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DIGITAL MARKETING
STRATEGY, IMPLEMENTATION AND PRACTICE
Seventh Edition

Part 2
Digital marketing strategy
development

Chapter 4
Digital marketing strategy

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Chapter 4 Digital Marketing Strategy

Main topics
• The need for an integrated digital marketing
strategy
• The analysis to form the digital marketing
strategy (internal audit; analysis of
competitors, customers, opportunities,and
threats)
• Goals of digital marketing strategy
• Steps to build a digital marketing strategy
• Implement digital marketing strategy

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The need for an integrated digital

marketing strategy
Digital marketing is becoming increasingly pervasive across every aspect of an
organisation’s activities, but there are many aspects of managing digital media and
technology to consider:
• gaining buy-in and budget consistent with audience media consumption and value
generated;
• conflicts of ownership and tensions between a digital team and other teams such as
traditional marketing, IT, finance and senior management;
• coordination with different channels in conjunction with teams managing marketing
programmes elsewhere in the business;
• managing and integrating customer information about characteristics and behaviours
collected online;
• achieving consistent reporting, review, analysis and follow-up actions of digital
marketing results throughout the business;
• structuring the specialist digital team and integrating into the organisation by changing
responsibilities elsewhere in the organisation;
• ‘time to market’ for implementing new functionality on a site;
• insourcing vs outsourcing online marketing tactics, i.e. search, affiliate, email
marketing, PR; and staff recruitment requirements.

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Importance of integrated digital

marketing strategy

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Table 4.2 Digital Marketing Planning

failures and solutions
Potential failure or problem Potential solution
Underestimated customer demand for online Research demand, set objectives, allocate
services sufficient resources

Intense competition from existing and new Analyse the market, especially the intensity
market entrants who may spark digital of rivalry, anticipate competitive
disruption in sector through new business responses, plan a clear market entry
or revenue models strategy or potential changes to business
and revenue models

Duplication of resources Improve internal communications to avoid

different parts of the marketing
organisation purchasing different tools or
different agencies for performing similar
online marketing tasks

Insufficient resources and capabilities Ensure budget and specific specialist digital
skills are available to support the strategic
initiatives including ‘always-on’ activities to
continuously engage audiences using
search, social and email marketing

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Table 4.2 Digital Marketing Planning

failures and solutions (Continued)
Potential failure or problem Potential solution
Relevant customer data not collected or Research to ensure best possible knowledge of
utilised target customers; integrate customer
data into existing systems

Lack of control Measure and analyse regularly to take

corrective action to ensure achievement of
objectives

Lack of senior management support Ensure support for a long-term digital

transformation plan as this will be needed to
drive major strategic initiatives

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Figure 4.5 The SOSTAC® planning framework applied to

digital marketing strategy development

Source: Chaffey and Smith (2012)

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Situation analysis
The situation analysis involves a review of internal and external
factors that have implications for strategy development.
• Assessment of internal capabilities, resources and processes of the
company and a review of its activity in the marketplace.
Consideration of the immediate competitive environment (micro-
environment) including customer demand and behaviour, competitor
activity, marketplace structure and relationships with suppliers and
partners.
• Investigation of the wider environment in which a company operates
(macro-environment)

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Figure 4.1 Internal and External influences on

digital marketing strategy

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Situation Analysis

Figure 4.6 A Digital marketing capability model Source: Smart Insights (http://bit.ly/smartbenchmarking)

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Activity 4.2.

1 Imagine you are a newly appointed digital marketing manager

and you have been asked to present your views on how the
company can improve its use of digital channels. Select an
existing company to focus on and give context to this activity.
2 Map out how the company is currently using digital channels.
3 Make recommendations for how the company can increase
and expand its use of digital channels.
4 Review the potential failure points in Table 4.2 to ensure that
your answer to 3 does not expose the company to the risk of
failure.

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Internal audit
An internal audit involves reviewing the current contribution of the digital
marketing activities within an the organisation. More specifically, this consists of
assessing effectiveness, performance measurement and reviewing web
analytics.

According to Chaffey and Smith (2012), KPIs for an online presence include:
• unique visitors: the number of separate, individual visitors to the site;
• total numbers: of sessions or visits to the website;
• repeat visits: average number of visits per individual;
• duration: average length of time visitors spend on the site;
• conversion rates: the percentage of visitors converting to subscribers (or
becoming customers);
• attrition rates: through the online buying process;
• churn rates: percentage of subscribers lapsing or unsubscribing.

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Customer analysis: Consumer Profiles

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Figure 4.2 Typical shopper behaviour

before a town-centre shopping trip

Source: Hart et al. (2017)

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Figure 4.3 Digital access during

town-centre visit

Source: Hart et al. (2017)

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Competitor analysis
• Intermediary analysis: identifying relevant
intermediaries for a particular marketplace and
looking at how the organisation and its
competitors are using the intermediaries to build
traffic and provide services.

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Competitor analysis
• Assessing opportunities and threats

Figure 4.8 A generic digital channel-specific SWOT analysis showing

typical opportunities and threats presented by digital media

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Setting goals and objectives

• Business goals are the overarching

goals that the business is trying to
achieve.
• i.e. Increase revenue by 25% this
financial year
• Digital objectives are specific goals
that the business is trying to achieve
through digital marketing.
• i.e. 23% of existing customers
buying a secondary product from
the website by end of April
• Best practice for formulating objectives
is the SMART framework.

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Strategy formulation

• Any given objective can have

one or more strategies (Kotler,
2015).

• A digital marketing strategy is a

series of actions taken to achieve
the overarching objective…
• …through carefully selected
digital marketing tactics and
channels, including paid,
owned and earned media.

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Strategy formulation

Digital marketing strategy is a channel marketing strategy and

should:
• be based on objectives for online contribution of leads and
sales for this channel;
• be consistent with the types of customers that use and can be
effectively reached through the channel;
• support the customer journey as they select and purchase
products using this channel in combination with other channels;
• define a unique, differential proposition for the channel;

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Strategy vs. Tactics

Strategy (the ‘path’) = Overarching vision,

intended to fulfill predetermined objectives.
Strategy is the plan that ensures all day-to-
day activities (tactics) contribute to digital
marketing objectives.

Tactics (the ‘steps’) = Highly practical

and carefully planned series of day-to-
day activities (e.g. writing blog posts,
sending tweets, replying to emails,
outreach to bloggers, etc.).

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Digital marketing strategy vs. Tactics:

Example
BUSINESS GOAL:
• Increase sales revenue by 25% by the end of 2020
DIGITAL OBJECTIVES:
• Increase awareness of website to Target Audience (TA) by 100% by the end
of the year
• Increase traffic to website by 50% compared with last year
• Increase repeat purchases by 10% compared with last year
• Increase average order value from $50 to $55 this month
DIGITAL STRATEGY:
1.Engage target audience at key touch points in their day when receptive to
brand messaging
2.Drive traffic from new unique visitors to your website
3.Encourage repeat purchases from existing customers
4.Increase average order value from within the cart

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Digital marketing strategy vs. Tactics:

Example
TACTICS:

Strategy 1. Engage TA at key touch points in their day when 3. Encourage repeat purchases from existing customers
receptive to brand messaging
3a. Email existing customers with referral % deal for new
1a. Run TV ads targeted at TA in the middle of the day customers
1b. Run Facebook Advertising at lunchtimes based on similar
3b. Print vouchers added to all orders sent out this month
interests
3c. Competition: invite friends to enter mechanism (opt-in
1c. Acquire Coverage in National Magazines targeted at TA email data capture)
using PR
1d. Run Online Banner Advertising on XYZ sites targeted
at TA in evenings
1e. Create content on the shopping & lifestyle needs of
customers 4. Increase average order value from within the cart
Strategy 2. Drive traffic from new unique visitors to 4a. Add attractive deals to the cart automatically (worth 10% of
website value)
2a. Ensure website URL is featured in TV ads 4b. Increase the Free Delivery Threshold from $35 to $45
2b. Add URL to Twitter Bio 4c. Add gift wrapping options to the cart (with images of
2c. Start 10+ conversations per day with TA on Twitter premium gift packaging)
2d. Lead Industry based Tweet chats on Twitter, attracting 4d. Auto opt-in to higher cost delivery / up-sells

influencers to join
2e. Create video responses embedded in SEO’d blog posts with
transcripts
2f. Share video blog posts on Twitter (monitoring Qs and responses)

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Key decisions in strategy development:

1. Market and product strategies
2. Business and revenue model strategies
3. Target marketing strategy
4. Positioning and differentiation
5. Customer engagement and social media strategy

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Key decisions in strategy development:

6. Multichannel distribution strategy

7. Multichannel communication strategy
8. Online communication mix and budget
9. Organisational capabilities and governance to support
digital transformation

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Market and product strategies

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Figure 4.15 Customer lifecycle segmentation

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Differential advantage
Differential advantage – A desirable attribute of a product offering
that is not currently matched by competitor offerings.

Figure 4.16 Alternative positionings for online services

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Differential advantage
In a digital marketing context, differential advantage and positioning can be
clarified and communicated by developing an online value proposition (OVP).
Developing an OVP involves:
• developing online content and service and explaining them through messages
that:
• reinforce core brand proposition and credibility;
• communicate what a visitor can get from an online brand that they can’t
get from the brand offline and they can’t get from competitors or intermediaries.
• communicating these messages to all appropriate online and offline
customers with touchpoints in different levels of detail, from straplines to more
detailed content on the website or in print.

Online value proposition (OVP) A statement of the benefits of online services

reinforces the core proposition and differentiates from an organisation’s offline
offering and those of competitors.

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Activity 4.3. Online value proposition

Visit the following websites and summarise their online value proposition.
You should also explain how they use the content of the website to indicate
their value proposition to customers.
• Shopify (https://www.shopify.co.uk)
• Apple iPhone X (https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-x/)
• Netflix (https://www.netflix.com)
• BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/)
• Aldi (https://www.aldi.co.uk/)

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Customer engagement and social media strategy

Some key questions to consider:

o Question 1. Who are our target audience?
o Question 2. What are the content preferences of our audiences?
o Question 3. Which content types should have priority?
o Question 4. How do we differentiate the social channel from other
communications
channels?
o Question 5. Should we consider content frequency and an editorial calendar?
o Question 6. How do we manage publication and interaction?
o Question 7. Should we use software for managing the publishing process?
o Question 8. Should we be tracking the business impact of social network
activity?
o Question 9. How do we optimise the social presence?

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Figure 4.17 Influences on customers of

multichannel decision making

Source: adapted from Dholakia et al. (2010)

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Figure 4.18 Matrix for evaluating digital

marketing business investment alternatives

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Figure 4.19 Influences on customers of

multichannel decision making

Source: adapted from Dholakia et al. (2010)

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Figure 4.20 Channel coverage map showing the

company’s preferred strategy for communications
with different customer segments with different value

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Selecting digital channels

• A digital marketing strategy can encompass a range of

channels.
• All channel selections should:
• Align closely with the your objective and strategy.
• Be tailored to the behaviour of the brand’s target audience
and personas.
• Communicate a clear and consistent message.
• Be integrated for better results.
• Share data to inform each other.

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Primary considerations in the

channel selection process

1. Identify primary digital marketing objective(s) for the business.

2. Understand which digital marketing channels the target audience
engage and how.
3. Category/ competitor benchmarking: what channels are they
using? Are they successful?
4. Define a budget allocation (incl. staff, graphic artists, video/
photographers, paid ads, content creation services) and expected
ROI.
5. Identify available internal and external resources (skills +
knowledge) for campaign design, execution and measurement.

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DEFINE PRIMARY DIGITAL MARKETING GOALS: EXAMPLE GOALS & SUITABLE

CHANNELS

• Goal = Brand awareness • Goal = Lead generation

• Key channel considerations: Provide strong brand awareness and • Key channel considerations: Communicate
recognition directly and in an engaging way
• Engaging with targeted audience through social channels. • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Social media channels particular Twitter, Facebook or Instagram • Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Channels that promote visual elements like Instagram and Pinterest. • Display Advertising
• Channels that promote video materials like YouTube and Vimeo. • Google Search Network
• Promotional campaigns with coupons. • Blogging and other content marketing channels
• Joint venture marketing projects with other online businesses. • Email marketing
• Participating in online and offline events.

• Goal = Educate customers • Goal = Sales generation

• Blogging, press releases and content marketing • Key channel considerations: Encourage
online purchase behavior
• Goal = Generate website traffic
• Amazon Resellers
• SEO and content marketing
• Facebook Storefront
• Google Shopping Feeds
• Google Search Network
• Google Display Network
• Affiliate Marketing Networks

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Strategy implementation

• Chapter 5 – options for varying the marketing mix in the

digital environment.
• Chapter 6 – implementing customer relationship
management.
• Chapter 7 – delivering online services and developing
digital experiences via a website and mobile apps.
• Chapters 8 and 9 – interactive marketing
communications.
• Chapter 10 – monitoring and maintaining the online
presence.

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Case study 4 – ASOS shifts the focus of

high street retailing
Questions:
1. Apply the SOSTAC model to ASOS and highlight why it has
become such a successful online fashion brand
2. Describe how ASOS uses elements of the marketing mix as part
of its digital strategy
3. Discuss how ASOS has used digital to develop its differentiated
market position

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