Concept

For this digital marketing continuous assessment a fictional business was

created called “Irish Runner Emporium”. The concept for this business is that

Irish Runner Emporium are specialists in supplying fashion runners to the Irish

market. The business is more specialised and niche compared to businesses like

Elverys or JD sports hence the idea of focusing on fashion runners. The Irish

Runner Emporium is trying to target a different market segment compared to

the previously mentioned active lifestyle focused brands. The Irish Runner

Emporium uses a number of personas to target potential customers. The first

persona is John, a 23 year old student who works in a bar part-time and studies

Marketing. Maria is a 34 year old freelance web designer who really likes

runners. Micheal is a 42 year creative director in an advertising agency. These

personas are the ideal customers that Irish Runner Emporium wants to sell to

and they have varied backgrounds, but a similar interest in fashionable runners.

John Persona

www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona?persona=-NThbIL-Uj4fHpvtGlrV

Maria Persona

www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona?persona=-NThd07vJcn9bZ1psG_B

Michael Persona

www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona?persona=-NTheJudmUeWTJWh1OyA
SEO Landing Pages

For the SEO landing pages Wix was utilised to create a number of blog posts that

were optimised for SEO. A keyword was chosen for each blog post and this

keyword was used across the webpage. This included using the keyword in the

name of the image files, h1 heading, URL slug, meta description, and page title.

One blog post is for a specific product and the other blog post is a list

highlighting a range of products. The first blog post would reflect that summer is

coming and people will be outside more and possibly considering footwear that

is lighter. Longer, warmer days tend to bring brighter colours into the everyday,

so runners that reflected these qualities seemed like an appropriate choice.

Knowing the type of runner for the blog post allowed the search for appropriate

runners to begin. The Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 fit this criteria with its low top

design and bright colours, so this would be the keyword used for this blog post.
Looking at Google Trends there is an increase in the volume of searches coming

into the summer months with spikes in April, May, and June. From this it can be

concluded that the Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 would be an appropriate pair of

runners to feature in the blog post. These runners fit the criteria of being a

casual summer shoe and the data appears to point to more interest around late

spring and early summer, which is exactly when the blog post needs to go live.

Digging further into the data we can see that this particular pair of runners is

searched 320 times a month in Ireland. This isn’t a large volume of searches, but

it is enough to justify targeting the keyword as a potential market does exist for

the Irish Runner Emporium. In the blog post for Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 was

mentioned five times. Once in the title of the blog post and four times within the

paragraph text. The image of the Mexico 66 was also titled with the same name.

Alt text was added to describe how the runners appear and this concluded the

on-site SEO that was implemented for the page. Relating this blog post to the

customer personas means considering the price of these runners, which have a

RRP of about €110. While this isn’t an extravagant price it may be out of the price

range of John the 23 year old student who works part-time, but it’s well within

the price range of Michael and Maria who are further into their careers with
more discretionary income.

The second blog post was planned around the keyword “Adidas Runners”. The

scope of the post would be broader with a list of shoes being recommended by

Irish Runner Emporium. Trying to establish a good time to put this post live was

difficult as looking at Google Trends showed a great deal of activity for the

keyword over a twelve month period. The least amount of searches seemed to

be over the summer months and the most searches appeared around

December/ January coinciding with Christmas and the New Year.

The keyword has a monthly search volume of 3600 which is a considerable

amount and definitely a keyword worth targeting due the volume. Working from

this data it would seem likely that a good time to launch this blog post would be
in the run-up to Christmas. When it came to populating the list Adidas’s Originals

line of vintage looking fashion runners seemed like an appropriate choice

considering the niche occupied by Irish Runner Emporium. Three different

runners were chosen from the line. These runners are the Gazelle, Superstar,

and Samba. Once again the images files, paragraph text, h1 heading, URL slug,

meta description, and page title reflected the keyword. Alt text was added for

each image included on the list. Relating this list to the personas used can be

done by looking at the RRP prices of the runners. The Adidas Gazelle often retail

for about €120. The Gazelles were chosen as the number one recommendation

due their price point being affordable to John, Maria, and Michael.

Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 Blog Post

https://n00226460.wixsite.com/runners-ireland/post/onitsuka-tigers-mexico-66

Top Adidas Runners Blog Post

https://n00226460.wixsite.com/runners-ireland/post/our-top-adidas-runners

Email Campaign

For the email campaign the choice was made to promote one of the blog posts

that was created. The blog post for Adidas runners is intended to be launched

near Christmas to promote Irish Runner Emporium’s line of Adidas Runners.

Sending a promotional email highlighting that the blog post has been launched
could be a good way to connect customers with the content. Retail Ireland

claims that Irish households spend €978 more in December compared to any

other month of the year (Goodbody, 2022). Accessing this potential source of

capital would be crucial for the Irish Runner Emporium. Connecting the personas

of John, Maria, and Michael to this email is easily done. All of these personas

have family, friends, and potentially partners that may buy them gifts or the

personas will buy themselves new footwear for Christmas. Connecting with

these customers and communicating the range of Adidas runners that is

recommended could save time for these customers at a time of year where time

is finite.
The copy within the email pointed customers to the blog post and there is a

clickable button that opens a link to the blog post. A logo was designed for the

Irish Runner Emporium to ensure there was a visual component to the email.

The merge tag *IFNAMEI* was used to personalise the email for each person on

the mailing list.

Paid Search Campaign

For the paid search campaign Irish Runner Emporium’s will be offering

customers 10% off their first order. This offer will be advertised via Google Ads

targeting specific search queries by potential customers. This campaign would

run over the summer and the objective is to increase traffic and sales to their

website. Establishing an ad group with pertinent keywords was essential to

ensure this campaign would be successful. Utilising Screaming Frog to research

what keywords competitors were targeting was an important part of choosing

these keywords. JD Sports is a competitor that was targeted in this research.

As can be seen above JD Sports are targeting Adidas Originals Gazelle which Irish

Runner Emporium have featured in their blog post, so this is a keyword that will

be targeted. Using Google Keyword Planner it can be seen that Adidas Originals

Gazelle has a search volume of 110 compared to Adidas Gazelle which has a

search volume of 4400. The decision was made to target Adidas Gazelle as

opposed to Adidas Originals Gazelle due to the high search volume. Irish Runner

Emporium’s plan is to try poach some of JD sports existing customers by offering

10% off any orders for new customers. Through this tactic Irish Runner

Emporium is hoping to build their customer base. A similar process was carried

out to establish the keywords used in the ad group for the summer campaign.

The keywords included in the ad group are below.

1. Nike
2. Adidas
3. Shoes
4. Fashion
5. Trainers
6. Footwear
7. New Balance
8. Onitsuka Tiger
9. Puma
10.Runners
11.Adidas Gazelle
12. Adidas Samba
Once the ad group was researched the paid search campaign ad was created.

The time schedule for the search campaign was based off the schedule that the

personas were likely to keep considering their work and study commitments.

As can be seen above the ad runs in the evenings from 6pm to 12am and at

weekends from 8am to 11am. The audience segments selected are below.

1. Shopping Enthusiasts
2. Fashionistas
3. Men's Apparel
4. Women’s Apparel
5. Shoes
6. Athletic Shoes

The headlines and descriptions were then created for the ad and a daily budget

of €25 was set. The intent is that some of the keywords selected would appear in

the search results of the personas utilised by Irish Runner Emporium. By doing

this and offering 10% off a customer’s first order it is hoped that Irish Runner

Emporium can convert potential customers into new customers. The search

campaign ad is viewable below.

Display PPC Campaign

The display campaign was planned to coincide with the paid search campaign.

The display campaign would also advertise “10% Off your first order”. This

display ad campaign would run over the month of May. The schedule was to run

in the mornings between 7am and 10am on weekdays. On weekends the

schedule was to run between 7am and 1pm.

The daily budget for the month would be €5. The audience segments that were

targeted are listed below.

 1. Fashionistas
2. Designer footwear
3. Trainers shoes
4. Sneakers
5. Runners
6. Shoes

For the display campaign a display ad had to be created. The aspect ratio chosen

for this ad was 1:1 which is square. This was decided as it is a good aspect ratio

for vertical or horizontal displays. The font used in the logo and display ad is “ITC

Avant Garde Gothic Pro”. This is a sans-serif font which has better legibility on

screens, so it seemed an appropriate choice considering this was a screen based

ad. Irish Runner Emporium are trying to occupy a niche as a shoe shop providing

fashion runners and the design for the display ad should reflect this, hence the

monochromatic colour palette. A monochrome colour palette tends to give an

impression of sophistication. Irish Runner Emporium’s customer personas often

have careers in creative or cultural industries, so the intent is that this

sophisticated design will appeal to them. The display ad can be viewed below.
Bibliography
Goodbody, W. (2022) Christmas spend set to match last year - Retail Ireland, RTE.ie.
RTÉ. Available at:
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/1128/1338572-christmas-spend-set-to-b
e-flat-retail-ireland/ (Accessed: April 24, 2023).