MK329 Individual Assignment - Lauren Caulfield-Bailey PDF

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The Glasgow Brunch Club MK329 Individual Blogging Assignment https://glasgowbrunchclub.blogspot.com

Lauren Caulfield-Bailey 201615483

Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................3 Marketing and Distribution Plan.........................................................................................4 Integrated Marketing Campaign...................................................................................................4 Online........................................................................................................................................... 4 Search Engine Optimization..........................................................................................................5 Offline...........................................................................................................................................5

Blog Analysis......................................................................................................................6 Usability.......................................................................................................................................7

Reflections.........................................................................................................................7 Recommendations.............................................................................................................8 Works Cited........................................................................................................................9 Appendices......................................................................................................................11

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Introduction “Glasgow Brunch Club” is a social publishing website hosted on Google Blogger, with the proposed task of identifying and reviewing independent eateries around the Glasgow area that serve quality food at a reasonable price, and furthermore, to give an honest review of such places. This blog is a response increasing consumer activity around dining in table serviced restaurants with 54% of adults dining in table serviced restaurants at least once a month [ CITATION Min18 \l 2057 ] and half of millennial consumers preferring to try new restaurants when they do dine out [ CITATION Min151 \l 2057 ]. The aim of the blog is to highlight new and exciting eateries to consumers. The proposed target audience of this blog was henceforth millennials situated within the Glasgow area. The blog was created over a six-week period, with five posts being published within the blog (Appendix One).

Within this report a marketing and distribution plan for this blog has been proposed as a tool for promoting the blog to millennials situated within the Glasgow area. The report will outline the basic objectives set around the promotion of the blog. It will further go to detail the integrated marketing campaign proposed by the author, with attention to online activity such as social media promotion, search engine optimisation key words and word-of-mouth style offline promotions. Furthermore, the report will go on to analyse the results of Google Analytics over the six-week period the blog was run to identify strengths and weaknesses of the marketing campaign. Finally, recommendations for the future of the blog have been proposed.

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Marketing and Distribution Plan Utilizing the SOSTAC model of digital marketing planning and distribution, two objectives have been derived (Appendix Ten). Objectives chosen serve to create an action focus for the “Brunch Club” blog and provide further direction for the growth and a means of measuring the success of the blog within its trial stage [ CITATION Joh15 \l 2057 ]. Objective one was chosen to help evaluate the overall performance and reach of the blog. Objective two was chosen as a method of evaluating the effectiveness of the promotions strategies in place.

Integrated Marketing Campaign Integrated marketing campaigns (IMC) are described as having a goal of achieving the objectives with coordinated promotional methods that act to reinforce each other [ CITATION Ega15 \l 2057 ]. The author created an integrated marketing campaign with an increased focus upon social media marketing and creating establish links with businesses featured within blog posts. Both online and offline strategies have been outlined below.

Online The author utilized their own established social media strategies as a method of promotion of the blog, as a method of creating awareness around the blog and reaching 150 unique page views, thus satisfying the proposed objectives. Social media has been identified as one of the fastest growing areas within the internet [ CITATION And11 \l 2057 ], with more than three billion people utilizing some form of social networking [ CITATION McL18 \l 2057 ].

Both the authors personally owned social media channels, along with a selection of featured restaurants social media channels where utilized. Featured restaurants where utilized as a method of brand alliance where the restaurant received positive publicity from the authors blog posts, and the blog itself received increased promotion free of charge. Utilization of brand alliances have been identified as a driver of positive consumer perception of the brand and a way of being exposed to a strong referent power base [ CITATION Ann18 \l 2057 ]. Three out of five restaurants contacted agreed to share the blog post relating to

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them on their social media sites (Examples in Appendix Four). The following social media websites were utilized as a form of promotion:

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Instagram: Instagram “Stories” upon the authors personal page along with featured restaurants where utilized as a method of increasing awareness around blog posts (Appendix Three and Four). This method of promotion was replicated upon featured restaurants accounts, exposing blog posts to a wider audience. Industry reports have found that 71% of millennials utilize the “Instagram” Social Media application on average once a week [CITATION Mos18 \l 2057 ], making it a key promotion tool for the target market proposed.

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Facebook: One of the largest social media marketing tools, allowing quick, easy and low cost marketing to be directed to potential consumers [ CITATION Roo13 \l 2057 ]. The author utilized their own pre-existing friend base to promote the “Glasgow Brunch Club” through status updates and encouraging commenting and sharing of blog post. The ability to comment and share posts on Facebook has been identified as a driver for consumer engagement [CITATION Ser14 \l 2057 ], and therefore it was encouraged that viewers left comments upon Facebook and Blog posts (Appendix Two).

Search Engine Optimization Key words and meta tags can be utilized as a form of increasing a websites position within search engine, and therefore increasing the awareness around the webpage [ CITATION Joh15 \l 2057 ]. However, the effective use of SEO can take months or years to have any measurable effect on the webpages ranking [ CITATION McL18 \l 2057 ]. It was therefore found that this method would be ineffective in the short time frame proposed by objectives. However, key words that where included within the blog can be seen within appendix five. Key words utilized within the blog where majority short tail, as a method of driving increased traffic through the higher search volume they receive.

Offline Offline communications revolved around communicating the existence of the blog with authors friends and family. Furthermore, when creating links with featured restaurants an 5

agreement was made that servers would recommend the blog to consumers visiting the restaurant and encourage consumers to read and leave their own review as a method of creating conversation with users. Interpersonal interactions such as short conversations have been identified as a driver of increased feelings of self-connection to recommended products or services[CITATION HAO18 \l 2057 ]. This aids the completion of both the objective of raising awareness around the creation of the blog and reaching 150 hits on the page.

Blog Analysis Google Analytics was utilized as a form of measuring ability to meet objectives laid out within the plan. It can be identified that objective one was met by 170%, with 405 unique page views created within the six-week period. Furthermore, the second objective of raising awareness around the creation of the blog by increasing unique views by 10% from the second to the fourth week was effective with the resulting increase amounting to 326.32% (Appendix Eight)

From looking the results of Analytics, 336 (82.9%) of users to the blog are a direct result of social media, highlighting the strength of social media as a distribution method. Facebook and Instagram played a key role in driving traffic on the page, with 69.6% and 13.3% of views coming directly from them respectively. 85 views on the page came from people directly typing the website URL into their browser as being directed from the word of mouth method of offline promotion. This accounts for 21% of the overall views on the page.

The effect of key word search engine optimisation can be seen in a minor way within Google Analytics results. From looking at location demographics, 91.87% of views came from inside the UK, in line with the proposed target market, the remaining 8.13% came from outside of the UK (Appendix Nine). This has been created through the use “Visit Scotland” within the SEO key words (Appendix Five). This proposes a larger, unidentified market for tourists visiting the area and looking for recommendations of where to visit when travelling. This market is very lucrative, as can be seen from the two hundred million unique views that is garnered by travel review site ‘Trip Advisor’ (Dykins, 2013).

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There was a lack of emphasis placed upon search engine optimisation as a tool for driving traffic due to the short time frame proposed by the objectives. This can be seen as an opportunity for the future of the blog as it continues to create content.

The average view time on the blog was 29 seconds, contributing to a bounce rate of 73.98%. This shows a low engagement with the content on the blog throughout the six-week period. Furthermore, retention of viewers can be seen as low with only 59 viewers (13.26%) acting as returning visitors upon the blog.

Usability A factor further though about within the creation of the blog was usability. Website usability has been identified as important in the creation and running of a blog, contributing vastly to the attraction and retention of visitors to the blog [ CITATION Vis11 \l 2057 ]. Ease of navigation is important to evaluations pf webpage usability, with the Brunch Club blog utilizing navigation bars and a search option to optimize usability through efficiency and learnability as stated within Neilson (2016) model of website usability. Content has also been identified as a method of increased usability, with the quality, accuracy and reliability of information presented being of the upmost importance [ CITATION Dav11 \l 2057 ]. A critique of the content within the blog can be made that as a review based site, there was a lack of critical feedback which viewers may see as disingenuous and inaccurate.

Reflections The marketing and distribution plan was a success with both objectives proposed being completed within the six-week time frame. A major strength of the campaign that can be identified is the use of social media for raising awareness of the blog. Social media has acted as a source of 81.9% of all traffic to the blog coming from this channel. The collaboration with featured restaurants was an effective plan, as it contributed to increased exposure on multiple social media channels, and therefore contributed to a vast increase in traffic. There was a distinct lack of focus upon methods of search engine optimisation, due to the short time frame proposed. Upon analysis, the use of keywords was effective in driving traffic to the blog with 8.13% of visitors residing outside of the UK, due to the use of ‘Visit

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Scotland” as a drive for the lucrative tourist market. This is a strong opportunity for the blog. Search engine optimisation was used in an incremental way but had impressive observable results.

Recommendations 

The introduction of official Glasgow Brunch Club social media channels: Social media has become an integral part of a consumer’s daily life in the modern digital age. It was identified from the report that social media was a highly effective method of driving traffic onto the Glasgow Brunch Club webpage. The creation of official social media channels have been identified as a driver of brand awareness, brand perception and brand loyalty [CITATION Yus18 \l 2057 ]. This would therefore help improve the retention of viewers on the blog and further attracting new views. Furthermore, live, real time video can now be broadcast over Instagram and Facebook. It can be recommended that this form of video content is utilized within the blog as it receives on average six times more engagements than traditional video content [CITATION Mat18 \l 2057 ]. It can be recommended that Facebook and Instagram pages are created for “The Brunch Club” to further build upon the effectiveness of its social media strategies.

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Introduction of video content within the blog: Online video platforms are currently in a rapid form of growth, displacing the popularity of television content [ CITATION Jiy13 \l 2057 ]. The use of video content has been identified as a method of making consumers engage emotionally and rationally to a larger extent, with the ability to convey a story in a tangible way, that words cannot [ CITATION Mel15 \l 2057 ]. Thus, making it an effective recommendation to improve the poor consumer engagement identified within the analysis of blog analysis. Furthermore, video content has a higher multiple benefits to the distribution and marketing of a webpage, with it being contributing to higher website conversion rates and increased unique website traffic [CITATION Mel \l 2057 ], making it a preferential tactic in the distribution of blog posts. Video content included within the blog could be “Vlog Style” videos of visits to restaurants or overall reviews of restaurant experience.

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Paid per Click Links: Introduce Pay Per Click links as a method of increasing search engine ranking. Investment in Pay Per Click would allow “The Brunch club” a direct and immediate way to increase search engine ranking, helping bypass the time consuming action of using search engine optimization (Waiton, 2013). Keywords selected would build upon the success of already listed ones such as “Visit Scotland”, targeting a wider, more lucrative market of informed travellers who are found to be doing a larger information search before entering a country around places to visit and eat (LuzTn,2016).

Works Cited Baye, M.R., De los Santos, B. & Wildenbeest, M.R. (2016). ‘Search Engine Optimization: What Drives Organic Traffic to Retail Sites? Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 25(1), pp.6–31. Bilgin, Yusuf. (2018). ‘THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ACTIVITIES ON BRAND AWARENESS, BRAND IMAGE AND BRAND LOYALTY’. Business & Management Studies: An International Journal, 6(1). Business & Management Studies: An International Journal, 01 April 2018, Vol.6(1). Cha, J. (2013). Do Online Video Platforms Cannibalize Television? How Viewers are Moving from Old Screens to New Ones. Journal of Advertising Research, 53(1), pp.71–82. Chang, Andreas. (2011). Web 2.0 Social Network Sites And Facebook Marketing. Binus Business Review, 2(2), pp.708–717. Dykins, Rose. (2013). A MATTER OF OPINION. Business Traveller (Asia-Pacific Edition), 62-66. Egan, J. (2015). Marketing Communications. London: SAGE. Green, D.T. & Pearson, J.M. (2011). Integrating website usability with the electronic commerce acceptance model. Behaviour & Information Technology, 30(2), pp.181–199. Kabadayi, S. & Price, K. (2014). Consumer – brand engagement on Facebook: liking and commenting behaviours. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 8(3), pp.203–223. Kupfer, A,K,K. et al. (2018). The role of the partner brand's social media power in brand alliances. Journal of Marketing, 82(3), pp.25–44.

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LuzTn, María-José. (2016). Features of ELF interactions in travel blogs: Travelers doing interactional work. Iberica, 31, pp.127–149. McLean, G. (2018). Digi Marketing Fundimentals. Online: Digi Marketing Edu. Available at: https://www.digimarketingedu.com (Accessed 20th October 2018) Melhorn, Jessica. (2015). DRIVE ENGAGMENT AND CONVERSIONS WITH VIDEO. Promotional Marketing, pp.3–4. Mintel (2018). ‘Digital Trends Quarterly: AI and Automation - UK – April 2018’. [Online] Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/858907/ [Accessed 20/10/2018]. Mintel. (2015). Leisure Habits of Millennials - UK - August 2015. [Online] Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/715827/?highlight [Accessed 22/10/2018]. Mintel. (2018). The Leisure Outlook - Quarterly Update - UK - March 2018. [Online] Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/887291/?highlight#hit1 [Accessed 22/10/2018]. Mintel. (2018). ‘Technology Habits of Generation Z – UK – September 2018’ [Online] Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/859469/ [Accessed 20/10/2018] Neilson, J. (2016). Neilson Norman Group. Available at: http://dockerby.com/web/Unit %206%20Validating/Usability%20101_%20Introduction%20to%20Usability.pd f. [Accessed 20/10/2018] Ramsaran-Fowdar, R. & Fowdar, S. (2013). The Implications of Facebook Marketing for Organizations. Contemporary Management Research, 9(1), pp.73–83. Shen, H. & Sengupta, J. (2018). Word of Mouth versus Word of Mouse: Speaking about a Brand Connects You to It More Than Writing Does. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(3), p.595. Visser, E. & Weideman, M. (2011). An empirical study on website usability elements and how they affect search engine optimisation. South African Journal of Information Management, 13(1), pp.C1–C9. Watlington, Amanda. (2013). Waking Google's highwire(tips on how to balance search engine optimization and pay per click marketing)(Search). Target Marketing, 36(2), p.28.

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Appendices Appendix One – Brunch Club Blog posts

Appendix Two - Examples of Comments on Blog

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Appendix Three – Example Social Media promotions on Author owned Pages.

Appendix Four – Example of Social Media promotion on Featured Restaurants pages

Appendix Five – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Keywords Utilized in Blogs

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Appendix Six - Google Analytics Over View

Appendix Seven – Breakdowns of Sources of Traffic to Blog

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Appendix Eight – Comparisons between week 2 figures and week 4 figures.

Appendix Nine – Breakdown of Viewer by Country

Objective

Appendix Ten – SOSTAC: Objectives, Strategies, Tactics and Measurements. Strategies Tactics Measurements

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1. Reach 150 individual views within “Glasgow Brunch Club” within a 6 week time frame

Create suitable content for blog users

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Increase overall brand awareness

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2. Raise awareness around “Glasgow Brunch Club” Blog posts by 10% from the second week to fourth week through monitoring traffic derived from social media within a 6-week time frame.

Use digital media as a tool to raise awareness.

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Utilize off-line word of mouth promotions to raise awareness.

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Create a blog with 300+ words based around independent ea...