University Digital Marketing Strategy Report: Yelp Case Study Analysis

This report presents a comprehensive digital marketing strategy for Yelp, encompassing a detailed digital marketing audit, a strategic marketing approach, and a practical marketing plan. The audit section provides a background of Yelp, founded in 2004, highlighting its evolution as a crowd-sourced review platform, its business model, and its expansion. A SWOT analysis evaluates Yelp's strengths, such as its large user base and peer-driven content, and weaknesses, like limited advertising budget and the impact of negative reviews. The report then analyzes Yelp's competitors, Facebook and Google, assessing their social media strategies. It identifies key customer groups and develops personas for Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman. A customer journey flowchart illustrates the customer experience. The strategy section includes a digital marketing plan, outlining objectives, target audience, and key performance indicators (KPIs). The report suggests strategies to enhance Yelp's social media presence, improve customer engagement, and increase revenue. The marketing plan details specific tactics, including content marketing, SEO, and paid advertising, with a focus on data-driven decision-making to achieve digital marketing goals.

Digital marketing strategy for
yelp

Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Digital Marketing Audit.........................................................................................................1
Digital Marketing Strategy.....................................................................................................7
Digital Marketing Plan.........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing strategy is the plan that is developed by the company to achieve the
better success and more development while achieving the digital goals by selecting the
appropriate marketing platform as like paid, earned and the owned media. As in today’s scenario
the businesses will more shifted towards the digitalisation and the people also get used the digital
platform more as at there it is easier to make the string interaction with the customers and also
save the time period as well (Albee, 2018). It is the approach through which the companies will
make different strategy to gain the better knowledge of the entire different factor from where
they have performed marketing through digital platforms. This report is based on Yelp that is the
public company and develops and most the market from their website Yelp.com and publishes
the crowd sourced reviews about the different businesses. They have also operated online
reservation and that is called Yelp Reservations. This report includes the digital marketing audit,
marketing strategy and the marketing plan that helps to make effective outcomes.
MAIN BODY
Digital Marketing Audit
Background to the organisation
Yelp is the company that is founded in the year 2004 and its founder is Russel Simmons
and Jeremy Stoppelman and they are the former employees of PayPal. It is the business that is
grew up by collecting the funds from the many year and in 2010 they had collect the revenue of
$30 million and having the 4.5 million crowd-sourced reviews from their websites. It is the local
businesses that review the social networking and have submit the review of products and service
as like restaurants and schools (Armstrong, 2018). They have also updated the information about
the hours and special deals with 141 million monthly unique visitors and 148 million reviews.
They have expended the business in the Asia and Europe and have potential acquisition with the
Google. In the 2019 they have generate the quarterly regular of 61.8 million from desktop user
and 76.7 million users via mobile website. The company must have use the unfair practice to
generate more revenue as they have provide the adequate information and present the negative
review as per the possibilities and provide all prominent details and the services. They have got
the complaints of the misleading tactics by some sales representatives. Sometime some fake
users spread false news to promote the negative image of the company and that is called as the
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astroturfing. They have been rated as the 3 stars with 78% views in 2106 they have introduce the
mobile device and the iPhone app was came in existence in December 2008. The user of Yelp
must have made the reservation of the restaurant and it is the feature that is added in the year
2010 and it is done through SeatMe that is acquired by Yelp in 2013. There content was linked
with the "virtual assistant" or Apple's Siri and it is released by iOS 6 that is the computer
operating system (Aswani, 2018).
SWOT on the organisation’s current use of social media
Swot analysis will get defines the different strength and the weaknesses that will have the
major impact on the yelp (Yelp Inc SWOT Analysis, 2018). As they have use the social
networking site to post the review and rate the company of the basis of their performance and
share that information through the social site as Yelp.com and thus there are some strength and
weakness that is as defined below as:
Strength  The major strength of Yelp is that they have expand their business more
and with that have the 100 million monthly users that have the diverse
the network by which they have gain much more profit.
 As their social networking site will get operate by the users as well and
they will also present their reviews and rating and they also generate the
content as well (Bala, 2018).
 The cost to get operate their social site is very less thus it is easy for the
customer to get reach to their site and mark their reviews.
 The local reviews also get aligned in the social networking site by which
not only they can make the review the local people also did that.
 They have maintained the mechanism that is more peer and with that it is
easy to get understood by the people.
 These networks will get integrated with the mobile devices as well and
with that have the placement of the popular review that helped the
customers while selecting the services and product of some company.
Weaknesses  They have some customer and they have the fewer amounts for the
budget to perform the advertisement and thus their revenue model get
distracted by which the attraction get decreases.
 Some of the legitimate reviews was generated that get judged by the filter
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but have negative impact in the market and on customer if the negative
reviews will presented if the company has more potential.
 The switching cost is more less thus the customer will make the easy
switch to the other sites as like Google or Facebook and prefer their ads.
Opportunity  The social networking platform has been more developed and people also
get attract towards the social sites thus it is an opportunity for the Yelp to
measure more success.
 It is a platform that will get more in used by all the people and everyone
must reviewed the rating before selecting the products and services that is
more helpful for the business (Chaffey, 2019).
Threat  The issue that is related to the privacy will get more affected and thus it
is difficult for the business to maintain the security as they are dealing
with the networking services.
 The Google and Facebook are the biggest competitors and have
following all across the world and to give fight to these business giant is
always be a threat.
Evaluation of two competitors using social media.
The two competitors of Yelp are Facebook and Google and thus there are some strength
and weaknesses while using the social media and that is as defined below as:
Strength: It is the factor due to which they have provide more easy and have supportive
to the business as Yelp have worked with three sides as like local business, content creators and
the users. From the local business they have promote the advertisement to develop more revenue
and have managed the simple transaction (Yelp vs. Google vs. Facebook Reviews: which should
you focus on and why? 2019). A user is the local business seekers and discovers as well as
satisfies the basic need of the customer and act as browser that provide all relative information.
Active reviewers are those that have actively take part in to share their experiences at it are the
biggest strength of the business (De Pelsmacker, 2018). On the other hand their competitors as
like Facebook and Google have provide the relative information but didn’t allow the local user to
write their review for that they have acquire with small business.
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Weaknesses: Yelp is being more active on the social media and they have continuously gaining
the newer heights in their business and their users get attract a lot towards their services. They
have even more potential to rise the business but somehow the brand value and market image of
Facebook and Google are quite more thus customer have more belief in their services and get
first search at their. In addition to this there are a billion of followers of Facebook and Google
and people have faith their services thus easily get connect with them while Yelp didn’t have that
much popularity although they have been known in Europe and Asia but didn’t include the
world. They have more attracted presentation thus people get connect with them with more
easiness and have large connectivity as well and for Yelp they have take a lot of time to get
achieved that much success (de Ruyter, 2018).
Identification of two key customer groups and development of personas
Russel Simmons
Profile: He is an American entrepreneur, film producer,
writer and record executive and He co-founded Yelp,
Inc, lead software architect
Personal background
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Education: Graduate in 1998 with Bachelor of science
in Computer science
Status: Married
Location: Queens, New York, US
Occupation: Businessman, entrepreneur, film producer,
writer
Net worth: $340 million
Psychographics
Interest He is always having interest to perform
multiple tasks and with that he has also that zeal and is
self motivated thus become an entrepreneur and
executive.
What influence him: He has been accused of serious
sexual misconduct and assault and he had shifted to Bali
and from there have start doing multiple roles as writer
to producer to owner and many more.
Organisation information
Name: Yelp plc
Industry: Private industry
Employee:6030
Goals: He has worked with the idea that turn him to an
entrepreneur and he always looks forward and try to get
achieve more success and imply all his effort to achieve
that.
Challenge: HE has been accused of sexual misconduct
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and his family background is also very simple and from
there, he has done his education and the zeal to get more
success takes him on heights.
Jeremy Stoppelman
Profile: He is an American business executive and a
CEO of Yelp that is co-founded in 2004. He has been
working as for @home Network and later become VP of
engineering and that is renamed as PayPal.
Personal background
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Education: Bachelor's degree in computer engineering
Living:
Status:
Location:
Occupation:
Psychographics:
Interest: He has always get interest towards the
engineering and thus with that also get related to the
venture and become an entrepreneur.
What influence him: At the time of summer internship
at MRL ventures he get the idea of Yelp and after
getting offered from the acquisition of Google in the
2012.
Organisation information
Name: Jeremy Stoppelman
Industry:Yelp
Employee: 6030
Goals: He has been working for @home Networks and
accept the engineer position as well and later on that will
transfer as PayPal.
Challenge: To get start the new business they must het
work with more zeal and passion by which he
has changed himself and work with more
compassion to get over from different well
known site as TripAdvisor, Google and many
other too.
Customer journey flowchart or graphic.
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It is the chart that provides the more support to the Yelp as by that they have been known
about the different need and demand of the customers and also helps to make better interaction
with the customers (Heinze, 2020) .
Figure 1https://www.textrequest.com/blog/customer-journey-maps/
 First the data will get collect from the customer and prospects by which the Yelp get
more information related to the different need of the customer and then provide more
adequate result.
 Define persona and goals as Yelp get work with social networking services this it is more
needed to set the achievable outcome thus it helps to gain higher successes with more
comfort.
 Define stages of customer journey in which the Yelp will get collect the relative
information and then try to produce more better services from which customer get attract
with more easiness (Karaağaoğlu, 2019).
 Add the customer action, emotions and thinking as to provide extreme services to them
with more affordability is the only focus what the company have and thus have worked
while considering the norm of customers.
 Define key highlights helps to segment the services as the users also mark their review
and with that it has create more complex that the review are adequate or not thus they
must high light the proportion.
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 Make improvements is more important by which customer always get something new and
innovative.
 Prioritise and execute changes on timely basis by which customer get the point to get
connect with the company for longer period of time.
Digital Marketing Strategy
TOWS matrix.
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Components Opportunities Threats
 conniving new
marketing campaigns
elevated level of competition
 Expansion in different
countries
 Growth of online social
networking services
Lack of purchaser engagement
Entrepreneur becomes independent
due to the excess usage of
technology.
More people are not aware about
the legalities related to social
crime.
Strengths SO
(Maxi – Maxi)
 Act as the
spokesperson of online
networking services.
 Have engage with
Google thus has more
productivity
 Have strong
communication with
the customers.
ST
(Maxi – Mini)
 They have create more
values in the market and
that engage more
development
 enormous market share
 resolute with innovation
 Have acquisition with the
Facebook.
 Have strong market
engagement
Weaknesses WO
(Mini – Maxi )
 Make more
engagement with the
customers
 Have uses the
streamlines brand to
promote marketing
WT
(Mini - Mini)
 Develop technology on
random basis
 The promotion of data
security and safety is must
 Have less incentives
 The participation of
viewers will not restricted
thus negative image will
get created
 Restricted global presence
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Recommended digital marketing strategy based on the audit and TOWS.
The digital marketing strategies are more important and have helps to make effective
outcomes within the timely manner by which more sales and better revenue get collected by the
Yelp (Kingsnorth, 2019).
Hierarchy of objectives: As per the TOWS analysis and the marketing audit it has been
analyzed some of strategic options that is more useful for the company. The two marketing
objectives have been developed and that helps to make sufficient change with more accuracy and
better precision. The hierarchical objectives have been used to sort the wider range of offers and
to meet the need and requirements of the customers with more successful manner. It has been
include several steps as like on top the strategy objectives get developed the strategy will get
followed and last to achieve the objectives.
Digital marketing objectives: There are some of the objectives that is set to create the
higher sales and in parallel to that the brand image will also get stronger.
Objective 1: To develop the 20% more visitors after the period of 5 months.
It has been find it out from the marketing audit and the TOWS analysis that Yelp must
get induce the different up-gradation in the different networking services and spread the business
in the ASIA as well by which the range of customer will get developed even more. As they have
provided the appropriate views by which the customer get more in contact with the relevant
services and make better use.
Objective 2: To increase customer base by 30% in upcoming 6 months.
The Yelp has tried more to get linked or engaged with the customers and thus they have
induced more innovation and creative by which the people will get connect with them with more
satisfactoriness (Saura, 2019). They have faced the continuous growth and have positive review
by the customer that helps to generate more sales and strong connectivity with the larger number
of customers.
SMART objectives
These are the objectives that help to make the better change within the business
environment and thus they get developed sales with more effectiveness and that are as defined
below as:
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Specific: In that the Yelp has made the objective that is more specific and with that they
have developed the sales ratio with 30% that improvised the image of the company.
Measurable: It is the change that is more measured and thus Yelp set the standard and
for that they have provide the appropriate way to developed effective evaluation. Thus they have
worked with the target of develop profit with 25% within 3 months.
Attainable: It includes the objective that is more specified and gets achieved in timely
manner by which the target gets attained with more perfection. The scope of Yelp is to make
relevant change by making more creativenesses (Yeow, 2018).
Relevant: The Yelp get provide more indulge by which their services get developed and
enhanced by which customer get more relatedness and uses the site as much as they can.
Time based-In this the Yelp get define the adequate goals by which they have gained the
better outcomes and thus with that attains the target within the 4 months.
Digital Marketing Plan
Consideration of metrics and resources required, including staffing and a budget
9Ms frameworks: It is the frameworks that get used while planning the resources and act
as the internal planning that get used to make effective outcomes in timely manner that is as
defined as:
Manpower: It defines the people that are required within the Yelp to get performed the
task with more success.
Money: It includes the budget that get used to accomplish the certain project and in that
£15197.91 cost will get used.
Material: Yelp need the software and other material as like machinery, office, computer
system through which the employee performed their work.
Management: These are those who are the senior authority and managed the overall task
with more efficiency and to generate better profit.
Minutes: It includes the time frame that is required to get attain the better outcomes and
thus they need the 4 month time period (Yoga, 2019).
Measurement: In that KPI has been measure the standardise output by which the
performance and the working standard will get developed.
Method: Yelp has been used the different approaches to get used the different source
with more perfection
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Machines: The Yelp has needed the computers and other equipment by which the work
will get performed in effective manner.
Mother Nature: It has included the environmental factor that is needed to get performed
the task as it is not in hand of the business but they have worked with accordingly.
Tactical plan
It includes the plan that will get developed my making appropriate techniques and with
that they could attain more profit by influence the customer thus more sales get developed.
Price The Yelp will provide the service with more affordable price and with that it is easier to get excess
their networking services. They have provide the free business for the basic level and have paid
option as well if the customer wants to know about more features.
Product The Yelp have provided the social networking services in that the customer could also rate the
business and present their review with that they themselves also provide relative reviews that
makes more easy excess for customer as they use the services from the mobile devices as well.
Place They have provide the online services thus have worked on online platform only with that have
provide range to the customer in which they have the rating of all the products and services.
Promotion Yelp have promote their services as on pay per click and promote their services from desktop,
mobile website and from the mobile app as well by which it is easy for the customer to get
connect with them.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above digital marketing is the advancement approach that
is used by the company and for that they must have indulge some different strategy and tactic by
which they have make effective communication and better interaction with the customers. The
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social media has been more developed and used to make valuable connection with the people
that are not in the reach as well within the less time. The marketing plan has been development
to get more relevant information about the different medium by which more sufficient outcome
will get collected with the SMART objectives that helps to attain better outcomes in timely
manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albee, A., 2018. Digital relevance: developing marketing content and strategies that drive
results. Springer.
Armstrong, G.M. and et. al., 2018. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson UK.
Aswani, R. and et. al., 2018. Search engine marketing is not all gold: Insights from Twitter and
SEOClerks. International Journal of Information Management, 38(1), pp.107-116.
Bala, M. and Verma, D., 2018. A critical review of digital marketing. International Journal of
Management, IT and Engineering, 8(10), pp.321-339.
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
De Pelsmacker, P. and et. al., 2018. Digital marketing strategies, online reviews and hotel
performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 72, pp.47-55.
de Ruyter, K. and et. al., 2018. When nothing is what it seems: A digital marketing research
agenda. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 26(3), pp.199-203.
Heinze, A. and et. al., 2020. Digital and social media marketing: a results-driven approach.
Routledge.
Karaağaoğlu, N. and Çiçek, M., 2019. An evaluation of digital marketing applications in airline
sector. Journal of Human Sciences, 16(2), pp.606-619.
Kingsnorth, S., 2019. Digital marketing strategy: an integrated approach to online marketing.
Kogan Page Publishers.
Saura, J.R. and et. al., 2019. Digital marketing strategies based on the e-business model:
Literature review and future directions. In Organizational Transformation and
Managing Innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (pp. 86-103). IGI Global.
Yeow, A., Soh, C. and Hansen, R., 2018. Aligning with new digital strategy: A dynamic
capabilities approach. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 27(1), pp.43-58.
Yoga, I.M.S. and et. al., 2019. Information technology adoption on digital marketing
communication channel. International journal of social sciences and humanities, 3(2),
pp.95-104.
ONLINE
How to Use Customer Journey Maps to Grow Your Business, 2018. [Online] Available through:
< https://www.textrequest.com/blog/customer-journey-maps/ >.
Yelp Inc SWOT Analysis, 2018. [Online] Available through: <https://www.essay48.com/term-
paper/6277-Yelp-Inc-Swot-Analysis>.
Yelp vs. Google vs. Facebook Reviews: which should you focus on and why? 2019. [Online]
Available through: <https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2016/09/19/yelp-vs-google-vs-
facebook-reviews-which-should-you-focus-on-and-why/>.
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