DMKT5008: Digital Marketing Strategies for Blockbuster, Spring 2019

This report provides a detailed analysis of digital marketing strategies for Blockbuster, contrasting traditional and digital marketing methods, and emphasizing the importance of investing in digital platforms. It explores website optimization techniques to improve performance, focusing on speed, image optimization, and reducing HTTP requests. The report also examines how Blockbuster can leverage SEO, SMM, and content marketing, detailing key activities for implementation and relevant KPIs. Furthermore, it discusses the use of pay-per-click and online display advertising, providing steps for effective PPC campaign design. The report also touches on how Boo.com could have targeted its audience more effectively, the budgetary implications of digital marketing, relevant laws and guidelines, and the role of email marketing. Finally, it highlights the importance of ongoing analysis and measurement for managing and evaluating digital marketing efforts.

DIGITAL MARKETING

1
Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1
Difference between Traditional and Digital marketing..........................................................................1
Website optimisation technique.............................................................................................................3
Blockbuster using SEO, SMM and Content marketing.........................................................................5
Key activities linked with implementing SEO, SMM or Content Marketing.....................................5
KPI and metrics that must be used.....................................................................................................9
Pay-per-click advertisement and Online display advertisements.........................................................10
Steps for designing effective PPC....................................................................................................10
Way in which Boo.com can target its audience...............................................................................14
Budgetary implications....................................................................................................................14
Relevant laws and guidelines...........................................................................................................15
Email marketing..................................................................................................................................15
Ways in which boo.com could have made use of on-going analysis...................................................15
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................17

2
INTRODUCTION
In the era of technology, doing operations with the help of digital mediums has become very
much important in different organisational functions. Marketing is another essential aspect in
business that needs to be carried out with the help of digital mediums. Most of the firms are
adopting different digital marketing strategies to make their business successful (Hauer,
2011). Blockbuster is one the biggest firms that deals in the business of Home movies and
video game rental services. It was founded back in the year 1985. This report analyses the
difference between traditional and digital marketing mediums while stating the importance to
invest in digital marketing. It also discusses about website optimisation technique for
improving the performance of the website of the company. It also describes the way in which
several digital marketing tools might be utilised by Blockbuster. Way in which Pay-Per-Click
advertisement and Online display advertisements can be used by firms for increasing website
visibility and brand awareness. For attracting and retaining customers, the way in which
email marketing can be used is highlighted. At last, the way in which boo.com might use
above analysis and digital marketing management methods has been illustrated.
Traditional and Digital marketing differences
Traditional and digital marketing both are used by any organisation. The difference in both
the marketing methods is illustrated below:
 Used mediums: In traditional marketing there is use of notices, handouts, print, TV
and radio advertisements. Magazines and Daily newspapers are used by companies to
promote products or occasions. On the other hand in digital marketing, company can
take use of social media, You-tube videos, websites and many other kind of online
platforms (Popa, 2015).
 Cost: There is a huge difference in the amount of cost that is involved in doing
traditional and digital marketing. In this, the traditional marketing cost is much higher
with respect to that of digital marketing techniques. This is the major reason why
most of the companies are using internet marketing campaigns to do marketing.
 On-going results: In order to access the return on investment in both types of
marketing is difficult. In traditional marketing, for analysing the results, company had
to wait for weeks and sometimes months. In the case of online marketing, results can

3
be accessed at the same time when marketing was done. This can be done with the
tools such as Google analytics.
 Analysis: In the case of traditional marketing, analysing the opportunities can be
difficult in case of digital marketing, calculating marketing opportunities is fast and
response to such marketing opportunities can also be given immediately. In the
traditional marketing it is difficult to understand that which medium of marketing is
producing better results. On the other hand in digital mediums, this can be easily done
with the help of Google analytics by analysing the metrics such as basic trend, interest
rates, bounce rates, transformation rates, benefit and interest visitors.
 Tracking: Tracking the benefits of the traditional marketing techniques can be
difficult. Evaluating the viewer’s group and their communication requires an
additional efforts and this is often time-consuming. In the case of digital marketing, it
is very much simple as there is presence of the tools such as Google analytics.
Keywords are used for targeting specific groups in the market. They can utilise social
media channels to do this.
These differences in the traditional and digital marketing show the importance why
Blockbuster need to invest in digital marketing. With the amount of competition that is
prevailing in different market, it is not easy for Blockbuster to increase the brand visibility
without taking the help of digital marketing mediums (Holliman and Rowley, 2014). With
the help of digital marketing mediums company can gain higher profits as the cost of
investment is lower in the case of digital marketing. It will help Blockbuster to reach to large
numbers of customers with least amount of resources. It is also easier for the company to
evaluate the progress they have made in the marketing and the number of customers who was
actually converted into the actual buyers.
Digital marketing also allows a firm to do marketing in all the countries at the same time
while in traditional marketing; company can focus on specific area or region. The scope of
attracting larger set of people is present in the case of digital marketing as higher amount of
people are attached with the digital mediums. Blockbuster targets people that are young and
these people are highly attached to the digital marketing mediums. Social media can be an
excellent platform where young generation people can be attracted (Armstrong, et al. 2014).
Digital marketing mediums can be helpful in reducing the complexities that are attached with
marketing approaches such as gaining the real-time information about the people. For
blockbuster, it would be an excellent platform where they can collect feedbacks and could

4
also improve their digital marketing appropriately. Digital marketing has many kinds of
options using which they can directly target individual customers by doing personalised
marketing. This cannot be possible in the case of traditional marketing as it is used for doing
mass marketing whose results are hard to find.
Website optimisation technique
Websites are very much important for business because they provide the impression about the
products and services. The better the looks of the website, the better is the chance that people
can get attracted towards the services. The websites that are more user-friendly has a better
chance, easy to navigate and intuitive always achieves success. There are several parameters
on which any websites performance can be evaluates such as speed, improved user
engagement, higher SEO ranking, higher conversion rates (NOVOSELTSEVA, 2017).
Website optimisation technique is a technique using which the performance of that particular
website is enhanced. There are several ways in which website optimisation techniques can be
used by the Blockbuster so as to improve their website. Some of them are:
 Website’s speed: There are various website speed test tool that can be used by the
firm to analyse the overall speed of the website. Google Pagespeed Insights is a free
tool that can be used by Blockbuster to run a performance test on the speed of the
website and gives recommendations about the ways in which performance can be
enhanced. The loading time of the website must be reduced.
 Image optimisation: It is crucial for Blockbuster to optimise the images present at
their website. This technique relies on the combination of both lossless and lossy
image compression (Jackson and Ahuja, 2016). By such compression the image size
can be reduced hence loading time can also be reduced.
 Reducing HTTP requests: The more the HTTP request slower will be the speed
through which they can make webpages to load. Inlining JavaScript, using CSS
Sprites, reducing resources when third party plugins that makes larger numbers of
external requests, ban on the use of 3rd party framework unless not needed, using
lesser numbers of codes as well as combining JS and CSS files are some of the ways
in which HTTP request can be reduced (Jackson, 2017).

5
 Minify JavaScript and CSS: Resource minification can be understood in terms of
eradicating needless characters from HTML, CSS, JavaScript which are not needed to
load like newline characters, block delimiters, white space characters and comments.
 Minimise latency with a Content Delivery Network: The latency between
Blockbuster’s website POPs (with a CDN) and origin server (without a CDN) must be
brought to lowest of levels. Some of the integration techniques that can be used by
Blockbuster are Framework integration guides, Wordpress integration, Custom CDN
integration, CMS integration guides, Google Cloud Storage CDN integration and
AWS S3 CDN integration.
 TTFB: Time to first byte is a calculation of the web server’s responsiveness. With the
use of fast web host, reliable DNS provider and use of CDN are some of the ways in
which TTFB can be improved.
 Avoid 301 redirects: Since redirects kills performance hence avoiding them anytime
is very much necessary. Additional round trip times are created by redirects and hence
double the time of loading the starting HTML (Stone and Woodcock, 2014).
 Caching: There are both browser cache and server cache. Cache controls can be used
by the organisation so as to improve the HTTP cache.
 Prefetch and preconnect: Domain name prefetching is an effective way to resolve
domain names before a user actually follows a link.
 Web font performance: Blockbuster can improve the web font performance by
prioritising on the basis of browser support, choosing style that is needed by
blockbuster, keeping character to minimum levels, store in localstorage with Base64
encoding.
 Hotlink protection: KeyCDN also follows a simpler way to permit hotlink protection
so as to safeguard CDN bandwidth.
 Enable Gzip compression: Gzip is another type of compression that compresses CSS,
Javascript and Webpages at the server level before transporting them over to the
browser. Website performance optimisation is easier to device and can create larger
differences.
 Fixing 404 Errors: Missing files always generates 404 HTTP error. For removing this,
it is advised to sometimes run the website with the help of external service like
“Online Broken Link Checker” or with a tool such as Screaming Frog.

6
Blockbuster using SEO, SMM and Content marketing
There are various digital media tools that can be used by Blockbuster so as to attract, retain
and engage with consumers. These are essential for making the marketing effective. A proper
implementation approach must be used by the organisation to do digital marketing.
Key activities linked with implementing SEO, SMM or Content Marketing
It is crucial that company uses appropriate activities so as to implement different digital
marketing tools.
For implementing a SEO, key activities include:
 File naming conventions: Give page names as it is beneficial manner to give
keywords to sites without having to force them.
 Title Attribution for Navigation: Created more for the purpose of usability and screen
reader. Title attributes for navigation could give a significant quantity of extra value
to search engines and users (Chaffey and Smith, 2017).
 Title tags: Similarly as other web list on the web suggests, title tag are core area of
focus and specific titles must be used.
 Meta Description: Give Meta description appropriately as small piece of content will
suggest the consumers whether or not the link is worth to be clicked on or not.
 Image Alt Attributes: Since images does not have description hence Google have no
idea about what it is hence optimisation of graphics is very much essential. It is also
crucial that every time when images get added to website, some descriptive tools need
to be used (Alibi productions, 2018).
 Heading Tags: For better site hierarchy, heading tags were used and when heading
tags contains keywords as it enhances ranking of the websites specifically for those
words.
 Crosslinks: Websites is found by search engine by travelling from one link to another.
Adding keywords in the link provides search engine with huge value to base where
the link is moving as well as things present in that link.
 Keyword Density: This refers to the way in which website are capable of plug in the
keyword phrases in the content. Good keyword density means writing good content in
a tone which is natural versus aiming to please the search engine.
 Keyword Proximity: It refers to the ways in which a website gets into individual
words in your targeted keyword phrase together.

7
 Keyword Order: The order of precedence for any target must be selected
appropriately throughout the content of the page. Keyword order must be in exact
order.
 Organisation of content: A logical flow must be used while adding content to website
and it must be based on the need of the users and the targeted keywords (Taiminen
and Karjaluoto, 2015).
 Consistency in content: Not every page has SEO content in it but they must have the
same flow and standards that SEO pages had.
 Knowing blockbuster’s audience: There must be thorough research about the audience
and they must speak directly to them.
Figure 1: Google analytics as a SEO tool
For SMM, key activities:
 Research and Prepare: This process involves identifying social network channels,
finding activists target online habits by segment, identifying opinion leaders in the
group and then find most appropriate SMM.
 Engage Due Diligence: Without due diligence, no SMM should be undertaken.
Providing clear picture of the insights is essential. The research and preparation done
on grounds is the basis of any recommendation or strategy (Saravanakumar and
SuganthaLakshmi, 2012).

8
 Monitor blogs and give feedback: There must be use of on-going research and
tracking of influencers and engaging with them is essential. Giving feedbacks helps
the customers by conducting training an on-going resource light post back strategy
and implementation (Bullas, 2018).
 Engaging with blogs: It is important to participate with particular elements of blog
community so as to generate new highly emotive conversation and useful content
pieces to the wider audience sitting online. This must be done through the traditional
activist base company already has.
 Enable Social Media Online Consumer Relations: This can be done through listening
to online conversations, marking opinion leaders, creating content on the basis of
what’s learnt, generating, participating and commenting on interests, making them a
resource etc.
 Optimising social media: This can be done through enhancing your linkability,
making bookmarking and tagging easy, rewarding inbound links, assisting content to
travel, promoting the mash-up, implementing “Keyword” strategy integration, citation
strategy etc.
 Reporting: Word of mouth benchmark report will be given at the beginning of the
research, On-going evidence from reports needs to be taken for measuring outcomes
(Constantinides, 2014).
Figure 2: Buffer as a social media marketing tool

9
Key activities for implementing Content marketing:
 It is crucial to define content marketing goal.
 Research about the audience needs to be done so as to understand the audience that
want to target (Ryan, 2016).
 Set up the blog by using effective content marketing.
 Update of the current content is necessary.
 Start creating an Email list and understand the way in which Blockbuster is going to
use it.
 It is crucial to brainstorm content ideas and utilise keyword research for identifying
things that your audience looks for (Robinson, 2019).
 It is essential to decide the content format that company aims to produce.
 It is also important to outline the content marketing strategies and Tactics Blockbuster
is going to do experiment with.
 Taking use of different types of social media to promote company’s content.
 Using paid ads to gain additional eyes on the company’s content.
Figure 3: Buzzsumo as a Content marketing tool
KPI and metrics that must be used
For SEO, the KPI that can be used are:

10
 Keyword ranking
 Leads
 Bounce rate
 Organic session (Searchenginepeople, 2018).
 Page load time
 For SMM the KPI that are used are:
 Reach
 Leads
 Conversions (Sukhraj, 2017).
 Engagement
KPI that can be used content marketing
 Top of funnel KPIs: This includes average position of Unbranded terms and
Percentage of organic users on website.
 Middle of Funnel KPI: This includes new leads by Asset and program and MQL by
program & Asset (Deshpande, 2018).
 Bottom of funnel KPI: This includes pipeline generated and revenue influenced.
Pay-per-click advertisement and Online display advertisements
For increasing the brand awareness various tools can be used by the organisation.
Steps for designing effective PPC
Steps include:
 Goal Setting: It is essential to set objective for the campaign.
 Choosing Platform: It is crucial for the Blockbuster to select appropriate platforms
such as Yahoo, Social Media, Google etc. Most of the time it is Google that helps
companies. A company must design their PPC campaign according to the selected
platform only.
 Plan targeting: Company must plan the ads that are capable of targeting the most
relevant audience. For this purpose Geo-targeting and Device targeting can be used.
 Keyword Research: It is crucial for the company to find exact keywords that is
capable of targeting the audience they have selected. Expanding keywords must be on
the basis of low cost, highly relevant keyword and long-tail (Shalini, 2017).

11
 Writing effective Ad Text: It is crucial to write effective text in the ads so as to make
the advertisements successful.
 Add Ad Extensions: Giving ad extensions gives extra benefits to the PPC campaign.
Ad Extensions helps in enhancing the ads and also provides additional information to
company’s ads. It also enhances quality score (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).
 Ad Scheduling: For optimising Blockbuster’s ad strategy, Ad scheduling is very much
essential. Company can show their ads whenever consumer searches online or
company can show ads after few days or after certain business hours.
 Optimising Blockbuster’s landing pages: Google underlines landing page quality as
one of the most essential factors for determining ad quality score. Poor content on
landing pages always has a bad impact on the user experience.
 Filter out Negative Keywords: For blockbuster, it is crucial to identify negative
keywords and add them to negative keyword list. It helps in reducing the cost of ads
by filtering out irrelevant clicks and non-converting traffic (Langmade, 2018).
 Monitor Competitors: For any marketing campaign, the role of benchmarking is big.
Company must put their eyes on competitors especially what keywords they are using
and hence company must plan their strategies accordingly.
 Conversion Tracking Code installation: Tracking code assists in showing which of the
keywords are leading to conversion and clicks. It also suggests about the keywords
that are profitable and hence improving ROI.
 Use Google analytics: For tracking and monitoring PPC campaign, Google platforms
such as Adwords tool must be used. Google analytics gives the idea about the
searcher’s behaviour. The bounce rate of Blockbuster website should also be
measured (Leeflang, et al. 2014).
The tool that can be used for PPC is Wordtracker.