INTRO TO DIGITAL MARKETING REPORT: CLIENT PROFILE, MARKET ANALYSIS AND CURRENT DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

As explained in your syllabus, you are required to develop a digital marketing plan (strategy) for an existing local company (client). The company must include an e-commerce component, that is, the company should buy, sell, order and/or deliver products or services online. As an additional requirement, we are looking for companies with a real need of improving their digital marketing strategy (e.g. the company has an appealing, well-designed and functional e-commerce site but conversion rates are low; the e-commerce site has good conversion rates but social media or e-mail marketing have not been integrated to the digital strategy).

REPORT will consist of the following sections:

1. CLIENT PROFILE - The client profile should include the following items:

A. Name and location

B. Number of employees

C. Description of the goods and/or services offered

D. History and age of the company

E. Company presence and sales via offline and online channels

F. Website URL

G. Website age

H. Website management (Who is in charge of updating/maintaining the site? How often is the site updated?)

I. Using the "Internet Archive Wayback Machine" site, analyze the evolution of the company's website. Include three screen shots to exemplify this evolution. Explain your findings.

J. Other relevant information about the company

2. MARKET ANALYSIS - The company's market analysis should include the following aspects:

A. SWOT analysis of the company

B. Current and potential customers (detailed description of target customers)

C. Current and potential competitors

D. Current and past marketing campaigns (advertising)

E. Overview of the industry (key characteristics, competitive/saturated/mature)

F. Projected and historical online spend for the industry

G. Market position/specialties

H. Unique selling points of the goods/services offered

I. Carefully-crafted positioning statement for the company

J. Seasonality of their goods/services or seasonality that the company has identified

K. Other relevant market information

3. CURRENT DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY (EFFORTS) - The current digital marketing strategy should include the following sections:

A. Website goals and uses (e.g., sales, customer service, lead generation)

B. Website strengths and weaknesses

C. Screen shots of the website's homepage

D. Website visibility, using Google PageRank and/or analyzing a few keyword search results (i.e. a quick evaluation of the website visibility, is the website well ranked in search engines?)

E. If available, provide summary information from Google Analytics (e.g., unique visitors, page views, bounce rate, traffic sources, average time on site, landing and exit pages, conversion rates).

F. Social media presence (i.e. What social media tools is the company actively using for marketing purposes? Are these social media channels used effectively?)

G. Online advertising (if available, include copies of banner ads)

H. E-mail marketing (if available, include samples of e-mails)

I. Mobile marketing (Is the website optimized for mobile devices? Has the company developed a mobile app? If yes, describe it.)

J. Any information available about current and past paid search marketing (AdWords) and/or social media campaigns.

K. Offline promotion of the website and social media (How is the company advertising their digital marketing efforts offline?)

4. TEAM'S EVALUATION OF THE FIRM'S DIGITAL MARKETING - Based on the information collected and described in section 3, explain in 250-300 words why you think the company needs your help, as digital marketing consultants. Please provide strong arguments as this will be critical in the instructor's decision of approving (or rejecting) this company for your final project.