Digital marketing is regarded as a novel and innovative concept in any business. Effective promotion of a company’s product and services has been carried out through database-driven online distribution channels in order to reach the customers in a lucrative and significant manner. There is no specific meaning or definition with regards to digital marketing, however, it can be appropriately explained based on examples such as broadcast, post casting, video streams, wireless text messages, pay per clicks, and online advertising. I worked for Electric Lemonade Company that offers auditing services for the digital marketing strategies for various companies while providing effective recommendations.
As the Lemonade Company, we were directly contacted by Winco Grocery Store to undertake an extensive digital marketing audit. I was chosen by the company manager to lead the auditing team and was therefore tasked with providing a lasting solution. Winco Grocery Store is involved in the sale and distribution of food products. Before the in-depth audit could be carried out, we performed a preliminary one-on-one interview with Winco Grocery Store staff to gain an understanding of the immediate needs of the company. We analyzed the content of the website and assessed the use of social media and emails in improving customer engagement.
From the audit, we came to a conclusion that the available digital marketing strategy employed by the company did not improve its online presence and therefore its sales. The Grocery store did not effectively make use of social media and improve customer engagement. Also, there was the need for the company to re-design or re-build its website and incorporate the use of emails.
Revised Digital Plan
The first issue tacked in the revised digital plan was the need for Winco Grocery Store to initiate Web re-design and re-build. This is important in providing an experience that is more intuitive for web visitors. The users would be intuitively helped in evaluating the offerings of Savannah Company by this new design and functionality. My revised digital plan also comprised of incorporating social media into the digital marketing strategy. The rationale for this plan was that social media improved the marketing opportunities. The company could make use of the social media in promoting the brand name and business, attracting new customers, strengthening the relationship with the existing customers, and finding out what the customers think with regards to the business.
Social media is vital since it since it can reach millions of people all over the world due to its broad reach and is associated with low costs. This would greatly benefit the WinCo grocery store. The key social media services that the company needed to use included Facebook that would allow the company to post photos its food products, establish conversations with its customers and promote special offers. The other useful social media service is Twitter that could allow the WinCo grocery store to receive and send short messages from potential customers and YouTube that will allow the company to share videos. Besides the creation of the social media platform, the company pays attention to the posting time to improve customer engagement.
The review plan indicated that the company should use platform-specific insight and analytics tools to effectively monitor the times when the audience is most active and therefore tailor its posting times to these schedules. If the company publishes new content when the consumers are on the platform, they are likely to share, like, comment or engage when it is seen hours or days after the original publish date. These specifics should be integrated by WinCo grocery store into its social media editorial calendar as well as the social media marketing tool to ensure the development of posting consistency.
There was a need for the company to make use of blogs to improve customer engagement. Blogs are useful in promoting the activities of the company, creating sales and reaching new customers and providing interactive reader experience. I advised the company to develop a special unit within the sales department that would engage in planning, resourcing and monitoring the blogs. Our plan included details on how the blogs could be created. According to our revised digital marketing strategy plan for the company, the blog will be an extension of the company website, and it would incorporate audio, art, video, and music.
Besides the presence of the company in social media, the review plan also involved sending welcome emails to the customers as soon as they make purchases because this could easily create new relationships in addition to the fact that the recipients could more likely engage with the company’s call to actions. The customers will be inclined to learn more and click on the company website. The company could perform this by making use of a personalized email account in the sender field.
The company should further improve on the technique of sending welcome emails by optimizing the use of mobile services to prevent the image from appearing distorted on a mobile device. This is especially important because the target market for the food products use their mobile devices more frequently. When the emails from the WinCo grocery store is rendered appropriately, it sends a message to the customers that it wants to make communications more user-friendly. The company can use responsive design which adapts automatically to different screens. The email will, therefore, look its best on tablets, smartphone, and desktop since the design accommodates any device used by the reader.
