Digital Marketing Assignment

Course Title: Certificate in Digital Marketing

Lecturers’ Name: Ffyona Cunningham

Students Name: Fiachra Mc Garry

ID: 14111772

Project Title: Stein Study 3 Month Digital Marketing Strategy

Word Count: 2465

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1. Outline of the problem/issue/opportunity( 10 marks) Justify the need for a digital marketing solution and provide evidence that supports this

The company which I have chosen to base my Digital Marketing project on is called Stein Study. They are a language course provider for second level students in Ireland who want to improve their language skills by studying abroad in destinations around Europe. The company offers courses in France, Germany, Italy & Spain where students would be accommodated by host families & also have the option to attend high school.

The main issue surrounding Stein Study is getting the word out in public to both students and parents. Schools in particular the greater Dublin area do not particularly approve private company’s targeting students to undertake Language trips so organizing school presentations where they explain their individual products can prove to be difficult for the company.

Marketing messages can be difficult to get across as the company is targeting three different personas, the parents who will be paying for the trip, the students who will be going on the trip & the teachers who will be endorsing these trips for potentially higher grades in exams. Basically it is not one message for all so we have to implement a strategic digital marketing plan. All marketing communication online must target the two different demographics which is a difficult to implement.

Social media growth is key for the company to drive sales across all platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin etc. I have identified in the section 3 below strategic ways how the company can target all 3 personas across social media. Increasing engagement across social media is a high priority also. This will increase good customer service and build relationships with potential customers. This proposed Digital Marketing project will take place over a 3 month period (90 Days).

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2. Demonstrate a deep understanding of the audience(15 marks) What are the traits, needs, motivations, behaviors? What value are they seeking from the brand/product? What value are we seeking to gain from them?

There are 3 types of audience which Stein Study need to strategically need to target for the purposes of this digital marketing project. I am going to use fictional names to garner a deeper understanding of the online audience.

Students: Fictional Name – Sophie Smith. Sophie is a student that attends secondary school in an upper class school in south Dublin. An example of one of these schools is Mount Anville, Blackrock College & Loreto Dalkey. She has a wide variety of interests and hobbies. Sophie also plays hockey and the piano in her spare time. Sophie is 16 years old, in transition year in school and is looking forward to preparing for her Leaving Cert exams already. She resides with her parents and 2 sisters who are older one is studying medicine, the other studying law in Trinity College Dublin. Both sisters got A1’s in their Leaving Cert in French & Spanish respectively. Sophie is well spoken and very popular among her peers & would participate in a lot of extracurricular activities. Sophie is hoping to achieve a high grade in her leaving cert like her sisters have and hopes that going on a Transition Year language trip with Stein Study will help her get the grade she wants. The challenge Sophie faces is convincing her parents that she is not going on this trip to party with her friends but to improve her language skills.

Parents: Fictional Name – Maria Smith (Sophie’s Mum) Maria is particularly wealthy and resides in Bray in a big house with her husband who works in the bank. Maria is a lady of leisure and has married into her husband’s wealth and has a keen interest in all of her daughter’s activities and wants Sophie to receive an A1 in French in her leaving cert like her sister did to keep up the good reputation of the family. The challenges which the company faces is that Maria does not know enough information about the trip to France her Sophie wants to go on. She does not want her 16 year old daughter travelling to France without knowing every detail. The solution this digital marketing project proposes is to organize an information evening for parents preferably in a hotel in south Dublin. I propose to target these parents through email marketing of a newsletter and also to post all this info on the website and share on all of the company’s social media platforms. Sharing statistics with Maria about the number of multi lingual jobs available in Ireland would be important to her booking a trip for Sophia also

Language (French) Teachers: Fictional Name – Mrs. Cuffe Mrs. Cuffe is a French teacher in Mount Anville secondary school. She has a reputation of getting very high results in Leaving Certs from most of her students which is why she works in such a wealthy school. Mrs. Cuffe would already be familiar with the importance of immersing oneself with the French language and would encourage students to undertake a language trips. The issue here will be to target the teachers and conferences like the FTA (French Teachers Association) and STA (Spanish

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Teachers Association), get their email addresses to be entered into a competition and use this information to send them newsletters on updates & offers.

3. Proposed channels for implementation(15 marks) What combination of owned, earned and paid media is most relevant? What is the planned role of each?

Facebook Ads: There are 3 methods of conducting Facebook ads, desktop news feed, mobile newsfeed and third party apps. I propose to run a paid campaign on each which would contain trip information and calls to action. This would be to drive people to the website. I also propose to run a competition to win tickets to a particular concert popular among the younger generation, One Direction, Hozier. This would be carried out through the like and share process.

Linkedin: As it stands the company does not have a LinkedIn company page. I propose to set one up, assign the marketing manager as the other admin of the page & share any updates within the company such as press releases, upcoming events etc.

Twitter Ads: There are some interesting stats about twitter in Ireland which I have researched, “Ireland has the tenth highest number of Twitter users per capita in the world &53% of 15-24 year olds use Twitter”.1Stein Study currently has 500 followers on Twitter. I propose to run 2 Retweet (RT) & Follow campaigns with a chance to win a language trip to both Spain & France.

E-Mail Marketing: A monthly newsletter will be sent out to both language teachers & parents who will be saved in the company database. This will include updates on trips, booking details and offers. This will be conducted through mailchimp (Paid)

Display ads: on family friendly talks about the importance of a second language. They have a higher hit rate and recommend Stein Study so it is important to have them linking back to our website. This would be targeted at the parents. I have conducted research and Stein Study need to display ads on the following WebPages.

http://spartacus-educational.com/REVlanguages.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/adventure/77133/Gap-Year-100-company-directory-learning-a-skilllanguage.html

http://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2014/aug/08/top-language-learning-holidays-in-pictures

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/resources/links

1http://www.digitaltimes.ie/twitter-in-ireland/

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Instagram: Instagram seems to be very popular social network among the young generation especially in Ireland. “Over 90% of the 150 million people on Instagram are under the age of 35, we find that Instagram is largely made up of urban, youthful demographics, with a significant skew toward women”2. Instagram is a very important platform for Stein Study to share images about the particular language trips. The method of execution would be for student ambassadors to take the pictures using their Smartphone’s or cameras then to send them on to the marketing executive via Watsapp or email for approval then upload them on to the official Stein Study Instagram Page

Snapchat Setup: Research has shown that snapchat which is a new innovation on Smartphone’s which allows users to share snaps for a maximum of 10 seconds and also share their “snap story” with their friends which is allowed for 24 hours maximum. This particular channel will be owned and targets the students that will potentially going on the trips. “71% of snapchat users are aged 25 years old or younger.”3 The execution of the particular plan would be to have a number of Stein Study Ambassadors who would sign a contract to have access to the account on their Smartphone’s. The particular snaps would be of the students on one of the trips abroad taking in the sights of the foreign Country and engaging in activities while sharing it with their friends and snap story.

PR Web: PRWeb is an online press release service. Press releases published by PRWeb are distributed through news sites and appear in search engine results, allowing businesses to distribute news directly to the mass media and customers. This particular channel is paid advertising and will target the parents and teachers who will be conducting extensive research on particular language courses for their children/students. The aim for the project will be to release 2 articles in the 3 month period with aided with visuals and statistics on how a Stein Study language trip can improve exam grades. Some of the visual illustrations I propose to share are shown on the next page.

2http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-demographics-2013-12?IR=T3http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/snapchat-statistics/

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4. An assessment of required resource – internal and third-party ( 10 marks) Who will be required to work on this project and where will they come from?

Marketing Manager (Internal) will oversee all Marketing activity described in the previous section.Marketing Executive (ME) (Internal) will be responsible for creating original content targeted at the three different personas. I will report to the Marketing Manager regularly with updates on project as well as getting tasks signed off.Designer (External) The designer for the project will be outsourced and communication will take place via email, Skype etc. He/She will be in charge of the artwork for promotional material for the website and social media and will communicate frequently with the Marketing Executive and DeveloperDeveloper (Internal)Will ensure all HTML will be correct on the website and all social media plug ins are visible on the homepage. The Developer will ensure all the features of the website are Mobile Responsive. There has been a shift in the last number of years from desktop to mobile browsing as research suggests. Consumer habits are quickly changing when it comes to watching video on mobile, thanks to fast 4G networks (and cheaper access), from mobile providers such as 3, Vodafone and o2 a spike in mobile-viewing apps, improved quality HD screens optimized sound and wider tablet adoption. “Mobile video has proven to be far more popular than anyone might have guessed ,” according to Business Insider. This stretches right across our target demographic although some of the older generation still use desktop while sitting in their homes.SEO Specialist (External) “A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist’s main role is to analyze, review and implement changes to websites so they are optimized for search engines. This means maximizing the traffic to a site by improving page rank within search engines4”.The SEO specialist will be outsourced to cut costs. His main role will be to ensure that the websites and internet properties under the influence of the company have been technically optimized to attract and engage the Stein Study target audience.

RACI Table

4https://www.freshgigs.ca/blog/seo-specialist-job-description/

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R = ResponsibleA = AccountableC = ConsultedI = Informed

MarketingManager

MarketingExecutive

Designer

Developer

SEOSpecialist

Website Content

I R I C C

Design I C A R ISEO I A I R AGoogle Adwords

A R I R A

Social Media Management

C A C I C

E Mail Marketing

I R I R I

Banner Ads I A R I CSocial Media Content

A A I I C

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Power/ Interest Grid

9

Keep

Satisfied

Manage

Closely

Minimum

Effort

Keep

Informed

Marketing Manager

Marketing Executive, Designer

Developer

SEO Specialist

5. Proposed outcomes ( 15 marks) What does success look like for this proposed project?

As mentioned in the previous sections this will be a 3 month digital marketing project and I will be working as the internal Marketing Executive through the entire process. I have set a number of targets which I believe can be met within this time period.

Facebook – The current company page for Stein Study is 5,000 fans. If all aspects of the project run correctly I propose a growth of 40% in fan numbers. This will bring the page up to 6,600 fans. These analytics can be tracked using Facebook insights. A good understanding of how insights work is key to finding out what is working to building fans and driving traffic to the website.

Google Analytics: This is probably the single most important tool in measuring the traffic to the website and thus the success of the project. There will be tracking codes placed on all display ads, email marketing campaigns and PR web articles to gauge what traffic will be entering the website. The company should track the older generation demographic to the booking pages of the website

Twitter: Through the follow and Retweet competition as I mentioned in the previous section I forecast the growth of the current followers (500) to increase 100% to 1000 followers. The language trip to Spain & France will be an exam preparation course for second level students so the company are targeting the correct demographic and thus the correct following base. Twitter has an activity tool to measure engagement of tweets so the company can monitor progress through this.

Snapchat: As mentioned previously snapchat is very popular among the students and they use it on a regular basis whether it be at school or at home. Success for snapchat will be measured on how many students add the Stein Study account and the quality of snaps that are being uploaded by the student ambassadors.

Instagram: The Stein Study Instagram account will be controlled internally. “On Social Networks in particular, photos drive more engagement than any other kind of post”. 5 The current Instagram following is 100 followers so a big push for content is necessary for this social media platform. We encourage Stein Study ambassadors to upload photos to their own personal Instagram accounts and tag Stein Study and also use the #lovethelanguage to get the company trending. The aim will be to boost followers up to 1000 at the end of the 3 month period.

5 http://oursocialtimes.com/how-to-use-instagram-for-marketing-and-measure-the-results/

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