Digital Marketing Strategies for HMV: Analysis and Recommendations

This report examines the importance of digital marketing for HMV, a UK-based entertainment company, in the face of competition from online retailers like Amazon. It discusses various digital marketing tactics, including Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies such as PPC and SEO, content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing, to improve website visibility and attract, engage, and retain customers. The report outlines the steps to design effective campaigns, target key audiences, and utilize website optimization techniques. It also addresses the legal considerations of SEM and how to measure the success of HMV's digital strategy using analytics tools. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of digital marketing strategies for HMV and offers recommendations for enhancing its online presence and customer engagement.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing
[HMV]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1DIGITAL MARKETING
Table of Contents
Study background:.......................................................................................................................................2
1. Discuss why it is important for HMV to invest in its digital marketing capabilities in addition to its
existing traditional marketing know-how:...................................................................................................2
2. Critically discuss how HMV can use ‘Search Engine Marketing’ tactics to improve its website
visibility amongst its competitors and win more customers for the business:..............................................3
2.1 Documenting the steps to design and effective PPC, SEO and Online Display and Video
advertising campaign...............................................................................................................................4
2.2 Identify how HMV could target its key audience through Search Engine Marketing.......................6
2.3 Demonstrate how content marketing can be used to attract customers..............................................8
2.4 Document the laws and guidelines that need to be taken into consideration with regards to Search
Engine Marketing....................................................................................................................................9
3. Identify how Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing can be used to attract, retain and engage
with new and existing customers for HMV. Critically discuss which channel is most effective at
attracting, engaging and retaining, new and existing customers:..............................................................10
4. Illustrate how HMV can utilise website optimisation techniques to improve website performance:....14
5. Explain how you would go about measuring the success of HMV's digital strategy using analytics.
Identify any tools that could be used to measure campaign performance with specific reference to any
important features, capabilities, or methodologies associated with the monitoring process:....................17
6. Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................19
References:................................................................................................................................................20

2DIGITAL MARKETING

3DIGITAL MARKETING
Study background:
The whole study is focussed on the importance of digital marketing in nowadays. The
importance is being felt by one of the renowned names in the entertainment industry. It is about
HMV which is headquartered in the UK. The company had remained a popular name in the
entertainment industry until the time; the position was actually being hampered by Amazon in
around 2012. Amazon had enabled people getting their favourite music online; however, at one
time, they were required to visit the physical stores. Online purchasing is now becoming a
popular choice for purchase significantly. Various factors may have played its role in changing
the buying perception of modern-day customers. Notably, an incrementing addiction to smart
electronic gadgets like Smartphones and tablets is one of such factors. Modern day customers are
now on electronic gadgets for various purposes like accessing to online education related tutorial,
music libraries, social networking and many others.
1. Discuss why it is important for HMV to invest in its digital marketing capabilities in
addition to its existing traditional marketing know-how:
Marketing is essential to business which is being conducted to communicate with the
target customers and the media. The concept of marketing is still the same today; however, the
perception is getting changed. There are some factors which are driving the perceptions and
shifting it more towards the digital marketing. Cost-effectiveness is one of the factors that make
it an ultimate choice for firms across the globe. It is cost-effective as communication can now be
established through social media networks and the search engine. This means the areas of
concentration is now limited; however, effectiveness has enhanced. Effectiveness has enhanced

4DIGITAL MARKETING
because it enables reaching to a much larger audience which may not have been possible through
traditional marketing (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2016).
Time-effectiveness is another benefit that digital marketing provides. In a very less span
of time, a message can reach to a million of customers (Ryan 2016). The following list has some
more reasons for why modern companies now prefer going with digital marketing (Ryan 2016):
 Opportunities are equally distributed to any kind of organisation; however, SMEs may
select being limited just to a few of online tools
 It actually facilitates a conversion. Firms and customers can be in real-time conversation
through social sites like Twitter
 Digital marketing ensures a much better revenue
 Digital marketing helps reach to the younger population as social sites are also
accessible through smart gadgets like Smartphones and Tablets. Nevertheless, number
of mobile phone users is incrementing with the passage of days (Kingsnorth 2016)
 It also helps to enhance customer loyalty on their brands as they do also get information
from a particular brand
 Innovative technologies of digital marketing like calls to Action (CTA) helps visitors
know what they can do by being on the website. Moreover, visiting users are also
guided through the particular steps
2. Critically discuss how HMV can use ‘Search Engine Marketing’ tactics to improve its
website visibility amongst its competitors and win more customers for the business:

5DIGITAL MARKETING
Website visibility is more important to edge past the competitors and appearing attractive
to the target audience (Järvinen and Taiminen 2016). Following ways can help HMV in this
regard:
2.1 Documenting the steps to design and effective PPC, SEO and Online Display and Video
advertising campaign.
PPC-
For PPC, advertisers who have well proven track records with the same expertise are
required to be approached. However, companies like HMV which wish to advertise through PPC
need to understand the related terms prior to going with the option. It is important to know that
advertisers pay the company for each click. Some of the examples of PPC advertisements are
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram (Mandal and Joshi 2017). It is important
to decide the rate per click. It is generally being done through mutual agreement of companies
and advertisers. In case of HMV, they need to have a budget for PPC advertisement. The budget
will be divided by the number of add clicks. The moment the add clicks reaches the budget limit,
add will not be allowed to float. A further communication between the company and the selected
advertiser will only decide that add will continue floating on different online platforms (Mandal
and Joshi 2017).
Some important identities needed to be acquainted with prior to PPC advertisement are as
follows (Royle and Laing 2014):
1. Product Seller
2. PPC Marketer
3. Landing Page

6DIGITAL MARKETING
4. Landing Page Provider
5. Visitor or the Viewer
SEO-
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be designed in following ways (Paul et al. 2018):
 Selecting an SEO friendly Website Domain
 Getting to know the SEO methods & tactics
 Using SEO friendly layout & design
 Optimisation of keywords like Title, Meta Tags and Anchor
 Link Mobile SEO and Building
 Off-Page and On-Page SEO
 SEO Copywriting
Online Display-
Following steps can be helpful in launching, managing and measuring the results of the display
campaign (De Pelsmacker, van Tilburg and Holthof 2018):
- Selecting goals and KPIs is necessary to know what is the final destination
- Defining the target audience
- Buying media such as Publishers, Demand-Side Platform (DSP), Ad Networks and
Advertising Agencies
- Collating factors that help the advertisement look attractive to target audience. Such
factors include the Text, Video, Image and the Rich Media Ads. Moreover, creativity is
important while collating these factors.

7DIGITAL MARKETING
- Tracking and optimising the campaign in regards to different factors like targeting,
creative, inventory and landing page.
Video Advertising Campaign-
Following ways can help to create an effective video advertising campaign (Taiminen and
Karjaluoto 2015):
 The story should be attractive and all concerns need to be centred around the story, not
the sale
 The first 10 seconds of the video should be really engaging. Some customers do not even
spend 10 seconds on watching the ads. They click away with it in even less than 10
seconds
 The contents need to be smartly selected, so that, it creates some emotions like feeling
enlightened, feeling engaged and also laugh
 It is necessary to ensure that video ads are easily found in the search engine platforms.
This can be done in numerous ways like adding a searchable description to it, so that,
Google or other search engine platforms could easily identify it
 Educating customers on something is another important way to attract them. This is how
companies can prove its worth through video campaigns.
2.2 Identify how HMV could target its key audience through Search Engine
Marketing.
There is ample list of companies available to the different types of search engines. It
means that the advertisement through search engine needs to be effective, so that, customers get

8DIGITAL MARKETING
traced by the company not by its competitors. Following ways can help to make an effective
advertisement through Search Engine Marketing (Baker 2014):
- Defining an effective strategy will be the first key in this regard. First of all, all concerns should
be on the contents which means the company needs to have a good idea of what it wishes to
make viewable to the audience. Afterward, it is important to show how the product or the service
could be a worth buy for customers. Finally, measuring the performance to know whether there
is any need for content related change. Measurement can be done against the identified specific
goals and specific benchmarks like search rankings, sales lead volume, website traffic & other
measures of ROI metrics.
- Selecting the best search keywords is another thing which is important. Companies like HMV
need to have focused on their business related keywords. In addition, keywords should also
match the normally searched phrases like the one that viewers search on most occasions. It is
really helpful and increases the chances of being viewed by customers. They may visit the page;
however, they might not have intended for the same.
- Website content is also important to enable viewers being engaged with the page. The design 7
the layout, the contents, the tabs and the headings are all important. Use of page title tags, file
names, heading tags, Meta tags and alt tags. ‘Keywords’ Meta tag has been exploited in
maximum occasions; however, the ‘description’ Meta tag is now very important. The description
will appear below the link which is a very good way to enhance the chances of being through the
website.

9DIGITAL MARKETING
- It is necessary to ensure that all the pages in the website are entirely indexed by the two most
common search engines Google and Bingo. Firms can easily monitor its presence in the search
engines and hence, could also maintain an attractive appearance to viewers.
- Getting attractive and quality links can do wonder in terms of search ranking. Interestingly,
quality links get good viewing numbers in all search engines like Google, Bingo and others.
Quality link can be attained by integrating informative articles supposedly in the form of a blog
on the website page. Then after, it is necessary to get listed in some trusted and popular
directories like Business.com and Better Business Bureau. Quality links can also be attained
from vendors, trade associations, customers and business partners. The website page needs to be
occasionally updated with press releases, online public relations (PR) and online articles. By
regularly applying such link structuring strategies, this will dramatically impact the Google
ranking and also boost the online popularity.
- Measuring success is also important as it tells how the website has so far performed. After
identifying the level of success, it would be easier to do the necessary adjustments to the existing
contents and the other related terms.
2.3 Demonstrate how content marketing can be used to attract customers.
Content marketing can really help reach to a wider customer base. However, it depends
on various factors that are related to the online advertisements. One of such factors is the website
content. It should be selected smartly, so that, customers may feel to be with it for a span of time
required to understand the message that the website conveys to them. Following are some
strategies that may help to make the contents look attractive and engaging to customers
(Kaufman and Horton 2014):

10DIGITAL MARKETING
Informational and learning resources- Content should be made educative and informative as
well. It can be done by integrating articles, infographics, blog posts, interviews and more that
should be the company’s own perspective.
Books- Self-publishing the e-books will do the thing. This can be done by interviewing the
experts and then compiling their responses. In this way, eBook can be created.
Viewers speaking opportunities- This can be done by finding events and smaller & local
organisations that need speakers. Such events & firms can be featured on the website and
become the speakers on behalf of the company.
Media interviews- In a similar way, approaching to smaller and local publications for getting
the interviews published will also help to get publicised. The interviews are needed to be on the
website. It should also be featured in other publications, so that, business profiling can also be
done through other ways.
Guest posting- It is necessary for the company that it keeps on publishing various types of blog
contents, so that, it attracts the local publications. If the blogs and the interviews are being found
as useful to the publications, this will make way for an advertisement in guest resources like the
local publications.
2.4 Document the laws and guidelines that need to be taken into consideration with regards
to Search Engine Marketing.
Clients using the Search Engine Marketing need to care a few points like they should
have knowledge of how the SEO firms do their business. Sometimes the SEO firms use the
Black hat SEO tactics without informing the clients. Such access may lead to penalties. On the

11DIGITAL MARKETING
other hand, SEO firms do not disclose the penalties for using the Black hat SEO tactics (Leite
and Azevedo 2017).
Some CEO firms use an automated process to generate the hundreds of links to their
clients. However, those links lack in quality and are worthless. Those SEO firms claim that they
will provide quality links to their clients which are indeed the fake commitments. Some search
engines may prohibit such links and can also impose the penalties. Google, for example, is
constantly updating its algorithm and is trying to remove those links which are low in quality &
are unethical due to using Black hat SEO techniques (Holliman and Rowley 2014).
Such practice may seriously hamper the reputation of the website owner. The website can
be removed from the search engine which is a big loss from economic perspectives. A lot of
money is being invested in facilitating the search engine marketing. All those investments will be
wasted and the website owner will be a big loss. They will not only lose their audience but, will
find difficulties also to regenerate such platform again (Wang et al. 2014).
3. Identify how Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing can be used to attract,
retain and engage with new and existing customers for HMV. Critically discuss
which channel is most effective at attracting, engaging and retaining, new and
existing customers:
HMV had suffered a huge loss after the entrance of Amazon. The advent of Amazon had
affected the layout of the business more than that the name of HMV. It means they now prefer
more to shop on online than being in physical stores. There is an urgency that the company
considers the digital marketing approach, so that, number of visitors to the website can be