Digital Marketing Strategies for HMV: SEM, SEO, and PPC Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of digital marketing strategies for HMV, a UK-based entertainment retailer. It explores the importance of digital marketing in the current business environment and highlights the various tools and techniques available, including Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. The report outlines the steps involved in designing effective PPC and SEO campaigns, as well as online display and video advertising. It further discusses how HMV can leverage SEM, content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing to target its audience and attract new customers. The report also covers website optimization techniques and methods for measuring the success of HMV’s digital strategy using analytics. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of considering relevant laws and guidelines in SEM and provides a comprehensive overview of how HMV can enhance its online presence and achieve its marketing objectives through digital channels.

DIGITAL
MARKETING

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Importance for investing in Digital Marketing......................................................................................2
Use of different tools for increasing the visibility..................................................................................3
Use of Search Engine Marketing tactics for improving the website visibility among competitors....3
Steps undertaken to design effective PPC..........................................................................................3
Steps undertaken for designing and effective SEO............................................................................5
Steps undertaken for design and effective online display and video advertising campaign...............6
Ways in which HMV can target the audience through SEM..............................................................7
Ways in which content marketing can be used for attracting customers............................................7
Laws and guidelines that need to be taken into account with regards to SEM...................................7
Ways in which email marketing and social media marketing can be used for HMV..............................7
Utilization of website optimization techniques for improving the website performance...................10
Measuring the success of HMV’s digital strategy using analytics........................................................11
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................13
Introduction
This is an era of digital business and hence companies are adopting different digital
mediums for doing their marketing. This helps company in not only reaching to larger
numbers of consumers but also helps them in reducing the cost of operations (Atazky, et al.,
2013). Digital marketing has become a trend especially in the retail companies. Apart from

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this there are many tools that are present in the digital marketing which company can use to
make sure that they have an effective marketing plan. This will help them in ensuring higher
growth. This is essential for the companies that has limited amount of resources as compared
to that of its competitors. HMV is a UK based entertainment retailer which is having its first
store on Oxford Street. It was established in the year 1921. This report highlights the use of
online tool for making effective marketing strategies. It also explains the use of email market
and social marketing strategies for attracting new consumers while retaining the old ones.
Importance for investing in Digital Marketing
It is an era of global business that runs on the digital mediums (Barker, et al., 2012).
Almost all the industries in an around the world have moved towards the business that runs
on the digital mediums. It has become essential for the firms to make sure that they have
adopted digital means for performing their operations (Thomas, 2011). In the field of
marketing companies like HMV needs to invest a lot more on the digital marketing
capabilities. This needs to be done in addition to its existing traditional marketing
mechanisms.
 Digital marketing can help company to understand the needs of the market as major
part of the marketing research can be done through digital mediums like Social media
platforms and others (Booth and Matic, 2011).
 It also helps in having knowledge about the ways that competitors are doing their
business.
 It also helps in reaching to larger numbers of consumers at single click irrespective of
nation’s boundary.
 In the past HMV took used to promote the branding of the products with the help of
loyalty schemes but the days have changed and company needs to reach to new
potential consumers. Now a day people spend most of their time in such internet
mediums.
 Digital marketing schemes helps in making sure that company can reach to almost all
the types of target audience targeting to make them aware about the products and
services of the company.
 Apart from this it is also to be understood that major competitors of the firm are
already using such mediums and are doing good. This increases the need of the
company to adopt such mediums for marketing of their products.

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 One of the best things about investing in the digital marketing capabilities is that it
provides large return on investment (Strauss, 2016).
Use of different tools for increasing the visibility
Use of Search Engine Marketing tactics for improving the website visibility among
competitors
HMV applies various kinds of digital marketing strategies for promoting their products. This
helps them in doing marketing in most cost effective manner as compared to that of other
traditional marketing methodologies. It is to be understood that digital marketing is of no use
unless the consumers can easily reach to website of the company (Castronovo and Huang,
2012). To enhance the number of people opening the website of the company Search engine
marketing can be highly useful. It is crucial for the company to enhance the traffic flow
towards their website. More traffic ensures better chances attracting new consumers towards
the products of the company. It is necessary for the expansion of the company in the new
markets. Flow of traffic depends on the easy accessibility of the website on the internet
mediums. With the use of Search engine marketing tactics company can increase the flow
towards the company. Since people generally do not look for the search results that are
generated at the last but generally looks for the website that came on the top of the search
results. To bring the website on the top of the search results one of the most important things
that need to be done is to take use of lot of keywords in the pages ( Stone and Woodcock,
2014). It must be related to the major products that company aims to sell using its website.
Tools like Search engine Optimization helps in making this results. SEO acts a master tool
for increasing the visibility of the website.
Steps undertaken to design effective PPC
There are several tools that can be used by the for search engine marketing. Pay per
click is the tool that is used for creating clicks for the website. Steps for designing effective
PPC are:
 Setting goals: It is crucial for the company to make sure that they do not deviate from
their actual target and hence it is essential that a proper goal or objectives is created
for building an online marketing plan (Chaffey and Patron, 2012). Setting goals
includes fining out the major objectives of the cited firm and planning accordingly for
diverting more traffic. Once the marketing objective is pretty much clear and

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appropriate then only a proper PPC is created. For each of the goals a proper planning
is required.
 Selecting Platforms: Several channels are present for PPC such as Facebook, Twitter,
You-tube, Google and many more (Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). It is
the role of the marketing team to make an intelligent choice for one platform as per
the products they want to market.
 Target planning: After selecting one of the platforms for the PPC it is crucial that A
company understand that for which market they want to advertise their products. This
helps in making the whole marketing process more effective. Targeting of audience is
done on several criteria’s. When a local marketing needs to be done then geo-
targeting is used. It is a way of optimizing the results as per the specific location.
 Researching on keywords: It is the important step in PPC where the list of Keywords
is created. It depends on the products that are in demand as well as the things for
which company wants to ensure visibility of their website on the top. Set of basic
keywords is generated which helps them in uplifting their position in the search
results. It is essential to check the set of keywords on the basis of cost (Schlinke and
Crain, 2013). The keyword that does not add to the traffic flow is eliminated and new
keywords are added to the set.
 Writing efficient Text for advertisements: Advertisements are understood as the key
to the marketing as it promotes products and other services on platforms of search.
Advertisements must be creative in terms of text that is being used and the way it has
been used. Texts must be appealing to the audience. A more innovative text generates
more traffic towards the website. Adding of extension provides extra benefit (Scott,
2015). It makes sure that high quality has been served.
 Optimizing the Landing pages: At the time user clicks on the ads it directly gets
redirected to the landing pages. As the quality of the Landing pages is an essential
factor to identify the traffic score. Landing pages optimization by giving a detailed
description of the products that assists in generating more traffic.
 Monitor Competitors: Benchmarking is the major factor for marketing strategy
(Chaffey and Bosomworth, 2012). It is essential for keeping an eye on the
competitors, the way they are developing, the strategies they have undertook, the kind
of keywords utilized by them. It helps in making of the marketing strategy better than
that of the competitors.

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 Installing conversion tracking code: The cited firm is the industry of entertainment
retail. This company can take use of many keywords associated with their products.
Tracking conversion code helps in understanding that which keywords are actually
doing the benefits. This helps in removing the underperforming keywords.
Steps undertaken for designing and effective SEO
The steps are as follows:
 Keyword research: It is an essential step for building SEO, evaluating the keywords
that contribute in optimizing of search results (Chaffey, 2016). For HMV, keywords
can be all the music streams, popular magazines, books names, games, television
series and everything associated with cinema and fashion. The set of keywords must
include the entire famous artist name.
 Competitive intelligence: After the list of keywords is made, it is essential to look at
the things that competitors are providing, the things that they are lacking or the things
where they are getting ranks. If detailed evaluation is done regarding the competitor,
it can be simple to make the future plan.
 Web Design and Development and getting inbound links: The design of the website
and its presentation is very essential. Website must be structured in a way that it
supports design that is search engine friendly (Chaffey, Smith and Smith, 2013).
Apart from this it is crucial to get first inbound link by any vendor to enhance links to
the websites.
 Getting Sitemap: It is a way to enroll the site to the search engine by sending them the
report and other related information to the website. As in the case of HMV, a report is
sent regarding the product that has to be delivered and in the region the services are
provided.
 Web Analytics: To find the effectiveness of the website and identify the success field
and work on the area that is lagging behind when analysis is done (Tiago and
Veríssimo, 2014). When the site mapping is completed HMV utilize web analysis that
helps them in identifying the regions in which improvements are needed and in which
lanes marketing is needed to pull more consumers.
 Content building and link Building: In order to drive the traffic towards the website’s
content and link building is utilized (Chen, et al., 2011). HMV sells high quality
goods and hence showcasing content that is relevant helps in better marketing. HMV
promotes blog advertisements which further helps in enhancing the traffic. Apart from

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this generating links among the pages that are independent assists in gaining higher
ranks in search engine optimization.
 Trust and community building: Before service expansion on online mediums and
enhancing the number of links, it is essential to be authorized and create trust to
explore the business worldwide.
 Getting ranked: Reaching for the marketing campaigns and bettering rank is
necessary. As attracting the traffic is directly associated with the ranking of website.
Steps undertaken for design and effective online display and video advertising
campaign
 Branding the objective to target consumers: Reaching to larger consumer range can be
achieved through online promotions. It is highly flexible approach as everyone surf
the internet, so it helps in conveying message to the bigger potential consumers
(Järvinen and Karjaluoto, 2015). HMV is trying to enhance the product’s sale by
providing special discounts so as to attract more consumers.
 Enlarging marketing funnel: Creating similar type of branding advertisements like the
rivals, assists in making the strategy for marketing in a better manner. In the same
way plans must be made to provide more benefits to the consumers as compared to
what is provided by the competitors.
 Design creativity: Advertisements are generally done for capturing the consumer’s
attention and hence it must be designed in an innovative way like taking the use of
pictures, videos and attractive tag lines. Advertisements must only have lesser words
but should depict the entire story (Järvinen, et al., 2012). This will help in driving
more potential consumers towards the ads.
 Selecting appropriate media source: Once the images, ads and videos are prepared it is
essential to publish these items on the famous media platform. Researches depicts that
users are most likely to click on the rich media ads.
 Measuring impact of ads: Metrics are utilized for checking if the online videos and
images are effective or not (Jayaram, Manrai and Manrai, 2015). In other words
metrics displays that these multimedia are giving some productive value or not. To
confirm how well the posters or banners are performing is done by checking the lead
accomplished by the banner. It is essential to measure as if the cost is not productive
several methodologies can be implemented by HMV.

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Ways in which HMV can target the audience through SEM
Several things are done by the HMV for attractive potential consumers towards it. First of all
cited firm checks that consumers can see the products on the online mediums because of its
flexibility of accessing. To make sure that HMV attracts larger consumers it depicts the
contents that supports brands. This can be done by showcasing all the books, music channels
and other products in a creative way (Wertime and Fenwick, 2011). As the consumers goes
on the appearance of the websites, HMV can develop a creative website to provide better
experience to its potential consumers. This company has a contract with Lynchpin that
monitors the HMV’s information as well as tracking the consumers online which helps in
determining the flow of traffic.
Ways in which content marketing can be used for attracting customers
To make sure that website consists of the contents that are best and will assist them in
getting real and long term consumers (Lamberton and Stephen, 2016). Appearance of the
website assists in getting customers easily. It also helps in making sure that website functions
in a best possible way by taking the use of maximum numbers of appropriate keywords.
Content is the crucial part for any marketing as it directly describes about the products and
services it has.
Laws and guidelines that need to be taken into account with regards to SEM.
At the time of choosing the keywords for the site, it must be noted that keywords must
not be translated. It is also to be taken care that site must use appropriate standards for
copyright so that its citation can also be seen in the search results (Leeflang, et al., 2014). A
larger part of the page cannot be a copyrighted content. It is also to be taken care that site is
free from any type of false or wrong data and keywords since it affect the content’s quality.
Apart from this site must be legally registered before being part of SEO.
Ways in which email marketing and social media marketing can be
used for HMV
Email and social media marketing has become the new form of doing marketing. This
is due to the fact that these two are the places where large number of consumers spends their
time.
Email marketing has transformed the ways of doing business especially it has benefitted the
smaller players in the industry. In email marketing company targets some kinds of consumers

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with the help of various criteria and sends them advertisement links or information regarding
their products. HMV also takes use of email marketing for offering some kinds of discounts
on the products so that customer gets to check the site and sale can be increased. It is also
used for having one to one conversation between company and its clients where consumers
can send their queries through feedback (Lieb, 2011). This type of marketing adds more value
to the internet marketing campaign as it is a direct form of marketing and almost attracts the
attention of the consumers towards the products of the company. It is an easier and cheaper
method of reaching to the larger numbers of clients at a single go. It also helps in solving the
problem related to segmenting the consumers. This is due to the fact that email has an option
of making the segment while putting minimum efforts. It also helps company in reaching to
the consumers that are present in any part of the world. It is one of the best tools for retaining
consumers as it is also a medium for communication and hence their queries can be easily
solved. Constant and timely reminders to the potential consumers with the use of email
marketing can help in attracting the consumers towards its offers. At the time a consumer is
online he or she will check the email once in a day where they can see the mails of their
choice. It’s the main line of the mail that attracts the consumers and hence the major line of
the emails must be highly appropriate and attractive.
Apart from this Social media marketing can be highly useful in the whole performance
(Wymbs, 2011). This is due to the fact that most of the consumers of the HMV are highly
active on the social media sites. This will help them in reaching to the larger base of the
consumers at the time when they are free. It is used by the cited firm to show their
promotional campaigns with the use of multimedia. The information about the new products
can be provided to the consumers. It is the fact that information travels at the social media
sites at very high speed. It is a cost effective approach as if the people like the advertisements
then they share the information to other people which will help in reaching to the maximum
possible consumers with the little efforts of the company. Social media platforms like
Whatsapp and Facebook are having billions of consumers and hence they are excellent place
to market any product of the company. Since most of the product of the HMV is related to the
youngsters and most of them are at highly active at social media sites hence company can
easily market their products to them. This helps in making sure that most of the people are
available at these sites and hence they can make sure that various kinds of products
advertisements can be shown to them in a very short period of time. This also helps in adding
new consumers to the base and helps in promoting to the consumers that are older. It is a

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good platform where companies can collect reviews and feedbacks about the products of the
company (Lemonstand, 2018).
Among the several internet marketing platforms that is present social media can be one of the
platforms for this purpose. It is highly beneficial for the firms that are facing higher
competition from bigger players in the market like HMV. As these sites provides easy access
to any consumer about the products of the company. Social media platforms can be used for
sharing various types of multimedia messages. These messages can be highly attractive and
can help companies in making their campaign more fruitful. It is also to be understood that
companies these days have taken the use of Social media sites for collecting the reviews from
the market. The likes and dislikes illustrate the popularity of any product that company aims
to market. This helps them in focusing on the products that are doing well and remove those
which are not performing in a better manner. Social media sites like Twitter helps the leaders
of the company to communicate with the market and their junior level workers about the
plans of the company.
It can not only be used for attracting new consumers but it also helps in engaging new ones.
This is due to the fact that most of the people are highly active at the social media sites and
company can promote their products and plans at these places. It will help them in talking to
the new customers about the products of the company and understand their demand. This also
helps in raising the standards of the marketing and as two way communication helps in
shaping the marketing plans accordingly. Social media pages play a very important role in
this regards. These pages are highly beneficial in terms of nurturing relationship with the
clients. These relationship helps them in increasing their market base.
It can also be used for optimum marketing and keeping the consumers stable. For making this
relationship more stable for longer run the tools like hash tags can be used by the company.
These hash tags helps company in increasing the number of view. The better the utilization of
has tags better is the chances that company gains popularity. This is the tool that a company
can use to promote their specific plan like their offers or any particular product. In the era of
digital business it is always difficult to bind the consumers towards the services and products
of the firm. The brand loyalty is becoming lower in trends. Hence company needs to make
innovation in its digital marketing campaign from time to time so as to continuously create
buzz in the market. This will also help in enhancing the reach of the company in the new
markets among the new customers.

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Utilization of website optimization techniques for improving the
website performance
It is essential for the company to find ways that can improve the performance of the
website. Once a website has been launched there are several things that help in improving the
performance of the website. Optimizing the speed of the website and gaining higher load
space will help in improving the performance (Clifton, 2012). HMV has some of the basic
pages that every consumer can visit. Keeping such pages in the caching section on the
browser helps the website to enhance the speed significantly. The time when the consumers
are looking for the products or searching for some television series on the website of HMV,
the total response time must be less. This helps in grabbing the attention of the users as well
as will help in longer stay of the consumers on the website. To solve this problem method of
compression can be utilized where large pages that takes more time to load is compressed
into smaller pages (Miller, 2011). This helps in enhancing the customer reach. It is justified
with the fact that consumers switch pages that takes longer time to load and hence reducing
the size of the pages is necessary. The best page is one that it has great quality content and
has the images that are compressed. Image compression technique is a best image
optimization technique and assists in reducing the load time.
In any business website plays a highly crucial role (Miller, 2012). This is because it website
depicts the impression of products and services the company offers. Managing the traffic of
the site is essential as it must not be affect the performance and speed. In order to take care of
the users experience speed must be maintained as speed is the major factor for running a good
website. It is true that the website those are faster in loading are very beneficial and gives
improved user engagement and have greater conversion rates that results in better SEO
ranking.
Apart from this a HMV can improve the performance of their website by the help of
controlling HTTP requests as higher number of requests may slower down the speed with
which the website opens. All the products must be categorized and put in a single file so that
round trip of searching can be reduced. At the time of developing the extra code must be
removed like spaces and comments that are not required (Neti, 2011). For the cited firm
which that is being used all day long must take use of the cloud for storing the data. The
major benefit of offloading a website and monitoring it on a cloud based host is that it
decreases the website’s cost and enhances the scalability and efficiency.

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Along with these external efforts it is crucial to keep an eye on which order products are
loaded. If the products are loaded in appropriate sequence then it will decrease the response
time and upgrades the performance of the site. As in the HMV site most of the users are those
who download music files and series and hence it is crucial to reduce the download size.
Other method for this is using Content Delivery Network which is a network of servers that is
located at distinct geographical locations (Odden, 2012). Each of the server stores the
duplicate of files present on the site. When a user request a file on the website the file is
searched on the nearest server and is delivered from the nearest server so that user experience
lightest load at the time. In the case of HMV products copies are saved in the nearest server
so that whenever consumers listen to the latest libraries it could be fetched from nearest
servers. This kind of setup is utilized for having a significant impact on the overall page’s
performance.
Increasing the website performance can be done by reducing the resources by the means of
eliminating redundant characters from HTML code and CSS file is not required. This speed
up the load time because it minimizes the total volume of space occupied by code that
requires being bided from the server continuously.
Apart from this it is crucial to optimize the database. Eliminating the old products that are of
no use now or eliminating old tables that do not contain the relevant data. In the case of HMV
there are few products or music libraries that is not available now or the products are out of
stock. Cleaning out the old unused indexes is crucial for faster access.
Measuring the success of HMV’s digital strategy using analytics
It is crucial for the HMV to understand that the success of HMV’s digital strategy
with the use of analytics (TechMagnate, 2017). It can be done by measuring the success of
HMV’s digital strategy.
 Metrics: Cited firm takes use of traffic metrics to track the actual flow of traffic. This
is done for understanding the consumers that are coming in the businesses. The reason
of these metrics assists in measuring traffic on the website (Panda, 2013). This helps
in focusing on how many unique users the site per week or per day. It assists cited
firm in doing marketing in the regions from where the traffic is driven to the
site.Apart from this conversion metrics are also utilized by HMV to measure how