Digital Marketing Strategies: Superdrug and Boots Comparison Report

This report provides a comparative analysis of the digital marketing strategies employed by Superdrug and Boots. It begins with an overview of each company's website analytics, including visitor numbers, traffic sources (organic, direct, paid, social), and average visit duration. The report highlights key differences in their online performance, such as Boots' higher overall visitor count compared to Superdrug. It then delves into Boots' history and digital marketing strategy, emphasizing the use of the SOSTAC framework. The analysis covers various aspects including understanding the competitive landscape, defining future goals, targeting specific customer segments, developing a compelling proposition, and strategies for customer acquisition and engagement. The report also offers specific recommendations for improving Boots' digital marketing efforts, such as creating tailored content for different social platforms, optimizing website resources, and defining key brand offers. Finally, the conclusion emphasizes the importance of ongoing data analysis to measure the effectiveness of implemented strategies.

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Superdrug Analytic
The number of visitors gained by Superdrug was around 8, 125 million and unique visitors
around 4,112 million. The large percentage of visitors mostly came from United Kingdom that is 83%
and few from US, Poland and Ireland. The average visits made via mobile web amounted to 72.18%
and those made via desktop was 27.82%. Only 4.39% was the percentage of the incoming traffic
driven by social platform mostly from YouTube and Facebook making 69% and 23.30% respectively.
Boots Analytic
The number of visitors receives amounted to 21.42 million and unique visitors amounting to
21.42 million. The average number of visits made via mobile were 71.85% and those who used
desktop to surf amounted to 28.15%. 81% of the visitors were from United Kingdom, followed by
5.19% fom US and 1.22% in India. 6.031 million was the total number of incoming traffic 60.13%
was derived from organic search, direct channel 21.59% and paid search was only 6.17%.
Comparison of companies
Around 21.42 million were the number of visitors gained by the Boots and 4.112 million
by unique visits compared to Superdrug. A higher average visit duration was noticed in Superdrug at
4 minutes 1 second. A highest percentage of incoming traffic for both websites was noticed as a result
of direct marketing channels. To both websites, YouTube was the largest social platform that drove
traffic followed by Facebook which drove more traffic to Boots than Superdrug.
Boots Overview
In 1800s was year when Boots UK started as a small shop dealing with herbalist. It was located
in Nottingham, recently, it is the largest company in UK dealing in pharmaceutical and Cosmetics
products with the number of stores adding up to 2000 located in the whole world (Boots Heritage
2017). The company also have variety of exclusive health and beauty products and it uses web
presence to promote both beauty and health products (SpyFu)
Boots comprehensive strategy for the digital marketing
By using SOSTAC when developing strategy for a digital marketing team, there are various step to
follow. They include;
i) Define approach to managing digital strategy
The most difficult thing while developing a market strategy is where to start from since effective
and process is needed to create the strategy. A workable strategy;
 Is based on what is taking place in the market place for that company.
 The objectives should be clearly stated to show how to achieve a vision for the future.
 A strategic direction on how to achieve objectives should be clearly stated.
 Consist of a method used in tracking and reviewing so that implementation is done when the
strategy is on track.
ii) Understanding your ecosystem
A more competitive buying environment needs to be understood when you need to develop a
competitive buying environment. Various media options need to be introduced for the modern digital
marketplace and this comes as a result of social media and PR whereby audience spend most of their
time online. The organization also needs to set their investment level after measuring the returns from

PR and social media. Superdrug needs to consider main types of media channels needed as part of
digital strategy for example
The Boots also need to define its marketplace map where competition for engagement and
commerce is done by the customers’ needs and how services are provided to them by the help of
intermediaries, influencers and competitors (Powell, 2012, p. 132).
iii) Define your future
The Superdrug needs to define its vision, goals and objectives for digital marketing channels. The
organization needs to define its goals such as
 Set goals to grow sales
 Set goals to get closer to the customer
 Setting goals to customer service goals
 Setting of cost-saving goals
 Adding value to your brand online
A long term vision needs to be set for future contribution of the digital marketing channels and a goo
vision helps to;
 To show where effort is needed
 To show future digital marketing and communication which encourages colleagues
 Top-level goals needs to be set without going through KPIs into detailed.
iv) Targeting
An exciting potential to target customers more closely is offered by the digital customers. Certain
group of customers need to be targeted to help in to grow audience. You can target specific audience
through personal website or other owned media. Option of targeting is looked at in this particular
areas
 A set strategic segmentation
 Targeting option for owned media
 Paid media targeting options
 Earned media targeting option
v) Proposition
The strength and what the company offers to its customers are the key things that helps the company
to succeed. There are two issues to consider when developing your proposition since the channel is
still new and many customers are still longing to use it.
 The core feature of brand and what makes you different should be communicated
 A channel should be chosen based on what channel offers and this motivate new
members to start using your channels.
To bring more customers to use your channel, you should:
a) You should communicate the core features of your brand
b) Differentiate features which are important to customers and those that a good for competition
c) The value of the brand should be added online

vi) Getting New Customers
This section rely on how acquire sales from new customers by reaching them then converting
them to customers. This is also known as a customer acquisition strategy. It is necessary to find
and influence on other types of sites and develop customer journey leading to online or offline
sale. This is done by,
 Set acquisition goals
 Define channel mix
 Increase channel efficiency for digital media channels
 The conversation should be made more effective
v) Keeping customers engaged and loyal
A business organization may get someone to buy but getting them to do the same again is difficult.
Thus, makes engaging with customers one of the biggest challenge in online market. In order to get
your online marketing right, a strong branding is needed since (Kingsnorth, 2016, p. 123);
 It gives a customer reason to belong
 Ease of use and enjoyable interactions with services of quality.
 Linking of complimentary partner to the offline experience of the brand
The business needs to look at how they can encourage online customers to make future purchases
through;
 Understand current levels of online brand engagement
 Set goals to improve engagement
 Encouraging online brand engagement
Boots Recommendations on how to improve digital marketing strategy
 Create different marketing content for each of their social platform.
 Create a central branded hub
 Provide enough resource for site optimisation
 Ensure that key brand offer is defined clearly
 Web persona should be created to help define your site audience
 Create a TOWs digital SWOT matrix
Conclusion
Based on digital marketing strategy, and using analytic tools, data should be collected and
analysed by the marketing team on a weekly basis so that to measure the efficiency of implementing
the strategies.

References
Kingsnorth, S., 2016. Digital Marketing Strategy. China publishing company: s.n.
McDonald, M., 2004. E-marketing. s.l.: Adventure Works Press.
Powell, G., 2012. Marketing Calculator. s.l.: University press.
Ryan, D., 2012. Understanding Digital Marketing. s.l.: Oxford press.

Shaw, R., 2000. Improving Marketing Effectiveness. s.l.:s.n.
Urban, G., 2004. Digital Marketing Strategy. s.l.:s.n.