By Erica Wenham,
Tuesday 15 January 2013.
Digital
Technologies For Marketing (Week 14)
The scope of E Planning relates to how online channels should support the whole
customer buying process e.g. Pre-Sale, Post-Sale, Customer development
E-Marketing
v E-Marketing Communications
–
E-Marketing
(e.g. research,
finance, accounts, product/service development, operations, sales)
–
E-Marketing
Communications (e.g. website,
e-business, digital media, search, social, building traffic)
·
Where
are we now (internally and externally)? e.g.
·
How
many customers online v offline?
·
Current
sales and Growth forecast?
·
Competition?
·
Impact
of e-businesses, channels to market?
·
What
works online and offline?
·
What’s
new in the online world?
·
What
will be the impact of emerging trends?
It is also recommended to include Site Analytics, Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs), SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities & Threats), PESTEL Analysis (Political, Economic, Social,
Technological, Environmental & Legal), Market and Demand Analysis,
Competitor and Distribution Channel Research and more.
Some examples of KPIs include enquiries or leads, sales,
ROI, unique visitors, conversion rates, page impressions, repeat visits, most
popular pages, subscription rates or opt-ins, click through rates and more.
External analysis in e-planning also should include market research, social
media – what’s the buzz, competitors, customers and segments, brands, products,
services and more.
Objectives
·
Where
are we going? Where do we want to be?
·
Why
go online?
·
What
are the benefits?
·
Remembers
the 5 s
·
Quantify
the objectives!
·
Objectives
must be timescaled
This can
also relate to the 5 S’s. Sell – Sales targets, sales increase. Serve – Added
value. Speak – Getting closer to customers. Save – Reduce costs and/or price.
Sizzle – Brand extension and excitement. When setting key goals and objectives
they must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed).
They should also indicate Online Revenue Contribution – the percentage of
customers or sales targets reachable/achievable through different online and
digital media channels.
Strategy
·
How
do we get there? How do we fulfill our objectives?
·
How
will sales and other brand goals be achieved?
·
Which
data or trends are we responding to?
·
Which
segments will be targeted with what propositions?
·
How will we mix the media and contact strategy
to acquire new customers and retain and development existing customers?
Strategy
summarises how to achieve objectives and guides all the subsequent detailed
tactical decisions. It is
shaped by the prioritization of objectives and the resources available
and should exploit distinctive
competitive advantage. Some strategic questions that may be asked include;
1.
What
are the target markets, segments and positioning?
2.
New
v existing product mix by segment
3.
What
is the online value proposition?
4.
How
to tackle the competition?
5.
Level
of website interaction?
6.
Level
of database integration?
7.
How
to balance online and offline? Bricks v Clicks
8.
Will
online channels complement or replace offline?
9.
How
to blend traffic building techniques?
10. What role will social media play?
Tactics
·
What
are the details of the strategy?
·
What
and when?
·
Across
both offline and online
·
Building
traffic
·
Database
and CRM
·
How
will we implement strategy?
Overall,
strategy and tactics work closely together as strategy drives tactics. Strategy
requires budget approval, senior management input whereas tactics need to be responsive to
changing conditions yet constantly support the strategy. Tactical tools that
can be used include Web 2.0 technologies, interactive advertising and
sponsorship, email marketing, CRM tools and data and participation in social
media websites.
Actions
·
What
are the details of the tactics?
·
How
will each campaign be designed, developed, implemented and measured?
·
How
will they fit together?
·
Who
will do what? When? How? Why? Where? Etc
·
What’s
delivered by in-house resources?
·
What’s
delivered by agencies, media and suppliers?
As a
whole, actions allow all elements of SOSTAC to “make it happen”! Tactics are to
be broken down into actions (i.e. mini projects) and a project action plan is
to be devised. This should include key steps, allocated roles and
responsibilities, timescales, gantt charts, critical path analysis, flow charts,
risk assessment etc.
Control
·
How
do we measure and analyse performance?
·
Are
we succeeding or failing? By how much?
·
What
are the KPIs and do we have analytics in place to measure them?
·
For
example: unique visitors, page impressions, duration of web visit, enquiries,
subscriptions, sales, conversion rates, churn rates, loyalty levels
·
Role
and responsibilities for reporting
Effective
control is a special process and procedure to quickly identify what’s working
and what’s not? By implementing efficient and successful control systems, the
following questions can potentially be answered;
1.
Have
we achieved the objectives?
2.
Is
the strategy working?
3.
Did
we choose the right tactics?
4.
Did
we implement the right actions?
5.
Were
budgets and time spent wisely?
6.
How
will data look and be accessed?
7.
Frequency
and responsibility for reporting?
These questions can be answered and performance can be
diagnosed by analysing various sources as follows;
·
Web
Analytics (Google Analytics, Web Trends)
·
Email
Analytics
·
Information
Systems
·
Databases
·
Research
– Surveys, Panels
·
Sales
– Finance, Actual vs. Budget
·
Daily,
weekly and monthly reporting
·
Contingency
Plans
·
Web
Trends
·
Business
Contribution – Online revenue contribution, category penetration, costs and
profitability
·
Marketing
Outcomes – Leads, sales, service contacts, conversion and retention
efficiencies
·
Customer
Satisfaction – Site usability, performance, availability, opinions, attitudes,
brand impact
·
Customer
Behaviour – Profiles, customer orientation, segmentation, usability, site actions
·
Site
Promotion – Attraction efficiency, referrer efficiency, cost of acquisition,
SEO visibility and link building, email
SWOT Analysis
1.
Review
and revise frequently
2.
Constantly
seek to improve
3.
Review
details and overall plan quarterly
4.
Represent
to senior management every 6 months
5.
Ensure
resources for the plan
–
Men
and Women (Human Resources)
–
Money
– Budgets
–
Minutes
– Time scales and time horizons for production, delivery and service
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