Developing an Integrated Digital Marketing Plan for Hippies Adventures

This report focuses on developing an integrated digital marketing (IDM) plan for Hippies Adventures, an adventure travel company based in Sydney, Australia. The report begins with an executive summary highlighting the digital marketing gaps, including inadequate digital capabilities, lack of employee training, low website conversion rates, and poor SEO and social media performance. The introduction provides an overview of Hippies Adventures and the tourism industry in Australia, analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report then proposes an IDM strategy to address these gaps, emphasizing the importance of content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, search engine marketing, and email marketing. A digital marketing plan is outlined, detailing the stages of traffic generation, conversion, lead cultivation, and sales conversion, and the use of various digital marketing tools to achieve these stages. The report also explores the use of social media marketing, SEO tools, search engine marketing, content marketing and email marketing to increase sales and customer engagement. The goal is to raise awareness and generate interest in the client’s service, with evaluation and monitoring tools integrated into the plan.

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Integrated Digital Marketing for Hippies Adventures
Student’s Name
Institution
Date

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Executive Summary
After assessing and comparing all companies by our group members, we found that
Hippies Adventures stands out as the best candidate because it has relatively more gaps as far as
its digital marketing strategy is concerned. It is thus the goal of this report to identify the digital
marketing gaps in Hippies Adventures, then apply and integrate digital marketing models,
strategies, tactics and values to generate a thoughtful and successful Integrated Digital Marketing
(IDM) plan. The IDM that will be created will serve to raise awareness and generate interest in
our client’s service. The plan will also have evaluation and monitoring tools.
Based on analysis, some of the digital marketing gaps related to the Hippies Adventures
include inadequate digital capabilities in the business plan and marketing plan, inadequate
training for employees on digital marketing strategies, low conversion rate in the Hippies
Adventures website especially the end-end online order and end-end delivery. Additionally, we
discovered that the online presence/website utility/creative design needs a lot of improvement in
terms of navigation and the content. In terms of SEO, Hippies Adventures attained a score of 14
out of 20 and this means that there is a lot to be done in aspects such as on-page optimization,
off-page optimization, technical issues and the customer service. Hippies Adventures scored 12
points out of 16 as far as social media is concerned and this shows that there is a lot to be done to
improve the score.

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Introduction
This part will focus on the general information that will help in guiding the development of
integrated marketing plan. It will focus on brief overview of Hippies Adventures, the industry it
operates, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It will also explore the current
marketing strategies used by Hippies Adventures.
Part a
Hippies adventures is an adventure travel company with its head office in Sydney
Australia. It offers travel services. It was formed in 2017 and hence it is still at infancy stage of
development. Consequently, it lacks many things as far as marketing is concerned. Currently,
Hippies Adventures lack official website and virtually all key digital marketing tools.
Hippies Adventures operates in tourism and adventure industry. This is one of the most
viable industries in Australia. Domestic tourism is a very large market in the country (58 percent
of the total), although between 2012 and 2013 the number of tourists from China, Singapore and
the United States increased more significantly, with interannual growth of 17, 13 and 7 per one
hundred, respectively. In addition, Australia is the country with the highest spending per tourist
in the world.
The regional governments of Queensland and Western Australia territories are
implementing strategies to attract foreign investment. Tourism accounts for 17,000 million
dollars annually and 221,000 workplaces for Queensland, a region visited by 20 million domestic
and international travelers a year. Queensland offers investment opportunities in luxury hotels in
Brisbane, ecotourism products, tourist attractions; both for new plant projects and for
infrastructure renovations. In Western Australia, the hotel sector of the city of Perth is presented

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as a safe investment objective, since both occupancy ratios and income per available room are
the highest in Australia.
Despite viable business opportunities, Hippies Adventures is likely to face strong
competition. The top ten competitors as per the Yelp ratings include Skywalk, My Adventure
Travel Sydney, Bonza Bike Tours, Go Local Tours, JTB Australia, Ozlntro, STA Travel, Student
Flights Sydney, Tdh Travel Agency and Direct Link.
One of the Hippies Adventures strengths is that it covers virtually all the necessary
packages. Sites book travel tickets, trekking packages, hotel booking and significantly more
adventure services for their clients through web-based apparatuses and phone.
The key weakness facing Hippies Adventures is that it has not optimized its online
booking site. Compared to some other travel agents in Australia. In fact there site seems to be
nonexistent because it can’t appear in the search engine. Competitors have not only active sites
but also very optimized sites (Beautement, Sasse & Wonham, 2009).
Hippies Adventures is likely to enjoy a number of opportunities related to the macro
environment. In Australia, there is enough infrastructure to support tourism in Australia. For
example, it is envisaged that the capacity of the aviation sector will be between 40 and 50
percent higher in 2020, responding to the constant increase in passenger traffic.
Despite the opportunities, there are also some possible threats. There is likelihood that the
government may create travel agencies that are run by the state government and such agencies
may bring high competition because their rates may be extremely low.

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Part b
Hippies Adventures has completed 1 year of successful business in the field of adventure
business but still have many challenges. It has been using offline tools to generate leads. This
means that there is a lot of opportunities for Hippies Adventures. Hopefully, by integrating
digital marketing into its marketing plan, the Hippies Adventures is likely to reap a lot of
benefits
The current services offered by Hippies Adventures include Sites book travel tickets,
trekking packages, hotel booking and significantly more adventure services. The customers can
be segmented geographically. Consequently, there is domestic segment and the international
segments. The value proposition for Hippies Adventures is to be the best travel agency in
Australia. Hippies Adventures has positioned its services to be reliable and cheaper with special
focus on quality and safety guarantee.
Integrated Marketing Strategy
As stated, Hippies Adventures marketing strategy is to create messages that fly, and then
maintain long-term relationships with your customers: this is the challenge of integrated
marketing communication. To achieve this, Hippies Adventures will need to be consistent and
credible (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013). However, this requires a long-term effort and the
combination of a number of factors. Firstly, it has to identify all the marketing gaps. Based on
assessments, Hippies Adventures have several marketing gaps that needs to be filled. These gaps
are attributable to the fact that the company is using offline marketing techniques for generating
leads. These include inadequate digital capabilities in the business plan and marketing plan,
inadequate training for employees on digital marketing strategies, low conversion rate in the
Hippies Adventures website especially the end-end online order and end-end delivery.

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Additionally, we discovered that the online presence/website utility/creative design needs a lot of
improvement in terms of navigation and the content. In terms of SEO, Hippies Adventures
attained a score of 14 out of 20 and this means that there is a lot to be done in aspects such as
creation of active website, on-page optimization, off-page optimization, technical issues and the
customer service. Hippies Adventures scored 12 points out of 16 as far as social media is
concerned and this shows that there is a lot to be done to improve the score.
One way of filling these gaps is by adopting integrated digital marketing. A key feature
of digital marketing is an integrated and integrated approach to the use of digital technologies in
the promotion of the brand. The main communication channels are used in aggregate with each
other to achieve a better effect. At the same time, they can be combined with traditional offline
channels (outdoor advertising, TV and radio advertising), and use non-traditional promotion
channels (for example, advertising in video games and mobile applications). Integrated digital
marketing will enable the Hippies Adventures optimize its marketing goals. For example, Social
media marketing will help Hippies Adventures establish long-term relationships with their
customers and receive prompt feedback from them. Today stands out in a separate direction of
marketing, which includes a lot of tools and tactics.
Additionally, integrated marketing will increase the chances of achieving content
marketing. The independence of buyers is growing every day. 60-80% of the way when making
a purchase they pass independently, relying only on the content (Liyakasa, 2012). Independent
buyers are looking for answers to their requests. And, in order for your company to be the best, it
should approach the creation and promotion of content integrated. Based on the experience of
customers, on their awareness of the product, it is necessary to create that content that will sit in
the mind of the consumer. The consumer should feel himself as one with the brand to build a

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constructive dialogue. This will help useful content. And the more constructive communication
and justified expectations, the greater the increase in requests and, as a result, sales can be
expected.
Digital marketing is a rather vague concept (Denisa & Jaroslav, 2013). What is the focus
of most brands before the new 2018 and beyond? Representatives of digital marketing
companies IBM, Xerox, Adobe, Verizon, 3M, eBay and many others recently talked about their
priorities in digital marketing for 2016. This information can be useful to many companies in
order to set their priorities correctly. Here are 3 main areas that have been singled out by
virtually all companies. The first principle is story telling with help of data. It is necessary to
focus on an integrated approach to customer experience. Information and statistics should inform
consumers through unsurpassed stories that will remain in their hearts. The second principle is
interactive digital experience. This entails creation of unique integrated digital content is the
main task of digital marketing. At the same time, content should be highly personalized. The
third principle is having useful, lively content. It is important to remember that content should be
useful, stable and alive. It should be available on many devices and in many applications.
Digital marketing Plan
Firstly, before proposing digital marketing plan for Hippies Adventures, it should be
noted that users go through several consecutive stages before becoming customers. Some pass
the funnel faster, others - more slowly, others - jump through the stages, and the fourth do not
reach the end. The first stage in the funnel is traffic generation (Thomas, 2002). It all starts with
attracting users to the site with the help of SEO, contextual advertising, targeted advertising in
social networks, cognitive and advertising posts in third-party blogs, video advertising (Harris,
2013). At the stage of attraction and the top level of the funnel, the content should be aimed at

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solving the problems that your target audience faces. This content is either an entertaining format
that is relevant to business topics, either purely teaching and applied - without trying to sell
anything. The second stage entails conversion of traffic into leads . After the users came to the
site, they get to the top of the sales funnel - TOFU. At this stage, teaching articles, videos and e-
books will help you get leads. The third stage entails "cultivating" leads . After a person has
registered or filled out an application, he may not be ready to make a purchase or an order. Your
task is to establish contact with him and develop in him the desire to become your client (Smith,
2015). Additional relevant TOFU-content plus MOFU-content (cases, webinars, "white papers",
demo videos, detailed product descriptions, reviews) will help here. The fourth stage entails
conversion of leads into sales . At the bottom of the funnel, the user is close to becoming a
customer. An important role here is played by an accessible description of the transaction
process, as well as competent and timely consultations. To achieve all these stages, it will be
necessary to apply a combination of different digital marketing tools such as social media
marketing, SEO tools, Search engine marketing, content marketing, email marketing
(MadisonLogic 2013).
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing represents one of the best digital marketing tools that can
increase Hippies Adventures sales significantly. Latest report of the Adobe 2018 State of Digital
Advertising Report answers all the most difficult questions from the sphere of advertising in
social networks. According to the Adobe report, advertising in social networks attracts three
times more new visitors to retailers' websites than existing customers as compared to the figures
for the end of 2017. In other words, people pay attention to this format of ads and click on it
more often than ever.

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Social media marketing According to the Social Media Examiner Facebook has 2.23
billion monthly active users. Facebook is the undisputed leader in the industry of paid promotion
in social networks. 72% of marketers most often use traditional Facebook advertising (7% prefer
advertising in the Messenger). Then Instagram follows, 31% of respondents choose to advertise
on this platform. LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter have 13%, 12% and 11% respectively (Jenna
2014). Pinterest and Snapchat ranked last in the ranking.
Social media will help Hippies Adventures attract not only millennials generation but
also generation Z. According to the 2018 State of the Digital Advertising Report, 50% of
representatives of the generation Z (18-19 years) and 42% of the millenials (20-36 years)
consider social networks the most suitable channel for advertising. These platforms offer
effective targeting tools to employers, so users note the high relevance of ads. This is especially
true for young people, as they are more likely to look for new products or services in social
networks.
To reap the most benefit, Hippies Adventures will have to create creative ads and update
the social media pages almost daily. The social media ads should have multimedia content such
as video showing some of the experiences about the adventures. More and more people,
especially among youth, turn to social networks in search of products and services. Streaming
video advertising can be a new solution for brands that are interested in attracting representatives
of generation Z and millennials (Talonen, 2013).
Hippies Adventures should also focus on best images. As in other social networks,
Facebook has a difference in efficiency between different formats of content (links, videos,
images). Surprisingly, according to the research, images (and not videos) attract more
involvement in the social network.

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By adopting the social media marketing, Hippies Adventures will not only attract new
customers but also promote the engagement of customers in the company’s site. It should be
noted that social media ads, especially those related to Facebook allows one to connect the ad
with the website (Almeida & Carneiro, 2006).
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing serves one key function- traffic generation. According to
SEMrush, the main source of traffic for the largest online stores Amazon, Apple, Home Depot,
Walmart and Target are direct visitors. And this is understandable, because such well-known
brands are widely heard (Weichel & Huizingh, n.d.).
For a small online venture such as Hippies Adventure such a strategy to attract traffic is
ineffective. Therefore, it is better to choose the second most popular option - search engine
marketing. In this case, visitors will go to your site from search engines.
Currently, Hippies Adventures do not have anything related to search engine because
even its website is not active. This means that the first thing is to create an active and operational
website. Then by analyzing queries will allow Hippies Adventures to understand what and how
users are searching on the network. To find the right keywords for services offered, Hippies
Adventure can use the free Ubersuggest tool. Some of the suggested key words include “Best
travel agency in Australia” “Comfortable travel agency in Australia” “Affordable travel agency
in Australia” “World-class travel agency in Australia” and “Hospitable travel agency in
Australia”. This is because potential customers often search for something that is best,
comfortable, affordable and hospitable (Tiago & Veríssimo, 2014). Search engine marketing
will help in filling the marketing gaps identified because it will enable international customers
know about the existence of the Hippies Adventures.

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SEO site optimization
SEO is a key, if not decisive, component of digital marketing (Kirpekar, 2015). Many
companies lose huge opportunities if they create good content that no one can find. Hippies
Adventures ought to know that her potential customers are actively learning and are looking for
solutions to their problems long before they contact Hippie team.
The purpose of search engine marketing is to lead the potential customers to the site
(Enache, 2014). However, every site is ranked in the search engines based on how each page has
been optimized. That is why it is common to find different companies offering the same services
located at the different pages in the search engines (Google 2015). In order to ensure that the
Hippies Adventure site appears on the first page of the search engine, then SEO would be
invaluable tool.
To optimize individual pages of Hippies Adventures site for search, it would be crucial to
use one or two of the most relevant keywords in the following places:
1. SEO page title
2. URL of the page
3. Content on the page
4. Image name and ALT text
Paid and free SEO tools will help Hippies Adventures easily enter the required data.
Optimization can take anywhere from one to several days. With optimized pages, Hippies
Adventures will get many traffic to the site.

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Content marketing
The consumer has long ceased to be a naive boy from the 1990s, which is easy to vaprat
literally any product with a beautiful "label". Today, consumers are much more resistant to
aggressive sales, before buying they conduct a competent study of consumer qualities, read
reviews and weigh prices. People want content to help them make the right decision (Google
2015). However, they no longer like direct sales. Business needs to inform consumers through
surveys or even educational videos, selling them expectations from their product or service
(Rowley, 2008). Being useful to your audience, content marketing allows business to interact in
a unique way with a potential customer. Thanks to informative articles and videos you will
become a recognized expert of the industry and gain credibility. Also it is worth considering that
the content in blogs can be rassharivat through social media. By publishing readable and
informative materials, you can count on a significant expansion of the audience through this
channel (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014).
Unfortunately, marketers find it difficult to reach the business and demonstrate the true
value of content marketing. Often skeptics deprive themselves of the benefits of good content,
because the proposed articles, manuals and videos do not match the classic sales funnel (Yasmin,
Tasneem & Fatema, 2015). This is a fatal error. Quality content does not have to sell the product:
it helps potential customers find you, become interested, and then fall in love with your brand.
Although this may seem a complex and slow process, the business must use content marketing.
By tracking the statistics, you can better know the target audience, find out its tastes and
preferences. Content is not only a "bait" for customers, but also a tool for collecting valuable
marketing information (Durham & Blanco, 2015).