DMKT5008: Digital Marketing Strategies for Boo.com - Report

This report, focusing on the digital marketing strategies Boo.com could have employed to prevent its failure, delves into the core differences between traditional and digital marketing, emphasizing the importance of digital investments. It explores website optimization techniques, including image compression, web hosting choices, code management, and error handling, to enhance website performance. The report critically examines the application of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), and Content Marketing, detailing key activities and relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Additionally, it covers Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and online display advertising, audience targeting, budgetary considerations, and legal guidelines. Email marketing integration is also discussed, alongside the ongoing analysis and management of digital marketing methods. The report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of digital marketing strategies applicable to e-commerce businesses, using Boo.com as a case study.

TITLE: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing
DMKT5008
STUDENT I.D 49083

1DIGITAL MARKETING
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1. Discussing the difference between traditional and digital marketing..........................................3
a. Explaining why it would be important for Boo.com to invest in digital marketing................5
2. Demonstrating and discussing how Boo.com could have utilised website optimisation
techniques to improve the performance of their website.................................................................6
Perform an image optimisation:.......................................................................................................7
Switch to another web host:.............................................................................................................7
Get rid of unnecessary code files and plug-ins:...............................................................................7
Taking care of 404 errors:................................................................................................................8
Google PageSpeed:..........................................................................................................................8
3. Critically discuss how Boo.com could have used Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social
Media (SMM) and Content Marketing to attract, retain and engage with customers.....................9
a. Key activities associated with implementing an SEO, SMM and Content Marketing Strategy
.....................................................................................................................................................9
Key activities associated with implementing SEO..........................................................................9
Target Market Business Analysis....................................................................................................9
Keyword research and development:...............................................................................................9
Content optimisation......................................................................................................................10
Google Trend.................................................................................................................................10

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b. Critically discuss the KPIs and metrics that should be used to manage and monitor an SEO,
SMM and content marketing strategy........................................................................................11
Customer lifetime value (CLV):............................................................................................11
Cost-per-lead (CPL):.............................................................................................................12
Web traffic sources:...............................................................................................................12
Online conversion rate (OCR):..............................................................................................12
Alexa Analytics:....................................................................................................................12
a. The steps that should be taken to design an effective PPC and Online Display (video)
advertising campaign.................................................................................................................13
b. Identification of how Boo.com could target its key audience through these channels..........13
c. Explanation of any budgetary implications or dependencies................................................14
d. An overview of the relevant laws and guidelines..................................................................14
5. Incorporating Email marketing into its digital marketing strategy to attract and retain the
customers.......................................................................................................................................15
6. Discussing the ways Boo.com could have made use of ongoing analysis and management of
digital marketing methods discussed within this report................................................................16
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................17
Reference List................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
Digital marketing is related to all marketing efforts which the businesses leverage all the
digital channels like e-mail, social media, e-mail and the websites to contact with prospective
and current customers (Leeflang et al. 2014). Boo.com went successfully over a decade ago;
however, Boo.com faced severe and most costly digital business failure in the European history.
Boo.com wanted to become a first-to-market global brand selling designer clothes and
sportswear to the customers. Boo.com started its journey in the year 1999, it spent £125 million
in the next six months in digital marketing, and the organisation refused to accept its wrong
move in digital marketing until May 2000.
As a Digital Marketing Consultant, my role is to create a report on the strategies of
Boo.com what they could have made use for digital marketing to prevent the failure. This paper
focuses on explaining the foundation a principle of digital marketing and it makes distinguishes
between traditional and digital marketing. This paper identifies the relevant digital marketing
tactics to make an integrated and effective digital marketing approach across different digital
domains.
1. Discussing the difference between traditional and digital marketing
The transition from traditional marketing to digital marketing is a bigger paradigm shift
for the organisations. Digital marketing is not just the channel of marketing as digital marketing
has a bunch of channels for sharing the advertisement and promotions for the organisations
(Srinivasan et al. 2016). Digital marketing is associated with social media, internet marketing

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and e-mail marketing, whereas, traditional marketing is related to the print media, out-of-home
advertising, radio and television.
Digital marketing Traditional marketing
1. Open system advertisement
2. Transparent marketing
3. Two-way conversation
4. One-to-one marketing
5. Brand along with user-generated
content
6. Authentic content
7. Mostly free platform
8. The key metric is engagement
9. The real-time advertisement is possible
10. Active involvement is possible
1. Close system advertisement
2. Opaque marketing
3. One-way conversation
4. Mass marketing
5. Professional content
6. Polished content
7. Generally paid media platform
8. The key metric is reach and frequency
9. Pre-produced or scheduled
advertisement
10. Passive involvement
Apart from the general difference, traditional marketing and digital marketing differ in
the advertisement; as digital marketing is not just the advertisement, it is advertainment. Digital
marketing is a tool to make awareness and it helps to develop attitudes about the brand so that it
can promote a purchase. In addition, traditional marketing cannot engage the customers directly
and traditional marketing cannot also measure the success of the promotion. Digital marketing
can easily inspire potential customers to engage, download and read the comments and images.
Digital marketing allures the customers through images, content, videos and short story shared

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through the digital marketing tools. Digital marketing can also measure the consideration of
success as it can increase total page view and it can measure the longer visit duration and lower
bounce rate(Xu et al. 2016, p.1563). There are social media analytic tools which help the
companies to check the success of the promotions on various social media platforms.
Traditional marketing lacks in word-of-mouth publicity as word-of-mouth is always a big
motivator for the purchase behaviour of the customers. Before the digital marketing; the voice of
the customers was quiet; however, the celebrities tried to impact strongly on the customers
through hoardings and television (Blakeman 2015). On the other hand, digital marketing has
increased the peer recommendations as the customers share their reviews on a digital platform
which motivate the customers to purchase the products on time. Digital reviews' impact goes
beyond the recommendations and the potential customers check the images and comments
shared by reviewers. In addition, the reach of traditional marketing is much lesser than the digital
marketing as digital marketing has the capability to reach large numbers of customers (Cant and
Wild 2016).
For traditional media, the organisations cannot measure the ROI, whereas, Return on
Investment (ROI) in digital media for promotion is higher as the peer recommendation is
motivating. Digital marketing platform allows the organisations to optimise everything using
digital networks, from content to channels to offers. Most importantly, traditional marketing cost
is much more than digital marketing as the advertisements always under a plan.
a. Explaining why it would be important for Boo.com to invest in digital marketing
Boo.com wanted to invest in digital marketing as it was an attempt to be an active part of
exceptionally pervasive along with lucrative online marketplace. Digital marketing has the

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capability of quickly developing strength in today's business world and it seems that digital
marketing will surpass traditional marketing. By using a minimum cost, digital marketing could
help Boo.com to reach large numbers of customers in the European market through internet
marketing and social media marketing. Digital marketing helps the organisation to reach a wide
range of customers across different nations (Stephen 2016, p.18). The world is quickly moving
and the customers and people consume digital content quickly rather than the traditional media
tool.Boo.com wanted to use the digital media platform as an asset to perform sales along with
marketing processes which were previously only accessible for the large companies. Since the
beginning, Boo.com wanted to engage multiple customers in Europe using different tools. As for
clothing based e-commerce; Boo.com wanted to rank higher than other styles of communications
and marketing. Boo.com had invested £125 million for digital marketing as they thought that it
would help the organisation to generate better revenues. Digital marketing is very important for
the business as it facilitates interaction with the targeted audiences. As opined by Chaffey and
Ellis (2012), facilitating the customers with legitimate engagement can provide better profit to
the organisation. Boo.com wanted immediate success and profit from the market through the
online platform as it helps to build the brand reputation as this branding will be helpful to
enlighten the customers. Branding in social media and in digital media platform would help
Boo.com to become web sensation as it additionally would provide market research and better
business development.
2. Demonstrating and discussing how Boo.com could have utilised website optimisation
techniques to improve the performance of their website
When an organisation starts its business, the organisation always wants to reach large
numbers of customers through the website. According to Tsuei et al. (2018, p.15), the major

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point to keep in mind while developing the website is that it needs some sacrifices. Boo.com
developed the website to reach the customers; however, it did not provide optimal, efficient and
fast user experience website to the customers.
Perform an image optimisation:
In a website, images are a crucial factor as images are actually big files which can greatly
affect the load time. Therefore, the web developers are now thinking of image optimisation in
advance which makes fast the website. Boo.com could have used the technique of image
compression where they could flourish the images of the products by compressing them. Today,
image optimisation tools are available like JPEGmini which allow the users to compress the
images with minimum quality losses. The web developers combine images into CSS sprites in
order to reduce the roundtrip.
Switch to another web host:
Boo.com could have chosen other host to influence the website loading time. Boo.com
used shared hosting where the website was stored with other websites; therefore, it influenced
the performance of the server. However, for something bigger website like Boo.com, shared
hosting was not the perfect option as it needed something bigger option to ensure good website
speed optimisation. Boo.com could have used virtual private server (VPS) as it has restricted a
number of websites. Boo.com would have owned a part of the server end and VPS was a good
pick for the e-commerce site like Boo.com at the beginning with average numbers of the website
(Croxen-John and Van Tonder 2017).

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Get rid of unnecessary code files and plug-ins:
The websites have the code files which are majorly responsible for the functionality of
the website. In addition, code files result in more HTTP requests and it leads to worse
performance. The plugin is a software element which adds a certain feature to the website and it
is pretty common for various website types. The plugin does not accelerate the development
process of the website and it negatively affects site performance as well. Therefore, Boo.com
needed to ensure that they would not have unnecessary plugins and the website could have made
sure the installed plugins must use a minimum of scripts which may send a few queries.
Taking care of 404 errors:
Users of website try to reach the page and the page is deleted; then a Page Not Found or
404 error message appears. However, a few of these errors can influence the average website
speed (Dilip and Kumar 2015, p.5). Boo.com had to take care of the 404 error as they could have
maintained the 404 error all by themselves, not just by the third-party plugins. Instead, Boo.com
could have used website performance optimisation tool which could help the website, not to
overload.
Google PageSpeed:
Google Page Speed is a tool designed by Google Inc to help website performance
optimisation (Nagy 2013). This tool has components which are mainly built to recognise the
faults in the website's compliance with Google Web Performance and automate the process of
adjustment. Boo.com may use Google Page Speed to improve the performance of the website.

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3. Critically discuss how Boo.com could have used Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),
Social Media (SMM) and Content Marketing to attract, retain and engage with customers
a. Key activities associated with implementing an SEO, SMM and Content Marketing
Strategy
Key activities associated with implementing SEO
The main goal of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to create the search engine
spiders which do not just find the site; however, it must specifically rank the page relevance so
that it must appear at the top of the search engine result (Tiago and Verissimo 2014, p.705).
Target Market Business Analysis
At first, Boo.com could do the target market business analysis and the first step is the
website analysis where the analysis is based on Meta sets and visible text. Competitive analysis
is related to the examination of the content keywords of the competitive websites which help to
determine the effective engine positioning strategy. As stated by Ledford (2016), in present days,
the web developers priories the list of a targeted search term for the customer base.
Keyword research and development:
The web developers need to identify some of the targeted lists of keywords and the web
developers can use the preliminary list in order to determine the indicative number (Croxen-John
and Van Tonder 2017). Boo.com could have prioritised keywords and phrases so that the
developers can compete for each keyword of the competitors. Boo.com failed to understand
where the organisation was at the first place to accurately assess the future ranking. It is very
important to understand the goals and objectives of the SEO.

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Content optimisation
The web developers need to create the page titles which assist to establish page theme
and direction for the keywords. It is needed to create the Meta-tag to influence the click-through
which may not directly use for rankings. The web developers need to integrate the selected
keywords and it can also use existing content on designated pages (Baye et al. 2016, p.30).
Google Trend
Google Trend is an online search tool which allows users to observe how often specific
keywords, phrases and subjects are queried over a specific period (Xu and Berkely 2014).
Google Trend helps to analyse the website traffic after the SEO is conducted.
Key activities associated with implementing SMM
The first step of Social Media Marketing (SMM) is to research and prepare a social
media marketing plan. PR team needs to identify social network channels along with the PR
team also needs to identify activists target habits. Boo.com did not get the chance of doing social
media marketing practices against each of the target group. In addition, social media campaign
needs to be undertaken with diligence and research ground along with recommendations of
strategy should bring engagement from the users. Boo.com could have monitored all the blogs
and they could have provided feedback right to the customers. It is the right method to post
feedback and provide a snapshot of the tracking reports. Blog posts help to measure the volume
of the traffic and it helps to measure the influence of social media (Gudivada et al. 2016, p.45).
The modern-day organisations enable social media online consumer relations by developing
content based marketing and listening to online conversations. The PR team can participate in

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commenting and generating interest among the customers and support the clients to build the
online brand personality (Tuten and Solomon 2017).
Key activities associated with implementing the Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing strategy is associated with blogging, social media, web pages and
press release. Implementing content marketing starts with creating an editorial calendar which
would include seasonal events and it is also associated with the client's industry. Before writing
the content, it is really important to get much information about business days, upcoming year
plan and company milestone. Boo.com could have lacked in brainstorming as they did not have
the team to use the digital channels with creative geniuses. According to Stelzner (2014, p.50),
during the brainstorming session, the organisations must think about content marketing campaign
and the PR team also provides an informative info-graphic presentation. In the next step, the PR
thinks about the creation of the content as the management has to think whether they want to
make the content on the user-generated campaign or just the creative campaign. The final stage
of the content marketing is about implementation and promotion (Dilip and Kumar 2015, p.6).
Monitoring the campaign and making an adjustment of the content is very important which
Boo.com could have not done properly. The organisations have to check whether the traffic from
social networking performing well or not and the bounce rate on the page must be reduced.
b. Critically discuss the KPIs and metrics that should be used to manage and monitor an
SEO, SMM and content marketing strategy
Customer lifetime value (CLV): It is a prediction of the net-profit attributed with the
customer to the entire future relationship. The prediction model of the organisation can be varied
with the level of sophistication along with accuracy. According to Baltes (2015, p.111), customer