Digital Marketing Audit and Plan of Spotify

This report covers the digital marketing audit of Spotify and further a digital marketing plan is developed on the basis of audit. The report includes analysis of the official website of Spotify, analysis of the digital marketing strategies used by Spotify, SMART objectives, setting up of strategy, actions required for the plan to be implemented, and control and evaluation.

Digital
Marketing
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Company Overview.........................................................................................................................3
Digital Marketing Audit of Spotify..................................................................................................3
Digital Marketing Plan of Spotify....................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing refers to the marketing strategy which is conducted online to promote the
brands and services to further connect with potential customers (Bala and Verma, 2018). This
strategy is established by usage of internet and forming the digital communication strategy. This
includes a range of options through which social media, email and web based advertising is done
by the organisation. This report covers the digital marketing audit of the organisation and further
a digital marketing plan is developed on the basis of audit.
Company Overview
Spotify is an audio streaming and media service provider which was founded in the year
2006. This organisation was founded by Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek in Sweden. This is one
of the largest music streaming platform across the world, their active monthly users are around
406 Million which includes paid subscribers of 180 Million. Further, it has been seen and
analysed that the Spotify is tend to be used all over the world and it is also seen and analysed that
it is popular in the US, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, and New Zealand. It can be comfortably
used on Windows, Android, iOS, and Linux computers. This software is available for the
customers on every platform that is Microsoft, Android and IOS. Along with this, it has been
also seen and find out that the Spotify’s major product is music streaming. Traditional ways of
listening to music were to buy CD tapes and cassettes, with Spotify coming in is all changed
where music is based on the types of accounts on Spotify and also supports and get the option to
download music offline or online.
Digital Marketing Audit of Spotify
The digital market audit refers to the customized set of reports within the organization which
will help in leveraging the digital resources like email marketing, social media and paid
advertising. Audits are generally customised by application, organization size, industry, area of
expertise and more. The audits are generally conducted by the professional agencies who are able
to evaluate the resources on different basis (De Pelsmacker et. al., 2018). The current audit will
analyse the current strategies of Spotify and the areas in which the organisation needs to make
improvement. The quantitative analysis of Spotify’s official website is also done to analyse the
performance of current digital marketing strategies.
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Analysis of the official website of Spotify- Currently the website of portfolio is ranked at 73 at
global level. In the arts and entertainment category Spotify is ranked on the 2nd position which is
considered good for the company. According to the Similarweb.com, the total visits that were
reported on the official website of the company last month were around 400 million. The average
visit duration of the website is 00:04:49 which is considered as a decent visit duration. However,
the bounce rate of the website if high that is 41.43% which needs to be lowered by using the
strategies.
Analysis of the Digital marketing strategies used by Spotify- The digital marketing strategy used
by Spotify are on affiliate basis as Spotify run several campaigns on different social media pages
and web sites through which they can gain good customers (Kim et. al., 2021). Currently the
campaigns run by Spotify are on main social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook,
LinkedIn and twitter. Currently Spotify also run advertising campaigns on YouTube where they
promote services by creating audio and video content.
Use of the PSETEL analysis has bene made to have the analysis of the external (macro)
environment of Spotify that is provided as below:
 Political – The political environment of UK is quite stable but the recent Brexit issues has
created certain instability that us affecting the business operation of the Spotify.
 Economical- the spared out of current global pandemic has carted a slowdown in global
economy thus the customers has reduce the spending on non –essential items that is
affecting the overall productivity of the Spotify.
 Social- the society of UK is highly dynamic in nature and it also fond of experiencing
new ways and innovative products thus, Spotify is effectively capturing the local flavours
and also vecomming the new age podcasting that is attracting a larger number of
audience.
 Technological- the high level of technological improvement and ongoing upgradation in
technology is supporting better growth and efficient use of Spotify through leading
various new features to attract and cater a larger number of customers.
 Legal- Many legal regulation across the various countries are tend to be adopted and
implicate by the Spotify.
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 Environmental- the society and customers has tend to become more aware about
conservation and protection of environment thus Spotify also tend to evaluate its
environmental impact and start implication of the reduce, reuse and recycle.
Further, the Spotify's top competitors include Noteflight, SoundCloud, Pandora, Deezer and
TIDAL.
Digital Marketing Plan of Spotify
SMART Objectives
SMART objective refers to a form of objective setting which allows the managers and
employees to further creating, tracking and accomplishing the long term and short term goals.
With the help of this framework the objective is evaluated on five important basis which helps in
attaining the objective set up by the company (Bizhanova et. al., 2019). Spotify must use smart
framework in order to set up the objective as this will help the organisation in terms of
maximizing the productivity in the business.
 Specific- This goal of the organisation should be specific which means the goal should be
focused on identification of tangible outcome. Without the specification the goals, the
organisation would run the risk of being the goal vague. The goal of Spotify must be
specific otherwise the digital marketing objective of the organisation won’t be achieved.
The goal of digital marketing of Spotify must be specific as it will help the company in
terms of effectively achieving (Peter and Dalla Vecchia, 2021). The current customer
base of the organisation must be retained effectively by using different digital marketing
strategies. Retaining the customers is essential as it is directly helps in increasing the
growth prospects of the company.
 Measurable- The goal which is set up for the digital marketing must be measurable
otherwise the organisation won’t be able to measure the objective. The objective of the
business must be measurable on quantitative and qualitative basis otherwise the
organisation won’t be able to identify the right objectives are achieved or not. The goal
can be measured by Spotify by looking at the customers that the company is able to
retain.
 Attainable- The goal should be attainable, the organisation should find the goal
challenging and it should be attained by the organisation. The potential barriers must be
analysed by the organisation to ensure that the goals can be attained within the business
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model. Customer retention is one of the achievable goal that the company can go for in
the digital marketing strategy that will be followed by the manager.
 Relevant – This goal should be relevant to the digital marketing plan of the company
otherwise the whole process would become obsolete (AL-AZZAM and Al-Mizeed,
2021). Customer retention is relevant to the plan of the company in terms of digital
marketing as the company is looking to retain customer through the digital marketing
strategy. The customer retention is the process in which the organisation uses a range of
techniques which is helpful in retaining the customers. The digital marketing strategies of
Spotify must be inclined towards the ways in which maximum benefits can be attained.
 Time-bound – The goal of the company should be time bound otherwise there won’t be
any constraint which are focused on accomplishing the goal within the given time limit.
The customer retention process that is the new digital marketing strategy must be
considered in a way that it should be attained within the set time limit. Therefore, it is
essential for the organisation to set up time constraint for the objectives they have set up
in the business. Spotify should be specific about the time in which the goals needs to be
attained as the digital marketing strategy would be focused on increasing the customer
retention using different techniques.
Setting up of strategy
Customer retention and enhancing the experience of customers is the ultimate goal of
setting up the digital marketing plan for Spotify. The objective of customer retention and
enhanced experience of customer can easily be attained by setting up an effective strategy in the
business model. The strategies regarding the digital marketing plan is based on the following
aspects- Customer segmentation- The customer segmentation is based on the process of dividing
customers into different groups on the basis of characteristics. This is helpful in analysing
the digital marketing plan of the company and through this the organisation would be
able to attain the objective. The organisation must identify the customer segment that the
organisation will target in the future (Christina, Fenni and Roselina, 2019). The target
customers of the company for this digital marketing objective would be the current
customers and specifically the customer segmentation is done on the basis of age factor
of the customers. The strategies of the company will revolve around the people who falls
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in the age group of 18-30 years and are already customers of Spotify. Spotify should
target the customers through their social media pages and other SEO techniques. Online Value proposition- The online value proposition is the customer value
proposition that is the Unique Selling Proposition. It is essential for the organisation to
clearly communicate the online experience and content that Spotify can offer on their
website and application. The Online Value Proposition of Spotify is that they offer music
of several genres that exist worldwide. Spotify should make strategies that revolve around
the Value proposition of the company and this will help the organisation in achieving the
digital marketing objective of the company. The organisation can retain the customers by
using their value proposition model in attracting the customers. Spotify can enhance the
customer experience by using the value proposition that Spotify is offering to the
customers. The value must be communicated to the customers by using Instagram and the
current platform of the company so that the organisation can offer the customers with a
range of offers and options available. Integration of tool such as web, social media and email- The organisation should
integrate these platforms and use them in terms of attracting more and more customers.
The objective of the organisation is to retain the customers by using a range of techniques
which support the process of retention (Dastane, 2020). With the help of digital
marketing tools such as social media, emails and other web tools, the organisation can
promote the offers that they are giving to the current customer base. Through this the
customers can easily be targeted with the offers on services and products.
Actions required for the plan to be implemented
The organisation should use a range of tactics and strategies which support the process of
applying the digital marketing plan in terms of achieving the goal. The organisation should
deploy a digital media team that is willing to put on all the efforts that are required in attaining
the objective of the business. Spotify should also increase their budget for the digital marketing
process as the objectives can only be attained by implying offers which will help in retaining the
customers. The current customers can only be retained if the organisation is willing to offer
additional features or discount on the services.
Along with this, the making use of effective digital marketing strategy that comprises of
the social media marketing with the help of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. has been also
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suggested as an effective action plan to attract and cater a larger number of customers. Beside
this, create exclusivity by being invite-only, use a Freemium Model to Give Users a Choice, Use
Emotional Advertising Campaigns, Partner with Publishers and Music Labels and adopting the
Leveraging User Data are also effective set of action that can be adopted by the Spotify to have
higher productivity and success level.
Control and evaluation
It is essential for the organisation to critically evaluate the plan that is implemented in the
digital marketing strategy of the company. The evaluation part is essential otherwise the
organisation won’t be able to determine if the plan applied was successful or not. The success
criteria of the plan is measured on the basis of achievement of objective.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) refer to the set of quantifiable measurements which is used
by the company to gauge a company’s overall long term performance. With the help of Key
Performance Indicator, the organisation determines the strategy and achievements of the
company. Using KPI, Spotify would be able to control and evaluate the strategies and objective
of digital marketing. Through KPI, the organisation will be able to review business objectives,
analyse the current performance, setting short term and long term KPI targets of the company,
Reviewing the targets with the team and further reviewing the progress and readjusting
accordingly.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that Digital marketing plays an essential role in
delivering the marketing objective of the company. The organisation should critically evaluate
the strategies used in digital marketing process by preparing an audit. Reviewing the audit will
help in enhancing the strategy through which the marketing objective of the company will be
attained. Further the organisation should prepare a digital marketing plan which is cantered
around the new strategy and the theme that will be followed. The digital marketing plan is only
prepared in the condition when the organisation is looking to make changes in the current set of
strategies. Through digital marketing plan the organisation will get a clarity on the objectives and
strategies that will be followed by the manager of the company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bala, M. and Verma, D., 2018. A critical review of digital marketing. M. Bala, D. Verma (2018).
A Critical Review of Digital Marketing. International Journal of Management, IT &
Engineering, 8(10), pp.321-339.
De Pelsmacker, P., Van Tilburg, S. and Holthof, C., 2018. Digital marketing strategies, online
reviews and hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 72, pp.47-55.
Kim, K.H. and Moon, H., 2021. Innovative digital marketing management in B2B
markets. Industrial Marketing Management, 95, pp.1-4.
Bizhanova, K., Mamyrbekov, A., Umarov, I., Orazymbetova, A. and Khairullaeva, A., 2019.
Impact of digital marketing development on entrepreneurship. In E3S web of conferences (Vol.
135, p. 04023). EDP Sciences.
Peter, M.K. and Dalla Vecchia, M., 2021. The digital marketing toolkit: a literature review for
the identification of digital marketing channels and platforms. New Trends in Business
Information Systems and Technology, pp.251-265.
AL-AZZAM, A.F. and Al-Mizeed, K., 2021. The effect of digital marketing on purchasing
decisions: A case study in Jordan. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(5),
pp.455-463.
Christina, I.D., Fenni, F. and Roselina, D., 2019. Digital marketing strategy in promoting
product. Management And Entrepreneurship: Trends Of Development, 4(10), pp.58-66.
Dastane, O., 2020. Impact of digital marketing on online purchase intention: Mediation effect of
customer relationship management. Journal of Asian Business Strategy, DOI, 10, pp.142-158.
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