Question 01: Discuss the differences between Traditional and Digital

Marketing. Explain why it would be important for Boo.com to invest in digital

marketing.

Answer:

Boo.com is being the modern footwear. It was spending a huge financial fund

on product photography and physical media marketing. However, it has missed the

aspect of differentiating between traditional and digital marketing. The gateway

between the electronic technology and marketing psychology is known as digital

marketing, knowing how to master and manage the information going out and into

this gateway [ CITATION Sus13 \l 1033 ]. In this modern age people prefer to buy

things from home rather than by physical shopping and all popular brands provides

the facility of online shopping. As all successful events based on great branding so,

to cash the digital marketing it is important to understands that how it works and

what are its basic principles. The foundation principles of digital marketing are:

Content Capital:

Successful digital marketing set itself apart from the junk and provides the

meaningful and engaging content to the customers. As the internet is free and now

almost every person on this planet uses internet but all are not same so, the content

should not be biased, must be to the point and it should be in the form that everyone

understands.

Simplicity:

The simple and easy way to connect people with your digital marketing message is

keep it simple. The digital marketers who use the overcomplicated and overzealous

text for the sake of potentially amazing digital marketing often loss people interest.

So, the context should be written by keeping in mind that people have enough going
on their lives, when you give something simple people will revel in its simplicity for

sure.

The customer’s connection:

Company should have knowledge about its customer. This digital marketing principle

may look pretty basic but it is often lost in the struggle of creating next big data. The

only way to capture the customer attention is by speaking directly, clearly and simply.

Pimps your vitals:

The majority of customers visits your website to get basic information like location,

contact number, email address etc. Make sure that they all are there.

Video:

One of the best way to optimize the digital marketing is by an attracting video

content. Countless studies shows that visualization is more effective then written

content.

Always Deliver Value:

The one thing that separates the successful online marketers from the rest is the

understanding of delivery value. So if it’s a product selling website it should provide

the best products and similarly if it’s a blogging website then the provided content

should be valuable.

Importance of time:

Time is everything. If you decide to share your content twice in a week, pick the days

and do it regularly. Keep in mind that if you will not do this on time, you lose your

readers.

Difference between traditional and digital marketing:

Both traditional and digital marketing are used for similar objectives but these are

different from each other. Traditional marketing includes business cards, notices,
announcements, handouts, printed advertisements in newspapers and magazines.

Digital marketing includes websites, social media (Facebook, Instagram etc.),

YouTube videos and so on to publicize the products and services (Todor, 2016).

There are few important variations like digital marketing is cheap, in traditional

marketing people need to wait for weeks and months, on the other hand digital

marketing do this in few minutes and it is tough to track the traditional marketing but

tracking customer is not an issue in digital marketing (Todor, 2016).

One main element that differentiates traditional marketing from digital

marketing is the costs incurred on both techniques. Ads run on radio and TV, print

ads in magazines and daily newspaper costs comparatively more than online social

media ads that are affordable. With respect to this, expenses incurred to hold the

advertisement running in traditional marketing are huge. The costs of Internet

marketing are, however, little while several platforms in Digital marketing are free.

The tracking of results is also time consuming in traditional marketing and also the

results are difficult to measure. Companies have to wait for weeks and sometimes

months to track the impact of the advertisements on the business. In comparison,

companies do not have to wait longer to observe the increment in the business as a

result of the advertisement. In Digital Marketing, the measurement of return of

Investment is conveniently measured through Google analytic tools. Such tools also

help firms in identifying marketing opportunities. These give an overview of the

techniques performing well and also those that are giving positive results by

measuring transformation rate, basic trends, interest visitors, incoming traffic,

bounce rate and benefit.

Question 2: Demonstrate and discuss how Boo.com could have utilised

website optimisation techniques to improve the performance of their website.

Answer:

Website optimisation is also called search engine optimization (SEO), website

optimization is a phrase that describes the procedures used to optimize – or to

design from scratch – a website to rank well in search engines. For boo.com, a

proper website could be a game changer, especially for a company which is

operating globally. A user friendly website can be one of the most important tool that

any organisation may bring to use in order to reach a wider audience and penetrate

better in the market (Ellen, Chub and Berestova, Maxymiser Ltd, 2013).

Organisations today are having huge funds dedicated for the maintenance and

upkeep of their websites. Many of the top brands update their websites several times

in an hour in order to stay in the competition and provide the most updated and latest

market trend in the terms of product price and features.

It is one of the most important points that need deliberation that how boo.com can

stay in the competition where every top sports brand like Nike, Adidas and stores like

sports direct in UK are having highly user friendly and optimised websites. It is vital

to understand that for any brand managing it's supply chain online must have a

dedicated team operating the website and keeping it updated all the time (Ellen,

Chub and Berestova, Maxymiser Ltd, 2013). The UK has key strategy of many

international brands within EMEA to publish a presence and take market shares.

[ CITATION Ham16 \l 1033 ]. There are several areas and laws which businesses

should think about. These laws can be explained as:

Misleading and unfair marketing:

Misleading and unfair marketing is not acceptable at all. Regarding misleading B2B

marketing it states that business will be banned straight away if it deceives a trader

and effects economy behaviour such as buying from the misleading advertiser rather
than its competitors. So if any company will be found of doing misleading or unfair

marketing, the case of defamation will be apply to it.

Data protection:

If you are gathering, storing or using information about customers or potential

customers than it is your duty to protect their data.

Email marketing and social media:

In UK there are specific opt-in and opt-out rules for unsolicited direct email marketing

on the top of the rules on data protection [ CITATION Ham16 \l 1033 ]. In short you

cannot send any marketing emails of any kind to anyone if your identity is disguise, if

you have not provided a valid address so the recipient can send an opt-out request.

Comparative advertising is defined as “advertising which in any way, either explicitly

or by implication, identifies a competitor or a product offered by a competitor”. An

advertisement does not have to name a competitor in order to be considered

comparative advertising. The UK regulations do in fact permit comparative

advertising, provided that a number of fundamental rules are observed, including the

following:

 The advertisement is not misleading

 It compares like for like

 It objectively compares the relevant and verifiable features

 It doesn’t create confusion between the advertised business and a competitor

 It doesn’t discredit the competitor or its products, brand or business.

Question 3: Demonstrate and discuss how Boo.com could have utilised website

optimisation techniques to improve the performance of their website Critically

discuss how Boo.com could have used Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social

Media (SMM) and Content Marketing to attract, retain and engage with customers.
Answer:

Based on the type of a website, it can be optimized in a number of ways. The main

things that matter on a website are i) Content, ii) Layout and iii) Speed of a website.

Website optimization is often defined as the ability of a website to drive business

goals and objectives. Should Boo.com want to drive their business through their

website, they must optimize their website in terms of the above-mentioned factors.

To make the content of a website better, we should look for which pages are most

effective in getting traffic and that should be the sample used for other upcoming

posts on a website. Furthermore, the personnel that takes care of the website should

be asked to conduct a survey regarding the websites of the competitors and look for

the things on their websites which are liked by the audience or users.

The layout of the website is another most important factor that matters to the users.

Boo.com could have looked at what its competitors are using to attract customers.

Also, it could have gone on the website review websites and looked for the positive

and negative reviews that people posted regarding the website. The motive is to

learn from mistakes and stick to the right choices.

Boo.com had no speed issues, however, It is always better to improve yourself.

Therefore bringing improvements in the algorithms and coding of the website and

removing bugs could have been proved very good. Bug hunters could have been

given the task.

Search Engine Optimization is what ranks a website on the search engines. SEO of

a website like Boo.com could be improved by three methods. Technical SEO that

includes indexing and crawling, which, however, Boo.com did not much need. On-

Page is already discussed under content optimization. The most important and the

third method is Off-page SEO, which means the promotion of the website. Boo.com
could have made good use of backlinks to create authenticity for its website. They no

doubt already has authority and authenticity, but backlinks could have served the

purpose of improving that authority (Dick, 2011).

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is one of the most popular ways to promote the

website of a business. Clothing is very popular among the businesses that are

promoted through social media marketing. Also, social media has become one of the

most used traffic sources for e-commerce websites (Saravanakumar and

SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). What e-commerce websites do is that they target their

potential customer who is an office a social media user through AI. The ads shown

on social media make use of the keywords searched by the users in search engines.

What a person searches for shows his area of interest and thus similar ads are

shown to them on social media. Carousel on Facebook is one of the most effective

ways of promoting products on social media.

Content marketing does not directly ask the potential customers to buy a product,

however, they do the job of convincing the potential employees at its best (Rowley,

2008). Review blogs, review videos for examples are one of the most effective ways

of convincing the customers that you are selling exactly what they are looking for.

Boo.com could have started content marketing like Amazon.com and they could

have seen their sales touch great heights.

Budgeting

Boo.com has to be vigilant while working with digital marketing techniques in

terms of measuring their costs. The budget of monthly retainer for SEO is estimated

to be $750 to $50000 per month (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014). Within this specific

range, the money paid is based on the size of the company and the level of services

offered by the agency. At the lower side of this spectrum are few small SEO agencies
which are providing services within a limited range. At the upper end are companies

having greater requirements working with the agencies offering full-service SEO.

Many companies pay between $2500-$5000 to the monthly retainer (Tiago and

Veríssimo, 2014).

If Boo.com is just testing the way SEO work mostly go for fixed contract

services as a starting point then it must choose contract services. The contract

services comprise things such as site content audit ($500 to $7500), SEO

copywriting ($0.15 to $0.50/word), social media setup ($500 to $3000), and link

profile audit ($500 to $7500) (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014).

Social media is the most powerful means of communication with the

audience. Whether it is audio, visual or written content, there are many aspects to its

earning. The model of CPM let Boo.com pay for 1000 views of the ad every time. To

be clear, it means that if there are 1000 users of Facebook looking at the ad even

without clicking, the company will have to make the payment for it (Tiago and

Veríssimo, 2014). However, for the CPC model, it is another way around that when

people click on the ad, then company has to make the payment. The prices of CPC

is higher than CPM, but the payment will be only for the users who show the interest

on ads by clicking on it. The ads vary for CPC on Facebook according to the goals

and the targeted audience you wish to reach out. In the year of 2015, the Facebook

ad was for $0.27 (CPC) (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014). The targeted audience which

Boo.com is trying to reach increases the boosting of the posts. Along with that, it also

keeps the number of people under consideration whom it wants to reach out. It can

estimate around $6.35 to boost the posts on Facebook on average 1000 users.

The tweets work on the bidding system where Boo.com has to pay for the

engagement depending upon the settings of favorites, replies, clicks and re-tweets.
The earning of the business is dependent on these settings. It can estimate to make

a payment up to $1.35 for the promotion of the tweet. Instead of following the

bidding process, Boo.com can also take part to pay for the new followers on the

page. It depends upon the targeted audience how much the payment will be made

but estimates around $2.50 till $4.00 each follower. Also, keywords play a dynamic

role for the bid to appear on the top estimating up to $200,000 each day (Tiago and

Veríssimo, 2014).

Question 4: Discuss how Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) and Online Display

(& Video) advertising could have been used to increase brand awareness and

website visibility amongst its competitors.

Answer:

PPC which stands for Pay-Per-Click is the most popular way of advertising on the

internet. Boo.com could have made use of this technique to increase brand

awareness and website visibility. PPC ads are shown such websites who want to

earn with their websites, therefore they put links of ad providers on their web pages

(Fjell, 2010). Ads are shown to the users of these websites. Mostly these ads are

guided by AI and some of the times they could be related to the website they are

being shown on. In the case of Boo.com, such websites could have been fashion,

clothing and outfit websites. When people would visit such websites, they would see

ads of Boo.com, if they liked the product being promoted to them in the ad. They

would click on these ads and thus awareness about their website would increase

considerably (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014). For PPC google ads are one of the most

effective ways. There is no hassle of budgeting as they tell you exactly how many

impressions will they give you for a certain amount. One has to decide how many

impression do they need and how many clicks are required for the website to
achieve the business goals (Fjell, 2010). They will simply show you how much would

they charge you for it. Furthermore, there are also other ads providers. The rates

and effectiveness could be compared through these websites and thus the best

option is chosen. Boo.com could have easily targeted their selected market by

showing their ads on the kinds of websites which would be most likely visited by their

selected market. Furthermore, Boo.com could have run multiple PCC ad campaigns

on a number of different platforms thus increasing brand awareness and website

visibility.

PPC ads, however, do not always appear on different content websites. They can

also appear on search engines, partnering with search engine optimization and thus

giving Boo.com the maximum reach of customers in order to fulfill their business

goals and objectives. PPC ads in the search engines appear on the top of the search

results suggesting the users click on these ads first (Broder, Fontoura, Josifovski and

Riedel, 2007). Furthermore there are complex laws associated with PPC ads,

however, the content shown in the ads should not be untrue or unethical.

Question 5: Outline how Boo.com could have incorporated Email Marketing into its

digital marketing strategy to attract and retain customers.

Email marketing is a crucial element of digital marketing strategy. Among all

the marketing techniques used in the digital strategy, email marketing serves as the

top contributor to the success of the digital strategy. Through email marketing,

Boo.com will be able to gain unbeatable ROI because it is not effective but also cost

efficient. Research on email marketing showed that companies are able to generate

$44 for every $1 spent. Above all Boo.com will be able to tie all other marketing

techniques together through email marketing. Every marketing effort carried out by

the company can be promoted through email. It can share the content of the blog
with subscribers via email or can launch the social media contest and send email

invitation to the subscribers (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Thus email

marketing can facilitate Boo.com in multiple ways.

Email Service Provider

Boo.com can enjoy benefits of email marketing by integrating it into digital

marketing strategy. The company can generate an RSS-fed email that is sent to the

target audience at the optimal time. For this purpose, the company has to program

its Email Service Provider that needs to be set once and then it will operate

automatically. The ESPs will assist the firm in getting automated marketing solution

and making the email marketing more effective and smarter with little cost

(Veríssimo, 2014). The company needs to develop a team that develops the strategy

and do the email marketing automation.

Using Social Media to Build the Email List

Social media sites will greatly help in creating the email list of the audience

that is following the company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Boo.com can use

the social media wisely for connecting with the customers and offering them benefits

of the company’s newsletters sent via email. Different platforms could be used for

posting about email sign-up in number of ways. The most common and effective way

is to offer them incentives by preparing the content that includes special giveaway or

discounts for people joining the list (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). The main

purpose is to give the customers a reason to join the company’s newsletter.

 Facebook call to action button: Boo.com can use the call to action button of

Facebook that is customized according to the needs. For this, the company

must sign up after clicking the “Create Call-to-Action” button and add the URL

from the website.

  Instagram Bio: Boo.com can also drive a lot of traffic from Instagram.

Newsletter can be promoted at Instgaram by preparing a dedicated Instagram

Post and referring the customers to the bio.

 Snapchat: Newsletter can also be promoted on Snapchat as it is also an

effective scource of reaching out to large audience. Snapchat can be used to

spread awareness about the newsletter and communicate about the benefits

of the joining the email list.

 Twitter Cards: Twitter cards can also be used for promoting newsletter on

Twitter. The viewer on clicking the Tweet expands it and can view the offer

and call to action. On further clicks, they will be directed to sign up and

contact information is sent to company by the Twitter.

The newsletter that Boo.com will promote must focus on building relationships.

The social media content should be clearly presented in the newsletter. It must also

contain an invitation to the subscribers to share the email. It could be made more

effective by adding social share button to the Thank you page of the newsletter.

Question 6: Discuss the ways by which boo.com could have made use of

ongoing analysis and management of digital marketing methods discussed

within this report.

Review Digital Marketing Capabilities and Transformation

Before working through the digital marketing channels, Boo.com must analyse

its capability to make the most of digital marketing. A company using digital channels

will see nothing of any meaningful value come from those channels unless they have

the right capabilities in place to manage them. To this end, it’s helpful to use a rating

or scoring system to help Boo.com keep track of its current use of digital marketing

and how far it needs to go (Chaffey and Smith, 2013). This will help in building a
roadmap for where it wants the company to be in its use of digital marketing and

shows how digital transformation can be a long journey.

Developing Integrated Strategies and Plans

When it works, a digital platform can be a huge boom to any company’s

marketing strategy. For a platform to work some real magic however, there needs to

be a structured, planned approach based on a solid strategy. Jeff Bezos of Amazon

has said that without a structured plan some companies can succumb to “shiny

object syndrome”, always chasing their tail (Chaffey and Smith, 2013). Integrating

the plan with your existing strategy is crucial to the digital platform’s success.

Investing in Digital Marketing

To invest properly in digital marketing, Boo.com must first assess which digital

channels produce the most significant amount of lead and sales at the most

favourable cost per acquisition (CPA). A research was conducted in which several

top marketers were asked to give their views on which channels were the most cost-

effective (Ryan, 2016). These marketers identified (among others) SEO, content

marketing and email marketing as the most effective methods available. Investing in

these methods is a crucial point of digital marketing. Thus, Boo.com must focus on

above mentioned channels for reaching large audience.

Innovation and optimising digital marketing

The option to dynamically update and test digital media has always been one

of the biggest advantages the platform has had over traditional media. This constant

ability to tweak and change the system has given rise to the concept of ‘Always-on’

marketing (Ryan, 2016). This ‘Always-on’ mentality represents a move away from

tradition burst marketing to a method that also for the constant driving of products

and services as consumers search and review content and services. Real-time
marketing is also part of ‘Always-on’ since marketers can deliver more relevant

content that is being discussed in social media and by word-of-mouth.

Focusing on Business Reputation

The focus of Boo.com must be on building positive business reputation.

Although marketing through social media channels is extensive and common but it

brings number of challenges. Controlling information is one of the challenge that

companies face in this digital age especially when it is related to negative side of the

organization. It can hurt the image of the business in minutes (Ryan, 2016). So

Boo.com need to be vigilant on sharing the content through different platforms of

digital marketing. In following any digital marketing channel, the focus should laid on

the objective of fostering positive image of the organization.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is the most powerful, influential and innovative form of

marketing for the growth of Boo.com. It is one of the commonly used methods to

reach the potential customers. Digital marketing can be carried out through social

media marketing activities, Google search, online advertising, email marketing or pay

per click advertising. Boo.com must develop the skills to manage digital marketing,

as this will bring lots of opportunities in coming days. As world is becoming more and

more digital so having digital marketing skills will always have advantage in this

digital world. As compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing will enable

Boo.com to get effective leads without annoying the customer. With digital marketing

it will be able reach the audience in an effective manner that will be able to create

brand awareness and affinity. It will enable to get higher Return of Investment.
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