Digital & Social Media Marketing

Answer

Digital and Social Media Marketing

Digital and social media marketing is considered an effective strategy of marketing in comparison to the traditional approaches. The focus of this paper is to present a global digital marketing strategy for Degree of Excellence Worldwide (DOEW) for a period of 12 months.

Lessons from the Previous 12-month Period

            The primary lesson learnt from the previous period is that having the right digital marketing strategy is an important factor for winning consumers in the market. Hall (2016) states that marketing strategies have transformed from being transaction-based to consumer focused as they are driven by bigger and better sets of data which are currently available over online platforms. According to Hall (2016), having the capacity to distill real opportunities that aid in increasing revenues has become a primary factor for marketers. Moreover, any successful marketing technique, digital or otherwise, should have a solid rationale to ensure that the message effectively reaches the potential target market. Without the existence of the anticipated goals and a clear vision and benchmarks associated with success, the potential that the marketers will miss on the opportunity of fully leveraging their ability to track and measure customer’s engagements holistically, significantly declines (Hall, 2016).

Goals and Objectives for the Next 12 Months

            The primary objective of this digital marketing strategy is to increase the number of new student enrollees to the facility within the next year by at least 50%. The second goal is to ensure that the current number of students enrolled for learning at the institution does not decline below 5%. Lastly, the third goal is to ensure that at least 70% of the potential learners across the globe become aware of the services offered by the facility.

DOEW’s Primary Products

            DOEW offers unique services, such as 2 terms teaching offered on a face-to-face basis. Additionally, the institution also offers a 1 term virtual learning service. Moreover, the facility offers a broad range of residential Executive Education courses provided at the Downtown Manor. Moreover, scholarship services are also provided by the company for qualified persons. The facility also offers translation services to more than 30 languages.

Target Market

            The target market for the marketing plan includes students of higher learning, both locally and from different parts of the globe.

Digital Marketing Strategies

            Traditional (offline) marketing strategies are widely used by firms across the globe. Despite their effectiveness in marketing products and services, it is evident that they are limited in variety and cannot foster competition (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). In the case of DOEW, different online marketing strategies will be considered. Within the next 12 months, the company will rely on the following digital marketing strategies to promote its services and products among the target market.

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a strategy whereby a company or marketer targets consumers with profit-oriented advertisements or messages through emails (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). Email marketing aims at expanding consumer faithfulness, communicating the importance of products on sale, and increasing sales of goods and services. There are two types of email marketing that can be considered when marketing DOEW’s services globally: standalone emails and newsletters (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). By contracting the potential customers through email, the facility will be able to save on costs and ensure an effective and reliable means of delivering the marketing messages to consumers. The fact that the company’s service messages will be delivered in a personalized manner guides the customer on how they can enroll at the institution and enjoy the benefits provided.

The use of emails to market DOEW’s services is recommended since it provides the option of including pictures of the facilities to create an image of the institution’s brand in the mind of the reader (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). Moreover, the email is also considered as an effective strategy of marketing as it will establish a connection to the institution’ Facebook page to offer even further social media marketing support (Lemmenett, 2014).

Standalone emails and newsletters will be considered in the case of DOEW.  Notably, the stand-alone campaigns are associated with a retention period. The institution will use the approach to promote its new products and services such as technology-driven learning, which has contributed towards the success of the company. Newsletter emails will also be used for marketing with an aim of promoting the loyalty of customers who already access the institution’s services. Such emails will be delivered to the existing customers at least once a month. The information will always be updated to include the services offered by the company to ensure that it remains relevant (Lemmenett, 2014). For this strategy to be successful, consumers should receive the emails and go through the content. However, this is not always the case as spam filters prevent the effectiveness of having the message reach the intended audience (Trend Micro, 2011).

1. Content Marketing

Content marketing refers the designing and issuing of valuable content to attract and convince consumers or audiences to use given product (Steimle, 2014). Content marketing aims at achieving income-generating feedback from the consumer. It is also an important strategy which DOEW can implement to market its services as a result of its associated success in deriving many leads. McCoy (2014) supports this finding by relaying that content marketing is cost-effective since it is 62% less costly in comparison to the outbound marketing. Moreover, content marketing will generate up to three times more leads in comparison to the outbound marketing. Being cheaper than the traditional technique of marketing, DOEW will save on extra charges when marketing its brand across borders, and increase the potential that more customers will be enrolled for the institution’s services.

Content marketing is also recommended for DOEW since the approach has a strong potential for generating brand recall, which improves on engagement (McCoy, 2014). Evidently, approximately 56% of marketers maintain a belief that personalized content has the ability to promote a high level of engagement rates. Notably, since personalized content assists consumers in remembering a brand, it also encourages them to become personally attached to the firm, hence generating a positive feedback loop that acts in the benefit of both parties (McCoy, 2014).

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)/Keyword Advertising

The marketing of websites to grow by increasing their appearance in exploring engine results is defined as search engine marketing. There are three types of SEM, such as sponsored search result, organic and, local SEO. Depending on the producer’s expenses, competitions and starting point advertisements may begin to be displayed as early as four months (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). The keyword advertising strategy will require the learning institution to have paid banners on the results page generated by the search engines. The banners can contain fundamental information about the company to ensure that all social media users are informed about the potential services of the company. According to a survey completed by the Internet World in 2008, it is evident that keyword advertising is considered as one of the more meaningful strategies of digital media advertising as most people who use the search engines are likely to come across the banners, to get the message about the courses, location and other unique services offered by the facility.

1. Video Marketing

The use of created videos in advertising and promoting certain goods and services is referred to as video marketing. The types of videos designed to aid marketing strategies, include live videos, which are a kind of videos where the producer goes live through Facebook and Instagram. The consumer can engage directly with the producer by joining the live comments (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015). For demo videos, the users are shown the characteristics of a commodity about to be released in the market. Testimonial videos, on the other hand, are videos where the client testifies on the services and goods they received from your company (Barone, 2013). Therefore, in the case of DOEW, video marketing will be implemented to include some of the students who have enrolled within the facilities to provide their testimonials about the services they were offered. This will be effective in attracting the interest of other learners from different parts of the world, especially if the students available in the videos provide positive reviews and testimonials.

Measurement

            The effectiveness of the social media strategies will be measured through the use of different key performance indicators. The effectiveness of the identified digital media strategies will be tracked in various ways. For instance, the number of new learners who enroll for studies at the DOEW after the marketing plan will be used to determine the effectiveness of the strategies. Evidently, an increase in the numbers of new enrollees by at least 50% suggests that the strategies have been effective in meeting its set goals and objectives. On the other hand, if a decline is noted in the number of new enrollees to the facility, a conclusion will be drawn that the digital strategies have not been effective in meeting the set marketing objectives.

            The effectiveness of the digital marketing strategies can also be measured by the changes in the number of the loyal learners in the facility. specifically, if more learners decide to transfer from the facility to enroll to competitor institutions, the marketing plan will be considered a failure. On the contrary, if the number of learners transferring decline in comparison to the past 12 months, then the digital marketing strategy will be considered a success. Moreover, the changes in the number of international students enrolling to the facility can also be used to gauge the effectiveness of the social media strategies in marketing the facility. Arguably, more international students’ enrollees suggest that the strategies have been effective in marketing the facility to meet its goals. Evidently, the rise in the number of enrollees will suggest that the social media strategies have a wider outreach, which improves the potential that the firm will be able to attract more international learners within its community.