Digital Marketing Landscape, Consumer Insights, and Strategy for Argos

This report analyzes digital marketing strategies, focusing on the case of Argos, a British retailer. It begins with an overview of the digital marketing landscape, contrasting online and offline marketing activities. The report then delves into consumer insights and trends, emphasizing their importance in shaping digital marketing approaches. It assesses the opportunities and challenges within the digital marketing environment, followed by an examination of various digital tools and platforms, including e-commerce and omni-channel marketing. A digital marketing plan and strategy are outlined, along with an exploration of omni-channel campaign techniques. Finally, the report evaluates performance metrics and measurement techniques in digital marketing, providing insights for enhancing performance. The report covers key concepts like digital landscape, customer insights, marketing strategies, and performance metrics.

Digital Marketing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................1
P1 Overview of Digital marketing landscape along with comparison between offline as well
as online marketing activities.......................................................................................................1
M1 Opportunities and challenges for digital marketing landscape.............................................3
P2 Assessment of key consumer insights and trends that are important in growth of digital
marketing.....................................................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Analysis of different digital tools in comparison to various physical channels including
bricks & mortar............................................................................................................................5
M2 Different digital tools that can be utilized in organization to fulfil marketing requirements7
P4 Growth of e-commerce along with digital marketing channels in contrast to different
physical channels ........................................................................................................................7
LO3 .................................................................................................................................................9
P5 Establishment of digital marketing plan as well as strategy to generate multi-channel
abilities.........................................................................................................................................9
P6 Evolution of Omni-Channel marketing................................................................................14
M3. Tools and techniques to plan a full proof omni-channel campaign..................................15
LO4................................................................................................................................................15
P7 Evaluation of performance metrics and measurement techniques within digital marketing
....................................................................................................................................................15
P8 Various actions and plans to enhance digital marketing performance.................................17
M4 Evaluation of applications of performance matrix and digital measurement techniques ...19
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing can be defined as a way through which advertisement and marketing of
products and services can be done via advanced technology like mobile phones, email marketing,
social media marketing and many more. In order to do digital marketing it is important for
organizations to understand digital landscape and develop digital marketing strategies (Kotler
and et.al., 2017). Optimal use of digital marketing helps the organizations to connect with their
customers, understand their behaviour, attitude, experience and attitude towards the organization
and its products or services. Today most of the companies are focusing on doing digital
advertising and advertising as it aids them to reach wide range of customers. Digital marketing
has various benefits such as: it is quite cost effective and reduces marketing expenditure,
provides a platform to connect and communicate with their customers, provide better pre and
post sales services. This assignment will focus on Argos, which is a British catalogue retailer
which mainly operates in United Kingdom and Ireland. They have more than 800 retail stores
and have more than 29,000 employees. This assignment will lay emphasis on overview of Digital
marketing landscape and comparison of offline and online marketing concepts, analysis of
consumer insights and trends that is fuelling digital marketing, opportunists and challenges of
digital marketing, digital tools, hardware and platforms used for digital marketing, digital
marketing plan and activities and different methods of monitoring and measuring digital
marketing.
LO1
P1 Overview of Digital marketing landscape along with comparison between offline as well as
online marketing activities
Digital marketing is basically the marketing and advertising of services and products
through various kinds of digital technologies such as internet, display advertising, mobile
phones, social networking sites, emails and any other kind of digital medium. Digital marketing
helps the organizations to connect with their audience or customers in a more efficient manner
(Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). As There are various digital marketing tools such as social
networking sites that are used by large number of people. This large use of digital technologies
makes it much more easier for the organizations to reach their targeted customer's. In other
words digital marketing can be defined as marketing efforts done by the company using any kind
of electronic or digital device or platform. This is one of the best way for the companies to reach
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to their customers in an efficient manner and fulfil their needs and requirements by
understanding them. It has been observed that today most of the customers prefer to use digital
or electronic technology rather than using old methods for many things such as shopping,
surveying etc. It has been observed that usage of digital marketing by the organisations is
increasing year by year. This digital technology can help Argos to understand their customers in
a better manner and can provide them with improved services and products. It has also increased
their scope of marketing and has helped them to increase their customer base as well because
there are wide variety of tools, platforms and technologies that help companies to do digital
marketing of their products and services (Lilien, Rangaswamy and De Bruyn, 2017). It has
helped companies to reach their customers, influence them to buy their products or services.
But for this, companies need to understand all the evolving stages of digital marketing.
Today stages of digital marketing and advertising are constantly evolving and changing
including mobile applications, email marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine
optimization and many more. This is called digital marketing landscape which helps in brand
positioning as well. In other words digital landscape can be defined as digital communication a
channel that are adopted by organizations or businesses and is used by customers or consumers.
Increasing use of digital marketing and advertisement has increased the complexity and
importance of digital landscape as different kinds of digital tools, technologies and platforms has
evolved and their usage has increased (Pelsmacker, Van Tilburg and Holthof, 2018). Today
correct and efficient usage of digital marketing landscape is quite important to increase as well as
attract new customers and increase their customer base as usage of these digital technologies
among customers is also increasing day by day. Many times this digital landscape helps
companies to identify their competitors in this competitive market and gain competitive
advantage. As it helps them to understand their competitors’ products and services and bring
improvement within their services and products. Due to this it has become quite important for
organizations like Sainsbury's Argos to adopt and use this digital landscape in an efficient
manner (Cohen, 2017).
There are two main types of digital marketing that is being used by companies that are:
online as well as offline marketing. The Online marketing is a kind of marketing which is done
using internet like social communication marketing, email marketing etc. Whereas offline
marketing is a kind of marketing which is done without using internet like television, radio etc.
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Usage of both the type of marketing is same i.e. to create brand awareness among customers and
increase their overall sales and revenue. However, there are few main distictions between online
as well as offline marketing which are: online marketing can be measured using Google analytics
or any other tool whereas there is no efficient way to measure offline marketing done by
companies. Online marketing is a continuous process that provides long term exposure whereas
offline marketing can only be done for a short period (Manser Payne, Peltier and Barger, 2017).
Online marketing can help the organizations to target large number of customers whereas offline
marketing can only target limited number of customers.
There are various benefits of digital marketing such as: it is one of the most powerful
marketing tool or platform which helps the organizations to reach wide audience. It is one of the
easiest and cost efficient ways of doing marketing as most of the tools, platforms and
technologies used for digital marketing is free of cost (Tamaki, 2018). It is one the most easy and
efficient way of marketing which can help the organizations to measure their success within a
fixed interval of time. It allows the business to reach their target audience.
M1 Opportunities and challenges for digital marketing landscape
Digital marketing can be used as one of the most important tool by the organizations
which can help them to reach larger targeted customers through better digital marketing
strategies. However, there are many challenges that can be faced by organizations such as:
Competition in this field has grown to such extent that if any organization want to gain
competitive advantage then they need to introduce something unique so that they can gain
competitive advantage using digital marketing.
P2 Assessment of key consumer insights and trends that are important in growth of digital
marketing
Customer understanding and insights importance in development of digital marketing
activities
In today's world it is extremely essential for companies to think about their customers,
their needs and requirements. As it helps them to build marketing strategies for their products or
services. If marketing strategy build by the organization is not accurate or proper then it will
impact the overall sales of their products. Customer insight helps the organizations in
interpreting their customer’s attitude, behaviour towards the product or services provided by the
organization. It helps in increasing the effectiveness of the services and products for customers
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which eventually help them to increase sales of their products. In other words understanding
customer's insight and understanding for the brand and their product helps the organizations to
understand the reason behind their behaviour, attitude, and perception of their clients or
customers towards their products or services (Medina, Coelho and Bellido-Pérez, 2017). It has
been observed that today fashion trend and marketing is continuously changing which are impact
customers views, perception towards all the products and services that are being offered by the
organizations. This continuously changing market and fashion trend is forcing companies to
bring changes among marketing of their products and services. Companies need to build correct
marketing strategies especially for digital marketing all the tools, technologies and platforms like
social networking sites, emails and various others. Not only this due to advancement in
technologies, digital marketing landscape is also changing which is impacting digital marketing
strategies (Melero, Sese and Verhoef, 2016). Due to this, continuous evolution in technology,
market and fashion trend customers understanding and insight towards the brands and usage of
digital technologies is also changing. As a result organizations like Argos need to bring changes
and develop digital marketing activities that are used or done by them. Argos need to focus on all
the digital marketing activities adopted by them in order to increase sales of their products and
services as well as increase focus on the tools and technologies they are using. This will help
them to remain in touch within their customers and understand their insight, perception (Dunlop,
Freeman and Jones, 2016). They also need to try other platforms that are used by the consumers
where they can do marketing of their products and services.
Challenges and impacts of digital marketing
There are various challenges that are associated with digital marketing. The way
companies face those challenges can impact an organisation both positively and negatively (Cant
and Wiid, 2016). The main focus of most of the organizations has shifted from their products
price and profit to customers preferences, experience and need associated with the brand and
their services and products. Digital marketing has made a huge impact on organizations as
because of digital marketing has exposed their products and services due to which they
constantly need to bring changes within their products and services like lowering its prices,
improve its quality, introduce new additional features etc. Digital marketing has also shifted
organizations focus from their brand and suppliers to their customers needs, their expectations,
their experience and requirements. They constantly try to fulfil their customers need and try not
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to hamper their trust within them. Organizations such as Argos bring continuous changes within
their products as per their customers requirements and expectations and introduce those products
or services to them. It is also important for companies to constantly focus on their customers
perception towards their brand because any kind of negative publicity can affect their customers
expectations and perception towards the brand (Bala and Verma, 2018). This negative publicity
can impact overall sales of their products or services as well.
There are various devices that can be used to interpret customers behaviour, experience
and expectations towards the brand like by conducting an online survey, taking feedbacks from
the customers and various others. There are many other devices and tools that are used by the
customers as well as by the organizations which helps them to get in touch with each other.
However, tracking and monitoring of such tools and devices is one of the main challenges that
are faced by the organizations. For this, companies need to use various other technologies like
google analytics, number of clicks (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017). Another challenge this digital
marketing has increased for organizations like Argos is competition. Due to this increasing
number of digital technologies' competition in this competitive environment is increasing due to
which companies need to focus on their digital marketing strategies so that they can compete
with their competitors.
LO2
P3 Analysis of different digital tools in comparison to various physical channels including bricks
& mortar
Digital platform for revenue generation and use of Digital tools and technologies to
enhance and support marketing
There are different kinds of digital hardware, tools and platforms that are utilized by
organizations for digital marketing of their services and products (Tuten and Solomon, 2017). It
is important for companies to focus on digital marketing as it not only helps in marketing of their
products but it also helps them in revenue generation. Organizations can use digital platforms for
example: social networking sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, their organization website
and various others for marketing because marketing on such platforms using internet is done
properly then it will help companies to reach large number of targeted audience, increase their
overall sales which eventually help the company to increase their overall revenue. It is much
easier to use such kind such platforms and communicate their organizations targeted customers.
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Not only such kind of digital platforms have become one of the most important part of marketing
especially social media marketing. Social media websites are one of the most common
technologies that is used by customers through which companies can get in touch with them
(Taken Smith, 2016).
Other than this there are various other kinds of digital hardware's, tools and technologies
that can be used by companies for digital marketing and revenue generation such as search
engine optimization (SEO), display of online advertisements, e-commerce marketing, google
advertisements, email marketing and many more (Moreno and et.al., 2015). Out of all these SEO
is one of the most common tool that is used by the companies to improve quantity and quality of
website traffic. SEO helps in increasing the visibility of websites or web pages to users. Other
than those there are many other tools that help in measuring acquisition and retention of
customers. Correct usage of these tools is extremely important as it impacts their digital
marketing strategy success, sales of their products or services and revenue generated by the
same.
These digital tools and platforms also help in building and increasing communication
between organization and customers. The stronger this communication bond is, stronger the
marketing of organizational products is (Mogos, 2015). It can be explained with the help of
marketing mix:
Product: There are various kinds of digital marketing tools such as social media sites, emails.
This helps the companies to increase popularity and reach of their products and services.
Price: Focuses on increase/decrease in customer base, number of online/offline buyers or users.
This helps them to understand increase or decrease within their customer base.
Place: All the platforms or tools that can be accessed by users like Facebook, Instagram, web
pages and many more.
Promotion: Digital marketing done by the companies on different tools, hardware's and platforms
(Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).
Physical evidence: Strengthening of communication bond between organizations and customers.
People: All the customers who uses online platforms or services.
Partners: Facebook, Google and other companies who support digital marketing
It is important to focus on online marketing as it is one of the most reliable way to access
& understand customers (Ramos and et.al., 2017). Not only has this it also helped the
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organizations to build a strong communication with their suppliers as well. Optimal use of digital
marketing tool also helps the company to reduce their overall marketing cost, increase their
revenue generation and increase their overall profit as they can get in touch with large customer
base without any number of additional cost, can record or analyse all the social media activities
of their customers, understand their shopping or service using patterns. According to this
analysis organizations can develop effective marketing strategies.
M2 Different digital tools that can be utilized in organization to fulfil marketing requirements
There are various tools that can be used by organization to meet their marketing
requirements such as social networking sites, search engines, online advertisements etc. These
tools are one of the most common tools that are used by most of the people. These are the most
appropriate tools that can be used by the organizations which can assist them to fulfil their
marketing requirements.
P4 Growth of e-commerce along with digital marketing channels in contrast to different physical
channels
In order to understand development of digital marketing channels and platforms as well
as e-commerce it is important to understand stages of consumer life cycle in digital adoption,
various online transaction as well as e-commerce growth and role of automated with non-
automated sales and support activities (Rohm, Stefl and Saint Clair, 2019).
Customer life cycle stages of digital adoption
Customer life-cycle stages in digital adoption consist of five main steps, explained below:
Awareness: here awareness about the brand, its products and services is build. Through the use
of digital marketing customers get to know about the organizations, its brands, products and
customers in a detailed manner. Based on the knowledge provided to customers, they build an
understanding or perception for the organization (Maravilhas, 2019).
Engagement: After generating awareness among customers about the brand, customers start
engaging themselves with the brand, their products and services, start following them on social
networking sites as well.
Evaluation: Almost all the customers before taking any decision about the brand they do some
evaluation and research before taking any decision with the help of digital technologies. They
compare the brand and its products with their competitors and then develop an understanding
about the organization.
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Purchase: On the basis of the evaluation done by the customers digitally they make purchases.
Experience and loyalty: One the basis of purchases made by the customer's products and services
and their experiences, customers build loyalty for the brand and digitally provide feedback to the
organizations (Hansen and Sia, 2015).
Online transaction and e-commerce growth
It has been observed that usage of digital technology, tools and platform is day by day
increasing among customers. Platforms like Social media websites (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram) are frequently used by most of the customers. These websites help them to gain
understanding about the organization, its brand, products and services. It is one of the most easy
and efficient way in which customers can get in touch with the company, get detailed
understanding about their business, their services and all the other range of products their
provide, market in which they operate, their business and many more. Optimized usage of digital
platform makes it much easier for the customers to do comparison between a brand and its
competitors’ products (Sokolova and Titova, 2019). Other than social media websites customers
also use e-commerce websites for purchase of any product, comparing two or more than two
products. It has been observed that today most of the customers prefer using e-commerce website
for purchases by doing online transactions as it is one of the easiest way of doing transaction in
order to purchase a product. However, these e-commerce websites and online transactions has
decreased the value of physical channels like stores etc. (Saura, Palos-Sanchez and Correia,
2019).
Role of automated along with non-automated sales and support activities
As it is already known that nowadays usage of digital technologies is increasing
continuously due to which organizations are paying more attention to automated support and
sales activities instead of non-automated sales as well as support activities. Another reason for
this shift is because non automated sales together with support activities involve manual work
like documentation, paper work etc. Due to this manual work there are chances of errors as well
as a result companies are focusing on automated sales which helps them to track their customers,
easy automation and updates within documents, understand their targeted customers in an easy
manner (Fiore and et.al., 2016). It also helps the organizations to provide pre and post sales
services to their customers. Automated sales are also helping the organizations to increase their
customer base, provide online sales of their products and services. As a result there is a huge
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development in e-commerce websites as well as in digital marketing channels and platforms
which is helping the organizations to increase their sales and customer based and is helping
customers to gain understanding about companies products and services in an easy manner and
make transactions and purchases online without visiting the physical stores of the brands (Ruan
and Siau, 2019).
LO3
P5 Establishment of digital marketing plan as well as strategy to generate multi-channel abilities
DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN
Digital marketing plan is generally a document that outlines the marketing activities
planned and conducted by company for the future. A digital marketing plan include situational
analysis, digital marketing goals, marketing strategy (STP), digital strategies & tactics and
measurement of the strategies (Kaltenrieder, D'Onofrio and Portmann, 2016).
Digital marketing plan of Argos Ltd. are as follows -
DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR ARGOS LTD.
(Digital Marketing Campaigns Planning)
Company Introduction : Argos Limited Company is a retailing company which was founded in
year 1972. Its headquarters is in England, United Kingdom (UK). Currently company has 850+
shops in the market of United Kingdom and Ireland. Its parent company is Sainsbury's.
Vision : To become best retail service provider.
Mission : Invest the capital in digital marketing to offer the best possible shopping experience to
the customers.
Goals : Argos goal is to become the best choice for the customers by offering good quality
products and services.
Objectives : Argos objectives regarding digital marketing are as follows -
 Increase the sales by 20% by the end of year 2022.
 Increase the customers' satisfaction rate by 10% by the end of year 2020. Receive 70000 customers per year from Google by the end of year 2020.
Value Proposition : Company's value proposition is to take the leverage its physical presence to
become an omni-channel shopping destination.
Situational Analysis (SWOT Analysis) of the Company : Situational analysis (SWOT) analysis
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of the company is as follows -
Strengths Weaknesses
Offers online shopping service
Huge working force
Limited market shares
Different pricing strategy
Opportunities Threats
Expansion of the business
Online growth
Tough Competition
Change in government policy
STRENGTHS -
Offers online shopping service — Company is offering its products and services through online
shopping system which is benefit for the company as they are able to attract their customers
easily with the help of user-friendly online shopping site.
Huge working force — Company has given employment to around 30000+ employees which is
benefit for the company as they help Argos to attain their objectives which lead organization to
earn profitability (Manser Payne, Peltier and Barger, 2017).
WEAKNESSES -
Limited market shares — Company has very limited market such as United Kingdom and
Ireland which lead company to have limited market shares as compared to another retailing
company.
Different pricing strategy — Company has adopted different pricing strategies in UK and
Ireland which lead to price war in the company as well as in the competitors. This price war has
impact the company's brand image negatively.
OPPORTUNITIES -
Expansion of the business — Company is running under the organization, namely, Sainbury's
which a global company is. Also, Argos' brand image is good between customers. This can be a
growth opportunities for the company to expand its business in the global market.
Online growth — Company can gain growth in its online business by greater utilization of
online sales channel and marketing tools. Also, Company can gain competitive advantages on
the basis of innovative technologies.
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