IDM Certificate in Digital Marketing

Tackling your case study

Purpose of case assignments

• “Learning through doing”

• Your opportunity to apply theory into practice

• To assess whether you can demonstrate best

practice and the ability to deliver commercial valuepractice and the ability to deliver commercial value

• To show you can build a budget

• Cases are about formulating realistic solutions to a

client brief

Assessing your skills in�

• Explaining concepts and theory we have covered

– To test your understanding and ability to persuade

– Do need to reference sources (unlike the real world)

• Applying theory and concepts

– Selecting relevant models and frameworks to help solve

a real business problem

• Justifying investment

– Effectively a sales proposal or pitch or internal

justification

A case study

• )describes a situation, but does not analyse or

evaluate

• So, you need to do a SWOT analysis• So, you need to do a SWOT analysis

• Identify the key issues

It’s a Real-Life Situation

• Prepare a report for a management team

• We restrict your word count – managers don’t

read much!

• Helps you to prioritise your thoughts • Helps you to prioritise your thoughts

• No fixed template – use your own creativity

How do we know you’ve passed?

Would the Management Team think their

money is safe in your hands?money is safe in your hands?

Assumptions...

• Tell the examiner what they are – they don’t

mind reading!

• They will take these into account when

assessing your answer

Do not�

• Use humour – your examiner (me!) may not

understand!

Measurement

Site centric

Log-file analysis

(server-based)

Page-tagging

(browser-based)

Audience

based

Panel-based

e.g. Netratings

Comscore

Alexa.com

ISP Aggregators

(Hitwise)

E-communications

centric

E-mail

Search

Affiliates

PR

+ Offline

campaign

tracking

Attitudinal

Surveys

Focus groups

Mystery Shoppers

Online ads

Auditing

ABCe

Digital marketing

measurement

(browser based)

Technical

Performance

Page download

Process

responsiveness

Availability

Outcome-

based

Registrations

Leads

Sales

Mystery Shoppers

User

profiling

Form data capture

Click response

Purchase response

Inbound

enquiriesOn site search

Inbound e-mails

+ Offline

outcomes

Key Areas to Consider

They are also critical for your day job!

The BIG Picture

• What do all the terms mean?

• How do they all fit together?

Source: E-consultancy (2005) report ‘Managing an E-commerce team’ Author: Dave Chaffey

Situation Analysis

• Where are we now?

• What are our strengths and weaknesses?

• How about the marketplace and competitors?

Situation Analysis

• SWOT, DEEPLIST analysis

• Main competitors

• Positioning and challenges• Positioning and challenges

• Customer characteristics and buyer behaviour

The

Organisation

Strengths – S

1. Existing brand

2. Existing customer base

3. Existing distribution

Weaknesses – W

1. Brand perception

2. Intermediary use

3. Technology/skills

4. X-channel support

Opportunities – 0

1. Cross-selling

2. New markets

3. New services

4. Alliances/

SO Strategies

Leverage strengths to

maximise opportunities

= Attacking strategy

WO Strategies

Counter weaknesses

through exploiting

opportunities

= Build strengths for 4. Alliances/

Co-branding

= Attacking strategy = Build strengths for

attacking strategy

Threats – T

1. Customer choice

2. New entrants

3. New competitive

products

4. Channel conflicts

ST Strategies

Leverage strengths to

minimise threats

= Defensive strategy

WT Strategies

Counter weaknesses and

threats:

= Build strengths for

Defensive strategy

DEEPLIST for macro-environment

• Demographic: percentage of each population online can be analysed in terms of age, household size and type, income, gender, ethnicity, employment status, work patterns mobility etc.

• Economics: taxation controls, monetary and competition policies, fiscal policies.

• Environment: country specific attitudes towards physical environmental issues, for example energy consumption, spatial distribution of populations.

• Political: power and influence of Government agencies and regulatory • Political: power and influence of Government agencies and regulatory bodies, public opinion, pressure groups, Internet governance.

• Legal: trading laws and restrictions, advertising standards and controls, taxation laws.

• Information: Availability of consumer / company data and information, access to this type of data and how it is used, information control.

• Social: needs and wants of target communities, extent of social exclusion, individual levels of trust and perceptions of security, social discrimination.

• Technology: Access to technology, innovation, adoption rates, applications of technology.

Primary Research Secondary Research

Usability lab

Benchmarking

analysis

Split testing

Eyeball tracking

Online panels

Data capture

Jupiter

Forrester

ComScore

Alexa/Compete

MORI

Hitwise

Nielsen IAB

Acxiom

Google Trends

BlogPulse

Tracking Data

WebTrends

AtlasGoogle

Omniture

Campaign resultsINSIGHT!

Google Trends

Email Clickstream

Customer Insight: How do people

search on-line?

‘Tracker’Completing

“I want one”

‘Hunter’Researching

“That’s Interesting”

‘Explorer’

Browsing

“Surprise Me” “I want one”“That’s Interesting”“Surprise Me”

Directed goal-orientedUndirected, exploratory

You are what you search

• Digital camera

• Digital SLR Canon Nikon

• Canon 400D• Canon 400D

• Canon 400D cheap price same day delivery

Digital acquisition plan

• What tools will you be using

• How much will you spend

• What are the key metrics

• Present as a timeline

• Ensure mix is balanced to reduce risk

• Create a detailed budget...

Acquisition

Natural Search

Paid search

Affiliate Marketing

Display Advertising

Viral Marketing

On-line PRSelect your On-line PR

RSS

Corporate Blogging

Social Media

Podcasting

Wiki’s

Select your

weapon...

Acquisition – driving traffic

• Search – google, yahoo and MSN pages

• Affiliate – http://www.abestweb.com/

• Display – DoubleClick, Atlas IAB sites

• What are the big issues here?

Start with one channel – search?

• How much can I pay per click?

• What is that spend per day?

• How many people will start a process?

• How many will finish?• How many will finish?

• What is the conversion rate?

• How much does it cost per outcome?

• Can I afford it?

Here is the summary

Google

Cost per Click

Daily

Budget for

Search

Total

Clicks per

Day

Total

Visitors

Add

Product to

basket

Purchase

Product

Cost per

Sale

£ 0.20 £ 50.00 20% 50%

£ 0.20 £ 50.00 250 250 50 25 £ 2.00

Now do it for each tool...

Tuning the programme

• What will you work on to improve plan:

– Improving landing page/ web template effectiveness

– Follow-up e-mail contact strategies

– Integration with offline media (direct mail)

• What will you test

– Acquisition tools

– Search terms, lists

– Landing pages

– Email messaging

– Offers

Acquisition – driving traffic• Search

– Paid versus natural?

– Conversion efficiency?

• Affiliate

– Attribution – Attribution

– Integration

– Brand bidding

– Cost of set-up and service levels

• Display

– Pricing models

– Targeting models

Tracking and Measurement

• Attribution

• Weaknesses of web analytics

• Possible solutions

• Omniture, Web Trends, Analytics blogs

• Watch a few videos...

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMwQN43fwoQ

And now the assignment itself�

(almost)