Digital Strategy Report: HSBC PLC Marketing Objectives and Strategies

This report analyzes HSBC's digital marketing strategy, focusing on its operations in Sri Lanka. The report begins by outlining HSBC's background, its current challenges related to online financial services, and the need for digital marketing objectives. It then introduces the RACE digital marketing tool, detailing its five stages: opportunity identification, review of insights, planning, implementation, and review of improvement. The report identifies two key digital marketing objectives: creating an online platform for customer reviews and implementing content and email marketing strategies to enhance customer engagement and revenue. The report discusses the importance of content marketing, SEO, and email marketing in achieving these objectives, highlighting the role of content calendars and promotional emails. Finally, it emphasizes the application of network theory, digital marketing strategies, and the primary target audience for these strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for HSBC to improve its customer conversion rate and overall digital presence.

Running head: DIGITAL STRATEGY
Digital Strategy
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1DIGITAL STRATEGY
Task 2: Digital Marketing Strategy
Answer (a)
HSBC Holdings plc, established in 1865 as “The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank”, is
the 7th largest banking and financial organization of the world in terms of the net annual
revenue that it generates (Hsbc.lk 2018). The organization is known for the various kinds of
banking and financial services that it offers to the customers from the different countries of
the world. The organization is currently operational in more than 67 different nations of the
world and has more than 3.900 business centers in different nations (Hsbc.lk 2018). The
organization established its first business in the nation of Sri Lanka in 1892 and since then it
has formed an integral part of the financial network of the concerned nation (Hsbc.lk 2018).
The organization offers various kinds of financial services in the concerned nation like
different kinds of loans, credit cards, debit cards, savings accounts and others (Hsbc.lk 2018).
The organization has currently more than 1700 employees within the nation and in the past
century has emerged as one of the largest private banks of the concerned nation (Hsbc.lk
2018).
The organization currently in the nation of Sri Lanka is facing various kinds of issues
which are adversely affecting the business fortunes of the concerned nation. The majority of
these issues are related to the online financial services that the concerned organization offers
to the customers. Thus, in order to overcome these issues or problems the organization has
decided to come up with marketing objectives with the help of which it intends to overcome
these issues and also to earn a higher amount of revenue as well.

2DIGITAL STRATEGY
Figure 1: RACE Digital Marketing Tool
Source: Kaufman and Horton 2014
The organization for the achievement of this digital marketing objective can take the
help of the RACE digital marketing tool which comprises of five stages. The five stages
which the organizations are required to take into effective consideration for the use of this
tool are-
 Opportunity identification
 Review of insights
 Planning
 Implementation
 Review of improvement
The organization at the very beginning would have to identify the business opportunities
that the use of this digital marketing objective is likely to offer to the organization. The likely
benefits that the use of this tool is going to offer to the organization are the enhancement of

3DIGITAL STRATEGY
the customer base of the concerned organization, increase in the revenue earned by the
organization and others. The second stage would be the review of different options that is
available to the organization. On the basis of this analysis the organization has identified two
digital marketing objectives that are likely to improve the prospects of the organization under
discussion here. The third stage would be the stage of planning in which the concerned
organization would be required to plan for the effective utilization of these digital marketing
objectives. The next stage would be the stage of implementation wherein the concerned
organization would be required to implement the digital marketing objectives that it has
formulated. The final stage would be the stage of review wherein the organization would be
required to review the progress that the organization has made through the use of the
concerned digital marketing objectives.
As opined by Tiago and Veríssimo (2014), one of the most important trends, which is
noticed within the framework of the contemporary business is the fact that the buying
behavior of the customers has changed in a substantial manner in comparison to the
customers of the earlier times. For example, the present day customers tend to get influenced
by the reviews or the comments offered by the other existing customers of the same
organizations (Baltes 2015).
Järvinen and Karjaluoto (2015) are of the viewpoint that these reviews offered by the
customers regarding the products or the services and their experience influence the decision
of the potential customers in a substantial manner. The net result of this is the fact that rather
than analyzing the quality of the products or the services offered by an organization the
modern customers opt for the products or services on the basis of their online reviews
(Kingsnorth 2016). However, when the business services as well as the operations of the
organization under discussion here is analyzed it becomes clear that the organization does not
have an online space wherein the customers can leave their comments or reviews regarding

4DIGITAL STRATEGY
the financial services offered by them. Thus, it is likely that the organization would be able to
improve its business prospects in the nation of Sri Lanka in an effective manner through the
development of this marketing objective. This would require the organization to create a
section within their online website wherein the customers would be able to write reviews or
comments (Patrutiu-Baltes 2016). Furthermore, this objective would not only help in the
effective marketing as well as promotion of financial services offered by the concerned
organization but would at the same time help in the enhancement of the net revenue earned
by it as well.
As stated by Ryan (2016), the contemporary customers unlike the customers of the
earlier times like to stay updated regarding the services or products offered by the
organizations whose services they are opting for. More importantly, the effective use of this
strategy not only helps the organizations to promote as well as market the services that it is
already offering to the customers but also the ones that it would be launching in the future
times (Kannan 2017). In this regard, the tool of promotional or content emails is an important
one through which the organizations can send relevant information to the customers
regarding the services or products that they are currently offering to the customers but also
the ones which would be launched by them in future times (Kaufman and Horton 2014). The
organization, thus, taking the help of this objective would be able to enhance their existing
customer base and thereby their revenue as well since through the use of this method the
concerned organization would be able to enhance its customer conversion rate. For the
attainment of this objective, the concerned organization would have to create a section on
their website wherein the customers would be able to provide their email address so as to
receive promotional emails regarding the financial services offered by the organization
(Royle and Laing 2014).

5DIGITAL STRATEGY
Answer (b)
Holliman and Rowley (2014) are of the viewpoint that the different kinds of digital
marketing strategies are increasing become important within the framework of the
contemporary business because of the advantages that they offer over the traditional
marketing theories. As opined by Baker and Saren (2016), one of the major advantages of the
digital marketing strategies is the fact that they help the organization to reach out to a much
larger customer base and that too in a very cost effective manner. The organization, HSBC
Sri Lanka, for the effective achievement of the two above mentioned marketing objectives
can take the help of digital marketing strategies.
The organization under discussion here can take the help of the digital marketing
strategies of content marketing and email marketing for the effective achievement of the
digital marketing objectives that they have formulated. For example, the strategy of content
marketing will enable the concerned organization to optimize the content that had been
written regarding it over the online platforms (Baker 2014). This is especially important for
the attainment of the first marketing objective which the concerned organization has
formulated. It is likely that through the effective use of this digital marketing strategy the
concerned organization would be able to mitigate the threats posed by the negative comments
or reviews which has been posted related to them and only keep the positive ones (Taiminen
and Karjaluoto 2015). However, for the effective utilization of this strategy, the concerned
organization would have to take the help of the process of SEO and insert positive reviews
related to the organization in the directory of their official website (Saura, Palos-Sánchez and
Cerdá Suárez 2017). More importantly, they would at the same time on a proactive basis need
to not only address the negative comments which had been posed regarding them but have to
remove them not only from their official website but also from other online sources as well
(Zerr, Albert and Forster 2017). This is likely to help the concerned organization to improve

6DIGITAL STRATEGY
its conversion rate related to the customers since the customers are likely to get influenced by
the positive reviews as well as comments that they had read regarding the organization.
The organization under discussion here for the effective usage of the content
marketing objective that it has devised can take the help of the content or editorial
calendars. Effective usage of this tool enables the organizations to place the kind of contents
that they want the customers to views like the nature of services offered by them, their
current business activities and others over the different online channels. Furthermore, the
effective use of this tool would at the same time help the organization to plan the daily work
activities of the employees in a much better manner.
Figure 2: Content Calendar Sample
Source: (Created by the Author)
HSBC for the process of effective use of email promotional method would have to use
the digital marketing strategy of email marketing. As opined by Spiller and Tuten (2015), the
construct of emails have become important within the framework of the contemporary digital
world and different organizations are resorting to the use of this construct for the promotion

7DIGITAL STRATEGY
of services or products offered by them. The best aspect regarding the use of emails for
promotional means is the fact that they are not only cost effective but at the same time faster
as well (Stone and Woodcock 2014). As a matter of fact that the organization just needs to
develop the promotional content and the same email can be forwarded to all the customers by
just changing the email address of the receivers (Lamberton and Stephen 2016). Thus, it is
likely that the effective use of this strategy is likely to help the concerned organization to
achieve the second digital marketing objective which it has formulated. For example,
effective utilization of this strategy will help the concerned organization to send effective
promotional emails to the potential customers regarding the existing financial services that
they are offering currently and also the ones that would be launched in future (Confos and
Davis 2016). The customers who would be approaching the organization to avail their
financial services have already been influenced by the emails sent by the concerned
organization and thus it would be easier for the organization to convert these individuals into
customers.
The usage of these two strategies by the organization under discussion here are in
synchronicity with the network theory of digital marketing. According to this theory, the
digital prospects of an organization depend to a great extent on the effective online network
that the digital strategy is able to create with the users (Killian and McManus 2015). The two
strategies are likely to help the concerned organization to connect in an effective manner with
the different potential customers for whom the online content has been created. Furthermore,
the use of these two strategies would eliminate the not-interested customers and the
organization is likely to get only the king of customers who have an interest in the services
offered by the organization. This is likely to enable the concerned organization to not only
create effective networks with the potential customers but also enhance its customer
conversion rate as well.

8DIGITAL STRATEGY
The primary audience for these strategies and also the content and emails developed
by the organization would be the tech-savvy working class people who normally opt for the
financial services offered by organizations like HSBC. Leeflang et al. (2014) are of the
viewpoint that these individuals are more likely to get influenced by these kinds of online
content and email marketing and thus the primary focus of the organization should be on this
demographic of the population. The organization in order to enhance its customer base by
means of digital marketing needs to position itself as one of the safe and most secure
financial organization of the nation. In addition to this, the organization is also likely to gain
in a significant manner by positioning itself as the financial organization which offers the
highest interest rates on investments. The organization needs to ensure the fact these
marketing strategies should be centered round the theme of financial security and earning that
the organization is likely to offer to the customers. For example, the organization needs to
focus on the financial benefits that the customers are likely to get by investing or opting for
the financial services offered by the concerned organization.
Answer (c)
As opined by Kasemsap (2018), the effectiveness of a digital marketing strategy
depends to a great extent on the communication mix which is being used by the organization
to deliver the concerned strategy. Donnelly et al. (2015) are of the viewpoint that the
organizations for the formulation of such communication mix need to take into effective
consideration various factors like market research, the promotional as well as marketing
tools, media channels that needs to be used and others. The digital marketing communication
mix that the organization HSBC can take the help of for the two digital marketing strategies
is being outlined by the below given figure-

9DIGITAL STRATEGY
Figure 3: Proposed Digital Marketing Communication Mix for HSBC
Source: (Created by the Author)
The financial services that the organization offers includes various kinds of personal
loans, commercial loans, personal as well as corporate accounts and similar kinds of
activities. These services are primarily designed to secure the financial assets of the
customers and also to help them to earn significant amount of investment returns on the same.
Furthermore, for the effective attainment of the digital marketing objective that the concerned
organization has formulated would require it to take the help of an effective promotional mix
(Hunsberger 2017). More importantly, this promotional mix needs to contain various entities
like sales promotion, advertising, salesforce, public relations and digital marketing
(Charlesworth 2014). The organization taking the help of the digital marketing strategies
which it has formulated for the enhancement of current customer base and also to earn a
higher amount of revenue needs promote the financial services offered by it through the
emails and also the reviews of the customers. This is likely to require the organization to
optimize the reviews as well as contents which has been posted by the customers over its

10DIGITAL STRATEGY
website and other similar kind of online platforms. The concerned organization can also send
the customers their sales pitch to the customers through emails so as to convert these not
interested customers into potential customers.
The organization would also have to take the help of different kind of advertisements
for the promotion of the financial services offered by it. The effective use of various kinds of
digital advertisements and similar kinds of marketing campaigns is likely to help the
concerned organization to promote the services offered by them to the customers in Sri Lanka
(Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017). In addition to this, the concerned organization would
also have to develop an effective salesforce which would be able to enhance the customer
conversion rate of the organization by converting the query calls of the customers in sales.
More importantly, the organization can also take the help of construct of public relations for
the process of the enhancement of their brand image and thereby the enhancement of their
customer base. As opined by Karjaluoto, Mustonen and Ulkuniemi (2015), the customers of
the present times tend to get influenced by the brand image of organizations and only opt for
the services offered by the organizations which boast of a positive brand image. Thus, it can
be said that the use of this strategy is likely to help the concerned organization in a substantial
manner. Lastly, effective use of the digital marketing is another measure that the concerned
organization needs to use for the services that are offering to the customers. Through the use
of digital marketing, the concerned organization would be able to market the financial
services offered by them over the various social networking websites and thereby promote
their services before a much wider customer base (Vásquez and Escamilla 2014). Recent
researches have shown that the organizations which take the help of the process of digital
marketing have a far greater chance of attaining success than the ones which do not (Felix,
Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017).

11DIGITAL STRATEGY
The organization can also base the digital marketing communication mix that they are
likely to use on the 5C framework of digital marketing. The five components of the
concerned framework are listed below-
Figure 4: 5C Framework
Source: (Created by the Author)
 Communication: For the purpose of effectively conveying the different financial
services offered by the concerned organization to the customers it can not only use the
different kinds of online media channels like social networking websites and others
and also their official website as well.
 Competence: The organization would have to not only devise the marketing
communication mix but at the same time the marketing objectives on the basis of the
key competencies of their organization. This is likely to help the organization to
achieve their digital marketing objectives in a much effective manner.