Introduction
The coffee industry is huge indeed, and several companies are eager to introduce their ideas and improvements to attract the attention of customers. Taylor St Baristas is a young UK coffee company founded at the beginning of the 2000s. It was a kind of response to the existed dire state of London coffee and the necessity to prove that rich coffee drinks could be available to the British people (Taylor st: our history 2016). Within a short period, the company proved itself as a powerful body in the coffee industry. There are no many coffee shops of the company.
Still, each of them has its worth and impact on the industry (Taylor st: careers 2016). Such importance and development could be explained by the properly organized digital marketing environment. In this report, the digital marketing plan for Taylor St Baristas will be developed with the help of Facebook as the main social media tool for the chosen organization in to promote online customer acquisition throughout the relevant strategic recommendations such as the involvement of customers in discussions, the development of competitions within the shops, and the introduction of a powerful image content.
Key Areas of the Digital Marketing Environment
Nowadays, the development of technologies and the evolution of digital marketing cannot be ignored (Ryan 2014). Many people cannot even identify the period when they become so technologically dependent. Nowadays, it is easy and convenient to read some feedback about the existing restaurants, hotels, or insurance companies before a person decides to address any organization. The actual speed of digital technological development cannot be defined but compared with the speed of light (Abramovich 2013). Customers focus on the importance of public opinion, and companies have to elaborate appropriate culture, values, and visions in regards to the changes and the necessity to be innovative.
The peculiar feature of Taylor St Baristas is the fact that the company understands the importance of digital technologies. Still, its people do not focus much attention on the technological and digital media aspects. The heart of their work is the fact that every cup of coffee is prepared by a highly qualified barista, a person, who stands between a customer and their coffee (Taylor st: our history 2016). Taylor St Baristas is known for its ability to implement different strategies to make people use the products and services offered. For example, during the last several years, the company made use of crowd-funding as the main bond funding method (Brown 2014).
However, the main task of this report is based on the analysis of the digital marketing environment and its key areas the impact of which could predetermine the work of the company. Social media is a chance to find the required connection between a company, its product, and its customer (Baines, Fill, & Page 2013; Charlesworth 2014). It is not enough to introduce a product and make a customer buy it. It is important to involve a customer in the life of a company and increase online customer acquisition (Kumar & Peterson 2012). As soon as social media is used to increase the number of customers and to attract the attention of new people, Taylor St Baristas could have access to a number of new opportunities and chances to develop its highly qualified coffee industry. In the real world, Taylor St Baristas has proved itself as a powerful part of the coffee industry. Now, it is time to investigate the opportunities of Taylor St Baristas in the digital world.
Facebook is one of the possible digital strategic options for Taylor St Baristas to rely on. Nowadays, a number of companies and people know that Facebook could be used to promote the growth of business (Mineo 2015). Many companies have several captivating and informative stories about how they succeed using Facebook as the main social media tool. This platform is not expensive, every person could reach it anytime they want, and not much time is required to promote a product or a service (DeMers 2015). The key digital marketing areas include online communication, exchange of image content, search marketing, and brand protection (Chaffey 2012). The understanding of the marketing environment means the possibilities to define the existing political, economic, social, and technological factors that could influence the working process of the company and its cooperation with customers (Blythe 2013). At the same time, it is important to identify strong and weak aspects of the company and elaborate the information in the way threats and opportunities could be discovered (Andler 2012).
A TOWs analysis is one of the possible approaches to investigate the current position of the company and understand if online customer acquisition is an important issue for consideration or its importance could be diminished. Taylor St Baristas could use Facebook as an opportunity to improve the acquisition of customers.
Taylor St Baristas – TOWs Analysis
Strengths
- Quality of products
- Regular customers
- Brand image
- Highly-qualified baristas
- Sustainability
Weaknesses
- Poor ad system
- Absent system of discounts
- High price policy
- Certain locations without any prospects to be developed
Opportunities
- Price change policy
- Online advertisement
- Online shops
- Eco-friendly policies
- Customer acquisition
SO Strategies
- Reputation and the quality of products could be the key of online advertisement
- Development of new policies using its brand and the quality of employees
WO Strategies
- Change of the ad system using new digital marketing tools
- Explanation that high prices are connected with high standards and eco-friendly intentions
Threats
- Cheap coffee products’ growth
- Possibilities of online frauds
- Global crisis of the coffee industry
- New competitors
ST Strategies
- Grow own coffee products and avoid cooperation with suppliers
- Use the brand image as the main explanation of a high price policy
WT Strategies
- Continue developing its business in London
- Compete with other companies by keeping the same price policy
Digital Marketing Objectives
Marketing and development are crucial parts of any company’s life (Mariani et al. 2014). Taylor St Baristas has to get ready for some activities with the help which its employees could understand how to attract the attention of customers, how to introduce their products, and how to communicate the quality, trust, and freedom of choice. The main goal of the case in this project is to make sure that the improvement of customer acquisition. Bracks (2012) says that people could enquire about the business of the company and the services offered in several ways. For example, it is possible to phone, email, or develop a website. Nowadays, many companies prefer to succeed in social media marketing using Facebook as the main tool for consideration and a rival in the consumer social network industry in the whole globe (Treadaway & Smith 2012). To achieve this goal, it is important to have several clear objectives and make sure they are achieved one day.
The objectives have to be real and achievable regarding the abilities and the current position of the company. Without objectives, the company does not have a basis to measure the success of the offered activities (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel 2011). One of the marketing objectives that could be defined includes the necessity to organize 3 competitions between the baristas who live in London and describe the events online during the next 2 months. This goal could be considered as SMART (Walker 2015) because it is specific (an intention to organize a competition and cover it online), measurable (the number of competitions is offered), achievable (the desire is the most important requirement), realistic (many coffee shops have already organized such events), and timed (the period for achieving the goal is offered). This objective could help to acquire more customers because it is expected that people want to observe free competitions and enjoy the quality of the products offered.
Another important marketing objective is to involve 1000 customers in the discussions of the coffee shop work and appreciate the choice of people by offering 3 types of discounts for the most active participation. The period for this goal achieve is about one month. Still, the period should be changed in case the required number of customers could be gathered. This objective is SMART indeed because it has all the required characteristics (Chaffey & Smith 2013). Its specification is about the development of online discussions and the promotion of discounts among customers. The objective is measured by the necessity to gather 1000 people with their own opinions. It is a realistic suggestion because nowadays people like to share their opinions and experiences via the Internet (Daft 2012). There are no threats or challenges for the company to develop the forum via Facebook. Finally, the objective has more or less clear time measurements.
Both objectives have one thing in common that is to improve online customer acquisition with the help of Facebook as the source to share information.
Digital Marketing Strategy
Social media marketing is based on the use of such sites as Facebook or Twitter to provide customers with an opportunity to get engaged with the activities of the company. Though this strategy is new, it does not require a budget. However, the users of this kind of strategy should understand that such factors as potential customers’ demographics (Chaffey 2016), threats of non-participation because not all employees of the company could be as social as customers could expect (Belbey 2015), and the necessity to be online all the time because of the demands of customers impressive indeed (Chaffey 2015).
Taking into consideration the needs and objectives of the company at the moment, it is possible to develop the social media marketing strategy that is based on the idea to stay active on Facebook and promote the exchange of information. Customer acquisition requires the presence of at least one person of the company online. The point is that people do not consider the importance of actual-time online. The current Facebook platform includes the possibility to use quick reply buttons and send the messages from different devices in a short time (Ghoshal 2016). Therefore, the strategy to stay active on Facebook should not be a challenge for the company. The only task is to find at least two people who could work days and nights to provide replies and improve the content on the company’s page on Facebook.
The success of the strategy depends on the way of how Taylor St Baristas’ employees understand the interests of their customers. For example, a customer is on a trip to another country. The time zone is different. Still, the person wants to share some information or get an answer to a certain question. The representative of Taylor St Baristas should be available on Facebook to develop a conversation and attract a customer. There is no need to hire a person who has a deep level of knowledge in coffee production or sales. The person, who should work on the Facebook page, has to develop several communicative skills and searching abilities with the help of which customers want to stay on the page and read more interesting information.
The stay on Facebook strategy should help to achieve the objectives of the company. On the one hand, it should not be very difficult to create a page or a discussion about the coming events and invite as many baristas as possible to participate in the competition. Some baristas could ask additional questions or make suggestions, and the representative of Taylor St Baristas should reply and give clear answers and explanations as soon as possible. People may also want just to observe the way of how the participation is organized. Therefore, online customer acquisition could be increased with the help of such an event and its promotion.
Another goal is the presence of 1000 customers on the page, who want to leave their opinions about the company. The chosen stay on Facebook helps to communicate with customers, support their discussions, and make them feel that their presence on the page means a lot for the company.
Tactical Mix
The success of the digital marketing strategy depends on the tactics that could be used by the company (Kaufman & Horton 2014). In case several distribution channels are involved, certain marketing and logistical resources should be taken into consideration (Jeanpert & Pache 2016). In this case, the company aims at using Facebook as the only source of information distribution. Therefore, it is possible to focus on the tactics that could be applied to one particular sourced by one particular company to meet two definite objectives following one marketing strategy.
- Make sure that the Facebook page of the company is working;
- Introduce the current achievements of Taylor St Baristas on the page;
- Check if enough images and tables are offered to catch the attention of people;
- Inform about a coming event and make sure that all people are invited, and all people could have a certain portion of benefits;
- Hire two people, who could work on schedule and answer the questions and requests of customers 24/7;
- Create several powerful ads to inform that communication on the page is a chance to get a discount and become a favorite customer of the company;
- Grab the attention of customers by offering music or even movies about coffee to just to support a kind of “coffee mood”;
- Listen to customers and count feedbacks about the quality of services, suggestions, and just ordinary thoughts of people.
In other words, it is necessary to make a page of Facebook alive because this Internet source is used by millions of people hourly. Facebook is one of the best tools to rely on to develop marketing strategies and introduce the company from different aspects.
Conclusion
In general, Taylor St Baristas has all chances to increase customer acquisition in a short period. Its TWOs shows that the company has a number of strengths that could be used to develop interesting and effective strategies. Facebook is the chosen tool. Its effectiveness and the possibilities of the users are impressive, and Taylor St Baristas has all chances to attract more people to its services and products by being active on Facebook.
- Goal: Increase customer acquisition
- Objectives:
- Organize a competition between baristas and describe it online;
- Gather 1000 customers and offer discounts for the most active participants.
- Strategy: Stay on Facebook and promote the actual exchange of information
- Tactics:
- Be communicative
- Answer questions
- Stay interesting
- Be online 24/7
Each strategy should be supported by properly chosen tactics. The ideas offered in this report are neither expensive nor hard to achieve. Therefore, Taylor St Baristas should just find enough time to develop the strategy and have two professional people, who could support the life of Taylor St Baristas’ page on Facebook.
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