Social Media Marketing Plan Analysis

This assignment delves into the creation and analysis of a social media marketing plan. It examines various research methodologies suitable for understanding social media marketing effectiveness, drawing upon sources like Cohen (2005) on marketing plans and Daniel & Sam (2011) on research methodology. The assignment further explores the application of these methodologies through examples provided by authors such as Ha (2016) and Siguaw & Simpson (2015). It aims to demonstrate a practical understanding of developing and evaluating social media marketing strategies.

DISSERTATION
PROPOSAL
SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
COMPANY OVERVIEW.....................................................................................................................3
RATIONALE: ......................................................................................................................................4
AIMS AND OBJECTIVE ...................................................................................................................4
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.........................................................................................................5
Research approach...........................................................................................................................6
Data collection ................................................................................................................................6
Sampling..........................................................................................................................................6
Data Analysis...................................................................................................................................6
Action plan for agreed specifications..............................................................................................6
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The social media marketing is the method of making the consumers aware about the company
through social networking portals. With the intense use of digital technology and communication,
the buying and selling scenario has modified to a great extent. Also, the efficiency of internet to
reach billions of individuals around the world has provided online word of mouth a dominant voice
and distant reach (Cohen, 2005). The social media marketing mainly concentrate on the efforts to
develop content that grabs the attention of maximum audience and stimulate them to purchase the
product and services of the company. Therefore, social media marketing is effective method that
helps in promoting the offerings of entity. There are many sites that can be used by the organization
for promotion such as, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube, Google Plus, Instagram and LinkedIn
etc.
With the help of social media marketing, the company can direct interact with customers and
thereby improve brand recognition and customer loyalty. The social media marketing is beneficial
as it helps in increasing the traffic on the brand site and thus turns possible customers to the actual
one. Also, it is a cost effective method that can be used for expanding business to reduce marketing
expense (Evans, 2012). The search marketing is a method that can be adopted to acquire online
presence and quality traffic through paid and unpaid strategies on search engine portals like, Google
etc. It is an effective way of placing e-advertisement on web portals that reflect outcomes from the
search engine question. By using this technique, company can highlight the new products and
services introduced by it and pull customers to purchase them. This aspect further makes use of
functions like, search engine optimization, pay per click, cost per click and paid search ads etc. The
search engine marketing is effective method of improving the visibility of brand page which further
assist in boosting the sales of its offerings. The search and social media marketing are effective
tools that enable a corporation in increasing the customer base.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Dorothy Perkins is a multinational women fashion retailers of UK. It is leading company
founded in 1909 and it is operating in fashion and clothing industry. Dorothy Perkins is part of
Arcadia group which is regulated by Sir Philip Green. The main objective of the organization is to
assure that its customer feels confident when purchasing the products of the brand. At present, the
corporation operates nearly 600 inspirational stores in UK and over 120 stores across the globe. The
main target of the brand is to provide fashion apparels for females aged 25-35. The entity have

largest online store that renders shipping service to over 110 nations and reflects 6000 lines which
are regularly updated and gains around 1.2 million buyers every week.
RATIONALE:
The main aim behind carrying out this study will be “To assess the impact of search and
social media marketing on the business of Dorothy Perkins”. This will help the researcher in
identify the fact that whether the use of search and social media marketing has positive or negative
impact on companies. Furthermore, this researcher will also help in getting aware of the key
strategies which can be used by businesses such as Dorothy Perkins in order to enhance its existing
social media marketing practises. In the current era, the technology is rapidly changing along with
the customer preference. Due to this, it becomes important for the organization to implement those
changes and assure effective communication with customers using technical means (Ha, 2016). In
this respect, search and social media marketing is essential tool that can be used by the brand for
gaining more customers. By using creative and technically efficient methods, company can get an
edge over its rivals. The study shows that how search and social media marketing can be used to
gain competitive advantage in the market place.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVE
Aim: To assess the impact of search and social media marketing on brand image of the business: A
study on Dorothy Perkins UK.
Objectives:
 To identify the effective ways of promoting products in the modern era within fashion
industry.
 To assess the effectiveness of social media marketing in enhancing business performance.
 To determine the key challenges faced by Dorothy Perkins while adopting social-media
tools
Research questions
 What are the effective ways of promoting products in modern era within the fashion
industry?
 How social media marketing can be used by the entity in fashion industry to improve their
business performance?
 What are the key challenges faced by Dorothy Perkins while adopting social-media tools?

 What are the effective ways through which Dorothy Perkins can enhance its social media
practices?
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to the definition provided by Heymann-Reder (2012) search engine marketing is
a concept that includes the marketing of websites by enhancing their visibility in search engine
results pages mainly through paid advertising. It is significant method which uses technique like
search engine optimization which modify the content of brand page and site architecture to attain a
greater ranking in search engine results pages to increase the listings of pay per click. However,
there is significant difference in search engine optimization and marketing. The search engine
marketing is method that enables the company to earn traffic through non paid listings. On the other
hand, search engine marketing is a way of purchasing traffic through paid search list. Tu ten and
Solomon (2014) stated that social media marketing is using the social media platforms and portals
to market the offerings of the brand. In the words of Smith (2015) social media and search engine
marketing are effective means that can be used to boost traffic on the web page by enhancing brand
recognition and communication with the prospective customers. They are defined as methods that
emphasize on the distribution and development of the related content with the objective of
increasing footfalls on the brand page. It is kind of content marketing that help in generating
maximum leads. In accordance with the views of Hoffman and Fodor (2010) there are numerous
advantages of social media marketing as it helps in increasing recognition of brand which further
assist in boosting the sales.
Siguaw and Simpson (2015) states that search engine marketing is an important method that
aid in generating quality inbound links. It further incorporates that search engine marketing is
broad term which uses methods like, search engine optimization, pay per click ads, social media
marketing, mobile marketing etc. By improving the brand page visibility, the organization can focus
on increasing the conversion rate which means changing the potential customers into the actual one.
On the contrary, Heymann-Reder (2012) has defined that social media marketing is a kind of online
marketing that employs different social media networks so as to attain the marketing
communication objectives along with branding goals. The social media marketing is a concept that
focuses on activities including sharing of information or videos of products and services on the
social media mainly for attaining the marketing goals. Therefore, the main benefit of social media
marketing is to develop a positive brand image so that maximum customers can be pulled in. The
content marketing is an innovative method that enables customer engagement and help the business
to understand their needs and preferences in a better manner (Smith, 2015).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
For the successful completion of research, it is important for the scholar to focus on the use
of different research methods. This will further aid in obtaining the results of key research
questions. The contrasting research methods will help the researchers in addressing the aims and
objectives of study in order to ascertain the unexplored findings (Scott, 2013).
Research approach
It is a combination of plans and procedures that can be used in a study so as to develop
broad assumptions for gathering the data, analysing and interpreting it. There are two types of
research approach, inductive and deductive (Fiegen, 2010). The fundamental difference between
two approaches is just relevance of hypotheses. Deductive approach focuses on the testing of
theory. Therefore, it works from generalization of theories to specific observation. On the other
hand, inductive theory emphasize on generation of new theory emerging from the available data.
Data collection
Data collection is a way of collecting and measuring the information of targeted variables in
an organized way so as facilitate in obtaining the answers of relevant questions. There are two
methods of data collection, primary and secondary. The primary method is used for collecting the
information for the first time (Daniel and Sam, 2011). It further involves methods like, personal
interview, questionnaire, focus groups, observation etc. On the other hand, secondary methods
enable in gathering the information that has been already published. Therefore, data is gathered
from government reports, census, personal records, online sites, books and journals etc.
Sampling
Sampling is a way of choosing subset of individuals from within a statistical population to
predict characteristics of the entire population. It is important for the researcher to select proper
sampling method and size (Scott, 2013). For the current study, the respondents will be selected
randomly. The data will be collected from 25 customers.
Data Analysis
Data analysis is a method of assessing and evaluating the gathered data with the help of
appropriate techniques. Data analysis can be done with the help of statistical and thematic method.
In order to complete the present report, the data will be evaluated with the help of thematic analysis.
It is an effective method that will assist in rendering flexibility to the scholar to measure the
gathered data to attain the aims of the research (Choosing appropriate research methodologies,
2015).

Action plan for agreed specifications
Activities/Duration in weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Identification of dissertation problem
Preparing the dissertation proposal
Aim and objectives formulation
Define the purpose of the research
Literature review
Selection of the appropriate research methodology
Data collection and analysis
Interpretation of outcome
Conclusion of the study
Submission of report
Modifications in the study according to the
feedback
Resubmission of report

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cohen, W.A., 2005. The marketing plan. John Wiley & Sons.
Daniel, S. P. and Sam, G. A., 2011. Research Methodology. Gyan Publishing House.Garner, R. and
Evans, D., 2012. Social media marketing: An hour a day. John Wiley & Sons.
Fiegen, M. A., 2010. Systematic review of research methods: the case of business instruction.
Reference Services Review. 38(3). pp.385–397.
Ha, T.N., 2016. Recommendations Enhancing Marketing Plan For Nha Be Garment
Corporation. Journal of Advances in Social Science and Humanities, 2(06).
Heymann-Reder, D., 2012. Social Media Marketing. Addison-Wesley Verlag.Stelzner, M.A., 2011.
Social media marketing industry report. Social Media Examiner,
Hoffman, D.L. and Fodor, M., 2010. Can you measure the ROI of your social media
marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review. 52(1). p.41.
Scott, G. M., 2013. Doing qualitative research: designs, methods, and techniques. Pearson
Education.
Siguaw, J.A. and Simpson, P.M., 2015. A marketing plan for marketing instruction: A satirical look
at student comments. In Creating and Delivering Value in Marketing (pp. 129-133).
Springer International Publishing.
Smith, P.R., 2015. The SOSTAC Guide to Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan. PR Smith.
Tu ten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2014. Social media marketing. Sage.Saravanakumar, M. and
Sugantha Lakshmi, T., 2012. Social media marketing. Life Science Journal. 9(4).
pp.4444-4451.
Zarrella, D., 2009. The social media marketing " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".Evans, D., 2010. Social
media marketing: the next generation of business engagement. John Wiley & Sons.
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Choosing appropriate research methodologies. 2015. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.palgrave.com/studentstudyskills/page/choosing-appropriate-research-
methodologies/> [Accessed on 7th October 2016].
Search engine and social media marketing. 2015. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.supertroninfotech.in/pdf/proposal_seo%20&%20smm.pdf> [Accessed on 7th
October 2016].