Digital Marketing Plan

This document discusses the concept of digital marketing and its importance in today's business world. It explores the adoption of VR technology to gain a competitive advantage and the development of a digital marketing plan to convert and retain customers. The document also highlights the innovative approaches to managing a digital strategic plan and optimizing key channels. The case study of Ocado, an online grocery retailer, is used to illustrate these concepts.

DIGITAL MARKETING
PLAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
1. Evaluation of adopting VR technology to gain competitive advantage.............................3
PART 2............................................................................................................................................6
2. Digital marketing plan development to convert and retain customers...............................6
PART 3............................................................................................................................................9
3. Innovative approaches of managing digital strategic plan.................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing means using digital technologies like social media platforms, search
engine optimisation to market goods and services to different customers .It means modern
marketing era which is increasing day by day and will be used by many companies to reach to
wide range of customers. It means to market and promote the company and its products by using
digital platforms via internet. Digital marketing is a strategy to improve company's customer
engagement and customer retention. (Du Plessis, 2017). It will help the company to increase its
profit by capturing large market and also known as internet marketing or web marketing. To
understand the purpose of digital marketing plan better this report has taken Ocado to understand
it better (Gill, 2016). Ocado is an online grocery retailer based on UK that provide its services to
UK as well as other countries. It mainly deals in logistics, grocery and distribution of consumer
goods. It was founded in year 2000 and launched its first app for I phone and then company
extended the app to android phone as well. The biggest competitor of Ocado is Tesco that deals
in merchandising goods and services and provide groceries to the consumers and has expanded
its business in most of the nations which increases its sales and market share and gave it
competitive advantage. and The report will consists of adoption of VR technology by the
company to gain competitive advantage and also shows how it can be implemented. Further, it
will show the forming of digital marketing plan and how it is used to acquire customers and at
last the report will include innovative approaches to manage strategic plan and optimising key
channels of the company.
PART 1
1. Evaluation of adopting VR technology to gain competitive advantage
VR technology creates an artificial environment with the use of computer technology. It
enables the user to experience almost all the senses from hearing, touch, see and also to smell in
the artificial created by VR technology.
Ocado is a grocery store that deals in consumer goods, groceries and drinks of high
quality at low cost by using online platform to deal with its customers. The biggest competitor of
Ocado is Tesco that has the wide range of customers and products and selling them services
through its retail stores. Ocado to gain competitive advantages needs to adopt VR technology
which can be implemented after considering and understanding external and internal data related
to management, employees, market share, shareholders, technology etc.

The potential of VR is high and many companies are adopting it to gain market share. To use VR
5G networks are fortunately found and are 10 times more powerful than the ordinary networks to
make it work (Dockery, 2018).
The swot analysis of Ocado is as follows to adopt virtual reality technology -
Strength – Ocado has strong flow of cash and strong distribution of network that will help the
company to capture customers. It has high level of satisfied customers which means that
customers trust the company and will use new products launch by it (Gill, 2016).
Weakness – the structure of Ocado may create a problem for it which might limit the expansion.
It needs investment in new technologies as well which the company lack in.
Opportunity – New trends in behaviour of consumer can open new market for Ocado to
introduce VR technology. The new taxation policy of government can also be an opportunity for
the company (Gunelius, 2017).
Threat – Like Tesco the employees of Ocado are not that skilled and also Tesco is operating
outside nation boundaries more than Tesco which gives it customer loyalty and brand
recognition (Keegan, 2017).
To adopt VR technology the company must know and asses its internal as well external
data. The IT team of the company need to be able to handle all the internal unstructured data and
to make it useful and relevant in adopting further technology. External data are more important
than internal data as company uses it for research which they cannot find internally in their
company.
External data can be obtained from social media platforms, economic and political
databases and it can help the company in adopting VR technology and to grab new opportunities.
Both the data need to be understood and analysed to take the decision of adopting VR
technology. The customer's perception, technology updating, competitor's role all need to be
taken care of by the company.
The VR technology used by the company consists of impact of sound so that customer
can feel the real experience of shopping virtually which will create curiosity among customers,
the other feature of VR technology is eye and head tracking which give them to have a view at
360 degree and most importantly the vision which will help the customer in selecting the product
after seeing it virtually and will help them to see every small detail of the product which will be
all new experience to the customers (Dwivedi, 2017).

The potential of VR is very high as in near future it will be the base of then companies to work
as it provides real life experience to the consumer which enable them to experience and try
products with actually sitting at home (Hossain, 2018). It will provide flexibility to customers
and also will provide ease of work to companies.
The consumer video content is important to company as video marketing is growing
rapidly as the consumer prefer learning about the products through video. It helps in retaining
existing as well as capturing new customers. To create high quality videos for consumers can
enhance the involvement of the company (Chaffey, 2017). This video content booms the
purchasing process of the company. Today, most of the customers watch the video of product
almost 2-3 times before buying it and to make it more effective the video needs to be short. It
enhances the sake of the company, increase their profits, create publicity, sponsors and increase
market share of the company (Järvinen, 2016).
The adoption of VR technology will help the company in having competitive advantage
by helping the company in following aspects -
Recruiting and selecting staff – Employees of company are the most important aspect
and are highly responsible for its success. The VR can be used in this aspect as it will offer an
environment to the candidates and employees which will help the company to select potential
candidates (Chaffey, 2019). By using VR, the candidate and recruiter can get a glance that they
are compatible or not which saves the time ad cost of the company.
Training programmes for staff – VR technology enables company to train the staff by
using realistic scenario about the job they will perform which helps them in understanding their
job better. It helps in reducing the time of training as well as increase the productivity of the
company which gives the company competitive advantage over others.
Video interviews – VR technology can give real touch and very close interactions with
products during the video interviews which will help the company to increase its sales and to
grab customer's attention.
The adoption of VR technology definitely gives competitive advantage to the company
for innovation, creativity, for involving customers and making them experience real world. If the
company will adopt VR technology it will increase the sales of the company which will be more
than Tesco (Jarvinen, 2016). Tesco is leading with skilled workforce as well as sales but with the
introduction of VR technology the Ocado group will be ahead of Tesco in all the categories. It

increases market share of the company as well as increase the profits of the company, helps the
company in retaining existing customers and getting new customers as well (Du Plessis, 2017).
Another technology emergence came into action is OTT market which started era of
television and bought revolution on the internet. Over the top entertainment provides customers
with content what they want to see. The OTT market with its tremendous and creative show has
gained a lot of customers recently and are still increasing day by day.
Television technologies are definitely not in the favour of OTT technology as OTT
deliver innovative content to the customers in cheap rates over the internet. Television is still
winning the race but it is just a talk of few years when television will be eliminated from the
market and consumers would use OTT to entertain themselves (Chaffey, 2015).
It plays an important means for marketers to market their products as most of the people
are using OTT services and from OTT market they can grab the customers and can make them
but their products. Advertisements on OTT increases the demand of the product, give company
to gain revenue, and also helps company in collection of data. It also help marketers in reaching
wide demographics as customers from different countries which lead to expansion of the
company globally. Also another benefit that, OTT have less ads in comparison to television
therefore customer see the ads carefully and that can influence their purchasing decisions.
These emerging technologies has changed B2B as many new technologies like artificial
intelligence has made marketing interesting. Companies are using AI to invent how consumers
engage with smart phones to use company's products. Also, the other reason is that buyers expect
more from the companies and the only solution is to invest in tool that enable sales.
Mobile marketing and conversation with voice search has changed B2B marketing as it
creates easy way to get results. Form Siri to Alexa digital assistance are gaining popularity and
other companies are using voice assistants.
B2B companies are updating technologies that provide real access to customer's data on
their behaviour.
PART 2
2. Digital marketing plan development to convert and retain customers
Digital marketing plan refers to a document that contain planning of company's digital
actions to retain customers and to increase its customer base and inviting new customers. An
effective digital plan help the company to take right decisions and make it successful. It gives a

framework that gives logical sequence to follow key activities of strategic development and
implementation (Blair, 2017).
The motive of the plan is to attract and convert the customer and reach to the target
market Before creating digital marketing plan company must consider few points in
consideration -
Analysis of the situation – Before developing digital marketing plan the company needs
to analyse internal as well as external assessment of the company. To analyse the situation the
company can use swot analysis. By implementing swot analysis, the company can find out its
strengths and weaknesses and can figure out the area where it need to work like social media,
analytics of marketing, marketing automation, creation of content etc. this will help the company
to analyse the current situation (Baek, 2015) .
Establishing digital marketing goals – After knowing the strengths of the company, the
company gets a clear idea on how to achieve the goals of company that can be customer
retention, increasing marketing share, having competitive advantage etc. The goals need to be
SMART as in specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and also it must be achieved in time
frame. The goal of company needs to be clear to achieve various objective.
Market strategy – After establishing goals, how company will achieve them is based on
marketing strategy (Du Plessis, 2017). In digital marketing, personalization is the most
important factor to deal with which means the company communicate to its customers
personally. To make market strategy it’s important to segment target audience means the
company needs to know the taste and need of its consumers to meet their expectations. After
segmenting the company need to know about the positioning of its customers which simply
means that why consumer choose you over other company's products (Kim, 2012).
Client platform plays an important role in making market strategy of the company. It
refers to different individuals prefer different digital media to access to various products of the
company. The client platform can be desktop, mobile, email, social media etc. so the company
needs to be really careful that on which platform it is focusing which can attract more customers
(Keegan, 2017).
In market strategy, the company also needs to take care of content strategy which includes
creating and distributing original content that attract users. For implementing this strategy, the
company can use social posting, keyword research etc.

Digital strategies and tactics – The digital tactics are used by company to drive traffic to
attract the customers and retain them and influence them to buy the products. The company can
use number of tactics to increase the traffic -
Advertisement – To display the product of the company on various sites and attracting
visitors to buy the products social media advertisement is the best tactic. To increase the sales of
the company it can target commercial intent keywords as a part of paid strategy.
Social platform – To use social media channels to promote the content of the company is
the best way to increase traffic for the company. This can make the company really effective in
B2B market.
Acquiring customers - After implementing strategies and tactics to publicise the products
of the company the next step is to reattaining the existing customers and acquiring new
customers (Shirisha, 2018). Customer acquisition basically means the combination of media mix
and tools that has been used to engage customers to gain new customers and reaching them via
online platforms to increase the market share as well as to give competitive advantage to the
company (Chaffey, 2017) . To acquire, the company must know its customers their need and
preferences, channel that most of its customers use so that can digitally attract the customers and
to become social media expert and launch product with good content on social media.
Part conversion – It refers to the tactic used by company to encourage them to browse
the website of the company and end up buying products of the company. As when company is
selling its products on a digital platform, it is not just about innovative products but also how the
website is formed, its layout etc. plays an important role as well which converse the customer's
decision to buy the product (Dwivedi, 2017). Higher the conversion rate of the company, higher
the sales of the company and lower the conversion rate depicts loss of the company.
To converse customers company need to use website that is easy to browse and need to
have attractive products and layouts. The company can use video to make customers understand
the use of products. The website always need to show pictures of the product as well as use key
terms that a customer might use (Sajid. 2016).
This all strategies and tactics when mixed together can use to retain, attract and convert
customers and can increase the profits of the company. The proper use of social media platforms,
proper feedbacks, video content, continuous innovation in products, search engines, can enhance
the sale of company and can maximise profit of the company.

PART 3
3. Innovative approaches of managing digital strategic plan
Ocado is a grocery store that deals in consumer goods, groceries and logistics by using
online platform to deal with its customers. The biggest competitor of Ocado is Tesco that has the
wide range of customers and products and selling them services through its retail stores. The
different digital marketing channels that Ocado can use are-
Email marketing – Companies collect phone numbers and email addresses of potential
customers and inform them about their products through email. This is one of the most important
marketing channel of the company which increases ROI of the company (Mueller, 2018).
Search engine optimisation – Everyone uses search engines to know about new
information or new product launch so the company can use SEO to publicise its brand, products
and innovation to capture market and customers (Ferraro, 2018). It involves activities like
keyword research, link building etc. which enhances the reach of products.
Social media marketing (SMM) – It is the most important approach to owners of the
business to market their product and to crate brand awareness about their goods and services.
SMM helps the company to reach potential customers. The each of social media is growing day
by day and most companies are using this platform which include Facebook, ,LinkedIn, Google
+ etc.
Content marketing - With high quality content, considerable amount of customers can
be attracted to buy the product. Most digital marketers are using content marketing in B2B arena.
It includes videos, graphs and all other materials that customers are looking for and can be
interested (Nair, 2015).
Before choosing any marketing channel the goals of company need to be well defined for
using the particular digital channel. The company's motive is to increase brand awareness,
generation of sales, competitive advantage, to generate traffic or to educate potential customers.
The company on the basis of these factor can choose the marketing channel. After choosing the
plan, the budget of the company needs to be allocated like for the fee of digital marketing
manager, fee of videographers, payment for content writing services etc. After allocating budget
digital campaigns must be used based on the skills of company (Gill, 2016).
The Ocado company uses social media marketing because -
 It attracts more traffic and increases the customer base of the company.

 It enhances brand awareness and lead to brand recognition among different demographics
(Shirisha, 2018).
 It improves customer service and improve insights of audience which leads to proper
engagement of customers in buying company's products (Hossain, 2018).
 It increases conversion rates of the company where customer who browse the website of
the company also buy the products of the company.
 It also helps in getting customers outside the circle of existing customers as its reach is
wide and help the company in increasing customer base.
Agile commerce strategy includes set of management practices. It focuses on rapid
delivery of services to the customers. It helps in improving flexibility and productivity of team as
well as enable them in providing products with high quality. Benefits of agile commerce strategy
are -
Efficiency – Agile helps the team in doing work in efficient manner. It helps the team to
work together and move forward collectively to maintain agile projects.
High quality – It helps in ensuring continuous development by keeping in mind the
potential issues that the product faces. It helps in developing new software and ensure that
quality of software is at its maximum level (Keegan, 2017).
Ensures development - it ensures fast development and helps company to have advantage
of fast mover and also deliver ability to know customer's requirements and modify the process as
per the needs and preferences of the customer.
Agile strategic plan - It is strategic planning used by company to create informed
decisions and helps the leader to develop further path into the market. It is consisting of three
steps which help the company to have competitive advantage -
Fact base – The leaders make all the key functional strategies of the company based on
fact base. Companies collect the relevant data from internal as well as external sources and then
develop a base to create any decisions regarding the working of company (Mekonnen, 2018).
Big bets – After collecting data, choices are made by the leaders and as a team they all
agree on big bets. They prioritize the goals and focus on tactics and strategies and maintains a
competitive advantage (Mekonnen, 2018).

Agile cadence – Sometimes the big bets get wrong as no plan is perfect. Therefore,
operating discipline is difficult to achieve but those who achieve it have implemented operating
cadence that enables transparency in the company. This company prioritize the objective as they
correct the mistakes quickly.
The key performance indicators of digital plan can be seen by evaluating sales of the company
after introducing digital plan. It can also be measured by revenue generation of Ocado to see if
digital plan was successful or not. The target of the business needs to be achieved to become
profitable and also the success needs to be reviewed on monthly basis.
CONCLUSION
This report concluded digital marketing plan by starting with the scope of VR techniques which
helps a company to get competitive advantage as it has wider scope in near future and is
emerging continuously. This help the customers to experience replica of real environment. The
report summed up evaluation of digital technology (VR) in evaluating firms’ advantage over
other companies. It concluded the plan of digital marketing that how it can be taken into
consideration and can put to action with series of steps. It showed the importance of client
platform, and to attract traffic on the websites of company and how it helps as to attract the
customers. It showed basic concepts of part conversion and how it worked and help in retain
customers. At last the report summed up different digital marketing channels and channel which
is used by Ocado is SMM which has lots of benefits and how agile commerce strategy is
implemented as well as agile strategic plan was discussed.

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