Online Brand

Strategies
Digital Marketing Strategy
Christopher Hopper 2014
 Online Brand
Strategies
• The strategic decisions in digital
marketing
• Digital platforms
• Design principles and digital marketing
strategy
• What does a website say about a brand?
• Social media: worth it?
Digital Marketing: Strategy,
Implementation and Practice

Dave Chaffey and Fiona Ellis-Chadwick

This lecture presents several industry

terms and structures which can be
found in Chapter 7 (from page 370
onwards)
 Corporate objectives
and strategy

Marketing strategy

Market structure and Digital marketing

Competitor strategies
demand strategy

Emerging opportunities
and threats
 Situation analysis

Control Objectives

Actions Strategy

Tactics
SOSTAC model
Business requirements

• Acquisition - the online value proposition

• Conversion - to engage first-time visitors
• Retention - to encourage repeat visits
• Quality - this is the end result of the
combination of site navigation, performance,
availability and responsiveness
• Branding - a clearly explained brand offer
that customers can interact with
 Pre-development

• The most important decisions are made

at this stage
• The domain name
• The aims and objectives of the site
• Project brief
• Project team
 Analysis and design

The detailed analysis and design of the

site:
• Identifying the audience
• User journeys and needs
• Defining the information architecture
• Visual design
 Content development
and testing

• Creating the content

• Usability
• Localisation
• Performance testing
Which platform to
choose

Website
App
Mobile site
 The Website

• What is a website
good for?

• Who uses websites?

• Development time/
cost?
 The App

• What is an App for?

• Who uses Apps?

• Development time/
cost?
 The Mobile Site

• What is a mobile
site good for?

• Who uses mobile

sites?

• Development time/
cost?
 Market Analysis

What, for who, where, why and how.

 Market Analysis
A user-centred design focuses on the needs of the customer.
Some of the questions that will shape development are:
• Who are the key audiences for the site?
• Why should they use the site?
• What should the content of the site be?
• How will the content of the site be structured?
• How will the navigation around the site occur?
• What are the main marketing outcomes we want the site to
deliver?
• When and where is the online presence accessed: at home, at
work or while mobile?
 Usability and
Localisation
Usability:
• How easy is it to use?
• Can the customer do what they expect to do?
• Can the customer find what they expect to find?
• Can the customer use the service efficiently?
Localisation:
• Different content for different consumers based on cultural or
geographic differences
• Language
• Currency
• Priorities
• Behavioural differences
 Information
Architecture
“It is important to recognise that every information
system, be it a book or an intranet, has an
information architecture. ‘Well developed’ is the
key here, as most sites don’t have a planned
information architecture at all. They are analogous
to buildings that weren’t architected in advance.
Design decisions reflect the personal biases of
designers, the space doesn’t scale over time,
technologies drive the design and not the other
way around.”
Rosenfeld and Morville (2002)
 Design Principle:
Affordance
• Affordance is the attribute of a product, an
object or an environment that influences its
function
• Whenever possible, you should design
objects and environments to ‘afford’ their
intended function, and ‘negatively afford’
improper use
• http://www.google.co.uk/

• http://www.zara.com

• http://www.bombshellmanual.com/bombshell.swf
 Design Principle:
Signal-to-Noise Ratio

• In Design: the ratio of relevant

information in a display. The highest
possible signal-to-noise ratio is
desirable in design
• In Marketing: identifying the relevant
information to display.
 Design Principle:
Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Signal Noise
• With a high noise ratio,
the message can not be
heard by the customer

• With a high signal ratio,

the message gets
through to the customer
Can’t hear Can hear
• http://www.jamilin.com/

• http://www.pennyjuice.com/htmlversion/
whoispj.htm

• http://www.1927events.com/#about

• http://www.rakuten.co.jp

• http://www.bellads.info
 Landing Pages
“An entrance page to the site when a user
clicks on an ad or other form of link from
a referring site. It can be a home page, but
more typically, and desirably, a landing
page is a page with the messaging
focused on the offer in the ad. This will
maximise conversion rates and brand
favourability”
Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2012) page 397
 The aims of a Landing
Page
• Generate response - is there a prominent call-to-action?
• Engage different audience types - does the page have a
prominent headline and subheads showing the visitor is
in the right place?
• Communicate key brand messages - does the page
explain who you are?
• Showcase range of offers - do you have
recommendations on related best selling products?
• Attract visitors through search engine optimisation - how
well do you rank for relevant search terms compared to
competitors?
Style, Personality and
Visual Design

• Use colour, images, typography and layout

to communicate the style of the website
• Use the style to develop a personality for a
site
• Use graphic design to bring these elements
together in a way that also meets the
divergent technologies that consumers use
 Websites
• http://www.zara.com/
• http://www.marksandspencer.com/#
• http://www.hm.com
• http://www.gucci.com
• http://www.cartier.co.uk
• http://uk.monsoon.co.uk/
• http://www.dunhill.co.uk/
 Bad, Mad or Inspired
Websites

• http://
www.maisonmartinmargiela.com/#
• http://www.start-the-change.org/
• http://www.gotmilk.com/
Continued Development

• Search Engine Optimisation

• http://gb.millionshort.com
 Social Media

• https://twitter.com/gucci
• https://www.facebook.com/
LANVINofficial
 Micro-blogging

TWITTER
500 million users, as of July 2012
What’s so great
about Twitter?
Opportunities
Threats
 Advanced uses
• https://
twitter.com/
WhatsTrending

• http://
trendsmap.com/?
ll=50.905_-1.40323&
z=10
 Threats: Real-time
Interaction
McDonald’s
In January 2012 McDonald's tried to promote its brand and
engage with customers through two promoted trends:
#meetthefarmers and #mcdstories

Unfortunately for McDonald's, many Twitter users decided to

post their horror stories at the fast food chain using the second
of those hashtags. In essence, McDonald's paid to promote a
trend that showered the company in bad publicity. McDonald's
later admitted that "#mcdstories did not go as planned."
http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-twitter-
campaign-goes-horribly-wrong-mcdstories-2012-1
Threats: Real-time and
Global

CelebBoutique
CelebBoutique, an online store, posted a
promotional tweet with the Aurora hashtag to take
advantage of a trending topic. Unfortunately, the
company's PR apparently did not take the time to
read up on why Aurora was trending, so the tweet
came off as incredibly insensitive
http://mashable.com/2012/07/20/celebboutique-
misguided-aurora-tweet-sparks-twitter-outrage/
Threats: losing control

http://mashable.com/2012/10/05/stubhub-tweet/
More Social Media

FACEBOOK

YOUTUBE
Influencing Motivation
• Swarovski: what is
the motivation?
• http://youtu.be/5jJZQI08v7U
Influencing Motivation
• H&M and Lanvin:
someone Wants
Lanvin to satisfy
several Needs.
• http://youtu.be/LZ0vaZkyQZQ
How does Social Media compare with
the platforms discussed earlier?

Website?
App?
Mobile site?