Digital Marketing Plan for an online multi-brand retail - Essay Example

? Digital Marketing Plan for an online multi-brand retail Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Situational Analysis 3 Objectives 4 Strategy 4 Segmentation 4 Targeting 4 Positioning 5 Tactics and Actions 5 Control 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 Introduction New Waves are an interface for collaboration amongst the evolving and growing pool of talented designers and the fashion industry. It is targeting to cater to the online shopping needs of modern females of UK, by offering the next generation trends in the fashion segment. Situational Analysis The UK is recognized as one of the leading markets for manufacturing and evolution of the fashion in the global arena with textile industries producing 8.5 billion pounds of finished goods (Fashionunited, 2009). As of the year 2010, the UK fashion industry has been valued at around 21 billion pounds (Guardian, 2010).The recession and the slowdown in the markets all over the globe, created a down trend in the industry. Further slowdown happened in this particular sector, as more and more consumers tried cutting their expenses. Also, the continuous fear emerging out of the slowdown in the Euro zone and possible chances of a double dip recession has continued to impact the economy as well as public spending for the fashionable clothing sector (Centre For Retail Research, 2012). This has led to the retaliation of fears contributing to a possible bleak outlook for the UK fashion and garments sector. Also, there has been a unique factor that has been realised and noticed in this particular industry for the year 2011. The online model of purchase, which has been prompted by extensive promotion for the online model of shopping has started to cannibalize the in store sales. This has further impacted and hampered the sales that are happening in stores for the entire year of 2011 (Centre For Retail Research, 2012). Objectives The high end ‘New Waves’ is trying to act as a platform for providing a collaboration between the new and emerging pool of new designers as well as the fashion industry of UK. The primary focus of New Waves online model is to act as an online window for the fashion conscious consumers of UK and introducing them to the next big thing that is going to happen in the fashion industry of UK. They are making efforts to aim for a 65% recall from the total target segment, within a period of 6 months duration. It also is trying to achieve the objective of promoting itself as a national level clothing brand in the UK Market. Strategy Segmentation Marketing segmentation is an important and vital role, which is employed by all organizations large or small and is considered as an extremely strong weapon in identifying the target consumers (Charles, Hair & McDaniel, 2011, p. 260). New Waves, in an attempt to promote itself as a national level brand in the UK market are essentially targeting the modern fashion conscious female consumers of the UK zone falling within the age bracket of 18-36 yrs. Targeting The modern generations of consumers, who are mostly falling within the specified age group, are increasingly becoming tech savvy and are more increasingly inclined towards the internet. So, it will be very much essential for the brand to target and communicate as well as interact with the consumers in order to make the brand’s presence felt online to these young consumers. Positioning In an effort to communicate the brand well in the minds of the modern consumers of UK, New Wave should increasingly use a combination of strategies and tactics for promoting the concept online. The best way to make this happen is to use a number of effective online promotional tactics. Tactics and Actions New Waves can utilize a variety of online promotional strategy and techniques in an effort to market its platform and communicate effectively to the young target segment. In an effort to communicate with the young fashionable modern consumers, New Waves should think of making its presence felt by tying up and collaborating with various online fashion magazines like MC Magazine, Glamour Magazine as these sites are frequently accessed by the young tech savvy consumers of UK. Another vital tactic to promote the brand to the young consumer is through social marketing. Social marketing helps to maintain and sustain a healthy social behavioural change amongst consumers by connecting with the consumers on a social note (Weinreich, 1999, p. 4). Social marketing helps in inducing a change in behaviour amongst consumers (Goldberg, Fishbein & Middlestadt, 1997, p.5). Social marketing comprises of a powerful tool set, that has the power to influence the behaviour for a wide segment of the masses (Andreasen, 2006, p. viii). As an effective strategy to enter into the minds of the young consumers, the brand New Wave should increasingly make its presence felt in the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. This can be done by creating specific pages for the brand of New Wave in the social networking sites and thereby promoting events and news related to the fashion industry of UK. Also, to increase the level of fan following for the sites, there should be a option for posting regular updates from the new and emerging pool of designers who will be sharing and giving a glimpse of their patterns, thereby educating the style and fashion consumers of UK about the latest evolutions of fashion trends in the fashion industry of UK. Market Research agencies provide data which is a valuable source of information regarding the consumer behaviour (Hague and Morgan, 2004, p. 1). Also, they act as a vital point of information source for getting customer databases. New Wave can obtain databases of customers falling within the target age group from various retail market research agencies and can send them newsletters highlighting and advertising the offerings of New Wave. In an attempt to promote interests among the young consumer of UK, New Wave can also promote roll over ads in some of the leading news sites, which are very popular in UK. It will be more effective to choose sites which promotes news mostly on the lifestyle and incidents happening in the lives of the celebrities all over the globe, as the young consumers will be more inclined to look up to them as a role model, while choosing the latest patterns and trends in the industry. Finally, as a step of innovation in online marketing and brand promotion, it might prove to be effective to sign up a brand ambassador for the brand of New Waves and promote the offerings. This will act for the cause of offline branding as well and will help New Wave to get established as a national level brand in the desired consumer segment, as it will become easy for the consumers to relate to the brand through the portrayal of a brand ambassador. Control Well developed marketing plans are complemented by an effective framework for control (Perreault & McCarthy, 2006, p. 524). Marketing control comprises of steps like reviewing currently existing marketing strategies and fixing the loop holes currently existent (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p. 53). It becomes handy and helpful for a company to review the returns on marketing efforts by measuring the success in terms of market share, the relative growth achieved etc. New Waves can employ a variety of measures to control and review the efforts made in terms of promoting the brand online. As a very common strategy, New Wave can conduct on an online survey by mailing out questionnaires to a select group of respondents, the databases of whom were acquired during the time of marketing promotion. This will help them to judge New Waves, the level of exposure, familiarity, popularity and recall the brand has achieved in the minds of the target consumers. Also, New Waves in an effort to measure the success of online branding of the brand, can measure the traffic flow that has happened after the promotional efforts were implemented. References Andreasen, A. R., 2006. Social Marketing in the 21st Century. UK: Sage Publications. Centre for Retail Research, 2012. Retail Forecast for 2012-2013. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 5 May 2012] Charles W. Lamb, Joseph F. Hair, Carl McDaniel., 2011. Essentials of Marketing. US: Cengage Learning. Fashion united, 2009. Facts and Figures in the UK fashion industry. [Online] Available at: < http://www.fashionunited.co.uk/facts-and-figures-in-the-uk-fashion-industry > [Accessed 5 May 2012] Goldberg, M. E. Fishbein, M. and Middlestadt, S. E., 1997. Social Marketing: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. New Jersey:Lawrence Erlbaun Associates, Inc. Guardian, 2010. British fashion industry now worth nearly ?21bn a year, report reveals. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 5 May 2012] Hague, N. and Morgan, C. A., 2004. Market Research in Practice: A Guide to the Basics. UK : Kogan Page Publishers. Kotler, P and Armstrong, G., 2008. Principles of Marketing. Twelfth Edition. India: Pearson Education, Inc. Perreault, D.W. and McCarthy, E. J., 2006. Basic Marketing. 15E. India: Tata McGraw - Hill Edition Weinreich, N. K., 1999. Hands-On Social Marketing: A Step-By-Step Guide. UK: Sage Publications, Inc. Bibliography Capon, N. and Hulbert, J. M., 2007. Managing Marketing in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Wessex, Inc. Henry, A., 2008. Understanding Strategic Management. US: Oxford University Press Porter, E, M., 1985. Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York: Free Press. Pride, W. M. and Ferrell, O. C., 2012. Foundations of Marketing. Fifth Edition. USA: South Western Cengage Learning. Proctor, T., 2000. Strategic Marketing: An Introduction.US: Routledge. Westwood, J., 2005. Marketing Plan Workbook. UK: Kogan Page Publishers Read More