Evaluating Burberry's Digital Marketing: Strategies and Improvements

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Burberry's digital marketing strategies, specifically focusing on its use of Instagram. It begins with an introduction to Burberry, its business operations, and its competitive landscape. The report then delves into the strengths and weaknesses of Burberry's current digital marketing approach, supported by relevant articles. It explores methods for assessing marketing success, including the use of Google Analytics and key metrics such as traffic, interaction time, and bounce rate. Finally, the report offers recommendations on how Burberry can improve its digital marketing strategy to increase online revenue, enhance customer engagement, and build brand loyalty. The report concludes with a summary of the findings and a list of references.

Digital Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Strengths and Weaknesses...........................................................................................................4
Methods to Assess Marketing Success........................................................................................6
Recommendations on how Burberry can improve their Marketing Strategy..............................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Burberry is a company operate its business operations in fashion industry. Company was
established in the year 1856 by Thomas Burberry. Headquarter of the company is located in
London, United Kingdom. Company serves a worldwide business operation comprises with
more than 490 locations across the globe. Company deals in accessories, clothing, cosmetics and
perfumes products. Burberry is a public limited company. Target customer base of company are
all fashion enthusiasts. Women across the globe are considered as the primary customer's of the
company. Company is listed over London stock exchange and it is also a part of FTSE 250
index. Company has opened its first shop in the hypermarket, London that the company has
witnessed the immense growth and currently company is having a bushiness outlets at more than
490 locations across the globe. Fashion industry is among the major competitive industry based
on the sales revenue of the sector. Company management needs to compete with various
competitors like Hermes, Kering, Prada, Christien Dior and other small business houses. All the
mentioned business houses are considered as the major competitors for the Burberry business.
Company management is keen toward launching pattern based services that has also improved
the target customer base for the company.
Currently Burberry makes use of digital channels of marketing to promote and advertise
their goods and products in the market. For these purposes Burberry makes use of social media
platform of Instagram to market to more than 17.2 million people who are following their official
page on the social media platform Instagram. Marketing through Instagram provides Burberry's
marketing team with various advantages such as the ability to promote and advertise to a large
global audience with minimal costs attached. Instagram also allows Burberry's marketing team to
advertise relevant products to interested customer base and allows for Burberry to showcase all
their products to customers in the market. Marketing through Instagram also reduces the overall
marketing costs incurred by Burberry as marketing through social media platforms such as
Instagram does not present any additional costs at all which is in dire contrast to traditional
marketing approaches which are quite expensive to use. Burberry's dedicated marketing team
regularly publishes content which is personalised to showcase Burberry goods and products to
potential customers and highlight their uniqueness and usefulness (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick,
2019). Burberry's marketing team also continuously interacts with their 17.2 million followers on
Instagram to build up their brand image and showcase the wide variety of products they sell to

the public in a convenient manner Burberry's marketing team uses Instagram to collect data on
the types of goods and products customers are interested in and analyses data to figure out how
Burberry's potential customers can better be marketed to in order to increase the business's
overall productivity and profitability. Burberry also uses its official Instagram page to address
customer's grievances and issues pertaining to Burberry's products in a quick and efficient
manner in order to provide fast customer service to their market share and build customer loyalty
towards Burberry.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Name:
Student number:
Name of firm: Burberry
Name of digital marketing
technology used:
Instagram
Article 1: Name of author,
title, year and journal name
(Brown, 2015)
Article 2: Name of author,
title, year and journal name
(Marko, 2019)

500 words on strengths and
weaknesses of strategy
Strengths:
 Burberry is going to have a great advantage if this
technology is used for the marketing purpose. There are a
lot of pictures which are being shared which can attract
more customers in the organization. Use of professional
pictures is present in the organization which is a very
good factor for the company and can help the business to
increase their profitability.
 Interaction of the customers can be done directly to the
business instead of involving more third parties and the
organization will be able to understand the needs of the
customers more.
 The organization can start with selling their products
online on Instagram as well because that will be very
attractive for the customers. This can increase the sells of
the organization which will make the company have a
great advantage for themselves.
 Product information can be provided to the customers
who need them and they do not find it online and the
customers can be easily targetted from this platform
which can be a great benefit for the company.
 There is no algorithm on Instagram which is that all the
posts are treated equally and the customers will get what
they are interested in and the organization will be able to
reach out to the targetted customers faster which is to be
very good for Burberry.
Weaknesses:
 There are a lot of updates of Instagram all the time which
is a great drawback for the organization because they can
lose their information and is not so secure to take such a
huge company online. There are right measures which

have to be taken if the organization is going to use this
platform for a long run in market.
 The traffic on Instagram is huge because there are many
customers who are using Instagram and this can be a
great platform for the company but due to traffic there are
going to be a lot of restrictions on the company as well to
reach out to the customers from time to time.
 Getting followers on the Instagram page is going to be a
task because there are a lot of people who do not want to
follow those items which do not attract them much
therefore better techniques and images will have to be
used so that the customers can get attracted which is
going to be very useful for the company.
 Instagram is only available in iPhone and android which
will make the company not reach out to a lot of people
and that can be a weakness for the organization. There are
a lot of competitors who can misuse that image but there
has to be a strong impact on the customer base of
Burberry so that company does not find it difficult for the
organization to gain more positivity in market and
improve the brand image for a long run.
 Without copyrights in the images the picture is going to
be very unsafe and the organization can lose their designs
and uniqueness with the competitors.
Methods to Assess Marketing Success
There are various distinct methods which marketers can make use of in order to assess
the success or failure of their marketing strategy and approach based on some crucial marketing
metrics. These methods include using third party applications and software such as Google
Analytics, Hootsuite, Watson Analytics, Hubspot, Mixpanel etc. all of which can keep track of a
lot of useful data such as the number of people that came upon your page, how many people

interacted with your posts, how many people were convinced to make a purchase, how many
comments your posts were able to generate and their geographical origins etc. These metrics can
really help marketers improve their marketing approach the maximise their results by making
minor changes to their marketing strategy (Kannan, 2017). For assessing the performance of
their marketing strategy and approach, Burberry's marketers make use of third party service
called Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free to use tracking service provided by Google
themselves in order to help business owners, management and marketers become aware of how
their digital marketing strategy is performing in real time in the digital market. This is primarily
done by providing the owners and marketers with information through various metrics about
how their website or page is performing. These metrics need to be evaluated and analysed by
Burberry's digital marketers in order to assess the success or failure of their marketing approach.
There are multiple metrics which Google Analytics provides such as:
Traffic: This is the most basic and most useful metrics provided by Google Analytics and it
tracks and records the amount of users which come across official Burberry's Instagram page
over a specific period of time.
Source: As marketers run multiple advertisements on various pages, Google Analytics also
informs marketers about their incoming traffic's source of origin, through which marketers can
choose which strategy is best suited to meet their approach based upon the traffic it manages to
generate (Castilho, 2019).
Average Interaction Time: Google Analytics also informs owners and marketers about the
average duration of time each individual user interacts with their running advertisements and
promotions. This metric is also useful to Burberry's marketers as content which is engaging to
the customers increases their interaction time, which is directly related to number of sales
Burberry manages for that product.
Demographic: As users on Instagram are logged in through their profiles, Google Analytics also
informs the Burberry's marketers about the demographical information of their traffic such as the
average age of users interacting, average gender, locations from which most interactions arise
etc.
Average pages per visit: Google Analytics also keeps track and records the average number of
pages a visitor has to navigate through in order to make a transaction or to leave. This metric is

also really essential to marketers as it informs them of how redundant their digital operations
truly are and how they can better service their clients.
Top Pages: Amongst all the running advertisements, Google Analytics also tracks and records
which of Burberry's advertisement are seemingly popular with customers and which promotions
are lagging behind.
Exit Pages: Google Analytics also informs Burberry's marketers of the pages which forced
certain parts of their traffic to exit browsing their page or website (Murphy, Chen and Shapiro,
2017). This is also really beneficial for marketers as they can assess which marketing strategies
are working and which marketing strategies are turning people away from desired result.
Average Exit Rate: Google Analytics also informs marketers about the average frequency at
which customers exit tend to exit their online pages and promotions.
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is a metric provided by Google Analytics which informs the
Burberry's marketers of the engagement and interactivity of their operations . It details the
marketers on how many customers bounce straight off ie how many customers leave Burberry's
page after looking at a single advertisement or page. This metric is different than Exit page as
this metric only includes customers who decide to leave the page only after viewing it once
which means that the page or advertisement was completely redundant to them. Exit pages
metric on the other hand signifies that customer did find the page interesting, but did not find
what he was looking for.
Page Load Speed: Google Analytics also keeps track and records the speed at which pages
browsed by customers are loading and the average demands their servers are facing regularly.
This metric is also extremely useful to Burberry's marketers as customers who encounter large
loading times in their browsing are unlikely to return or to purchase a Burberry good or product.
Unique and Returning Users: Google Analytics also details the Burberry's marketers
information about how many users from amongst the total traffic were first time users and how
many users were returning to their pages for a second or consecutive time (Rangan and Han,
2019). This metric is also really beneficial to marketers as it informs them about the average
number of customers whose interest they are able to retain after marketing efforts.
User Behavioural Flow: This is another hugely useful metric provided by Google Analytics
which informs the Burberry's marketers of the websites and links users visit right before or after
interacting with the Burberry's Instagram page. This information is really valuable for the entire

Burberry business organisation as a whole as it can provide suggestions on which areas to
expand into or improve.
Social traffic: This particular metric is only used by businesses who market through social media
platforms like Burberry. This metric tracks and records the total number of likes, comments,
shares and interactions one's posts on social media are able to generate (Järvinen, 2016). This
metric can also track interactions between different social media platforms in order to better let
marketers decide marketing through which social media platform is more successful.
Recommendations on how Burberry can improve their Marketing Strategy
Although Burberry's digital marketing approach performs well and does reach the
marketing targets its marketing strategy requires, there still are some improvements Burberry's
marketing division can implement into their marketing approach in order to promote their goods
and products to a wider range of audience in order to increase Burberry's customer base and
profitability. Some ways through which Burberry is recommended to improve their marketing
approach are as follows:
Other Social Media Platforms: As Burberry's current marketing approach only markets to users
who are available on Instagram which in itself is only available on Android and IOS
smartphones, this majorly limits the range of audience which Burberry's can market to
(Kasilingam and Thanuja, 2020). Google analytics would also prove extremely helpful in this
regard as its Social Traffic metric would inform the Burberry's marketers of the performance on
their other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook both of which are hugely
popular platforms attracting millions of people worldwide daily.
Websites: Burberry's marketing division is recommended to also market their goods and
products over their website as not all people in the world prefer using social media platforms due
to multiple reasons. Marketing through their own websites would also allow Burberry greater
control over their operations while also giving access to even more detailed data than is available
through Google Analytics on social media platforms.
Traditional Marketing Approaches: Burberry's marketing team is also recommended to make
use of traditional channels of marketing to advertise and promote their products and goods to the
public. Though because of the digital revolution increasing number of people are gaining access
to the internet, there are still present a lot of areas where the spread of internet has been slow.

Marketing through traditional channels would allow Burberry to market to people who are
unable to use social media platforms or lack access to the internet in general.
Search Engine Optimizations: Search Engine Optimization is a method by which Burberry's
marketing team can increase the overall quality and quantity of traffic their digital marketing
tools receive by optimising visibility of websites through search engine results (Chaffey and
Smith, 2017). Burberry's marketers should perform search engine optimizations in order to
better connect interested global customers to their website and products.
If Burberry's marketing strategy takes in and implements the recommendations proposed
here, Burberry's marketing division would to able to advertise and promote their products to a
wider range of audience around the world and increase the productivity and profitability of
Burberry in the process.
CONCLUSION
In this report, we evaluate the digital marketing operations of Burberry organisation. As
Burberry makes use of social media platform called Instagram to perform its marketing duties,
we evaluate the various advantages this particular approach provides to Burberry's marketing
operations in relation to providing value to their customers and increasing their loyalty. The
report then analyses the strengths and weaknesses of using Instagram as Burberry's primary
marketing tool and assesses the various methods through which Burberry's marketing department
can keep track of the success or failure of their marketing operations. Finally, the report suggests
some recommendations on how Burberry can improve their marketing efforts in order to increase
their productivity and profitability.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Castilho, R.V., 2019. Digital marketing performance measurement: how good marketing
performance measurement practices can increase firm's performance (Doctoral
dissertation).
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2017. Digital marketing excellence: planning, optimizing and
integrating online marketing. Taylor & Francis.
Järvinen, J., 2016. The use of digital analytics for measuring and optimizing digital marketing
performance. Jyväskylä studies in business and economics, (170).
Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International
Journal of Research in Marketing. 34(1). pp.22-45.
Kasilingam, R. and Thanuja, V., 2020. RECENT TRENDS IN DIGITAL MARKETING.
Studies in Indian Place Names. 40(3). pp.4215-4224.
Murphy, H.C., Chen, M.M. and Shapiro, T., 2017. Digital marketing performance: How
effective are the tactics and metrics used by hotels?. CAUTHE 2017: Time For Big
Ideas? Re-thinking The Field For Tomorrow, p.255.
Rangan, V.K. and Han, C., 2019. Gupta Media: Performance Marketing in the Digital Age.
Online
Brown. 2015. YOUR MEDIA BRAND?. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/is-instagram-right-for-your-media-brand>.
Marko. 2019. The Avanatges and Disadvantages of Instagram for Business. [Online]. Available
Through: <https://www.mikemarko.com/advantages-disadvantages-of-instagram/>.