Dmkt5008 Digital Marketing And Social Assessment Answers

Learning outcomes assessed:

• Explain the foundation principles of digital marketing, and be able to distinguish between traditional and digital marketing.
• Identify the relevant laws and guidelines that pertain to the different aspects of digital marketing.
• Apply digital marketing tactics to develop an integrated and effective digital marketing approach across different digital domains.
• Analyse the role of content within digital channels.
• Examine the value of on-going analysis and measurement as a way of managing and evaluating their digital marketing efforts and budgetary spend.

You have recently been promoted to a new role as Digital Marketing Manager. As part of your first project in your new role, the Head of the Marketing department has asked you to investigate some new strategies to strengthen and reinforce the organisation's digital marketing capabilities and expertise.

In this assignment you will be asked to imagine that you are working for one of the companies listed below, each of which is interested in further enhancing its use of digital marketing: -

• Very.co.uk
• Apple (United Kingdom)
• Amazon
• Ryanair

As part of your report it is imperative that you cover all the core sections (1- 9) listed below: -

Introduction

The term digital marketing is very common for the business world in the recent years. Every business is leading their step forward towards the application of digital tools in their marketing. However, in the recent years digital marketing is crucial in every business sector, which not only helps the business to communicate with the people but also beneficial for the consumers. This enables the business to gain more attention from the customers. In the context of aviation industry, this digital marketing serves as the vital element to change the business operation (Knoblich et al. 2017). Application of the digital marketing develops a new level of collaboration, which makes a connection between the technology and the people in order to provide quality service in the airline industry. This study deals with the digital marketing in the context of Ryanair airline industry. Application of the various tools and approaches of the digital marketing in this organization will be discussed in this study.

1. Importance of the Digital marketing in context of Ryanair

Ryanair airline is a low-cost airline industry situated in Dublin. Their primary operation takes place in Dublin and London Stansted. This is considered as the largest airline in Europe. They carry huge international passengers in comparison to other airline industries in Europe. They have 403 Boeing and 800 aircraft (Ryanair.com 2017). They also provide pilot training. This organization is mostly popular for their low-cost service. Their traditional marketing includes advertisement of the service via printed mail, leaflets, pamphlets, and television. It is well-known that travel is a growing industry and the digital marketing contributes immensely to its growth (Hapsari et al. 2017). Digital marketing will give shape to the business of Ryanair and yields high profit with better outcomes. Digital transformation enables this organization to strengthen their performance in the global market and leads them to capture further growth in future.

The traditional marketing process of Ryanair is too time-consuming and consists less value in the customer domain. However, digital marketing is preferred by the customers rather than the traditional marketing as people get less time in their routine bound life. Hence, digital marketing provides the opportunity to the consumers to get quick access to a service (Halpern 2016). Ryanair will get millions of fan as well as new customers in the social media site that is a part of the digital marketing. In the modern time, maximum people use the internet to get information about any product and service (Nathan et al. 2017). Hence, for Ryanair incorporation of the digital marketing in their traditional marketing process will be the best choice for their business.

Digital marketing tools include SEO, website, internet banner, pay per click, e-mail marketing, mobile marketing, online video content and the most popular is the social media marketing. Such marketing tools are useful for this organization to transform the traditional marketing process into the digital marketing (Shaikh 2016). However, such marketing tools improve the service as well as the communication between the customers and Ryanair. Digital marketing tools are time and cost effective in comparison to the traditional marketing. Social media marketing will enhance the popularity of Ryanair in the consumer domain while SEO helps the consumer to get easy access to this airline service by online ticket booking, gathering service information and so on. Mobile marketing and website will enable the organization to introduce their service in the customer's domains belong from different geographical regions. Digital marketing will reduce the labor cost in the context of Ryanair. On the other hand, internet banner and the advertisement are more attractive for the customer rather than the traditional posters, leaflets, and pamphlets. This will be helpful for such organization to make their service global.

2. Steps and activities to assess the organic search ranking activities in context of Ryanair and importance of SEO 

Every business needs to show the top result when their consumers search for a particular product or service. However, people use the search engine to get a good result to solve their queries and get more information about the products (Marks and Le 2017). To get a good result a solid SEO strategy is required for Ryanair, which includes various steps and activities to improve the search ranking activities. SEO is the vital tool that is used to assess the organic search ranking activities. SEO refers to a process, which includes traffic from organic, editorial and natural search result on any search engine.

Development a list of keywords is crucial to maximize the search ranking activities. By selecting the proper keyword regarding the product and service, the organization will be able to improve the performance of the search engine optimization.

Rationale: Preparation of the list for the particular keywords regarding the products is helpful for a business as the consumers are able to get a quick result by searching through these keywords (Carraher et al. 2017). This enhances the organic search ranking in the context of Ryanair.

Establishment of the keyword-focused pages is another crucial activity to increase the organic search ranking process in the context of any organization (Zhang and Cabage 2017). In the context of website and ranking in the search engine, it is important to develop multiple web pages for the specific keywords. Ryanair can use the selected keywords to identify the number of the web pages that they can create.

Rationale: Development of the keyword-focused page enables the customers to understand the number of products and locations of a business (Kini et al. 2017). This will be helpful for Ryanair and for its customers to find this service in the search engine. Hence, the keywords do not matter in that case. However, each web page requires more clear content from the customers and the organizational prospects. Therefore, pictures and links should be incorporated in this web page to increase the user experience. Ryanair can prepare a list in order to form the different web pages, which will enable them to rank these web pages according to their importance. However, it is important for this organization to create new web pages and to improve the existing web pages as this will enable this organization to assess the search engine ranking activities.

Development of the blog is an important way to engage the users and to rank for the selected keywords (Dhar 2017). However, each blog refers to a new website that gives the organization a new chance to rank in the search engine. In the context of Ryanair, it is crucial to develop a blog at least once in a week to measure the success of SEO and to maximize its ranking.

Rationale: An organization sets a blog for the audience rather than the search engine (Zhang and Cabage 2017). This blog includes relevant keywords and, which increase the interest of the audience and improve the ranking in the search engine in the context of Ryanair.

Creation of the link is beneficial for an organization. The above first three activities of SEO, highlight on the on-page SEO tactics while link development is associated with the off-page SEO tactics (Marks and Le 2017).

Rationale: Creation of the link facilitates the process through which the search engine ranks on the webpage of Ryanair. This activity enables this organization to exchange their links with other business and create blogs in order to share them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin. It is important to give scope to other bloggers to create the guest blogging on the Ryanair webpage. This enables such organization to link back on their website.

Focus on the SEO news and measure the success of SEO are other crucial activities that involve in assessing the organic search ranking activities (Carraher et al. 2017).

Rationale: In the context of Ryanair they need to adopt best practices to stay on the top of SEO news. By using SEOBook, SEOmoz and search engine land this organization will be able to get a position on the top SEO news. On the other hand, by creating web analytics package or dashboard an organization is able to monitor the number of traffic enters in their web-page through the organic search (Marks and Le 2017). Ryanair needs to track the indexed page, inbound links, ROI and the exact ranking on search engine results page. This will be helpful to measure the success of this approach and to improve the company’s organic search raking performance.

3. Steps process and tool to analyze the existing paid search activity in the context of Ryanair and design of the effective PPC strategy

iSpionage is software that allows the organization to get the insight of the keywords, which are effective to gain competitive advantages. This is beneficial to analyze the paid search activities in the context of an organization (Rutz et al. 2017). PPC or pay per click refers to the cost per click. This is an internet advertising model, which is applied to move traffic to the business website. The First-tier search engine such as Google Adwords and Microsoft Bing are associated with this digital tool. Hence, iSpionage allows the Ryanair to understand the competition level. If Ryanair uses PPC with the small budget then application of iSpionage will enable this business to increase the ROI. On the other hand, use of SEMrush is another tool, which allows an organization to identify the advertising competitors according to the selected keywords. By using this tool, Ryanair will be able to click on the competitor’s website to find their keywords.

In order to analyze the existing paid search activity of an organization, it is important for an organization to determine the keywords. Web analytical software includes a huge competition in the paid search. Hence, by making the best keyword Ryanair will be able to measure the paid search activities. On the other hand, it is crucial for an organization to view the ad formats of their competitors (Kritzinger and Weideman 2017). This will improve the existing activities of PPC in the context of Ryanair. On the other hand, generating alternative keyword ideas is helpful to analyze the existing PPC activities.

PPC strategy aims to increase the visibility of the websites and to increase the traffic on that website. In order to develop a good PPC strategy, it is crucial to choose the platform to generate PPC ads (Aslam and Karjaluoto 2017). However, Google, Bing, Social media and Yahoo are the common platforms for PPC ads. In the context of Ryanair Airline, use of Google and social media will be the good platform to post their PPC ads. This organization offers low-cost service and maximum people search for the low price service via Google and social media. Thus, it will be crucial for such organization to increase the traffic in their website and make it visible along with SEO. On the other hand, geo and device targeting are crucial to develop an effective PPC strategy. This will allow Ryanair to choose the target place and the device to attract the customer towards their website. Posting an effective ad text is necessary to increase the visibility of the product website as well as the number of traffic (Kritzinger and Weideman 2017). In the context of Ryanair, posting an effective and attractive ad text regarding their service will be helpful to increase the traffic number and website visibility.

4. Online display advertising campaign in the context of Ryanair

Online display advertising campaign includes video ads, social media ads, Search engine marketing and native advertisement. Business owners and the families of EU are the main target audiences of Ryanair. In the recent years, maximum business and every individual is associated with the social media for business purpose and entertainment (Auschaitrakul and Mukherjee 2017). For this reason, online display advertising campaign via social media will be helpful for Ryanair to increase their brand awareness among the target audience. The main objective of the social media campaign for Ryanair is to increase the customer number from different geographical regions by providing low price service. Hence, the social media campaign will enable this organization to advertise their service features, as well as their low pricing strategy in the large population which includes both business and the families. Another objective of such campaign is to introduce their service in the international market that is outside the EU.

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram will be the suitable publisher for the social media campaign. These sites are popular in the public domain as various businesses and families are connected with such sites (Schwartz et al. 2017). In the context of Ryanair, their main target audiences are business owners and the families. Thus, such publishers will be effective for this organization to increase their brand awareness. The format is a crucial part of an online display advertising campaign. However, people show much response to the Facebook posts regarding the sales occurring on the website rather than new merchandise. Hence, Ryanair needs to establish an online display campaign via social media, which is associated with the sales. The file size should be low on the website while posting the service ads (Mirrokni and Nazerzadeh 2017). Providing attractive ads with detail product information on the website will increase the customer numbers. On the other hand, social media gives the platform to Ryanair to introduce their low-cost services in the global market, which also enhances the brand awareness.

Maintenance of the privacy as information of the user is crucial during the online display advertising via social media (Schwartz et al. 2017). However, for Ryanair, it is important to follow the Data Protection Act (1998), to keep the confidentiality of the personal information of customers and the organization. Therefore, by identifying the followers on the Facebook page this organization can measure the effectiveness of their social media campaigns.

5. Discussion of the email marketing and its use as an effective segmentation tool

Emil marketing is associated with the delivery of the commercial messages to a specific group of people (Zhang et al. 2017). This marketing tool is used to send the advertisement, business request and product introduction to the people. The main aim of email marketing is to create brand awareness. One of the important activities of the email marketing is to collect the data of the target audience. Next step is to identify the concept of emailing broadcast before sending the email. This enhances the communication frequency between the organization and the customers. Therefore, development of the specific content for the target customers is another step of email marketing. Emailing set up and email blast is included in the email marketing to deliver the service information to the consumer domain. Evaluation of the result such as observation of the sent email and undeliverable email is necessary to measure the success of the email marketing (Kaur and Sharma 2017).

Email marketing can be used as an effective segmentation tool to increase the digital marketing approach in a business. This digital marketing tool reduces the effort and the time in a business promotion (Serrat 2017). In the context of Ryanair by using the email marketing, they will be able to provide the ticket confirmation to the customers quickly. On the other hand, new service offer can be sent to the target audience via email and this information will be confidential. On the other hand, Ryanair will be able to send a real-time message to their customers regarding service while telesales campaign takes more time to deliver a message (Zhang et al. 2017). Email marketing enables an organization to send personalized email, which may include purchase or sales history. In the context of Ryanair, a frequent communication can be developed between the organization and customers via email marketing as it takes less time than other advertising channels. Apart from these, this organization can send the message to their most targeting customers, which enhances the customer loyalty and sales.

Spam is a major disadvantage of email marketing that irritates the consumers if the mail cannot be sent to the specific audience (Zhang et al. 2017). In the context of Ryanair, they need to deliver a well-structured email to the customers otherwise; it may break the impression of customers over the brand. Any fault in the email process may lead the organization to loss their client and it also increases the business cost. A badly written email affects the brand image and in order to retain the client, the organization needs to develop new email campaign, which increases the business cost.

6. Discussion of the social media marketing

Social media marketing is a modern marketing tool that allows the organization to gain traffic attention via different social media channels (Rodriguez et al. 2015). Earn media is the free media through which the organization achieves publicity by undertaking promotional activities. On the other hand, paid media refers to the PPC advertising, display ads and branded content. However, the external marketing efforts present in the paid media associated with paid placement. Owned media refers to the communication channels that are present under the control of a specific person. As for example, email marketing is an owned media.

Establishment of a smart goal is necessary for the social media marketing as it enables the business organization to set their target audience for the social media campaign (Felix et al. 2017). In the context of Ryanair, they need to carry out a social media audit by assessing the effectiveness of the current social media. Bringing improvement in the social media account is crucial to improving social media marketing. This will enable Ryanair to optimize the profile for SEO. This will generate huge traffic to the website. Accumulation of the social media inspiration from the consumers will allow this airline industry to identify the style and habits of their target audience. Development of the content marketing plan by creating informative ads regarding the service will be helpful for Ryanair to increase the traffic numbers.

Various social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin are beneficial to engage the customers as a huge population from different geographical regions spend a valuable time on social media (Ju et al. 2014). However, often people, search cheap and quality services like air tickets through the social network. Hence, advertisement of the Ryanair through such social media channel will beneficial for them to get new customers. On the other hand, by measuring the traffic numbers on the Facebook and Instagram pages Ryanair will be able to measure the traffic engagement.

7. Explanation of the mobile marketing in the context of Ryanair

Mobile marketing is an advanced digital marketing strategy to introduce the product and service to the target customer (Ju et al. 2014). However, smart phones, tablets, and mobile devices are used to carry out the mobile marketing process. However, mobile marketing is nthe easiest way to advertise the product and service to a large population. In the context of Ryanair mobile marketing will enable this organization to develop a better search optimization for the target audience. However, in the recent years, people use mobile in a rapid manner. Every feature of the desktop computer is found in the mobile handset, which allows the people to get a better experience of shopping. Search is a vital element to reach to a particular service and product. Therefore, the entire information can be obtained from the search result (Stanoevska-Slabeva et al. 2014). Hence, mobile marketing will enable the customer of Ryanair to open the search engine like Google and to search their required service or product. As for example, people search for the low cost service. Therefore, the low price service offer of Ryanair can reach to the consumer domain through the mobile marketing.

Proximity marketing is process of advertising via wireless distribution that can be done via mobile marketing (Florido-Benitez et al. 2017). This digital marketing focuses on the localized people. In the context of Ryanair such marketing will be improved by advertising their service via mobile phone. On the other hand, smart phone includes various apps, which gives opportunity to the users to get quick access of their service. As for example, Ryanair has official mobile apps through which the customers of this organization can book cheapest flight in easiest and quick manner. Maximum people those use the smart phones keep it always in their hand, which allows the business organization to reach potential customer's domain. On the other hand, mobile marketing is a cost-effective way for the advertisement process. On the other hand, success of the digital marketing can be measured via mobile marketing in the context of Ryanair.

Figure 1: Mobile marketing of Ryanair

(Source: Felix et al. 2017)

8. Measurement of the success of the digital strategy in the context of Ryanair

Success of the digital marketing needs to be measured in the context of Ryanair airline. However, web analytics strategy will be helpful to measure the success of the digital marketing for an organization. Web analytics strategy enables the organization to select the right target metrics and process (Haddad 2017). Success of the digital marketing depends on the analytics tool. As for example, data visualization tool like standalone tool is a crucial tool to observe the real-time data in the digital marketing process. On the other hand, multi-channel analytics allows Ryanair to gather data from different channels, which makes the business more digital. The main target customers of this organization are the business owner and the family members. On the other hand, it is crucial for this business to forecast the outcomes that will be occurred from the digital marketing. Measurement of the online sales will be helpful for an organization to measure the success of the digital tool (Kannan 2017). By using Google Analytics Ryanair will be able to track their sales through online. However, the customers send request regarding the information of a service via company website. Hence, Google Analytics will help Ryanair to identify the campaign result that is used mostly in their various web forms.

9. Key tasks and the activities to develop an effective digital marketing strategy

Key milestones include basic measurement, custom measurement and customer intelligence. Basic measurement focuses on the web analytics process to understand the number of visitors in a company website. Custom management enables an organization to align the business strategies with the analytics report. Custom report gives more targeted insights into the activities of the users (Erkollar and Oberer 2017). Therefore, Ryanair needs to expand their focus from the digital marketing plan to the area of customer intelligence. For an effective digital marketing strategy it is crucial to improve the web experience of the customer by providing more information. The main resources of an effective digital marketing are technical experts, financial resources and creative workforce. In order to carry out an effective digital marketing campaign it is important to establish the communication process between the service and the customers in context of Ryanair. This can be done by establishing social media pages, blogs, website and sending email. Identification of the digital marketing budget is crucial for an effective digital marketing campaign (Florido-Benitez et al. 2017). Therefore, it is important for the Ryanair to review the previous data of the digital marketing in the airline industry. Apart from these it is important for this air industry to use paid promotion like Adwords or paid social media to enhance their digital marketing campaign.

Conclusion

The entire piece of the study reveals the digital marketing in the context of Ryanair. This is an airline industry, which offers low price service in EU. However, in the recent years, digital marketing strategy is crucial for this airline to enhance the marketing process as well as the sales of this organization. Social media, email marketing, and mobile marketing are the major digital tools that are used in the digital marketing. However, among the various tools, social media marketing is the crucial platform that will enable this airline company to introduce their service in a huge population belongs from different geographical regions. On the other hand, email marketing is cost-effective digital marketing that makes the information confidential and delivers the messages quickly in the customer domain. Apart from these mobile marketing is another way to reach the customers with new service offer.

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