E-commerce Online Marketing Plan: Atlantic Technologies Analysis

This report outlines an online marketing plan for Atlantic Technologies, an e-commerce platform designed for university students to buy and sell used textbooks and other educational materials. The plan includes a company introduction, target market analysis, customer persona development (Glenn Mendonsa), competition analysis, and supplier breakdown. Key online marketing objectives are defined, along with strategies and tactics encompassing personal branding, content marketing, search engine optimization, conversion optimization, social media marketing, and email marketing. The report also details an evaluation and implementation plan, covering business goals, financial statements, customer surveys, and promotional activity tracking. The aim is to establish Atlantic Technologies as a leading student-to-student marketplace with a strong online presence and a sustainable business model. Desklib provides access to similar documents and study resources for students.

Running head: ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 1
Atlantic Technologies
Name
Institution

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 Company Introduction...........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Solution.............................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Mission..............................................................................................................................................4
1.3 Ownership.........................................................................................................................................4
1.4 Target market analysis.......................................................................................................................4
1.5 Market segmentation.........................................................................................................................4
2.0 Online Marketing Strategy....................................................................................................................6
2.1 Customer Persona..............................................................................................................................6
2.11 Glenn Mendonsa..........................................................................................................................6
2.2 Competition Analysis........................................................................................................................8
2.3 Supplier Breakdown..........................................................................................................................9
3.0 Online Marketing Objectives...............................................................................................................10
4.0 Strategy and Tactics.............................................................................................................................11
4.1 Personal branding............................................................................................................................11
4.2 Content marketing...........................................................................................................................11
4.3 Search engine optimization..............................................................................................................12
4.4 Conversion optimization..................................................................................................................12
4.5 Social media marketing...................................................................................................................12
4.6 Email marketing..............................................................................................................................12
5.0 Evaluation & Implementation Plan......................................................................................................13
5.1 Business goals.................................................................................................................................13
5.2 The business plan.............................................................................................................................13
5.3 The financial statements..................................................................................................................13
5.4 Customer, employee, and business associate survey........................................................................14
5.5 Keeping track of promotional activities...........................................................................................14
6.0 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................14
7.0 References...........................................................................................................................................16
8.0 Appendix.............................................................................................................................................17

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 3
1.0 Company Introduction
Atlantic Technologies was founded in January 2017. Since then, it has been
underperforming due to lack of resources. From January this year, the company is testing the
market at the University of British Colombia. The company is located on Pacific Boulevard,
Vancouver. Gen-connect Internet services hosts and maintain the company data.
1.1 Solution
Atlantic Technologies enable university students to trade, buy, and sell used textbooks
directly to fellow students, avoiding university bookstores. When students sell books through
Atlantic website they get higher profits compared to when they sell the books to a bookstore. In
addition to textbooks, Atlantic provides a platform where university students sell tutoring
services, used compact disks, dorm accessories, computers, old tests, class notes, and other
things that are education oriented among students in a student-friendly marketplace. Besides,
Atlantic offer customized services like specialized content, weblogs, teacher evaluation, and
classifieds.
Atlantic wishes to establish itself as an e-platform where university students from
different institutions interact, come together, offer extensive market specific services via the
internet, and generate revenue. Intrinsically, it helps talented students earn by providing solutions
to fellow learners. In this regard, Atlantic plans to gain market dominance by using the available
domain experience, the formation of strategic alliances, superior software, an exceptional
management team, a solid marketing strategy, and partnership and membership with
organizations within institutions of higher learning market.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 4
1.2 Mission
The mission of Atlantic Technologies is to provide university students with a unique and
valuable source of information, services, and products.
For Atlantic to achieve its mission, the company commits to the following ideologies; keeping
employees happy, the customers are king, and the products are the foundation.
1.3 Ownership
Atlantic Technologies is a Limited Liability Company and is solely owned by its founder, Trisha
Khetia.
1.4 Target market analysis
According to the Canadian report on education, higher education student market is
growing rapidly but unfortunately, the sector is performing below expectations (Chen, 2017).
The Canadian Department of Education expects the higher education marketplace to grow
further due to influx of foreign students. Moreover, with the targeted increase in the number of
students, their expenditure is also expected to increase and thus avails an opportunity for Atlantic
Technologies to excel.
1.5 Market segmentation
The segmentation of the market for Atlantic Technologies comprises of male and female
students of ages between 18-24 years and those between 25-29 years. These groups of students
spend most of their time online, in particular, on social media, playing games, researching, and
watching videos. Therefore, they can embrace Atlantic's mode of providing content which is
very much relevant to them. Those who can develop content gets an opportunity of selling them
to fellow students at a fee.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 5
Of note, the launching institution, The University of British Columbia has 35,880 full-
time undergraduate, 9,350 full-time graduate, 13,920, part-time undergraduate, and 1,410 part-
time graduates (Universities Canada, 2018). Furthermore, student enrolment in other Canadian
universities shows a significant increase in the number of students. According to universities
Canada, the following is a sample of the company's target population.
Source: Universities Canada, 2018

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 6
2.0 Online Marketing Strategy
2.1 Customer Persona
2.11 Glenn Mendonsa
2.111 Persona goals
Glenn Mendonsa is a young ambitious model. She wishes to be Mrs. University of British
Colombia and later own her modeling firm with international recognition.
2.112 Persona demographics
Glenn is 18 years old and lives around the university. Her role model is Angelina Jolie.
2.113 Persona pain
In her life, Glenn gets frustrated whenever she scores low marks in exams and not able to
quickly grasp what the lecturer teachers as well as gets bored with fellow students who do not
take their academics seriously.. Besides, she is concerned with climate change activities that
have totally affected the environment. She wishes to become an ambassador for championing
environmentally friendly activities through modeling. In her course, she often gets traveling
barriers to travel around and speak about climate change within and outside Vancouver due to
lack of adequate finances.
2.114 Persona media and devise preference
Glenn usually accesses the internet from home and the university through the broadband
connection. She has been using the internet for the past 10 years. Within the university, Glenn
prefer using the library connections since it enables her to access more learning materials as well
as videos, tutorials among other things. Additionally, she loves shopping and exchanging ideas
with fellow students and usually prefer placing orders using university computers. Moreover,

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 7
she also has a smartphone which she can use to access the web while out of school to access
online content.
2.115 Persona image
Glenn Mendonsa
Source: The University of British Columbia, 2018
2.116 Persona role and responsibility
Glenn is a model and she heads the modeling club in the university. She helps her fellow
students nurture their modeling talents as well as express their confidence, self-esteem, and

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 8
ambitions. Glenn reports to the club patron, Madam Joy Kandi, where she updates her on their
activities and plans for the semester.
2.117 Persona biography
Glenn has been very proactive in championing for environmental management. At 11
years, she mobilized a group of fellow students where they planted five hundred trees. Besides,
she is also actively engaging the university administration to undertake environment-friendly
projects such as installing of solar-powered lightening. On academics, she loves accessing online
content, exchanging ideas with fellow students from other universities. As such, Atlantic
Technologies is a platform for Glenn to realize her abilities.
2.2 Competition Analysis
Atlantic Technologies have competitors in the college students' marketplace. Some of
them include; online content specific sites, online auction sites, textbook price comparison sites,
textbook exchange sites, online textbook retailers, and university bookstores that target the
student fraternity. In this regard, Atlantic Technologies is developing a system that does not only
focus on selling but also elevate the customer experience. It provides a marketplace where
students can sell notes, games, computer equipment, and tutorials among others.
Analysis of the common traditional university bookstores shows that they are located
within the universities and students can access them easily. However, the main weakness of
university bookstore is a limited supply of student-related learning materials. The traditional
marketplace lack value addition which Atlantic Technologies offer online. In Canada, there are
over 170 college stores. This creates congestion and lack of customized services that students
may require. Furthermore, sales volume in these institutions depends on the size and the number
of institutions they serve.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 9
On the other hand, online bookstores and retail websites offer product selection and
value-added services. Their current string relies on customer relationships and brand awareness.
However, major weaknesses of online operations are return processing, shipping charges, fraud,
and security (Hou, Chen, & Yang, 2016). Some of the established brands are Amazon, eBay,
Ecampus, and versitybooks among others. In this regard, Atlantic Technologies wishes to
improve the student experience in the online marketplace by offering real-time service as it
encourages a student to student interaction.
2.3 Supplier Breakdown
Atlantic Technologies model of supplies rely on university students to provide teacher
evaluation, classifieds, auctions, and used textbooks which they post on the website.
Intrinsically, the focus of the company heavily relies on the marketing strategy by increasing
usage and traffic while we maintain the inventory of our products and services. Notably, the
retail component of the business will create strategic partnerships and alliances with distributors
and manufacturers to offer direct drop-shipments to our customers. This strategy will enable the
company to cut cost related to inventory distribution.
Provision of customized content delivery will seek the services of students who are
experts in their field of study on the weblogs. Using expert students will allow Atlantic
Technologies to cut cost while nurturing student talent and at the same time providing relevant
and interesting content. Furthermore, the company will contract the services of third-party
vendors to offer content and value-added services. Such a tactic will enable Atlantic to provide
quality services while it focuses on key business elements of providing teacher evaluation,
classifieds, and textbooks.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 10
3.0 Online Marketing Objectives
Having a clear and well-defined goal can help any organization grow (Teo & Low, 2016).
Achieving set objectives helps a business venture to improve customer service delivery,
collaboration, and teamwork. As such, Atlantic Technologies will usually strive to achieve the
following objectives;
i. Offer unique and innovative products and services.
ii. Establish a sustainable profitability within 2018/2019 financial year.
iii. Building a brand that students will always identify with whenever they are online.
iv. Achieve over forty thousand visits per month.
v. Attract over two hundred thousand registered users in 2018/2019 financial year.
vi. Improving local search engine optimization for Atlantic Technologies to attract local
students.
vii. Become a leading marketplace for a student to student over the internet.
viii. Form partnerships and strategic alliances with entities supplying products to the college
market.
ix. Create and maintain student-centered marketing campaigns. For example, direct mailing,
promotional item distribution, social media pages, advertising at on-campus kiosks, local
and university newspaper advertising, sponsorship of community events within the
campuses, and outdoor/indoor billboard advertisement during sporting events within the
college.
x. Recruit marketing team and exceptional management who are experienced in domain
management in the college market.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 11
xi. Manage Atlantic Technologies' online reputation by responding to bad views
accordingly, maintaining social profiles, and monitoring company's name.
xii. Become an influencer in students' marketplace field sending researched trends to
registered students' emails.
4.0 Strategy and Tactics
Online marketing strategy is a series of steps that entrepreneurs take to engage their leads
and customers, where they ultimately make a decision to make a purchase (Chaffey & Ellis-
Chadwick, 2016). As such, Atlantic Technologies uses the following strategies and tactics to
conduct her businesses;
4.1 Personal branding
Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2016) suggest that branding the company gives it an
opportunity to leverage a more trustworthy image to promote its products among students from
colleges and universities. By forming partnerships and strategic alliances, the company
establishes itself as a force in the market that students can rely on by getting educational
materials.
4.2 Content marketing
Content marketing of various products the company offer enables the company to attract
more customers (Beard & Yang, 2011). For example, advertising Atlantic Technologies' services
in mobile applications, videos, and social media is a way of generating traffic for more students
to get to know the existent of our student-to-student services. The company also embraces other
forms of marketing like sponsorship of community events to generate leads to Atlantic.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 12
4.3 Search engine optimization
Atlantic Technologies is investing resources to make it more visible in search engines,
with a goal of getting traffic that is more relevant for students who seek affordable and flexible
learning materials. The website has been structured that it appears among the top ranking in
organic searches. This is usually enhanced by continuous content development.
4.4 Conversion optimization
These tactics aim to get more students to Atlantic Technologies website. Besides,
conversion optimization tactics like enabling students to buy used textbooks, games, electronics,
tickets, computer equipment, old test, and class notes from fellow students are very friendly thus
enhances closing of business deals. Students also find it easy and motivating to promote one
another.
4.5 Social media marketing
Nurturing and building social media audience will help the company to get more
customers since links to the company website will always be available. Moreover, more content
of our services, offers of the days will aim to attract more customers to the company.
4.6 Email marketing
Once students register with Atlantic Technologies, they will be getting regular emails on
new items, discounts, offers with a goal of generating more sales. Besides, the company will be
wishing customers birthday anniversaries just to keep them informed that the company values
them and their support.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 13
5.0 Evaluation & Implementation Plan
Epstein and Yuthas (2007) suggest that the process of evaluation involves a systematic
determination of Atlantic Technologies' merit, worth and significance in the student-to-student
business of selling games, used textbooks, class notes among other based on the goals and
objectives of the company. As such, the company will evaluate the following since they form the
fundamental driving force of the organization.
5.1 Business goals
Evaluating business goals will enable the company to know whether it is moving in the
right direction because goals are the driving force of entrepreneurship (Epstein & Yuthas, 2007).
It is achievable by setting specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and having time period
attached (SMART) goals. For example, by aiming to get over 40, 000 visits per month will be
measured through real-time count on the number of visitors per day, month, and the whole year.
It will help evaluate the marketing strategies whether the tactics are working.
5.2 The business plan
Checking on the overall business plan will help reveal if there are some aspects that are
lagging behind (Beard & Yang, 2011). A business plan acts as the marking scheme of the
project. Counterchecking on the plan and what has been achieved will enable Atlantic
Technologies to adjust its operations adequately to the rising demand for student-to-student
online relationships.
5.3 The financial statements
Preparing the statement of financial position and the income statement will enable the
company to know whether the financial goals are being achieved. For example, preparing a
statement of income at the end of the 2018/2019 financial year helps the company to know

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 14
whether the venture is sustainable over the coming years. Moreover, the statement of financial
position also helps evaluate the sustainability of the business and the company will know
whether the plan is working if the prepared statements match the projected amount.
5.4 Customer, employee, and business associate survey
Evaluating the success of Atlantic Technologies will involve evaluation of the key
stakeholders since they are the driving force of business activities. For example, evaluating
customer return rate will enable the company to know whether it has a solid brand loyalty.
Additionally, good relationship with strategic partners and alliances signifies that the business is
in the right direction to realizing its goals. The customers may also evaluate the company by
filling anonymous survey responses to gauge if their responses are in line with the mission and
vision of the company.
5.5 Keeping track of promotional activities
After carrying out a robust advertising campaign over social media, the company can
keep track on the number of customers and traffic generating to the company's website. This
metric helps the company know whether the online marketing strategies are working or not
(Rzemieniak, 2015). As such, the company will know the strategy that works better for
optimization purposes if the numbers of visitors increase or remain the same.
6.0 Conclusion
Up to this end, Atlantic Technologies is out to revolutionize students' experience in the
online marketplace. The company will not only focus on making sales but also provide a
platform for students to nurture their expertise. Besides, electronic commerce and marketing is
the big thing today in retail marketing. Established companies like Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 15
is a testimony that online marketing pays and it provides an opportunity for growth and
development. As such, Atlantic Technologies is out to compete and curve its market share not
only in Canada but also in the global marketplace.

ATLANTIC TECHNOLOGIES 16
7.0 References
Beard, F. K., & Yang, A. (2011). Choosing and Evaluating Digital and Online Media: A
Conceptual/Instructional Model. Journal of Advertising Education, 15(2).
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing. Prentice Hall.
Chen, M. (2017). Education in Canada. Retrieved on April 8, 2018 from
https://wenr.wes.org/2017/09/education-in-canada
Epstein, M. J., & Yuthas, K. (2007). Evaluating the effectiveness of Internet marketing
initiatives. Society of Management Accountants of Ontario.
Hou, Y., Chen, H., & Yang, S. (2016). Research on the business model of e-commerce platform
based on value co-creation theory. International Journal of u and e-Service, Science and
Technology, 9(3), 415-424.
Rzemieniak, M. (2015). Measuring the Effectiveness of Online Advertising Campaigns in the
Aspect of e-entrepreneurship. Procedia Computer Science, 65, 980-987.
The University of British Columbia, (2018). Undergraduate students. Retrieved on April 8, 2018
from https://www.ubc.ca/undergraduate-students/
Teo, T. C., & Low, K. C. P. (2016). The Impact of Goal Setting on Employee Effectiveness to
Improve Organization Effectiveness: Empirical Study of a High-Tech Company in
Singapore.
Universities Canada, (2018). 2017 full-time and part-time fall enrolment at Canadian
universities. Retrieved on April 8, 2018 from https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-
and-stats/enrolment-by-university/

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8.0 Appendix
Universities in British Columbia