Contents

Digital Communication Strategy:.............................................................................................................2

Introduction:............................................................................................................................................2
Zappos Digital Communication Strategy:.................................................................................................2
A Glance at their strategy points:............................................................................................................3
Goal Determination.............................................................................................................................3
Choose your “ONE THING”..................................................................................................................3
Measure your Content Marketing:......................................................................................................3
Identify your top Audiences.................................................................................................................3
Research Audience Needs:..................................................................................................................4
Create more content with less:...........................................................................................................4
Create Content calendar:.....................................................................................................................4
Analysis:...................................................................................................................................................4
How these two were not suitable for Zappos?........................................................................................5
Conclusions:.............................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................6
Digital Communication Strategy:
A process of connecting and interacting with people through online or social mediums. It consists of
launching social media campaigns, distribution of newsletters, running banners, ads, or publishing
articles on local and international levels, and specialized messaging. All of it will require dedication in
building value in your relations with your customers and audience.
As said “We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history we are able to maintain rich
connections with a larger number of people”. Pierre Omidyar (founder of eBay) (Pierre Omidyar, 2006)

Introduction:
Zappos is an online store for fashion entertaining its clientage with best customer service, customer
experience, and company culture. Nick Swinmurn started as a small retailer for Shoes selling through
online sources. Found hardships in the start but he was consistent and knew that this is the future of
shopping. Credit goes to his partner Tony Hsieh who led the strategies with him in such a perfect way
that they established a gross sale of $1.6 m and so on. It started to grow when they moved to
Henderson, Nevada. Tony invested his time and millions of dollars to retain it and keeping it afloat ( Paul
Argenti, 2009)..

Their Story mentioned their timeline as:

- Started online selling of shoes 1999

- Opening of a fulfillment center 2002
- 365 days returns 2003 (Boom)
- Moved to Henderson, Nevada.
- Customer Loyalty 24/7, 2004
- New Boot Camp
- Creation of core values 2006
- Free Overnight Shipping 2007
- More than shoes (Growth and Diversity) 2007
- Amazon Acquires Zappos. 2009
- Moved to Las Vegas 2013
- Culture and Holocracy 2014
- First Female C-Suiter 2016
- Zappos for goods and Clothing 2017

Zappos Digital Communication Strategy:

There are many Digital Communication Strategies like Creative Attention Seeking through ad posts, or
Content Marketing, or Blog posting and tracking audience to website. As we saw Zappos have tried
many other ways but the best of its choice was to go for the content marketing. As it says “Focus on
what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want or need”. Many things captured their
audience attention like 365-day return, 24/7 customer service and their creative marketing campaigns.
All of this was backed up by their content media strategy as a core policy. Later on, they didn’t need any
hard work to market its online presence because its policies already made them sing their name as a
necessity.
A Glance at their strategy points:
Now, let’s cover some Digital communication strategy knowledge first. It always comes to determining
what is the necessity of the time. Digital communication strategy is not something “Nice to have” but it
is “Must have” requirement of any business who wants to continue, grow and establish its name more.

Goal Determination:
It’s easy to get confused into a number of things that are important, so to get rid of this always
document what you prefer the most as a policy of your business. As content market requires you not to
make content for the content’s sake. Look for your customers what they need. Determine that and then
document in such a way that it shoes your purpose. Like Zappos chose their customer service to be on
top priority. They provided 24/7 customer loyalty. It gave their customers confidence.

Choose your “ONE THING”.

Content can be made available in enormous ways and there will always be more for content. But,
choose what will give you and your brand the rise you always seek. It could be creating “Youtility”,
Motivate and Inspire, or Educate and Entertain or both. Like Zappos said they will give a 365 days’
return. Zappos thought what their customers actually needed at that time and it was trust. New ways
are always risky and to think about your audience you need to understand their needs first. As online
shopping was on very initial stages because many people didn’t had access over internet. So, they
thought to retain whatever the number of customers they have. The best way was to secure them in an
environment where they can choose freely and it is according to their convenience. First, they gave
them 60 days’ return policy that states that a customer can return a shoe if it is not up to the quality or
size doesn’t match. The delivery was set to be free for both sides. This just clicked their mind and it went
viral giving them a total of 6 times more gross sales then last year “$8.6 M”. So that’s how they chose
what is their “ONE THING” to focus on. This was the start of boom for this business as Hsieh says
“Buying shoes online can initially be a scary process for people, but Zappos has withstood with other
dot-com have failed because we provide the best customer experience, such as free shipping both ways.
Even though free shipping of both orders and returns has cost us more, it has enabled us to keep our
customers longer”. Later on, they came up with a bigger shock the whole market when they offered
“365-Day return” policy. Bang! That was the hit that clicked the ignition of a whole new level of
exposure (Tony Hsieh, 1999).

Measure your Content Marketing:

Tracking is also very important as you always want to know either you did well or you fall. So make some
merits for your content. There are 4 categories of content marketing metrics those are Consumption
Metrics, Sharing Metrics, Lead Generation metrics, and Sales metrics. It all resulted in Zappos to boost
their sales at hundreds of times in sales revenues.

Identify your top Audiences.

Relevancy magically creates time and attention. To be relevant, you need to understand you are talking
and targeting to several versions of what is there to listen.

- High level collections of similarly motivated individuals with some common interest or agenda.
You must think more before creating more. It must be appealing on time.
- Segment your audience in such a way that you can differentiate their product categories. Either
it would individuals or companies, or age-related segmentation or any other.
 - A detailed characterization of your goals behaviors of a hypothetical group of users.

Always remember that you are not audience. It is out there looking at your goals. Focus on their needs
and motivations, not yours.

Research Audience Needs:

Once you have defined your Audience than focus on their needs. It is essential for them to take interest
otherwise it will all go in vain. Let’s take 5*5*5 methodology. That states take your top 5 audience, look
at their top 5 concerns, and create 5 key stages of marketing funnel to better understand their wants,
needs and expectations. So it will help you create more content like this. Zappos once defined their
policies then they marketed their products with their free shipping both ways moto. They moved to a
bigger place and then connected with a larger supply chain. If we do the math, we will notice that this
method produces 125 questions to create content for. Once you enlist them then work on them as
priority.

Create more content with less:

When it comes to content problems, almost everyone thinks the solution is to create more content. But
reality is when you circle your content around your limited scope it will always be best. Repurpose or
reuse content gives your content a new life. Giving it a quick remix will lead it to new ways to revamp it.
Zappos have the best opportunity to reuse its stock in many ways to promote more sales and it was
right pin on the board. They really focused on the niche and they concurred it like a pro. Curate your
content from trusted sources but give credit where it needed.

Create Content calendar:

Make sure your content posting and interacting is a continuous process. It must be binge-worthy
showing your content. It could include onetime content posting like specials or a regular on your
timeline. Add your customer’s favorite content. Remember, you cannot always post your one-time
favorites but on occasion. Round it with regularly scheduled programming. It will help you fill up the
gaps in your consistency.

Analysis:
Let us have some analysis how they implemented all of this and how it turns out beneficial for them.
First, as we defined, they choose their ‘ONE THING’ to focus on was their customer relations by
providing them confidence to buy them as much. Once the customer is relying on your channel then you
can modify your portfolio in a sense that it will add on to your revenue stream. Well, if we look at
Zappos digital communication strategy then they focused on main social networks and their own
website (in house) rather than working on any third party medium like depending on blogs or legitimate
criteria. Let us discuss two different strategies and then compare them with the approach and make
appendix that how it was beneficial for them to go with this strategy.

Creative blog posting and redirecting towards website this was a creative way of seeking attention of
people who spend more time in reading and viewing blog posts. This directly lead them to the business
website and then ultimately clicking leads more efficiently. As the customer who is redirected to website
must have an interest in this product otherwise if it won’t be so potential then he will not even click on
the URL to visit you. We have seen many examples and in marketing field there is a certain place for blog
posters who create some exceptional content for your product. Let’s take an example of “MINT” a
financial tracking software platform which entertains a large number of community with its financial
services for tracking investments and other plans. Mint life is a platform where they started posting
about their products and services in all sectors available. It was so creative and informative that it led
even those customers who were not even interested. It is always believed that “It is not important what
you say but how you say it”. This rule was the one big way to generate maximum leads through blogs to
website. Their services include Financial planning, Lending, Accounting consultancy, and financial
consultancy. Financial sector is one of the most critical sector to serve and when you create ease in your
operations then you can avail the edge to cater a major sector of customers. People will always find
their ease; it is up to you how you give them fulfillment of their concerns. Mint Financial services did the
same. First they educate people about their services and in addition they also educate people about
financial services in general through their creative blog postings. Youngsters were also in search of
education to enhance their knowledge. That is the point either you entertain and provide or entertain
and educate. They promoted their ONE THING as “peace of mind”. Also “At mind solutions it is all about
you. The only condition of your content is to address the main audience with THEIR needs and concerns.
It was all exceptional but it was not up to the above mentioned exposure. Zappos have attained about 8
times growth in gross sales but Mint Solutions didn’t face the rapid growth as such. They were
consistent and their consistency gave them a gem of the audience which also promoted to their circle.
This was all referral audience but it has an edge that everyone generating a lead is a legit lead with its
needs all they need to do is to cater them according to their need. Their aim statement states “Our aim
is to provide our clients with a “Peace of mind solution” for their vision, and guide them closer to
achieving their goals and aspirations”. In every solution they captured the client’s attention by giving
them control to their funds where to invest and how to invest. They gathered the best consultants and
whatever the lead came by they scored it.

- Another example we can take is of Dollar Shave Club. Their strategy was also unique but silly. As
they say “you buy what you see”. Michael Dubbin and Mark Levine started it with the idea of
reducing the cost of blade to shave. They started in 2011 and then achieved a gross sales
amount of $12 million. The reason for their publicity was the creative ad posting in video
format. Their first video was watched over 24 million views. That clicked their approach and that
was their ONT THING and they stick to it. It worked for them as people needs to know about
them so they indirectly and irrelevantly promoted it success fully. How? they used lame and
creative captions like “Is it bad to pluck nose hairs with m fingers?” or something like “Do I really
need to wash my hands after I pee?” yeah yeah that sounds really silly. But human psychy states
what catches your attentions will lead you to its benefits. These guys really knew how to get
loose and get attention. They said, don’t be afraid to be out of the box, sometimes ot of the box
will make it a box in a box situation. More you create content like this more you will have its
uses.

How these two were not suitable for Zappos?

Zappos is a market place for its retailers and customers giving them a creative bridge between their
commute of order processing. If we understand the business category, then we can better understand
why it was not good for them. For such business you need a continuous process of upgrading your
knowledge, customer needs, trends, and fashion. All of these were in the parallel timeline with the
industry so they were thinking to give a blog posting a shot but in the end it was not worth it for them.
Once they decided they need to focus on the increase in sales and it was only with the customer loyalty.
Free shipping both ways and 365 days returned was the boom for them but how to communicate it to
your audience? So, they decided to be more creative in providing content as it was an online store for
more than one product. Only shoe have so many categories and it gets update before every season.
Social mediums were a very big and potential catch for them to make it worth it. Now suppose if they
have entered into blog postings, they wouldn’t be able to get as much attention as they needed. Leads
would not be potential as reading only can leave your customer in confusion either to go to it or not.
While on social mediums you give them a total control of their own activities so that they can manage it
on their own and be more confident how to and what to process.
If the video ad posting was to be obtained, it was also not that potential to invest as the enormous glut
of content will block its options. They needed to show more varieties and more articles that a customer
can choose between. Also, it could show their policies but if you show the policies how will you
implement it and onto who? The bottle neck was the cost to make it more prominent as an ad cannot
exceed the duration for catching the attention of a customer so you cannot putt all of that Zappos have
in a less than a minute video. 365 days’ return could be showcased but not emphasized. Then comes the
interaction with the clients. How can a business interact with the queries and solving them through
video posting and leading them all to one segment? This bottleneck was also removed by Content
Marketing Strategy they applied. Results are In front of us how they turned it into their benefit.

Conclusions:
It will not be bad to say that whatever they applied, was suitable according to the situation so they
blossomed it up by investing in it more and more. Digital Communication strategy connects your wit
your audience and it is up to you how to take care of them to retain them and enjoy a healthy and
longer-term relationship with them. Once you develop customer loyalty then you have to retain it as
well. Because once your customer loose interest, Game Over. The best example is taken from their gross
sales leader board that jumped from 8 times to 800 times in gross sales. Later on, Amazon saw potential
in this project and hired them as one of their subsidiaries. But their strategy fulfilled their vision and
mission to acquire the market with such a huge influence that now a day everyone sings their name due
to their policies, showcasing, customer loyalty, and retention. This could all be achieved with your digital
communication strategy being set on right track. Zappos was started by a small warehouse and now
they have more than just warehouses but their own delivery services both ways. They also caught their
loyal customers by compiling their names in a Lucille by offering them to put their names there. It
weighs around 100 pounds. This shows their market and their strategies as a success. “We thought that
if we got the culture right, the building our brand to be about the very best customer service would
happen naturally on its own” Tony Hsieh.

So, we derived “It is not something good to have but it is a necessity of the time to create such
marketing tools and techniques to understand their customers, their needs, and their wants”. Once you
focus on their needs, you will be asked more for the services and products you provide as it will be
backed up by your previous experiences. At this time, this strategy has given them the edge to test and
run it on many other product lines they can match up with their shoe collections like clothing,
entertainment and fashion.

References
Paul Argenti, 2009. Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications. [Online]
Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Strategies-Powerful-Corporate-Communications/dp/
0071606025

Pierre Omidyar, 2006. The Founder of Ebay (Internet Career Biographies (Hardcover)). [Online]
Available at: https://www.abebooks.com/Pierre-Omidyar-Founder-Ebay-Internet-Career/
30938208711/bd

Tony Hsieh, 1999. The Power of WOW: How to Electrify Your Work and Your Life by Putting Service First.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48586676-the-power-of-wow