Digital Marketing Strategies for Debenhams

This report evaluates the current position of Debenhams in the market and recommends digital marketing strategies to improve brand position and reach a larger market share. The strategies include social media marketing, search engine marketing, e-commerce marketing, and data-driven marketing.

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Executive summary
Digital age marketing strategies remain the current most effective marketing strategy that
allows customers to interact with the marketing elements. Debenhams departmental store has
experience challenges such as a decline in profit, ownership challenges and financial challenges
that resulted in closing of some stores. In order to improve the company's brand position within
the UK market, some digital marketing strategies are recommended for Debenhams to
implement. The marketing strategy aims to increase the brand position, reach larger market share
within the country and capture the larger online users within the country in the next 12 months.
The suggested marketing strategy incorporate social media, search engine marketing, e-
commerce marketing, and data-driven or business intelligence marketing. The overall result will
be a larger market share, more online buyers and reach international market segment.

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Table of Contents
1. Aim of the report...............................................................................................................................3
2. Debenhams and company background............................................................................................3
3. Brand SWOT Analysis of Debenhams.............................................................................................3
4. Debenhams Segmentation and targeting.........................................................................................4
5. Debenhams Brand position analysis.................................................................................................5
6. Debenhams Brand position objectives.............................................................................................6
7. Debenhams Brand communication objectives.................................................................................7
8. Digital marketing campaign.............................................................................................................8
8.1 Search engine marketing...................................................................................................................9
8.2 E-commerce marketing.....................................................................................................................9
8.3 Social media marketing......................................................................................................................9
8.4 Data-driven and business intelligence marketing............................................................................10
8.5 message...........................................................................................................................................10
8.6 Marketing audience.........................................................................................................................11
8.7 Potential impact of the marketing campaign...................................................................................11
8.8 Integrated marketing communication.............................................................................................12
9. Conclusion........................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................................14

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1. Aim of the report
The aim of the report is to evaluate the current Debenhams position in the market and
develop the digital marketing campaign that enables the company to move to the next high
position in the market. The report analyses the position of the company in the market factoring
the challenges that the company has faced in the market. The digital marketing campaign will
enable the company to improve on its current position to the next high position in the retail
market.
2. Debenhams and company background
Debenhams is departmental stores that operate many stores across the UK retail market.
The company is the largest departmental store by the number of outlets and one of the top ten
largest retailers in the UK overall. The company also has some outlets within Ireland on
franchise arrangement. Debenhams sell clothes, furniture, household items, and cosmetics among
many other products. The company was founded in 1778 in London and has now moved to other
cities and countries such as Denmark and Ireland. The company has increased its operations to
cover the online market where it has online platforms and mobile apps that help customer to shop
anywhere (Butler 2016).
3. Brand SWOT Analysis of Debenhams
SWOT Analysis
Strength
1. Successful new product development
2. Market entry strategies allow company
success
Weaknesses
1. Poor financial planning that leads to
inefficiencies
2. Poor demand forecasting that result

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3. High customers service and satisfaction is a
strength
imbalance between demand and supply
3. No feedback mechanism leading to less
competitiveness
Opportunity
1. Current consumer behaviors present an
opportunity for building a strong customer
base
2. The government policy of free trade present
opportunity for international expansion
3. Marketingtechnologies available in the
market has a competitive advantage for the
company
Threats
1. The rising cost of raw material is a threat to
Debenhams operations
2. Intensive competition from other brands
3. Environmental regulation that limits the
retail impact on the environment
4. Debenhams Segmentation and targeting
The market in the UK composes of people from diverse background, ethnicity,
geographical location, and different consumerbehaviors. Debenhams market segmentation can be
divided in terms of geographical, demographic and social class segmentation. Firstly, in terms of
geographical segmentation, Debenhams customer majorly comes from the UK where the
company has the highest number of store outlets (Titcomb 2014). A few numbers of customers
come from Denmark and Ireland. The company has also taken root in the online market gaining
a significant number of customers. Secondly, the social grouping of the customers that shop at
Debenhams gives the middle class as the highest number.The market segment for Debenhams is
majorly composed of customers from the middle and upper middle class and forms 35% of all

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customers. Thirdly, the company has numerous marketing campaign that reaches customers that
are women. The company management has highlighted that their main focus currently is on
women aged 35 and above not girls. This indicates that the main market segment of the company
is women and this is connected to the company's designers’ collection (Goyat 2011).
Debenhams target market comprises of various customer categories that the company aim
to reach within the UK and internationally. The Debenhams target various customer
classification within the UK and some of these include a range of the demographic target, gender
target, social class target. Firstly, the largest target market for the company is majorly women of
35 to 54 years of age. Secondly, the company has been targeting people from different social
class throughout the UK. The target market for Debenhams is majorly middle class and upper-
class customers. Lastly, the company in terms of the geographical target is major people from the
UK but the company is also coming up with an international target to reach more customers
outside the country (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick 2016).
5. Debenhams Brand position analysis
The Debenhams stores in the currently the largest departmental store within the UK in
terms of the number of outlets. The company has been focusing on the local UK market and this
has caused the company to grow locally as compared to other stores that are doing good
internationally. The company has been among the largest company in the market despite
challenges that the company has been facing in the UK retail market (Rowles 2014). Currently,
the Debenhams store is at number nine among the top largest companies within the retail market.
In addition, the company is known within the country as affordable price destination for the

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customer, especially on its designers. The brand position on the online retail market has been
good and has received high customer rating due to customer satisfactory service (Mogoş 2016).
There are some challenges that the company has faced in the market leading to brand
market share challenges within the UK market. The company has been facing many different
challenges such as low profit, fall in sales and low share prices. Firstly, the company has
reported low profit over the last year December season caused by a fall in sales. Loses that the
company made over the last year resulted into shutting down of a number of stores to reduce
financial challenges. This is also coupled with a fall in the share prices that started sometimes
back due to the company low profitability and ownership. Secondly, Debenhams has experience
ownership tussle that has highly affected the company operations. The company has undergone a
number ownership transitions that date back in 2003 when the company was bought by Texas
Pacific Group, CVC and Merrill Lynch Private Equity bought the company. The company has
since then suffered numerous financial challenges as the owners seek to make a profit at the
expense of the company performance (Chapman 2018).
6. Debenhams Brand position objectives
There are some brand positioning objectives that are recommended to enable the
company to move high than it currently holds within the UK and regionally in the next 12
months. The brand positioning objectives are to have the largest market share, to be the number
one online designer store and to be premier departmental store regionally.Firstly, Debenhams
should take the largest market share in the designer retail store within the UK despite its current
top ten positions within the country. The company has been doing better in the country despite
some financial challenges that it faces and this could improve to be the largest market

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shareholder within the UK retail market. The company has opportunities to take hold of its
current customers due to the current customer service quality (Megaw 2018).
Secondly, the company should be number one online store with many customers more
than any other company within the country. Since the company launched its online store, the
company has reached many customers within the country and is promising to reach more
customers. Therefore, the company needs to expand its online marketing operations to be the
number one online designer collection within the country. This will also enable the company to
reach more customers internationally in the next 12 months (Brinkley 2012).
Thirdly, the company is determined to be premium departmental store regionally
reaching more customers through online and franchise models. The company has ventured in
Ireland and Denmark and should go beyond those two countries to reach more customers. The
marketing campaign seeks to make the company a premier company regionally or internationally
with many stores outside the UK. In addition, the company has been using franchise arrangement
to operate in other countries and this can still make the company realize a large market share
outside the country (Lerman 2014).
7. Debenhams Brand communication objectives
The brand communication objective is to reach more customers within the country online
and internationally in 12 months. The brand communication objective is to reach more customers
within the country, connect with many online users and to reach more customers outside the
country. Firstly, Debenhams marketing communication seek to reach more customers within the
country that will increase brand market share in the next 12 months. The communication seeks to

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reach a larger proportion of customers within different age groups, social classes and many
geographical locations within the country (Ozuem & Bowen 2015).
Secondly, brand communication will connect many online users to the store through
various online platforms. This objectiveseeks to make the company has a dominant online store
selling products through many different digital platforms. This will increase the online presence
of Debenhams hence more market share. The online objective of the communication campaign is
based on the possibility of the company to realize a high conversion rate between online users
and buyers (Tuten & Solomon 2015).
Thirdly, the company will focus on getting more customers across the border into another
country regionally. The company has been reaching only two countries regionally and in the next
12 months, the company should reach more customers outside the UK. This will allow the
company to realize huge sale volume as many online users come from a different country apart
from the UK. The company through its online e-commerce platform has the opportunity to reach
more customers across the borders of the country (Wagner 2013).
8. Digital marketing campaign
The digital marketing company that is mainly integrated marketing communication that
integrates various digital marketing methods to reach more customer. The digital marketing
campaigns will combine various marketing platforms, audience and has a potentially huge
impact. Digital marketing campaigns comprise of various digital marketing methods such as
search engine marketing and optimization, social media marketing and optimization, e-
commerce, data-driven marketing, and mobile app marketing (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick 2015).

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8.1 Search engine marketing
Firstly, search engine optimization and marketing is a method that will involve increasing
visibility of Debenhams stores and products on the searchengine. Here the main target search
engine is Google being the largest search engine currently used for marketing. The main aim of
the search engine marketing campaign is to make Debenhams appear on top of the search engine
when products such as fashion and designer collections are searched within the internet. This
will enable the company to be the first stop by customers searching for products (Kaufman &
Horton 2014).
8.2 E-commerce marketing
Secondly, e-commerce marketing will make use of the online store already established by
the company to do the marketing of various products available. Running e-commerce marketing
will also enable the company to reach more customers online through various e-commerce
marketing channels. Some of the channels that will be used to market the online store include
mobile commerce and social media integration. E-Commerce marketing will enable users to
obtain products at their closes comfort. E-commerce allows customers to interact with the
company online platform through placing of orders (Laudon & Traver 2015).
8.3 Social media marketing
Social media marketing is another digital marketing method that will comprise of various
social media platforms. Social media marketing focuses on the larger percentage of social media

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platforms within the UK alone. Social media marketing will also allow the company to reach
other social media users outside the country (Ozuem & Bowen 2016). Some of the common
social media that will be used for marketing include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
WhatsApp.These social media platforms have many users that can easily accept products sold
within the company. Social media optimization is also part of the social media marketing that
majorly focus on making the company social media page visible to all social media users.These
social media platforms are digital marketing communication channels that allow customers to
interact with the marketing campaigns as the element of digital age marketing (Danova 2014).
8.4 Data-driven and business intelligence marketing
Data-driven marketing is digital marketing that uses data analytics and business
intelligence to market Debenhams store products. Data analytics make use of consumer data and
information generated from consumer online behavior to market products (Liu& Burns2018).
Data on consumer preference and choice is generated from online platforms such as the
company’s online platforms. These data include the items that customers have been viewing over
their last visit and match the item with the available items. All stocks that are related to previous
customer browsing habit are therefore presented to customer whenever they visit the store again.
In addition, whenever a customer views some products online, all related items are also
presented to the customer to increase their purchasing probability. Business intelligence also
makes use of data from browsing habit of the consumers to market products to such consumers
(Bowen & Ozuem 2015).
8.5 The message

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The message that will be presented to consumers is based on three key elements
affordable, designer collection and increase beauty. The message that will be presented in the
marketing campaign will be based on the company philosophy of giving affordable products to
the customer. Another aspect of the message will present the store as the number one designer's
collection for all customers. The last bit of the campaign message will be grounded in the current
marketing target message that aims to increase the beauty of women within the country. The
marketing campaign message will, therefore, be ‘Do not miss out our affordable best designers’
collection that increases your beauty’. This message will drive people to check out affordable
products from the best designer with the aim of increasing their beauty (Kates 2013).
8.6 Marketing audience
The campaign target women that are the core customer portfolio for the company within
the UK and internationally. The audience that the campaign aims to reach is mainly online users
that are from the UK and internationally. The campaign targets to reach as many people as
possible online in order to realize the potential impact on brand sale and position. In addition, the
campaign will also reach various categories of customers from different background, profession
and ethnicity with the desire for beauty or affordable products (Buttle & Maklan 2015).
8.7 Potential impact of the marketing campaign
The marketing campaign has a potential impact of reaching many online UK users that
forms is ranked fifth within Europe. The UK has average monthly online users of 56.7 million by
2017 forming a larger proportion of the potential market. The potential penetration rate within

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the UK is between 90.64 in 2016 to 94.85 % in 2017, these figures that are expected to increase.
Currently, potential online buyers within the country stand at 78% as at 2018 statistics. Among
the online buyers, female buyersare ranked at 69% and the figure is slightly higher than male
buyers. This implies that an intensive marketing campaign using digital media is likely to reach a
larger percentage of people within the country. The company’s marketing campaign targets to
reach over 54% weekly internet buyers within the country plus many others outside the country
(French & Smith 2013).
8.8 Integrated marketing communication
This marketing campaign fits with integrated marketing communication as it incorporates
various marketing communication that is digital in nature. The marketing communication can
incorporate other marketing aspects that are not digital in nature to bring up a well-integrated
marketing communication system. These are marketing channels that are not digital include print
media, audiovisual media, public relations, road shows campaigns and personal selling. These
strategies will enable Debenhams to reach as many customers as possible leading to larger
market share hence better brand positioning within the country (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick
2012).
9. Conclusion
In conclusion, the digital age marketing entails many different marketing methods that
result in better brand positioning and larger market share. Debenhams departmental stores have
been experiencing some challenges that are easily offset by the opportunity that is available in
the UK market. The company has been within the top ten stores occupying number nine position

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despite being the largest store by a number of outlets. The brand positioning objective for this
digital marketing is to enable the company to have the largest share within the country, number
one online designer store and to be premier departmental store internationally in the next 12
months. This brand positioning objective gives rise to communication objective that will be to
reach many customers within the country, online and internationally within the next 12 months.
The digital marketing campaign is designed to focus on various methods, reach many audiences
and communicate a unique message that will result in huge brand positioningimpact. In the next
12 months, the company will invest in social media marketing, search engine marketing, and
optimization, e-commerce marketing, data-driven marketing, and mobile apps marketing. The
overall impact is to reach over 54% weekly online buyers within the UK and many other online
users outside the UK.
In light of the analysis, Debenhams need to implement that digital marketing campaign
that will incorporate various digital marketing tools together with other non-digital marketing
methods. the implementation of marketing communication should form an integrated marketing
communication strategy that will ensure that the company increase its market share, improve on
brand position and reach a larger market segment in the next 12 months. Some of the non-digital
marketing communication methods that form part of integrated marketing communication that
the company should use along digital marketing are personal selling, print media, public relation,
event marketing, and audiovisual marketing.

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