DIGITAL MARKETING

STRATEGY GRAINGER & BOSCH

By Rafa L.
Coursera final assignment digital Marketing specialization
Table of Contents
About the Client: ............................................................................................................... 2
About Bosch ................................................................................................................................................. 2
About Grainger ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Partnership ................................................................................................................................................... 2

The Power Tools Market November 2020 .......................................................................... 3

Problem Statement ........................................................................................................... 3
Consumer Decision Journey ............................................................................................... 4
Trigger .......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Phase: Initial Consideration Set .................................................................................................................... 4
Active Evaluation .......................................................................................................................................... 5
Moment of Purchase .................................................................................................................................... 5
Post-Purchase Experience ............................................................................................................................ 5
Loyalty Loop ................................................................................................................................................. 5

Data collection and Analysis .............................................................................................. 6

Channel Strategy ............................................................................................................... 8
Online Display Strategy ................................................................................................................................ 8
E-mail Marketing .......................................................................................................................................... 9

Test and Control Plan - ( Research plan to test effectiveness your channel strategy) .......... 9
Bibliography: ................................................................................................................... 10

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About the Client:
About Bosch
It is not a secret the Bosch is a
worldwide known company with an
incredible reputation. Born in Germany
in 1886, the company today is gigantic.
Bosch is the leading technology supplier
worldwide and has 360.000 employees
About the Client, week 1, Digital
Marketing Capstone, Coursera). Bosch is
the leading power tools and power tools
accessories in the market worldwide. It
launches each year over 100 new power tools, each time more innovative than the previous
year. The division of Bosch Power Tools in North America. About the Client, week 1, Digital
Marketing Capstone, Coursera). The key professional trades in North America are general
contractors, carpenters, concrete & Masonry among others. (About the Client, week 1, Digital
Marketing Capstone, Coursera).

About Grainger
The largest supplier of the MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) area. The
speed to each a contractor can get the material they need is an enormous advantage for
many. Contrary to Bosch, Grainger follows a more business to business model. Their main
customers compose of small businesses owners, technicians in medium-size businesses, or
procurement departments of large companies (About the Client, week 1, Digital Marketing
Capstone, Coursera).

Partnership
Bosch and Grainger have partnered up together in order to increase sales of power tools on
Grainger’s website. The companies are sharing insights and data on relevant aspects to
achieve the goal. Important to state is that Bosch is a supplier of power tools to Grainger.

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The Power Tools Market November 2020
Before carrying it on to the Digital Marketing Strategies, it is first important to understand
the market and its predictions to the next year. This will give the customer a wider view on
what is it to come and better understand the directions taken on the Marketing Strategy.
The following information was retrieved from the Bosch’s website and it is the
information from November 2020. It was said that the North American tools and storage were
up 11% organically. In the US the growth was from about 16% and was strongly driven by the
DYI performance and the improving demand of professionals combined with online sales. In
September the segment for of tools and storage was negatively affected for the quarter by 4
to 5 points; About $100M to $125M of promotional shipments. By the end of the third
quarter, the sales demand in the US retail continued and retailer inventory levels improved,
but not significantly.
The predictions for the next year, 2021 is that the segments of industrial and security
tools, that were considerably down this year, are going to come back next year. It is also stated
that the demand during the pandemic. Will continue until at least the first semester of 2021.
The e-commerce sales will get close to $2 billion in 2020. 18% of the global Tools and
Storage revenue for the third quarter are expected. E-commerce will the main focus of
expansion for the next year. Bosch’s e-commerce has exponentially grown from 2010 to 2020.

Problem Statement
Designing a multi-channel digital marketing campaign for Grainger to improve the
sales of Bosch Power Tools on Grainger’s website by 10% is the main goal.
The main way of doing that would be through display advertisement and e-mail. Like
this, finding new customers, sell more products to existing products and sell across products
categories. The development of the digital marketing campaign will be done based on the
customer behavior and data collected shared by Bosch.
The following scenarios have also been taken into consideration in the development
of the campaign:

• Scenario 1: Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool (for

example a drill), but do not visit Grainger.com

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 • Scenario 2: Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool, and then
visit Grainger.com, log in to Grainger.com, and visit the power tools category
• Scenario 3: Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool, and then
visit Grainger.com, log in to Grainger.com, and visit the plumbing category but
not power tools

Consumer Decision Journey

Trigger
The Trigger is he first step of the CDJ pathway. It is the trigger to the client, through
some advertisement for example and the trigger in their minds that makes customers want
to acquire a specific item. For this to be successful, the company must understand the
customer’s need. An important question in this case, keeping in mind the Power Tools as a
main item to be promoted and Grainger; What creates the consumer need for the Power
Tools? Because Bosch is such a known brand, that already has a lot of loyal customers, it can
be argued that this and the next two phases will be skipped by many, as there is already a
certain degree of loyalty. In the other hand, in the problem statement, it is also said that the
objective is also to attract new customers. Therefore, this phase would be the first one the
be considered to trigger new customer’s needs for power tools on Grainger’s website. This
Phase is therefore relevant for the Scenario 1. Whereas the customer does not visit Grainger’s
website. This trigger must be directed to Grainger and made the customer aware of the broad
power tools offers of Grainger.

Phase: Initial Consideration Set

When customers start to think about brands to which they can consider purchasing
the triggered item, it is the second step in the CDJ’; the initial consideration set. This is where
Grainger and Bosch will want to be. Making sure that customers recognize Grainger and Bosch
is a key point in this step. This is relevant for the win of new customer’s as they will then start
to consider which companies will fulfill their needs. This is step is relevant for the Scenario
number two. When the customers visit both Grainger’s and Bosch’s power tools pages. This
will make customers compare and continue their decision to the purchase.

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Active Evaluation
This phase is also known as the “zero moment of truth”. This is the moment that
customers will actively research about the product they need and check different sources. In
this Phase it is important to question if the power tools available on Grainger.com satisfy
consumer’s needs. This will help to further push the customer into the moment of purchase
and successfully sell the product through Grainger’s website. This step is also relevant for the
second scenario, as the customer will be comparing and actively researching about power
tools in both websites. However, what is the decision, the point that makes customers step
forward and complete the purchase?

Moment of Purchase
The purchase after the evaluation phase. This is the decisive moment when customers
see different brands and offers and must come to a decision to which one to buy. Here is
more a question of sales effort and whether they are working for the company’s advantage
or not. This Phase is important for the gain of new customers and also for the already loyal
clients. The brand needs to make sure that their products fulfill all the previous questions in
order to keep loyal customers loyal and to gain a chance of making more loyal customers after
new customers purchase their product.

Post-Purchase Experience
This phase is also called second moment of truth. The experience that the customer has with
the bought product. The advertisement must meet the customer’s expectations. Everything
advertised must also reflect in the customer usage of the tool. This experience is also
important for the increase of sales of power tools in Grainger’s website depending on the
customer’s satisfaction.

Loyalty Loop
This is where the customers are satisfied with the products and decides that the products
from a specific company fits their needs and therefore generated loyalty. This is what every
brand desires. If the customer is triggered and will need something, they will always refer to
the same brand they had a good experience with. Making this also relevant for the increase

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of sales on Grainger’s website. This is the main objective of Grainger. To keep and gain loyal
customers and therefore increase their sales. This is also the reflection on Bosch’s reputation
and loyal customers.

Data collection and Analysis

The insights provided from Grainger’s website are important to understand the
customer’s need and where improvements can be done throughout the website. Tracking
patterns of purchase and click-rate on the website can also be key data sets for a further
analysis on the customer’s behavior.
Furthermore, to identify the sales efforts, analyzing clicks across the web, making research
with own customers are also part of the key primary data that should be gathered to improve
and address the business objectives. What was also made available for us was the Grainger
and Bosch reporting. This is a valuable set of information that help us identify patterns,
bought products and from which website the purchase was made. This is extremely helpful
and should be analyzed for this project. Even further, to identify how present the brand is in
people’s mind, insights from social media should constantly be done.
First a quantitative analysis to summarize and quantify the collected information and the
analysis then upon this data should be conducted for a better understanding of what is
happening. A source of such information can be found in the website analytics.
Comparison through time and conversion rate are also good indicators of the
performance. The data should analyze weather if after some time the customers tend to
spend more money on Grainger’s products, after how much time spent of their website
results in a purchase. This time to conversion rate is significant to the company and should be
carefully taken into consideration to better access the purchase behavior on their website
and further improve product offer to consumers. Also, what should be looked at is the
revenue on both websites, from Grainger and Bosch. An excel document was made available.
It is important to know how many people are purchasing the power tools in each website.
Understanding this should facilitate the analytics of the purchased products and also help to
improve the marketing strategies and reasons why people are going Bosch and not to
Grainger to make the purchase for instance.

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 Collecting customer’s voice should be an effective and easy way to understand customer’s
need and it is something that should be taken into consideration for further evaluation.
However, such surveys have to be unbiased, meaning it can‘t lean towards one or other
customer. If the questionnaire is biased, it will fail to fulfil its purpose to give more insight and
actual tangible data about different types of customers. Making sure that the questionnaire
is completely neutral is sometimes a challenging task, however, this can be achieved by
making some general questions without citing brands or making too many questions about
one or asking too much personal questions. Addressing different kind of customers from
different backgrounds should also help to eliminate bias from the collected data. If this is a
face-to-face interview, people conducting this survey should also be impartial. Making sure
that the sample collected can be reliably transported to the population is a vital part of this
process to eliminate bias from the data collected.
Below there is a table with key KPI’s to further help the collection and analysis of the data:

KPI’s
Brand Awarness
Revenue increasement
Sales increasement
Revenue per session
Average order value

These kind of KPI’s are important and must be addressed to when talking about e-
commerce models.
Another way to collect insightful data is to conduct focused groups interviews.
Qualitative data doesn’t have to be conducted with lots of different customers, but some
should be enough. Diving deep in the motivations and desires of customers can be a big help
when developing strategies and knowing when to do what and to whom.
Listing below are also some other suggestions on what data can be collected:
Primary Research:

• Own Website traffic

• Online survey à different tools, monkey survey, own survey on the website, telephone

interview (However I would rather collect quantitative and not qualitative data)

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 • Social Media insights

Secondary Research:

• Collected existing surveys to customer’s needs

• Trends research

• A/B testing research

Channel Strategy
Online Display Strategy
First, we need to know the web traffic in order to effectively place a display. Following
what was proposed to be researched in the previous section, when having all the data and
understanding where and what the target group wants it is then the time to make a display
add and know to whom and where it will be shown and maximize impact, potentially being
followed up by website clicks and purchase.
What can also be a good way to display adds is targeting a specific user profile based
on the collected data. Targeting potential customers is a good way to get brand awareness
and improving ROI.
The goal here is to attract as many customers as possible to the website and result
this into a purchase. For this, the display ads should contain information about Grainger’s
products offers and maybe promote a flash sale going on, on their website. This could be a
potential trigger to attract more traffic to the website and using all the insights to track the
success of the ads should be conducted. This will track the success and maybe the retargeting
of the ads.
This is especially important when considering the different scenarios proposed. It is a
great way to get Grainger’s name known for the relevant target group, it will make people
aware that Grainger also has power tools and will then lead Grainger into the initial
consideration set of the CDJ’s of many other potential customers. These are attributes that
have to be measured and kept track of. They will then tell how good the ads are doing, how
much the click volume has grown after displaying the ads.

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 There are challenges that arises with ads, these are for example frauds and ad-
blockers. These are challenges that we have to be aware of and overcome them in whatever
way possible in order to achieve the maximum reach.

E-mail Marketing
This strategy can be very effective. I have proposed that once someone sign-in for the
newsletter, for example, the person gets a coupon for online purchases on Grainger.com on
Bosch power tools. This can be based on the customer’s clicks and tracked down to target the
relevant group that is interested in this type of tool. However, this could also be a trigger for
other customers signed-in to the newsletter and could also potentially be sent to a
determined group of loyal customers, for example. This, however, should be done in a first
moment when the person sign-in, so that there is a feeling of reward. After some weeks
another coupon should be sent as a “reminder” and a thank you for the person being signed-
in to the newsletter. This could then improve Grainger’s image and reputation in the market.
This strategy can also be a boost in sales because of the current situation the world
finds itself into. With less people going out to the stores, more people staying at home, the
logic dictates that more people will purchase online. This is an opportunity to increase sales
and gain more loyal customers and rewards loyal ones with coupons. This can be an
advantage for Grainger.com and increase Bosch power tools sales online for its traditional
customers in the B2B environment. However, it could also be a potential for Grainger to take
a step further and get involved in a more B2C customers. For example, communicating with
families renovating theirs homes with the “extra time” they have to stay home.
Adapting to such events is core to keep sales boosting and web traffic growing. It is
the opportunity to capture attention and get even more known in the market.
In the e-mail marketing, also the facilities and advantages on being a customer at
Grainger should be talked about.

Test and Control Plan - ( Research plan to test

effectiveness your channel strategy)
To test if the implemented strategies are going according to plans, it is important to
keep track of the web traffic, as well as clicks. Keeping track of the above mentioned KPI’s

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should help determine if the strategies are being successful or not. Keeping track of how many
coupons were used, how many clicks and how many impressions is a great way to keep on
track with the effectiveness of the strategies.

Moreover, it is relevant to see if there was some improvement in the ROI. Introducing
new sales actions and adapting to the customer response to the strategies are vital. If the
response is not as great as expected and the sales of Bosch power tools on Grainger’s website
do not meet the 10% raise, then changes should be made. For instance, a change in the
targeted group, trying to make coupons for different items or changing the place in which ads
and to whom the e-mail marketing is sent to can be an alternative to try to maximize the
reach and improve sales.

Something other than the website, it is also important to keep track of the insights on
different social media platforms. Like this, the increasing number of followers, likes and
engagement can also be a positive or negative response to the strategy efforts. Meaning that,
if more people are interacting on social media platform, means that the strategies are working
for Grainger’s advantage and can mean future customers and increase sales as well.

Therefore, to test the effectiveness of the developed strategies, a small campaign to

a small sample of the population can be conducted. Taking into consideration the current
world scenario with the pandemic. A qualitative research can be useful in this case to measure
satisfaction of clients and their experience with online purchase on Grainger. Also using
secondary data, like data banks, some website provider of such data and big data can also be
insightful and help us further understand what the behavior and path for purchase is and what
are customers expecting and if these expectations are met.

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Bibliography:
1. Coursera Material in the specialization course “Digital Marketing Specialization” (last
accessed (24.11.2020
2. Power Tools Industry November 2020, Bosch , also available at:
https://www.ptnamarketbriefing.com/power-tool-industry/archives/11-2020 (last
accessed 24.11.2020).
3. Coursera Video Module 2, „Lesson 2: Preparing fort he Analysis Journey, Part 1 and
part 2”. Also available online: https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-
analytics/lecture/487oL/lesson-2-preparing-for-the-analysis-journey-part-1 (last
accessed (12.11.2020)
4. Digital Media & Marketing Principles, Week 3, Coursera Specialization “Digital Marketing” by
the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign also available online:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/marketing-channels/lecture/X1I9F/3-1-overview- of-online-
display-advertising (last accessed 14.11.2020)
5. Module 5 week 3
6. Markus Spiske picture, online available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/ckVJ7Tsj-v8
(retrived on 24.11.2020).
7. Module 4 „Digital Media and Marketing Strategies“ Digital Marketing Specialization
on Coursera offered by the University of Illinois Urbaha-Champaign (last accessed
24.11.2020)

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