By Mehdi ZOUAOUI

Email: zalouteacher@gmail.com

October 2016
 Table of Content

Executive Summary.....................................................................

Problem Statement......................................................................

1. Client/Brand Analysis .......................................................................

1.1. About Grainger.......................................................................
1.1.1. Business Model......................................................................
1.1.2. Growth Strategy......................................................................
1.1.3. Online Presence......................................................................
1.1.4. Customers ..............................................................................
1.1.5. Purchasing Trends ..................................................................
1.1.6. The MRO Industry in the North American................................
1.2. About Bosch........................................................................................
1.2.1. Bosch Power Tools Division .......................................................
1.2.2. Bosch Customers........................................................................
1.2.3. Customer Trends and Perceptions .............................................
1.2.4. SWOT Analysis ...........................................................................
1.2.5. Online Assets and its Presence...................................................
2. Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ) ...............................................................
2.1. Scenarios and concerns .........................................................................
2.1.1. First Scenario……………………………………………………...
2.1.2. Second Scenario………………………………………………….
2.1.3. Third Scenario…………………………………………………….
2.2. Analysis of scenarios……………………………………………………...
2.3. Business objectives……………………………………………………….
3. Data Collection and Analysis…………………………………………………..
3.1. Data that will be Used…………………………………………………….
3.2. Key Performance Indicators (KPI).........................................................
3.3. Bias and how to Avoid it………………………………………………….
3.4. Adopted Analysis………………………………………………………....
3.5. Benchmarks……………………………………………………………….
3.6. Analysis Summary……………………………………………………….
4. The Channel and Content Strategy
4.1. Emails and Display Campaigns for Audience Category 1 and Category 2….
4.2. Recommendations……………………………………………………………….
4.2.1. Content and Tone of the message and visuals………………………..
4.2.2. Keeping Content aligned with Bosch…………………………………..
5. Test and Control………………………………………………………………………..
5.1. Research Objectives…………………………………………………………….
5.2. Primary and Secondary Research……………………………………………..
5.3. Testing………………......................................................................................
Executive Summary

This digital marketing plan attempts to pave the way to a sustainable profits for both Grainger,

an MRO supply chain company, and Bosch Power Tools, a section of Bosch company that

excels in automotive and power tools. The aim of the plan is to increase the sales of Bosch

Power Tools at Grainger website with 10% by designing a multi-channel digital campaign. In

order to do that, we start by defining and identifying both companies, defining the trend of their

industries, and describing their digital assets. Given the three scenarios given of the potential

customers, we will place these customers in their respective phase of Consumer Decision

Journey (CDJ) in order to come with a marketing objective for each scenario and be able to

conduct the necessary measures. After defining that, we will define and identify the data we

need for the marketing objectives and the method we will be adopting for collecting the data. To

analyze the data, we will need to adopt a blend of the known analysis known including

descriptive, inferential, exploratory, causal and predictive. The next stage will be to set up the

channel and content strategies for this digital marketing plan that includes the tone of the copy

as well as and the general philosophy of the content that will be deployed. Finally in the test and

control we will set research objectives that would serve as a benchmark in order to test,

evaluate, monitor the success and failure of the digital marketing plan and adapt it accordingly.
Problem Statement

This section identifies the problem we are trying to solve in this present document.

“To design a multi-channel digital marketing campaign for the client, Grainger, as they target a sales
increase of Bosch Power Tools by 10% on Grainger.com. The client wants the campaigns to focus on
display advertising and email for this project.”

Grainger is a firm that supplies MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operation) products. They provide
anything that a firm may need which may not become part of the final product. The supplies can be
procured through Grainger.com, from 370 branches across the USA, or over the phone. They are a
business-to-business (B2B) company and have a global footprint with many subsidiaries in different
countries across the globe. Even though Grainger is a B2B firm, it is actually very similar to a B2C firm,
where they market to the end consumer as well. Traditionally, Grainger would have done marketing
campaigns by itself over various platforms such as search ads, displays, social, etc. Recently, they have
started looking at partnering with their big suppliers to conduct joint promotional campaigns. Bosch Tools
is one such supplier. Bosch Tools, a unit of Bosch, supplies power tools to Grainger, and Grainger is one
of the main B2B resellers of Bosch. Bosch Tools has several other B2C online partners and a few B2B
partners as well.

Grainger and Bosch Tools are partnering together to explore ways to increase sales of power tools. They
would like to increase sales by 10% by working more closely to sell more products to existing customers,
find new customers, and sell across product categories as well. Boschtools.com is itself a consumer-
facing website and has data on customer behavior, and Bosch is sharing this data with Grainger.
 1. Client/Brand Analysis

1.1. About Grainger

Grainger is an MRO B2B company headquartered in USA that was founded in 1927. It specializes in
MRO ( maintenance, repair and operations) industry. Basically, it is a supply chain entity that ensures that
products reaches its customers on time capitalizing on the unplanned urgent maintenance that may
occur. Although it is a B2B, it also acts as a B2C.It also has an online business represented by Zoro.com
that is B2C and also Monotaro.com that is situated in Japan 1.

1.1.1. Business Model

Accordingly, the business model of Grainger, namely how the company makes money, is that it supplies
logistics and operations to its customers by offering them in its website more than one 1.4 m products
making it easier for the the businesses to look at one place without going under the turmoil of looking for
themselves. This is done by offering a wide range of MRO products to customers and also by trying to
have more coverage by means of opening branches around the country.

1.1.2. Growth Strategy

The growth strategy for Grainger is based on spreading its wings on more international markets and
clients so as to cover more audiences knowing that the company has a solid online asset and strong
brick-and-mortar infrastructure. This can be seen in the new partnerships it is steadily acquiring, new
abroad branches being opened in Europe such as Cromwell in UK. Also, the company capitalizes on IT
developments in CRM and in making e-inventories in its database.

1.1.3. Online Presence

Grainger has a good online presence due to its armada of digital marketing teams and its long history
where they opened their first website 20 years ago 2. According to similarweb website, Gcom generated a
total visit of 4.586 million in one month where 72.91 originates from desktop devices. Also, the fact that
most of the traffic is being recorded on Monday’s and sometimes on Wednesday’s with a fixed pattern of
low traffic on weekend is very revealing of they types of customers who visit Gcom as it is shown in the
line diagram3:

1
https://www.b2becommerceworld.com/2016/04/18/zorocom-sales-rise-while-graingers-overall-us-sales-are-flat.
2
Grainger History. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2016, from
http://pressroom.grainger.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=194987&p=irol-corporatetimeline
3
Industry, By. "Similarweb.com - Digital World Market Intelligence Platform." SimilarWeb.com. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.
 Figure 01

This strong online presence has allowed Grainger to win $4.1 billion in 2015 4 and to reap a bunch of
awards. In addition to that, the company has also created some other service platforms and sub-
companies such as e-procurment, Zoro Company, etc.

Again and according to similarweb service, Grainger capitalizes more on many social media especially
Facebook and interestingly Reddit as it is shown in this diagram 5:

Figure 02

Indeed, Facebook is considered to be the main hub for Grainger fans with more than 180 thousand
followers, Youtube with 3K followers, Twitter with more than 23K followers and so on down the list of
social media accounts

1.1.4. Customers

4
Grainger. (2016). Grainger Factbook 2016.
5
Industry, By. "Similarweb.com - Digital World Market Intelligence Platform." SimilarWeb.com. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.
Overall, we can divide customers into three categories that are: procurement department at big
companies, technicians at medium-sized companies, and small business owners. Most of the customers
are males with some college degree where they most visit the website while they are at work 6. According
to the Akin Tosyali in his interview with professor Shahev, customers who visit the website can be linearly
categorized into major categories: Installer who tells what are the features of the product to be bought
and the buyer who decides where to buy it from. On the vertical side, these customers can be sub-
categorized on the basis whether they are new visitors or a returning visitor and contracted or non-
contracted.

1.1.5. Purchase Trends

We notice a decrease in traffic this year for Grainger compared to the last year, and according to the
queries searched by people most of them tend to look for branches of Grainger around US which may be
a capital that should tapped into more and more by Gcom staff. The following diagram displays this where
the red column represents 2015 and the blue one represents 2016 7:

Figure 03

1.1.6. MRO Industry in North America

The industry of MRO is steadily increasing in North American region and therefore the prophecy of the
management guru Peter Drucker was fulfilled when he said in 1962 that logistics was an untapped source
of innovation and opportunity, calling it the economy’s “dark continent.” What is striking is that many
customers are looking on internet on how to fix electronic gadgets such as photographers, Playstations,

6
"Alexa's Digital Marketing Tools Help You Engineer Growth and Drive Success." Alexa. Web. 08 Sept. 2016
7
Industry, By. "Similarweb.com - Digital World Market Intelligence Platform." SimilarWeb.com. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.
etc. Also, we notice an increasing trend in the maintenance of computer systems such as servers and
mainframes. Added to that, there is a steady increase of using mobile apps for carrying out processes of
millions of dollars with a touch of screen8. The move from paper-based to paperless and on the go
transactions and interactions is spreading through e-procurement9 and also with the communication
easily carried out through technology. Many companies are moving to outsourcing and to get materials
from low-cost countries10. Also industry changes have lead to a paradigmatic shift on how to address
maintenance for instance. Indeed, it was in the beginning in-house based one and later on it moved
toward more flexible form as it is shown in the following diagram 11

Figure 04

1.2. About Bosch Tools

Bosch is a multinational company that specializes in manufacturing mobility solutions, industrial
technology, consumer goods; and energy and building technology operations. The company has more
than 360,000 associates around the world, a manpower about 370,000 employees worldwide, and with

8
https://www.internetretailer.com/2014/08/05/grainger-sees-bigger-future-mobile-apps
9
http://reliabilityweb.com/articles/entry/recent_impacts_of_e-procurement_on_the_mro_industry_maintenance_repair
10
https://www.atkearney.com.au/documents/10192/245098/MRO_on_the_Move.pdf/ad3b2cdf-1c51-429e-87c0-
10842a800703
11
Capgemini, LTD. Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Optimized MRO...Becoming a Reality.
2016.
sales that exceeded 70 million Euros. It has also good reputation for the quality and reliability of its
products and services as well. There are also other brands that belong to Bosch as well such as Skil,
Dremel, RotoZip, and so on. Among the categories that company is considered to pioneer in is power
tools division with more than 100 tools being presented to the market each year. The category also
contains other sub-categories that are respectively:

● Power tools such as hammers, cordless power tools, grinders, etc.

● Power tools accessories such as oscillating multi-tool accessories, band saw blades, etc.
● Power tool attachment such as abrasive cutoff machine attachments, circular saw
attachments, etc.

1.2.1. Bosch Customers

According to a case study published in Digital Marketing Academy, customers on Facebook page
seem to be a younger generation especially woodworkers. What is striking though, is that the
interest of the audience that generally visit the website is surprisingly art and entertainment which is
likely to include again, and as confirmation for the case study mentioned above, younger age
groups, namely millennials. This category is likely to represent the secondary audience for Bosch
power tools that help increase the brand awareness. As for primary audience, it is also corporate
clients be it procurement departments of companies or mid-sized ones.

1.2.2. Customer Trends and Perceptions

Generally, customers are likely to buy from Bosch power tools upon a recommendation of one of the
colleagues or friends which a key asset to capitalize on and turn into a benefit. In this context, Bosch
power tools are considered by clients to be of a good quality and thanks to the company values that
are based on quality and reliability and the perception of customers, according to reviews, who
consider it a strong brand12 although the doppelganger campaigns launched by some competing
companies.

1.2.3. Bosch SWOT Analysis

If we want to conduct a SWOT analysis for Bosch power tools, we may cast light at the following
horizons and challenges that are awaiting Bosch in the short or the long run and need a serious care
and consideration to either turn internal and external factors for the benefit of Bosch.

12
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/55492/marketing-focus-perception-question-consumers-perceive-brand-big-
impact-bottom-line-latest-equitrend-brand-equity-survey-gives-valuable-insight#
 1.2.4. Online Assets and its Presence
It seems that Bosch power tools staff are investing less in paid searches compared to organic
search where according to similarweb.com, only 0.71% is generated by the former, while 99.29%
is generated by the latter as it is shown this figure:

Figure 05
As for social media presence and visibility, Facebook seems to have taken the biggest pie with 41%
over the other social media channels and with a number of followers that exceeds 100 thousand.
Interestingly, Bosch seems to have opted out for instagram. Besides Facebook, there are other
social media channels such as Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, etc as it is shown in this figure:

Figure 06: Bosch’s Social Media presence

As for Youtube channel, it seems to be based on online syndication where subscribers are updated
on a regular basis about how-to videos in order to increase their experience with power tools offered
by Bosch.

2. Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ)

Based on the model developed by McKinsey back in 2009 that is entitled Consumer Decision
Journey (CDJ), we will model our objectives on this framework. The CDJ reads as it is shown in the
following figure:

Figure 07

2.1. Scenarios

The focus of this analysis will be based on three possible scenarios:

1. Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool (for example a drill), but do

not visit Grainger.com.

2. Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool, and then visits

Grainger.com, logs in to Grainger.com, and visit the power tools category.

3. Audiences that visit Boschtools.com, look at a power tool, and then visits

Grainger.com, logs in to Grainger.com, and visit the plumbing category but not power

tools.
 2.1.1. First Scenario

In this scenario 1,we may venture and say that they can be placed in the initial consideration
stage especially for new visitors who are checking the brand and reviewing and collecting more
information about Bosch tools. Here, there is not a trigger since the need has been already
created and customers are likely to look for solutions to cover it. The possible second audiences
are returning visitors and secondary customers who are rather actively evaluating the pros and
cons of what they are going to buy and here they must be aware of the brand, already having
considered it but they want to dig deeper. However, for the sake of keeping things more
consistent, they can be placed at active evaluation. The concerns and questions of customers at
this stage are mainly knowing the reliability of the products being offered and their
characteristics along with the pricing that is being offered.

2.1.2. Second Scenario

In this scenario 2, in fact reflects that they’re rather in the borders of active evaluation and are
entering the moment of purchase or in other words they’re going back to ZMOT 13 but with less
tension where other competitors have almost lost hope to attract them. Here, the customers are
likely to make the purchase but they still leave a room for hesitation and for final change of
thought. The concerns of customers with this scenario is maybe looking for more proofs and
credentials in order to endorse their decisions.

2.1.3. Third Scenario

In this scenario, we see that if we put these stations they have visited and put on CDJ we will be
able to imply that this audience is initially considering their options and alternatives and then
actively visiting Grainger Plumber category upon a trigger that may have been created either at
Bosch Tools or at Gcom and if we torture the number far enough they’ll either validate or refute
this claim. Indeed, the customers here are going back and forth from active evaluation to trigger.
Having said that, customers in this scenario are rather involved in some kind of competitively
digging up for information about more information in regard to Bosch and also they just may
have realized that there is another need they need to fulfill as well.

This table summarizes the previous points

13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g40rrWBx2ok
Scenario CDJ Stage Customers concerns

Scenario 1 Active evaluation Reliability of the brand and

whether it’s better than other
products and pricing.

Scenario 2 Moments of purchase Looking for more proofs to

endorse their final decisions
and starting to proceed the
purchase

Scenario 3 Initial consideration Comparing other products.

2.2. Analysis of Scenarios

2.2.1. First Scenario

It is necessary that the company performs a competitive intelligence through evaluating

what other competing brands are offering and how they are offering their products along with
the platforms they are most active in. Also, it should concentrate on experimenting and testing
with the aim of brushing up on the journey of active evaluators. Some of the metrics that need to
be looked at are for example: average time spent on page, exit rate, and so on.

2.2.2. Second Scenario

Here in order to have more accurate insights on what is going on, the analysis should be based
on outcome analysis and also conversion. Some of the metrics that help us in this matter are for
instance: visitor recency, add-to-cart conversion rate, shopping cart abandonment rate, etc.

2.2.3. Third Scenario

Here, the company should also run experimentation along with some clickstream
analyses to able to guess what is attracting customers to plumbing category. There are some
metrics we adopt here such as: CTR, CPA, CPC, etc.

2.3. Business Objectives of Scenarios

What seems clear at first glance is really the overlap between the business objectives in terms of the
available data and also the scenarios that were provided where it is really challenging to find a
consensus over a mono-behaviour that you can capitalize on in order to come up with a single
business objective to base the marketing strategy upon. Here my humble trial in order to come up
with a sound outcome:

2.3.1. First Scenario

The business objective here should be the striving to influence consideration for this
category of clients since they seem to be looking for information about this brand and they
are actively looking for information about it. Accordingly, as marketers, we should be asking
whether our products satisfy the consumers needs. The type of data needed for the first
scenario is measuring the outcome of CTR of the two versions of a given ad or campaign
and the clickstream analysis for both experimental campaigns.

2.3.2. Second Scenario

The business objective for this scenario should be finding ways how to improve the sales process by
making the purchase decision quicker and leaving no room for hesitation in customers since
hesitation opens the doors for last-minute change of thoughts. Having said that, the key question we
should be asking in this scenario is whether “the sales efforts result in wins for the brand”. The type
of data needed here maybe conversion rate and average order value.

2.3.3. Third Scenario

The business objective for this scenario would be striving on to create a brand awareness of
customers in order to attract them to the Bosch power tools category by presenting and
making them recognize the the brand of Bosch tools at Gcom. The key questions that we
should be asking for the first scenario would whether the customers recognize the brand at
all at Gcom. The data required for this scenario consists of intelligence data that are related
to other companies and also where customers go after they leave the website, the average
session, guest questionnaire or surveys on how much over 10 they would recommend Bosch
tool.

Business Objective Key Questions Data--- source

Influence consideration Are the customers satisfied - Average Time Spent on

with the products in terms of Page, Exit Rate, Page Per
quality, reliability and pricing? Visit.
Source: Web Analytics
Platforms.
 Does the Website help visitors - Exit Page, Bounce Rate,..etc
find what they’re looking fo? Source: Analytics platforms,
Usability studies.

Improve Sales Process Do the pages show the - Add-to-Cart Conversion Rate
products in a convincing Source: Google Analytics.
manner that lead to sale?

How does the customers fulfill - Cart Abandonment Rate, Exit

the purchase process and how Rate.
to make it quicker and without Source: Google Analytics.
hesitation

Increase Brand Awareness
How do the customers find the
category and do they
recognize it
Trends, New visits--- Google
Trends.
Direct traffic--- alexa,
similarweb.
Social media metrics--- tools of
the trade.
Reviews on business--
websites of the trade.
Other competitors strategies---
CI websites ( E.g: alexa)

3. Data Collection and Analysis

3.1. Data that will be Used

In order to reach reliable outcomes from the analysis and for the sake of staying within SMART
objectives that do not go beyond what we have as data resources, it is more preferably to conduct a
descriptive analysis given the small amount of data access we’ve been granted which includes
looking at raw data and therefore, giving basic foundation to conduct more advanced analyses. We
will also refer to inferential analysis for the sake of identifying more traits of the personas that we’re
going to construct here. Within that context, we will be needing to extract data from Google
Analytics, especially those related to average session, bounce rate, page depth, etc. Also, we will be
collecting data from OpenTracker in terms of social media analytics. Added to that, we will be
frequently analysing the results from Google Trends to gauge their interests and what they’re talking
about.

3.2. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

The objectives that we have set forward which are respectively: influence consideration, improve
sales process, and increase brand awareness; the key performance indicators that we will adopt as
signposts to measure flow and success of the strategy will be as follows:
 - Influence Consideration: Average page depth, average session, CTR, ROAS,
amplification rate,
- Improve sales process: shopping cart abandonment rate which is calculated by
dividing the number of people who don’t complete check-out on the number of
people who start check out, customer lifetime value(CLV)
- Increase brand awareness: Rate of new visitors compared to returning visitors,
conversion rate from social media. Bounce rate= number of visitors who leave
immediately divided by the total number of visitors. Direct traffic, amplification and
applause rate, CTR, Unique Opens, ROAS,

3.3. Bias and how to Avoid it

One of the challenges that we may face here while collecting data from these different resources if
we don’t pay a close attention about the methods on how we’re collecting data, is bias. Bias may
alter or may result in results that are contradictory to what we have expected beforehand. It is clear
in our case that one of these issue is the sample bias where we may have a sample that doesn’t
qualify to statistical significance and therefore cannot be applied or generalized to the remaining
states knowing that Excel data provided by Grainger have been already altered for commercial
reasons. Added to that, one of the pitfalls that we will try to avoid is to exclude some customers or
audiences that may look as a reason for the decline of our business objective, yet they are
necessary for us in order to conduct an objective data collection that allows us to have sound
insights that help us in the content strategy. Moreover, having only a sample data from the client,
namely Grainger, aggravates our task to collect valid and reliable data since the data provided are
for the sake giving example not really for the sake of taking it as a basis to conduct a fully-fledged
data collection since incomplete data is likely to lead to ambiguous outcomes that may be
interpreted in several ways.

Having said that, our task seems to daunting with incomplete data; however, we can compensate for
that lack and mitigate the potential outcomes if we strive to adopt an array of data resources from
different sources and engage into what Avinash termed multiplicity14 where he advocates the use of
a diaspora of tools in order to have sound data after comparing them others. As for the sampling
bias as well as the number of the sample and whether it would be of a statistical significance or not,
the most likely approach we have to trigger here is to look at the patterns and statistically analyze it
to see whether there are any redundancies, controversies or not. As for interpreting issue, it is true
that the data are incomplete, but we may bypass that by building a mini-model that is based on the
data provided and offer a way to test its reliability through test and control. This seems to be the

14
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multiplicity-succeed-awesomely-at-web-analytics-20/
least that can be done when offered with incomplete data set and getting around that needs art and
craft.

3.4. Adopted Analysis

As we have already quickly touched on the possible analyses that we are likely to conduct, it’s time
here to go deeper about the other categories that we will use sporadically depending on the nature
of the business objective under investigation. In this regard, we are going to focus on descriptive
analysis as a first fashion to delve deeper into the analysis. This allows us to take a snapshot of the
web traffic, clickstream, and also competitive intelligence. The data sources that we foresee to base
our analysis upon are: Google Analytics, and OpenTracker. The data that would be instrumental if I
have access to are those related to the competitors of Bosch and Grainger where while these data
can be available, it will help close any existing gaps in performance in regards to other competitors.
As an example of analysis, By looking at the Excel file provided by Grainger that belongs to
structured data, we can imply the following outcome represented in this diagram:

Figure 08: Comparison between Revenue and CPA in terms of ROAS

By taking a closer look at the above diagram it seems there is more spending on visitors visiting
Grainger & Bosch but making no purchase which should be the focus of the future marketing
strategy in order to see how to mitigate that cost and turn into a benefice knowing that the ROAS
percentage for visitors going to Grainger & Bosch and making no purchase is 0.24%15. Added to
that, by looking at the daily clickstream habits of audience on the website we can get many insights
on what, where, and when customers are doing what they are doing. The following diagram
demonstrates this:

15
Grainger-_-Bosch-Capstone-Reporting
 Figure 08: proportion

The previous diagram reveals that the surfing patterns of customers tend to be at its peak on Friday and Tuesday as
well in terms of CPA which may give insights about the correct timing of applying marketing strategies and campaigns
such as display ads, etc. Having said that, we notice the following trend during the days of the week in terms of CPA
as it is shown in this diagram:

Figure 09: Trend of CPA

We also need to launch some research tools that give us more power over the data we’re collecting
especially the ones that fulfill the inferential analysis such as guest surveys that we would be launching
for returning and new visitors who visit Bosch power tools. This will give us more insights about the
persona of this segment which will eventually help us tailor more user-based ads and more personalized
email campaigns. In addition to that , we need to run a strong multivariate and A-B testing in order to find
correlation that may lead us to causalities which is the core feature of causal analysis. We need before
hand to define the control and independent variable in these experiments so can compare against the
experiment and control groups. This is necessary in order to avoid interpretation bias and also in order to
reach more reliable and valid data here so we can apply especially to reach our business objective,
namely here influencing consideration. Due to the shortage of data, it seems to me a bit challenging to
engage in a predictive analysis that requires more data to be processed and tidied up into a manageable
data sets let alone the tedious process of conceptualizing an attribution modelling.

3.5. Benchmarks
The benchmarks we plan use here is to increase the average session by 20%, page depth by 15%,
amplification & applause rate by 30%, and also decrease shopping cart abandonment rate by 15%.
This is not an exhaustive list but rather an overview at the most important benchmarks that we
wanted to highlight here.

6. The Channel and Content Strategy

4.1. Emails and Display Campaigns for Audience Category 1 and Category 2

In order to have a sound a reliable email and ad display campaigns for the users in each category,
we will divide that in the following elements:

Email will consist of regular follow-up emails and promotional emails that are targeted to primary
customers who are mainly procurement department officers. As for the first category of the
users email should be a natural completion of what these users have been already doing since
this will likely to bridge the possible gap present in them.

Display ads should be programmatically triggered at different stages of CDJ once a need is
spotted and this could be at the different platforms especially Facebook16 where most of the
users are active there. This can be done in a multivariate tests in order to offer a constant
feedback and any necessary update for the test and control phase. Display ads should not be
only designed to trigger a call to action to check more products but should be also designed to
hook on more users to join, for instance, the newsletter so as to get more demographic data
about them and to be able to personalize and gage their needs more accurately. Actually,
display ads, as stated before, should be used in three different scenarios with different
marketing objectives: whether to catch the users’ attention, or to retain them or to stand among
the crowd while they are in their active evaluation. Accordingly, it should be an ongoing process

16
Industry, B. (n.d.). Grainger.com Traffic Statistics. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from
https://www.similarweb.com/website/grainger.com#social.
with an ongoing adaptation and change. For example ads like these can have a good impact on
new customers17:

Figure 10

For the sake of offering them incentives to apply the call to action, the ad should explicitly and
simply entice users by promising them special offers that are not available to outside circle of
the ad. Since the ads are designed to hesitant users whether new or returning one, it is really
necessary that they lead to landing pages that are reliable of what is stated in the ad else we
risk to lose the users due the advertising fatigue s/he may go through. Also, the landing page
should promote and make use of:

- Mention in one sentence what Bosch Tools is

- Collapse filters by default but offering an option to show them according to the need of
the user so he can’t be intimidated by the plethora of filters.

17
https://www.behance.net/gallery/3468857/ads
 Bosh… for leaders and
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Figure 11

The channel of email is very crucial for primary users, namely procurement department officers,
since it allows them to have an up-to-date information about what is new. Primary users should
receive more personalized follow-up emails based on their experience on the website and what
they have conducted so far, and also promotional emails to let them know what is trending, and
to keep them up with the new advances power tools industry even if it doesn’t belong to Bosch
in terms of research and development since this will create credibility. But we should be aware
not to overwhelm this category with information since they are busy officers who may not read
from A to Z what is in the newsletter for instance. To put it in other words, we should use more
often email channel for the second scenario which where possible phase that we have chosen
for it so far is moment of purchase and , and to a moderate level for the first scenario where
users are in their active evaluation. The first scenario also needs more ad retargeting to
convince more the clients to evaluate and dig up Bosch power tools at Gcom.

The Audience Category 2 should be targeted with more ads rather than email channels since they’re
still outside the radar of Gcom and we don’t want to switch them off by bombarding them with emails
and even we still lack important demographic information about them. Accordingly we would
approach them as follows:

- Scenario 1: here, promotional emails emails and retargeting should be applied.

- Scenario 2: Here more personalized follow-up email campaigns should be conducted in
order to assist and guide them in this scenario.
 - Scenario 3: banners that call to subscribe to the newsletter and benefit from seasonal or
promotional orders, and after they subscribe only with their emails, they receive confirmation
email that would lead them to another page that asks more demographic information.

4.2. Recommendations

In order to sustain the relationship with customers the content of the visuals and the emails
should be well crafted and well studied before delivering it to the customers. It is important to
keep in mind the busy schedule of the audience that we are to address and by that we are
meant to point right away to the point and be direct by using simple and short sentences as well
as reiterating and capitalizing on the original idea of Bosch power tools are the right one
because they do the right job which would be compatible with Bosch philosophy and value as
well.
Added to that, the tone of ads should interpret the credo of “man in the action” so users will
retain the practical side of what Bosch power tools can do. This will inspire and encourage users
to have the tool since they will be seeing the same need they’re looking for being reached by a
model man in action and humans like to model by nature. For instance, the tone of the banner
should reflect something similar to the following picture18:

Figure 12

4.2.1. Content and Tone of the message and visuals

The language of the emails whether promotional of follow-up should not be too lengthy so as
not to scare away the users from reading some of it at all since according to studies humans
can only focus for 20 minutes19 and beyond that it is hard to put a full focus on the subject under

18
http://www.safeseminary.org/benefits-of-a-cordless-drill-amazing/
19
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/the-neuroscience-of-learning/five-connections-for-learning.
question, namely here reading an email or a newsletter. Also, the language of the follow-up
email should reflect an understanding of the user and should never feel that it is only a mass
email else the user won’t feel that he’s being treated as an individual but rather a cell in a
database. The distribution of the information should take the letter “F” since according to studies
that were conducted on customers by tracking their eye movements, they have concluded that
generally they move their eyes in a pattern that is similar to the shape of “F”20.
For instance, a follow-up email to a customer whom we think he’s at the phase of “moment of
purchase” should go like this::

To: <email>
From: Grainger Support staff
Subject: Need Help? We Are here.

Dear <Customer name>,

I’m <name of the support staff> and I thought that you may need my help in regard to your
research about the product you want to buy and guide you on what suits your needs. If you
need a live assistance on what to buy kindly click on the following link <link to online chat with
the customer> and I will be directly chatting with you while you’re surfing on the website to look
for what you need.

As Grainger, we always believe that time for our customers is precious and that is why we
encourage you to connect with us when you need assistance.

Thank you.

The tone and the language should not be too intrusive so as the client doesn’t feel he’s being
watched and that we’re trying to hard sell our products, but rather we just need to remind him
that we are here and we can help if he wants.

4.2.2. Keeping Content aligned with Bosch

In order to make sure that the message being delivered through the marketing channels is
compatible and aligned with Bosch branded, it is necessary to establish a roadmap and
guidelines on how Grainger and Bosch collaborate together in order to increase the positive
effects and to avoid any inconsistencies between the channels and the values of Bosch. Having
said that, the core value of Bosch should resonate in every ad especially quality that Bosch
prides about. This does not mean that the rules or standards imposed by Bosch should coerce
Grainger to stay within them but rather they should serve as a foundational element for more

20
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
creative display ads and emails that are delivered based on what Bosch believes to be its core
feature.

5. Test and Control

5.1. Research Objectives

Setting research objectives will ensure that they are linked to the Key performance indicators
(KPI) and that they are not irrelevant or outside the scope of the campaign. Having said that, the
research objectives should include an observable action and the subject under question. Thus,
SMART research objectives will establish a strong chances of getting reliable and valid
outcomes. The below figure briefly summarizes SMART components21:

Figure 13: SMART Objectives

As a reminder, we’re trying to set three research objectives in order to increase the sales of
Bosch Power Tools section at Gcom with 10%. Within that context, it is necessary that Grainger
conduct primary research about customers and their behavior by conducting surveys and
questionnaires and other necessary primary research methods. The research objectives turn
around these three poles:

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Pixabay.com
 - Influencing consideration with the the hypothesis of whether the products offered or
displayed satisfy the the consumer needs. Hence, Grainger should conduct research
about user behavior relying on Google Analytics provided data.
- How to improve the sales process with the hypothesis of whether the sales efforts result
in wins for the brand.
- Raising brand awareness with the hypothesis of whether consumers recall and
recognize the brand under question. Hence, the research objective here should be
based on knowing whether customers are aware that Gcom has a section for Bosch
Power Tools.
Negating or confirming the aforementioned hypothesis will require us to use an array of primary
and secondary research methods that include the collection of qualitative and quantitative data
in order to have more accurate insights and predictions of the campaign and to pro-actively.
Having said that, these are the research resources and methods that seem to be fit for each
phase and objective:

- We will heavily rely on secondary research and quantitative methods related to statistical
data from Google Analytics related ROI, ROAS, and so on. It is also important here to
conduct surveys and questionnaires that are considered to be primary research tools in
order to have more qualitative data in this matter.

5.2. Primary and Secondary Research

The primary and secondary research that Grainger should adopt for that purpose is the
following:

- Google Analytics in order to have structured data ( secondary research) to be able to

gain insights in term of user behavior before, during and after visiting Gcom.
- Google Alerts in order to have more data and insights in terms of brand sentiment.
- Customers’ surveys and questionnaires to have more primary quantitative data about
them.
- A/B multivariate tests and experimentations in order to gather more primary data in
terms of their behavior.
- Secondary data related to email marketing effectiveness such as open rate, forward rate
that can be considered quantitative and secondary in type.

5.3 Testing

It is is necessary to carry out some steps prior to launching the campaign in order to simulate
the flow how things would go. In this regard, I suggest that the digital marketing campaign
should follow Successive Approach Model (SAM)22 used in instructional design especially in its
test phase where it goes through four stages of testing that are respectively:

- Decision proof: where here the prototype of the campaign should be applied to sample
of customers to gage their interactions, expectations as well as their feedback. It is
necessary here to send in this decision proof the sample of the campaign to all related
stakeholders such as designers, digital marketers, instructional designers and any
related stakeholders even if it’s outside their discipline since they can provide valuable
data.
- Alpha phase: comes after receiving feedback from decision proof and making the
necessary modifications. Here the campaign should contain all the necessary elements
such as rich media, videos, and other related assets.
- Beta phase: here the campaign should be fully-fledged as it should be in the real world
and should have already applied the modifications suggested in the Alpha stage.
- Gold phase: is the actual launching of the campaign while keeping an eye on KPI that
were agreed before in order to adapt when necessary.

Figure 14: Successive Approaching Model (SAM)

Briefly the KPI that should be set forward are the following:

1- CTR for the first scenario.

2. Shopping Cart Abandonment rate for second scenario

3. Clickstream analysis KPI’s for the third scenario

Added to that, conducting a guest survey can benefit improve the reliability and validity of
research objectives. Since this latter will be likely to be conducted online the sample size should
be of statistical significance so as to qualify to be quantitatively congruent with the standards.
Also, the informants or the customers should be divided into control and experimental groups by

22
http://www.alleninteractions.com/sam-process
setting the dependent and independent variables. This will allow us to identify the effectiveness
of what we have set and to find out any correlations and eventually causalities that may help
refine the research objectives and therefore the outcomes of the whole strategy campaign.
However, we should be aware to take into consideration any confounding variables that may
occur.