Digital Marketing Plan: Analysis for Argos Ltd (Module X)

This report provides a comprehensive digital marketing plan, focusing on Argos Ltd. It begins with an overview of the digital marketing landscape, contrasting online and offline marketing concepts, and analyzes key consumer trends that are fueling the growth of digital marketing. The report then delves into the digital hardware and tools available to marketers, the development of e-commerce and digital marketing platforms, and compares them to physical channels. A detailed digital marketing plan is presented, including the evolution of omnichannel marketing, and it concludes with a discussion of measurement techniques and performance metrics, alongside actions to improve digital marketing effectiveness. The report covers essential aspects of digital marketing strategy including consumer behavior, platform comparisons, and performance evaluation.

Digital Marketing Plan

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
L0 1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Overview of digital marketing landscape and comparing offline and online marketing
concepts........................................................................................................................................3
P 2 Analysis of key consumer trends and insights that are fuelling the growth of digital
marketing.....................................................................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P 3 Key digital hardware's and tools that are available to marketers .........................................6
P 4 Development of e-commerce and digital marketing platforms and channels in comparison
to physical channels.....................................................................................................................7
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................8
P 5 Digital marketing plan...........................................................................................................8
P6 How Omni channel marketing has evolved..........................................................................10
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................11
P7 Determining and evaluation of measurement techniques and performance metrics............11
P 8 Actions to improve performance in digital marketing.........................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing may be defined as the process of marketing of goods and services by
using various digital technologies which mainly consists of internet, but it also includes display
advertising, mobile phone and other digital medium. With the help of digital marketing a
company can target a specific segment of customer base and is very interactive. Within recent
years digital marketing has grown and has become more popular and has proven beneficial for
the organisations (Price, 2018). Digital marketing has provided huge opportunities for the
companies to make great influence on the customers and reach to vast audience with just a single
click. Digital marketers uses multiple channels like SEO, content marketing, influencer
marketing, online advertising etc in order to help their brands to get connected with their
customers (Scheinbaum, 2016). In this report Argos Ltd is taken as an organisation, which is a
British catalogue retailers and is a subsidiary of Sainsbury operating in Ireland and United
Kingdom. Present report discusses about digital marketing, the challenges, opportunities and
impact of digital environment. It also includes the tools, channels, platforms and comparing and
contrasting different channels of digital marketing. This report also includes organising various
digital marketing activities and also the methods of monitoring and measuring digital marketing
effectively.
L0 1
P1 Overview of digital marketing landscape and comparing offline and online marketing
concepts
Digital marketing refers to any form of marketing of products and services which
involves the use of electronic devices. Digital marketing is much more than email, social media
and website but also encompasses on the mobile optimisation, content publications and data
analytics. Modern customers spends lots of time online and keep on using different digital
platforms and even has got various choices related to products and services. Now with the help
of digital technologies Argos Ltd can now personalise their marketing efforts and can target their
customers with more precision. Also, it can provide cross channel as well as continuous personal
experience to customers (Kerin and Hartley, 2015). Argos Ltd can use different digital
technologies in order to carry out their marketing activities. Digital marketing also come with
various tools which can help the company to attract their customers in the most influencing way.
Digital marketing has become one of the best marketing strategies for attracting modern

customers across the world. For developing the digital marketing strategy a company should be
able to understand evolving state of digital media and advertising which is due to continuous
evolving nature of digital marketing landscape. It may include influencer marketing, social
media marketing, pay per clicks, search engine optimisation, ,search engine marketing, email
marketing etc. Digital landscape helps Argos Ltd to identify direct and indirect competitors at the
same time but at present digital landscape has become more complex and it equally important
for the company to identify competitors digital marketing strategies and try to develop the best
marketing strategy to attract potential customers. Argos Ltd has to select the appropriate media
channels (Das and Lall, 2016). Digital landscape is evolving as there is introduction of new
platforms, data sources, tools as well as media consumption devices which may include mobile
phones and tablets. So, it is important for Argos Ltd to choose the appropriate platforms for
marketing their products digitally.
Offline marketing can be defined as advertising strategy which is published and released
entirely out side the internet and this strategy can be used by the company over a multitude of
different media. Such advertising may include radio, banners, door to door marketing, print
media etc (Skender Lionel and Tuan, 2011). It is the process of creating brand awareness and
reaching the target audience and increasing the sales of company's products without any
involvement of internet. Online marketing which is also known as digital marketing, it is
marketing strategy which is used by organisations in order to attract modern customers. It also
includes utilisation of internet to deliver the promotions and advertise their products or services
in order to attract customers. The process of online marketing involves utilisation of email
campaigns, web content, video marketing and even augmented and virtual reality for driving the
direct sales to e-commerce.
P 2 Analysis of key consumer trends and insights that are fuelling the growth of digital
marketing
Importance of customer understanding and insight in development of effective digital
marketing activities
It is extremely important for organizations to understand their customers before making a
marketing strategy. It does not mean to understand the needs of the customers but it also means
to understand the reason behind their behaviour, their expectations and their perception towards
the product or service provided by the customers (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). Changing

market and fashion trends is one of the main factor which is changing customers perception
towards the product or service offered by the companies. This changing customer trend is
fuelling digital marking activities growth. Social media platforms are becoming one of the main
way through which businesses can understand and interact with their customers. Organizations
can easily analyse their customers insight and based on this they can develop an effective digital
marking strategy as it helps the organizations in growth of digital marketing. Like Sainsbury
Argos are changing their marketing strategies and are focusing on digital marketing of their
products. They are focusing of social media networking sites and are using various other digital
platforms for digital marketing.
Impacts and challenges of digital marketing
Today many organizations are focusing on customers and their experiences towards the
brand and its products or services. Instead of focusing towards the price of the products, they are
focusing towards the value that their customers will get within that price (Chaffey and Smith,
2017). It is impacting the digital marketing of the products or services and today companies like
Sainsbury Argos need to change their digital marketing strategies and focus from brand and
suppliers to customers and their expectations and experience of the brand.
Negative publicity of the brand is also changing customers expectations and perspective
of the brand today. This is impacting the digital marketing of the services and products that is
done by the customers. As they need to build their digital marketing strategy in such a way that
their negative publicity can be reduced and customers expectations and experience of the brand
is not hampered.
There are various devices, websites, applications that are used by the customers to search
and get in touch with the brand and its products. This is one of the main challenge for the
organizations to track and monitor the devices and applications used by the customers. As it
affects their digital marketing because if social networking sites are the platform that is used by
the customers the most they will focus on social media networking. If the organizations will not
be able to track and monitor the devices used by the customers then they will not be able to
develop their digital marketing strategy.
Another challenge for organizations like Sainsbury Argos is their increasing competitive
environment as it is changing the insight and understanding of customers of the brand which
eventually affects the digital marketing of the company.

LO 2
P 3 Key digital hardware's and tools that are available to marketers
There are various kinds of digital marketing tools or hardware's that can be used for
digital marketing of an organization, such as: Email digital marketing is one of the most common
digital tool that can be used by the marketers for digital marketing of their company. Email
marketing also helps in building the physical presence of their company. This also helps the
companies to getting in touch with their customers and make them aware about their products
and services. Social media marketing is another digital marketing tool which helps the marketers
to do digital marketing and get in touch with their customers (Ryan, 2016). There are various
kinds of social media websites that helps in digital marketing such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and many more. Digital campaigns is another form of digital marketing where
analytics can be done i.e. customers acquisition and retention can be measured which helps in
increasing the customer based by getting in touch with the customers and also helps in
understand customers insight, views about the brand in a better way.
These digital marketing platforms or tools plays a vital role in building communication
between brand and customers in many ways which can be explained with the help of marketing
mix 7 P's:
Product/Service: Digital marketing tools like social media, websites, emails which helps in
getting in touch with the customers.
Price: Based on Software as a service model which focuses on customer base, number of online
users or buyers.
Place: All the digital tools or hardware's that can be accessed by the customers.
Promotion: Advertising done by the companies on social media platforms, blogs and many more.
Physical evidence: Constant branding by building communication with customers
people: People using online services or platforms
Partners: Collaboration with other digitalized companies like Facebook, Google Plus and many
more.
Today these digital platforms are used by the costumers more frequently. These tools and
platforms not only helps the organizations to get in touch with their customers, understand their
requirements, their perception and understand of the brand but it also helps in getting in touch
with the suppliers, vendors and many more. It also helps the organization to decrease their

marketing cost as digital marketing helps in getting in touch with large number of customers
which eventually helps them in increasing their customers base and becomes one of the main
source of revenue generation and increasing profit base of the organizations.
P 4 Development of e-commerce and digital marketing platforms and channels in comparison to
physical channels
Development of e-commerce and digital marketing channels and platforms is increasing
continuously as compared to physical channels. Due to this development Consumer life cycle is
also getting changes as customers are slowly adopting this digital technology.
Consumer life cycle stages according to digital technology adoption are:
Awareness and engagement: Digital platforms or tools helps the customers to generate awareness
about the brand, its products and services. They build an image, perception and understanding
about the brand based on recommendation or customers review provided on the digital platforms
(Alalwan and et.al., 2017). This awareness helps the customers to engage themselves with the
brand and pay attention to the product and services provided by them.
Evaluation: With the help of these digital platforms and technologies customers go through a
survey and does some research and compare or evaluate the products or services provided by the
organization with other substitute available.
Purchase: Based on the evaluation done digitally customers will focus on purchasing the product
or service provided by the organization.
Loyalty and experience: Customers loyalty towards the brand completely depends upon their
experience that they have from the services or products that they buy or get digitally.
With the increasing use of digital technology and platforms like websites, social media
sites online transactions and e-commerce is increasing continuously as it is one of the most
convenient way of getting in touch with the brand, understanding the products or services
provided by them, getting brand reviews from other customers online. Not only this, customers
can easily compare two products through e-commerce websites or applications and buy a product
by doing online transactions. Online transactions is one of the easiest way of buying a service or
product online sitting at a single place. This has decreased the value and presence of physical
channels.
Nowadays due to this increasing transformation and usage of digital technologies sales
done by the organizations is shifting from non-automated to automated sales and support

activities. As in non-automated sales and support activities involves complete manual work like
paper work, documentation and many more which are done manually. Automates support and
sales activities helps the organization in understanding their potential customers easily, acquire
customers information, easy automated editing and creation of documents, helps in automating
sales and advertising of products and services and provide post sales services in an easy manner
as well.
This way development of e-commerce and digital marketing platform is increasing and is
being used by the customers more frequently as compared to physical channels like retail stores.
Range of products or services available on physical channels is much less as compared to digital
or e-commerce platforms. Payment, booking and many other services are much easier for the
costumers as compared to the physical channel. So, the development of digital marketing
platforms and e-commerce is increasing continuously as compared to physical channels.
LO 3
P 5 Digital marketing plan
Following are the opportunities of for Argos Ltd in using digital hardware landscape as
digital hardware can be used for different applications by simply changing the programs without
additional changes in the hardware. It can result in reduction of cost for advertisements by using
the digital components which can prove beneficial for the company. Digital hardware
landscaping can help the company in influencing and attracting the people in an effective manner
which can increase the sale of products and services of the company. There are also some
challenges which digital hardware landscaping brings to the company for example Argos Ltd
need to develop their hardware systems in order to keep them up to date and also software up
gradations may cost to the company of continuous basis. Also, digital marketing should know
how to use these digital hardware systems and also should keep developing its skills and
knowledge in order to develop a best marketing campaigns digitally (Sarah, C., 2019). Digital
hardware landscape system also requires the high cost of maintenance which will cost regularly
to the company.
Argos Ltd in order develop multichannel marketing plat, company can make use of
various digital platforms in order to markets it catalogue online a company should develop a
proper strategy for developing multichannel platforms which includes:

Focusing on customer: Argos Ltd should develop a single customer view, most effective
multichannel marketing platform will enable the marketers to collect information or data from
the digital channels and should attribute offline data to the individuals customer profiles.
Cross channel engagement: Multichannel marketing platforms should be done for more than
enable experiences on various channels and also it must allow company's marketers to create
fully contiguous and connected customers experience across multiple channels.
Commerce platform integrations: Argos Ltd should integrate with e-commerce platforms
which will be critical for the success of using a multiple channel marketing platforms.
Ease of use: Multichannel platforms should be such that it should not increase the workload of
the company's marketers (Williamson, 2016). Company should design a multichannel platform
in such a way that it should be easy for any marketers to use and also to incorporate automatic
personalisation so that each marketing message is felt unique and different to particular
customer.
Following is the strategy for developing a successful planning of digital marketing
campaign of Argos Ltd:
Defining the goals: Goal of company's digital marketing is to attract the potential customers and
increase the sale of Catalogues.
Target market: For this marketing campaign the target market will be entire population of UK.
Budget: A total estimated for developing a marketing campaign will cost approximately €5000
as it is the cheapest form of advertisement.
Choosing the channels: Argos Ltd will use various marketing channels for its marketing
campaigns like Social media, internet, E-mail marketing and company's website.
Keyword research for SEO and PPC: Company can use keywords for its marketing campaigns
on running Google ads which a user can type into search engine.
Setup Ads on social media platforms and e-mail marketing strategy: Once a goal and
research is complete marketers can jump into social media advertising. Company can post their
ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter as these are the most popular social
networking sites used across UK. Also, company can use social media to collect e-mails and can
post offers, information etc related to products and services.
Managing social media profiles: It is not only posting ads on social media but also company
should monitor and manage their accounts.

Crafting a blogging strategy: It is the critical part of digital marketing campaign and can prove
game changer as it can help out the company's SEO to increase customer engagement and help to
answer the questions which customers have.
P6 How Omni channel marketing has evolved
Evolution in digital age has been creating the new ways for consumers to purchase from
numerous businesses, over the years digital technology has rapidly evolved and also the
purchasing process of customers has evolved too. Most of people today tend to use internet to
make purchase decisions and has also enabled customers to purchase online. This led marketers
to re-think different strategies of marketing and sales, which has forced companies to dabble into
something new called Omni channel marketing, This is a strategy through which Argos Ltd can
provide seamless selling experience to their customers across multiple channels. Omni channel
marketing is one of the fastest growing concepts for retailers and consumers. This concept was
introduced in 2010 and this term was coined to describe the shopping experience for the
customers which extends beyond multi channel retailing (Teixeira and et.al., 2017). With the
introduction of omni channel marketing there was 15 to 35 percent rise in the average transaction
size and also there was increase in 5 to 10 percent increase in loyalty customer's profitability.
Despite of its introduction years ago omni channel marketing did not receive too much attention
till 2013, and in this year it became buzzword for all customer and marketers. Popularity in omni
channel marketing was due to increase in smartphones as shoppers with smartphones use their
device to research competitive pricing than using a laptop at home or going to shops for choosing
a cheaper option. With the rise in the sale of smartphones it has overshadowed traditional
marketing which allowed retailers to implement omni channel marketing practices. In last few
years this concept has further evolved as in 2014, a marketing land which is called omni channel
has become very important for retailers as it has been argued that omni channel has become the
central force for shaping the e-commerce and brick and motor stores. Omni channel marketing is
likely to remain relevant for the years to come as it has been predicted mobile commerce will
grow up to 33 percent per year for next 3 years as its growth will be boosted by rise in
smartphones usage and sales. Also, it is expected that there will be 89 percent rise in retailers
that will integrate the mobile technology. So, it will become essential for retailers due to its
positive evolution and advancement in digital technologies.

LO 4
P7 Determining and evaluation of measurement techniques and performance metrics
Measuring the performance of digital marketing campaign is very important for Argos
Ltd in order to evaluate the success of the marketing campaign. It can measure the performance
in following ways:
Digital marketing KPIs: It is quantifiable goals which can help company to track and measure
the success of digital marketing campaign. It is the best way for digital marketers to set
expectations and can check that their work has positive impact. Argos Ltd can measure
quantifiable metrics which align with the goals of the company, it can be sales reports or leads
(Kotler, Kartajaya and Hooi, 2019). Company's sales report can be the best for measuring the
performance of marketing campaigns, marketers can check increase in percentage of sales after
the marketing campaign. Another KPI is leading indicators, it can be used by economists of the
organisation which give them indication of which way an economy is heading.
Traffic Sessions: Marketers can check the traffic sessions of their websites, checking the
number of visitors per month and can also check the increase in number visitors.
Leads from web forms: Company can develop a website which has request services which a
customers can use, schedule appointments or get more information. Argos Ltd can also make
use of google analytics by which marketers can see their marketing campaign results.
Lead from live chats: Company can also measure the performance by leads generated from the
live chats. It can be done by using built in track within company's chat program or by using
integrated Google Analytics within the chat tool.
Website behaviour: Argos Ltd can measure the performance of their marketing campaign by
analysing the behaviour of website. It can check number of website visits, page views per visit,
time spent on website and bounce rate.
Argos Ltd can also measure the performance of their marketing campaign by using online
metric which includes following:
1. Engagement of each video: It is the best way for measuring the performance, as video
engagement metric will demonstrate exactly how long viewer has stayed and turned towards the
company's video. Normally it is measured in the percentage of video viewed and also marketers
can access the average engagement of the video which will show how many viewers have
watched the ad.

2. Rate of Play: Viewer before playing the company's video he/she needs to click on video in the
first place. In order to understand how many people are engaged with the campaign, rate of play
is vital metric to track.
3. View count: It is also the best and easiest way to measure the performance of marketing,
campaign total view count of the campaign can demonstrate how many times have watched the
ads of the company.
4. Click trough: As per the final goal of specific video of marketing campaign, click through
rate can be critical metric to track. If the goal of the company is to increase its website views or
to get customer clicks it is important for the organisation that it click through rate is very high.
5. Sharing on social media channels: It is also the best way of measuring the performance of
marketing campaign by checking the number of shares (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017).
High quality marketing campaign developed by Argos Ltd can be measure by tracking the social
media shares. Social media sharing can demonstrate the performance by tracking how many
shares a video content is getting from the viewers.
6. Video conversion rates: Conversion rate of company's video can demonstrate the number of
leads or prospects or customers were generated by the marketing campaign.
P 8 Actions to improve performance in digital marketing
Argos Ltd can take number of actions in order to improve their digital marketing some of
them are mentioned below:
Skill up marketing team: Argos Ltd can increase the skills of its marketing team which can
help in developing an effective marketing campaign in the future. By enhancing the skills of
marketing team company can overcome its shortcoming of their marketing campaign.
Focus on conversion, not on leads: Company marketing campaign should be such that it should
influence the decisions and actions of marketers in such way that it should push customers
decision towards the company's purchases.
Set the stage for long term: Marketing campaign should be such that it should bring long term
win for the company while making the strategic decisions. It should solve the long term
problems of the company.
Creating the ultimate buying journey: Digital marketing team of the Argos Ltd can create
ultimate buying journey for their customers which also means optimising their mobile and
online shopping experience.