikes.
These approaches will be prioritized as follows; Social media, host media and then SEO. Social media provides the best platform of interaction with consumers, and also provides a greater insight into customer satisfaction, which Spinningfields can use to develop the organisation.
By using these approaches, there are also some risks to consider. SEO needs to constantly be updated, which would incur extra costs of training staff for developing their knowledge in this area. By using host media, there may also be the risk of issues such as brand reputation. If there are many negative reviews on the company on the service, this could decrease customer retention.
Task Biii:
Digital Approach
PPC (Pay per click)
This ensures more site conversion and is unique to the page; therefore consumers are likely to click on these links. If a link is clicked repeatedly, this will be detected as click fraud by the search engine. This is also a very competitive approach, and can put Spinningfields into a competitive environment if they use it.
E-mail marketing
E-mail marketing can provide Spinningfields with a way of engaging with new customers, as it is more personalised to them. It is also relatively low costing. If Spinningfields do not have the correct database functionalities to do this, they may find it difficult to comprehend. Customers may also disregard the email as Spam, and therefore it will be a waste of time and money.
PPC is an inappropriate digital marketing tool for the service. Due to their being no budget, this approach is not feasible. If Spinningfields did have the funds to support this approach, it is still inappropriate due to its competitive disadvantages. By using this tool, it may increase competition which was not there before. Email marketing is also another inappropriate choice. According to Chaffey (2008) it is harder to keep a consumer engaged after they subscribe to the first email. Email marketing is not applicable to the service. Due to their being no budget, it needs more frequent communications, additional people and technology resources are required to deliver these.
There are also risks to deselecting these approaches. PPC is a quick way of getting the message live. By deselecting this and using organic search, this can take a longer time to increase ranking, depending on the conversion of the site. By deselecting email marketing, this can also provide issues with not engaging well enough with consumers. Email marketing is a good way of integration with other marketing tools, and can create deployment to the web quicker this way. By not using this approach, it can become more timely to user other digital marketing tools.

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