MAJOR CASE 1: THE VANCA

1.

In addition to what Vanca already stated on its customer persona, I would also consider more
data of the consumer psychographic variables, behavioral variables and RFM. Additionally, I
would even go as far as recommending having two or even three customer personas if needed
as the age gap is too wide.

Regarding psychographic variables, I would like to add information on the consumers’ brand
loyalty and general aspirations as a person. Brand loyalty is actually one of the objectives of
Vanca’s digital campaign and some information on this that is shared among the company could
help align tactics, as it affects how we market our products to our clients. Low brand loyalty
would require us to focus on simultaneously building it, as well as creating tactics that
temporarily maintain our sales levels, possibly using discounts and monitoring our competitors'
campaigns.

Behavioral variables could also add up to our analysis. Some information on our customer’
routine can prove useful. For example, if she works remotely or if she frequently goes to the
office, how her commute is and if she works until late hours or even weekends. This could help
us understand which clothes she might be more interested in and for which situations, and
which time slots are better for our ad campaigns (late hours, early morning, etc.). I would also
like to know which content she consumes most online, whether it is local or global news,
lifestyle blogs or magazines, influencers’ content, entertainment, etc. This could also have an
impact in what she chooses to wear, and similarly to the previous point, it could also help us
refine our digital marketing campaign.

Finally, RFM information is also key for our digital marketing strategy. Average metrics of
recency, frequency and monetary affect how and how often we market our products and brand
online. This is important to not saturate our clients (recency), to choose the best schedule for
our direct communications (frequency) and to even create discounts and benefits for sales over
certain amounts (monetary). For example, if frequency is generally high, efforts should be put in
increasing average ticket value and not traffic.

In addition to all of these, I believe more than one customer persona is needed especially
considering the differences different age groups may have (e.g. a woman between 18-25 most
likely has very different preferences than a woman between 35-40).

2.

Website analytics provides us key information on customers’ online behavior, current customers’
preferences, traffic sources, keywords and decision drivers.

Data on customer’s online behavior such as RFM (recency, frequency, monetary), average time
spent on the website, hours with most traffic and sales, sources of traffic, and others, can help
define the digital channel mix. It can determine the best times and weekdays for the email
marketing efforts, text messages, paid ads and app-based promotional campaigns. Information
on sources of traffic and which have best conversion rates can be used to distribute our budget
for digital marketing. In addition to that, tracking our online customers’ behavior is mandatory for
our remarketing advertisements, especially to ensure its efficacy (selecting the best time lapse
to send reminders, designing the best message, etc.).

Aggregate information on customer preferences such as most popular product categories and
products, preferred shipping methods, sale seasonality, and others, influence deeply the content
and words that The Vanca’s will use in its display ads, content building, paid ads, blogs and
social networking sites, which are some of the elements of The Vanca’s marketing mix.
Customer preferences can even be segmented by demographics or geographical variables, and
refine more the content that we show our potential customers based on our current customers
preferences. This is also important in the definition of keywords in our Search Engine
Optimization and Search Marketing Optimization strategies. In SEM, we can define which
keywords we should bid for, and what ad copy, images and even specific products to show in
the ads. In SEO, we can know which words to use strategically, specially those to which we
have little probability of winning the bid for.

Analytics can also inform on how clients are finding the website, and even where they are going
next. Traffic sources can help us better understand where our customers are spending their time
online and which of our channels are bringing the most traffic, and even which ones have the
best conversion rate. Websites that our customers go to next could also provide some light into
who our main competitors are, and whether we are losing sales to them. Our marketing mix can
feed on this information to best select in which channels we want to advertise and distribute the
budget according to those with best results. Identifying our main competitors also influences our
marketing mix as we can compare our strategies with theirs, considering what the may be doing
better than we are, as well as understanding their differentiators and how we can improve our
offering or how we present it online.

Finally, our marketing funnel for our website sales can also provide us information on which are
the drivers to our sales. For example, if we find that a certain change or improvement in the
process increases sales, we can highlight this in our advertisements. If faster delivery or
Cash-On-Delivery is implemented and is shown to have a positive effect on sales, it could be
highlighted in our ads content.

3.

First it is important to understand why the conversion rate is low. This can be identified by
looking at the conversion funnel and identifying which are the biggest filters in the purchasing
process. If many users leave the webpage shortly after entering, it might signal that ads for the
website are misleading. If users add items to their shopping cart, but end up leaving the website
it is possible that delivery cost or dates are too high or too distant respectively. Similar
hypotheses could be drawn looking at the percentage of people that move to the next step in
the buying process. Then, A/B testing could be used to test different changes in the webpage,
the purchase process, etc.

In general, to have a better conversion we could increase the number of visitors that actually
make a purchase, or decrease the number of users that enter and do not make a purchase (for
a wide range of different reasons). To increase the proportion of visitors that actually make a
purchase, as previously mentioned we could try to identify why users are not generating orders
looking at the conversion funnels. Additionally to this, some general improvements that could be
done to the purchasing process of returning users could be using data of previous orders to
recommend products and remembering delivery information from previous purchases. Similarly,
diligences to the webpage in terms of user experience could also be done, as to identify if the
purchasing process is clear, smooth and straightforward. For example, if too many steps are
needed to make an order or if something is not clear enough, users might be discouraged to do
so. We could even identify whether real-time assistance is needed in the form of live-chats or
even call centers.
We could also try to reduce the number of visitors that are not correctly segmented and might
be entering the website looking for something else. Identifying which sources of traffic have the
lost conversion rates can indicate which are not segmenting its audience properly. Additional
filters may be needed, or even certain channels could be less prioritized in favor of others with
better performance. We can evaluate which social media platforms, keywords, types of media,
etc contribute most to sales and which could be decreased in use. The content of each specific
ad may also be the reason why some perform better than others in terms of conversion.
Different terms, images and ad copy could be used in A/B testing to prove this hypothesis. If not,
then the channel may not be relevant for our customer target.

Apart from what has been proposed, conversion rate may also be improved with targeted
discounts to high value users or new clients that could help build brand loyalty (rewarding
repurchases) and increase life-time-value of clients. As done in the past, Vanca could include
high discounts in products that were launched more that 45 days ago, which could increase the
conversion of clients that are looking for low cost items, or in general have lower ticket value
purchases.

To further explore this, market research involving the observation of potential customers
interacting with The Vanca’s webpage could be done, as well as short surveys right before a
client leaves the webpage can be done (depending on our budget for this investigation) to also
identify other factors that may be affecting our conversion rate, such as visual aids that may be
needed, stock and variety of products, etc.

4.

First, I think the key attribute is brand awareness. The number and variety of competitors is
much larger in the digital landscape due to low entry barriers for “e-tailers”, as well as
independent brands and the presence of global competitors that can ship internationally. With
the increasing use of social media and the power of online word of mouth even small brands
can rapidly grow and compete with larger brands. Because of this, brand awareness is as
important as ever. Looking at the buying journey, if the consumer is unaware of the brand it will
not include it in the consideration stage. This is actually one of The Vanca’s main problems and
the reason why even though its products are good and customers are satisfied with them, it
does not have the reach or efficacy in sales it would like to have. To build brand awareness,
different marketing tactics can be used in the channels preferred by our potential customers.

Second, I believe a coherent and aligned online presentation of the brand is needed. CIO
magazine refers to this as recommending a consistent message regardless of channel (Schiff,
2016). With different channels, brands may have contradicting strategies for each and present
an overall confusing brand identity. For example, display ads may highlight discounts and low
prices and create an image of an accessible brand while social media may present the brand as
exclusive and luxurious. The marketing team must agree on what characteristic the brand
should be associated with, considering its target audience, value proposition and competitive
stance. One could also compare this with the actual brand image our target segment has. Some
exercises for this are comparing the words the marketing team associates with the brand with
the words the target segment associates with the brand, and the same with images as well. To
obtain this information we could do focus groups. Then, the marketing teams could use the
GOST method to align its goals, and as a result the objectives, strategies and tactics could all
build a strong brand with the desired associated attributes.

Third, a strong presence online is evidently also needed. As noted by Forbes a strong website is
key (Forbes’ Los Angeles Business Council, 2019), especially because having analytics tools
that provide us relevant information on our customers can influence our strategy. One has often
more control in its own website than in other social media, so brand elements such as colors,
slogans and logo, as well as brand history and reputation can be used with less restrictions of
formats and size to better present the brand and what it stands for. Then, other social media
and ads could drive traffic to the web. Not less important is the brand’s presence in mainstream
social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok. Potential customers should be
able to find content and information of the brand in their preferred platforms, as well as learn
about its products or services, their value proposition and even be redirected to sales channels.
This is also key to increase brand awareness. If the company has physical stores, then digital
channels could also be advertised in-store, specially the website if online sales are enabled.

References

● Schiff, J. 11 ways to build your online brand. Recovered from

https://www.cio.com/article/238708/11-ways-to-build-your-online-brand.html
● Forbes’ Los Angeles Business Council (2019). Five Ways To Build A Strong Online
Presence For Your Brand. Recovered from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslacouncil/2019/03/04/five-ways-to-build-a-strong-onli
ne-presence-for-your-brand/.