DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN, Slides of Digital Marketing

Download DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN and more Slides Digital Marketing in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Samra Tufail DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN Case Indian Masala Kebabish Thesis CENTRIA UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES Business management June 2021 ABSTRACT Centria University of Applied Sciences Date June 2021 Author Samra Tufail Degree program Bachelor of Business Administration, Business Management Name of the thesis DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN. Case Indian Masala Kebabish Supervisor Ann-Christine Johnsson Pages 38+9 The thesis was created with the aim to develop a digital marketing plan for a small business that oper- ates in the restaurant industry. The digital plan has been developed by using PR Smith’s SOSTAC® planning system with a focus on two social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram. The aim was to improve the performance of the social media pages of the restaurant and to increase engagement with customers. So, a detailed plan was developed using a digital marketing plan for the restaurant. Firstly, in the introduction chapter, a brief background of digital marketing planning, digital market- ing plan benefits, and a small introduction of the restaurant was discussed. The following chapters ex- plain digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, the purpose of social media mar- keting, social media channels, Facebook & Instagram, and how to increase engagement. The fourth and fifth chapters elaborate SOSTAC® planning model and the implementation of the planning model. The steps include situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactics, actions, and control also some suggestions were provided under implementation. The design of the plan was done in coop- eration with the owner, competitor’s analysis, and customer analysis was implemented too. The plan recommends many options to the owner regarding different types of posts, engagement growth rate with the customers, and the implementation of different techniques. Also, the plan described different types of content that should be posted on Facebook. The plan also emphasized creating an Instagram page and promote it according to the action plan. The restaurant owners should include pictures, vid- eos, some games, emotions, special discount offers, news, etc on their social media pages. The restau- rant owners should manage the page actively and answer the question more quickly, use tagging and hashtags, and post user-generated content. Restaurant owners should ask questions to their customers on social media by creating polls and holding some contests. Keywords Digital marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Indian Masala Kebabish, social media, SOSTAC®planning model. 1 1 INTRODUCTION The aim of the thesis is to create a digital marketing plan for the restaurant based on the SOSTAC® planning model with a focus on two social media channels: Facebook and Instagram. The purpose is to improve the restaurant’s performance on social media such as on Facebook & Instagram pages and im- prove engagement with the customers. The restaurant is a family-owned business hence sub-goal of the digital marketing plan is to enhance knowledge about digital marketing and its effectiveness for the business. The structure of the thesis is as follows: 1st chapter of the thesis consists of the background of the digi- tal plan, 2nd chapter explains digital marketing, its components, social media marketing, and its pur- pose,2 social media platforms Facebook and Instagram also the theories and concepts related to digi- talization are explained in detail. The 3rd chapter gives an in-depth explanation about the SOSTAC® planning model, the 4th chapter describes the digital marketing planning of the restaurant by using the SOSTAC® planning model and its implementation. The last chapter consists of the conclusion of the whole thesis process and the learning outcomes. The Internet marketing plan helps to achieve specific e-marketing goals and improve strategies. Inter- net marketing planning ensures that resources are utilized to obtain the benefit from available market- ing opportunities on the internet and identify the threats. E-marketing/Internet marketing focuses on web and digital media that is used by the company or brand. For instance, email marketing or mobile media is used to interact with the audience to achieve marketing goals. Digital marketing has a great impact on the business as small businesses can reach their target customers at a low cost and can com- pete with well-reputed companies (Bala & Verma 2018, 329, 337.) Digital marketing is good for a small business because it helps to create relations with customers. At the moment customer retention is the biggest challenge so, digital marketing help in this matter. En- gagement is one way to retain the customers once they have bought a product from the store. With en- gagement, the product will stay in the customer’s mind and they will come back the same as remarket- ing and retargeting. Small businesses need to identify their target customers, their demands, and de- sires because digital marketing helps to recognize the behavior of the online customers that assist to target the ideal customers. There are many digital channels used by small businesses to reach their cus- tomers and to compete with large business entities. (Sambol 2020.) 2 The restaurant Indian Masala Kebabish sells pizza, kebab, and Indian food. The old name of the res- taurant was Luca’s who has been selling only pizza and kebab for many years. Earlier, the old restau- rant has been very successful in the field of pizza and has many renowned customers from Kokkola and nearby areas. The restaurant is small, but the sale of the restaurant is growing day by day due to selling good, tasty, quality food. Excellent customer service is one of the key components that contrib- ute to the success of the restaurant. The restaurant is owned by Pakistani and Nepali men, who are the owners of the business. The restaurant is running a page on Facebook but has not created an Instagram page yet. The restaurant owners are not much familiar with social media marketing therefore the owner is interested to develop a digital marketing plan for the restaurant. The restaurant owners want to improve their performance on social media. The potential customers of the restaurant are adult peo- ple. The owner thinks the social media marketing strategy will be a good addition to the plan. In the restaurant industry, Facebook is the king with 2.8 million page likes while Instagram creates the highest engagement rate for the restaurant brands among social networks (Trackmaven 2016, 16). therefore, these two channels are being used for the plan. Owners of the restaurant want to expand the business shortly and attract new customers for their newly opened business. Facebook and Instagram are the most effective channels for online marketing that are mostly used by small companies particu- larly in the restaurant industry. The restaurant can get benefit from digital marketing if digital market- ing will be done strategically. 3 2 DIGITAL MARKETING Fast innovation in information and communication is known as the” digital world “which has changed the way of marketing of all businesses and industries. The introduction of new trends of digital com- munication into the marketing plan can give a competitive advantage to the companies. Professionals need to have adequate knowledge about digital technology and its impacts on marketing communica- tion. Digital marketing is becoming renowned day by day, as in past the concept was not much clear. Normally, digital marketing is linked with an advertisement, banner advertising, SRO, and PPC (Pay per click) but the concept is still considered narrow by including email, RSS, voice broadcast, fax broadcast, blogging, video, stream, wireless text messaging and instant messaging. Digital marketing is not limited, it has a broader aspect and concept. A simple definition of digital marketing is to pro- mote products, services, or brands with the help of different electronic resources. Easy understanding of digital marketing is described as online marketing, internet marketing, or web marketing. (Mankad 2019, Chapter 1.) The 18th and 19th centuries brought up some new revolutions in advertisement such as newspaper ad- vertisements and mail-order advertising. The 20th century introduced another advertisement method which was the radio where companies were able to reach their customers. Gradually television came into existence which brought an innovation “internet “at the end of the century, that created digital marketing. Technology evolution has been interfering in all the historical modes of advertisements these all modes introduced different ways of communication to reach the customers. The interesting thing is that the old-fashioned methods of advertisement are still prevailing and can be used in some forms. (Rayan 2014, 11.) Digital report 2020 describes that social media and digital mobile usage have increased all over the world. Nowadays 4.5 billion people use the internet, social media usage has reached up to 3.8 billion. 60% of the world’s population is online, and it was anticipated more than half of the world's popula- tion l used social media in 2020. The usage of the internet has grown by 7% as compared to 2019 with 298 million new users. Social media users increased by 9% with 321 million new users as compared to last year, while mobile phone users increased by 2.4% over the last year as explained in FIGURE 1. (Kemp 2020.) 6 Video content is the content king as videos are considered an easy and understandable source of infor- mation. A video that demonstrates the manufacturing process appeals to the people. It is a good idea to get some professionals' suggestions for the website’s video production. Pictures play a significant role on the website so use low-resolution pictures on the website. Images with the product name or with people’s names get more SEO (search engine optimization) ranking. Infographics work well on web- sites. Infographics increase the awareness of products and services and capture the audience's attention on a big scale. Infographics are good for complex structures such as numerical information in a simple understandable format. Infographics are important because shared infographics create trust. (Smith 2020.) Infographics are visual representations of information or data. The information can be any market trend or any step-by-step guide about any process. Infographics present the information in form of vis- ual and attractive graphics. The goal of infographics is to engage the audience. (Sheikh 2020.) Webinars are good for engagement; Webinars could be live or in recorded form on the website. A live webinar is convenient to interact with the audience through questions and answers also with text chat. The webinars work well for brand awareness at the consideration stage and the decision-making stage. The pricing table should be visible on the website for awareness and consideration to the customer to make decisions that increase sales. (Smith 2020.) Focus on specialized content and create quality content that people like to share, comment on, and fol- low. Add value to the conversation means to share, like, or involve people in topics representing the brand. Viral trends, political factors, or some social events happening in the world or in-country would increase engagement with the audience. Building online relations contribute to online marketing suc- cess. It is not necessary to reach every single audience but the answer to those who ask questions or suggestions because too much sharing can cause a loss of followers’ base. (Dollwet 2019, 5-7.) 2.2 Engagement According to the customer’s view engagement is a behavioural demonstration towards a firm or brand as a purchasing substitute, it is a motivational driving force. Customer engagement is a sign of positive behaviour in the form of word-of-mouth e.g., recommendations by customers influence the other’s customer's decision-making so customers become a brand ambassador. Companies can create a 7 friendly relation with consumers in form of following, likes, and social presence. Consumers ask for information from their trusted brands so significantly, brands should grow their fans by investing in them to make loyal fans. This can be achieved by offering pure lovely products, etc. Once a customer gets engaged a firms' positive consequences start to rise in the form of positive word-of-mouth, which enhances the brand equity insight and sales. This is only possible when people become brand fans of the firm. For building a high level of engagement brands need to socialize with their consumers and contribute to conversations through convincing and reliable brand voice. For this purpose, brands should offer some valuable content e.g., downloads, shareable widgets, wallpapers, etc, and value the fans by sharing valuable information with fans of upcoming new products, company news, promo- tions, or career opportunities. (Tuten & Solomon 2015, 147.) Games, contests, and competitions are good for engagement development on social media channels. Gamification means game-like techniques are used for engagement purposes through non-game activi- ties. In the study conducted by Gigya, gamification addition to the site improves the engagement rate. Games increase comments by 13%, social sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and networks by 22%, and content discovery by 68%. (Lardi & Fuchs 2013, 87.) 8 3 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Social media means using different online communication methods where users form electronic groups share information, different concepts, private messages, and other stuff. These new forms of social media are becoming very popular on the internet which is anticipating the future of marketing media. 65% of adult internet users (50% of all U.S. adults) now use double social networking sites than previously reported and 43% of online adults use social networking on daily basis. Social media includes different apps such as social networking websites, bloggers, content groups, forums, and many different interactive apps. More hotels are including social media in their marketing communica- tion for improving their marketing practices. (Leung, Bai, Stahura 2015, 147-148.) Some famous so- cial media sites are listed under FIGURE 3. FIGURE 3. Social media sites (Adapted from Tuten 2021, 6.) Marketing is a way of communication between customers and businesses the purpose is to present and promote products and services. The main purpose of communication is to sell. Marketing is a complex discipline that consists of a lot of tasks that ensure communication leads to the goal. (Patel 2017, 11.) Social media marketing is improving social and economic returns using marketing knowledge, no- tions, and procedures. It is also about marketing evaluation of social outcomes, decisions, and activi- ties. Social media marketing is not only linked with hitting the head page of any website, but it is also the procedure to develop a company’s presence, status, and branding for the potential customer, users, communities, supporters, and readers strategically and systematically. (Neti 2011, 4.) Facebook Social sharing (2.3 Billion active users) Instagram Social sharing,picture s and 60 second videos (1 Billion users) Twitter Micro blogging (326 million active users) Pinterest Social site (291M Active user) Snapchat Social sharing app, pictures,vide os,filters (210 million users) Linkedin Buisness oriemted social netwroking site (706 million users) 11 prospects, building authority, developing networks that offer these networks to the new prospect, and convert them into a sale. Social selling builds relations and increased engagement that brought up new customers and more buyers. Social selling is measured by the growing no of visitors, buyer’s fre- quency, and lead conversion to customers. (Vibrant publishers 2020.) The most important element of social media marketing is listening to your audience. 3.2 User-generated content (UGC) User-generated content (UGC) is any text, video, image, can be a review that is created by people but not by the brand. Some brands also share UGC on their social media pages or accounts, websites, and marketing addresses. Instagram is mostly used for UGC where people share the posts representing some brands, products, or services to the audience, and later that content can be shared by the brands on their own social media pages that boost the reliability. UGC is 2.4 times more valuable to the peo- ple as compared to content created by brands (Newberry 2019.) User-generated content is the content that is created by users. People on the internet influence other people such as family, friends, and followers that is an opportunity for the companies because these are the experiences which customer shares with their circle. Reviews also represent UGC which could be one of the strongest strategies for a business because it adds value in form of a direct recommenda- tion of a product or services that is a more direct and honest solution. Video content has become more popular to promote UGC because it is easily accessible by the public. UGC value has topped through short and shareable social media platforms in form of Instagram, alongside hashtags and contests that can be used as a tactic to create an additional value in UGC. For some special events, social channels can be used to boost the UGC. Engagement, reach, and content marketing improves by UGC, and also the campaign boost with less time, SEO improves (Rockcontent 2020.) 3.3 Purpose of social media marketing The purpose of social media marketing is to express business through social media and use this tech- nique to communicate the message with potential customers. Companies want to promote their busi- ness through social media marketing, individuals and businesses get a lot of other benefits. (Patel 2017, 14.) 12 Social media marketing increases efficiency and reduces cost. Business applications help in achieving customer attention, to establish customer relations, promoting new business ideas, to enhance online and offline store traffic, and have helped in converting consumers into customers. Social media mar- keting is not a substitute for traditional marketing but is more than its counterpart. (Tuten & Solomon 2015.) A web 2,0 revolutionary technology is used by modern companies who want to create a link and share the information with the customers. This revolution has provided a new tool of communication world- wide at low prices on the internet and has given a goose bump to digital marketing tactics. The con- tent-based marketing technique plays the role of bridge between customer and firm that fills the gaps. This strategy has not only proven effective marketing tactics but is also considered a relation builder model. Some forces put pressure on companies to enter into a digital world through competition and internal influential factor that pushes the firm to adopt digital marketing. The benefits of using social media marketing include online sales broadcasting, marketing research. It also helps in brand building, develops word of mouth communication, buzz marketing, and crowdsourcing, and improves the com- pany’s performance. Digital marketing is also beneficial in the exchange of information. It creates direct relation with the customer, analysis between customer and supplier becomes easier, easy to use, has potential to spread knowledge, promotes promotion, internal and external relations developed, customer’s behaviour can be accessed about the consumptions and their needs, also the negative feedback from customers is evaluated but among all of these the most important factor is communication through digital marketing because social media facilitates the communication process. (Tiago & Verissimo 2014, 704 – 705.) 3.4 Social media marketing as a communication tool Social media has changed the way of communication, it has opened new doors for individuals and businesses. The traditional way of communication has been influenced by the modern way of commu- nication also has brought up new channels and tactics for communication with customers. Social me- dia has a large impact on customer behaviour in form of giving awareness, update the latest infor- mation, reviews, attitude, and feedback after buying and pre-buying. Social media has introduced a new method of communication in form of creating a connection with customers on a big scale which 13 does not only connect the user but also helps to interact with current and potential customers. Different channels are used to interact for social networking such as Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc these different channels are used by the users and firms for connectivity. (Venciūtė 2018, 2-3.) There are six types of social media channels that are established for collaborative projects includes online magazines, questions, and answers websites, blog, and microblogs such as Twitter, Tumbler where people communicate through long or short blogs, content communities, such as YouTube, Vine, etc. are used to share the user’s content and people comment on the user’s content. Social networking websites such as Facebook, Google, Virtual game-world include warcraft, virtual social worlds this is like a game that helps to create a user’s identity and interact with others using the online channel. There are a lot of social media websites but few of them are the most renowned for achieving goals and objectives. (Patel 2017, 14.) 3.4.1 Facebook Facebook is one of the most famous social media networks which is widely used in the world and is considered important for social media marketing with billions of registered users. It is the website with the largest number of potential customers. Business pages are easier to adjust according to the business audience so most brands prefer to create business pages instead of personal profiles. Facebook uses an algorithm to manage the contents of the page which is the most important part of the business. Face- book engages people through engaging content on Facebook in form of relevant, interesting, and easily understood stuff, posts that can be optimized by asking either it is interesting or not. A short post en- gages more people than longer posts so it is significant to keep the post short and simple. Adding some features to the picture enhances people’s engagement such as painting a pic, quality, positivity, add hu- mour, clips play automatically, share the content according to the customer’s interest. (Dodson 2016, 162 – 163.) When planning a Facebook campaign keep in mind that, the data from the Facebook insight tool is trustworthy because it gives a lot of information about the target market’s behaviour, engagement rate, demographic qualities, and what should be targeted to gain customer’s attraction. The other thing that is important to consider is niche down which means different people can be targeted through a single ad using a tool. (Wright 2020, 55 – 59.) 16 the post content should be valuable. Use hashtags for engagement on Instagram because it helps to gain more likes, followers, and reach. The caption also increases the engagement rate if decided wisely. Instagram stories help to boost the engagement rate because these stories help to retain the ex- isting followers. Instagram videos have increased 80 percent over the year as many marketers think Instagram videos play a significant role in Instagram's marketing strategy. Arrange contests and givea- ways as people like free things such as the audience is already engaged with the content so find a prize in which they are interested and promote in form of engagement. Ask people to like, tag their friends, or follow their account that enhances the engagement rate, and in return offer them a prize that is one of the wonderful options to increase engagement rate. (Roach 2019.) 17 4 DIGITAL MARKETING PLANNING Digital marketing planning means preparing a marketing plan using electronic business platforms. The success of digital marketing planning is based upon the following elements: traditional marketing rules and planning attributes are adapted for the digital media environment and mixed with new digital mar- keting communication platforms. Planning is important because it makes a company ready before go- ing out of a fund, or out of stock, rates fluctuations and minimizes the stress for the future. It gives di- rection and management power so that the people can work with continuity. There are different types of plans that possess different long-term business strategies such as, divergence, acquiring strategies, classifications, and funds. The marketing plans are built to meet the business objectives and digital marketing plans relate to offline traditional marketing plans. There are also campaign plans for a social media campaign. Digital marketing plans do not work alone they need to connect with offline market- ing communication platforms for instance offline ads, PR, telemarketing, direct mail, face-to-face sell- ing. In the purchasing progression, it is vital to include online channels from pre-sale to post-sale to pro- gress long-term customer relations. The focus of the digital marketing plan is to gain and retain cus- tomers by using digital tools. The emphasis of a digital marketing plan is to bring new prospects into business expansion by focusing on new customers, new geographical areas, and the introduction of new products and services. Business entities who have successfully implemented digital marketing plans increased their sales and controlled their cost through the online presence of digital media and new opportunities. Digitalization has made it possible for companies to successfully launch their online service stores in different countries. Businesses have long-term and short-term plans which must be able to meet the goals, time intervals, and resources. All these plans can use the SOSTAC® model because the model has been ranked among the top 3 models. The short-term digital marketing plans focus on the combination of communication practices. For in- stance, marketing search and online commercials are used to gain new customers, for engagement, and to retain customers online by offering incentive programs, interactive strategies, email marketing with traditional direct media include phone and direct mail. The successful digital marketing plan is based on and integrated with traditional marketing disciplines and planning techniques, adapted for the digi- tal media environment, and then mixed with new digital marketing communications techniques (which include listening as much as ‘talking’). This chapter shows how to create a comprehensive, integrated 18 digital marketing plan, based on the well-established principles of the SOSTAC® Planning System. (Chaffey & Smith 2017, 556 – 559.) 4.1 PR Smith’s SOSTAC® planning model PR Smith developed the Sostac® planning model in the 1990s which is commonly used in digital marketing plans. This plan is considered very good for wider- scope marketing strategy. The application of the model is growing gradually with slight progress. SOSTAC® planning model is an obvious step-based method used in developing a marketing plan. Every component of the model gives assurance that all related aspects will be considered. The model is a collection of two variables: SOS subject to focus on the goals set for the marketing plan and TAC represents a well-planned quantifiable and applicable policy. This explanation gives complete information of every step under the model, the meaning of each alphabet is as follows: S-situation, O-objectives, S-strategy, T-tactics, A-action, C-control which are displayed under FIGURE 5. FIGURE 5. SOSTAC® planning model. (Adapted from Stephenson 2020.) SOSTAC® S-situation O- objectives S-strategy T-tactics A-action C-control 21 4.4 Strategy Strategy defines how a company can achieve its goals through a digital marketing plan. For businesses, the purpose of marketing strategy is to identify resources that are used to communicate with customers, create brand awareness, and sell the product. Some rules can be applied for creating a digital marketing plan, for example, possible strategic partnership, tactical tool and database integration, positioning, key tactics, engagement. (Stephenson 2020.) A strategy is the short component of the planning and the most vital because it gives guidelines to the tactics, how to generate sales? What trends we are following? Which are the targeted segments? What are the communication strategies for customer acquisition and retaining? What media will be useful to attract new customers? Which contact strategy will be more constructive? (Chaffey & Smith 2017, 59.) In today’s marketing segmentation, targeting, and positioning is considered the most common strategy, and they are used most in marketing models. STP model is useful for marketing communication plan- ning because it helps to focus on a proposition and enhance engagement with the audience through de- veloping and delivering more customized and related messages. The focus of this approach is the audi- ence instead of the product for communication because it attracts the audience by delivering relevant messages (Hanlon 2020.) Segmentation is necessary because we cannot sell to all which means divid- ing customers who possess common characteristics and needs. The following approach can be used for segmentation in FIGURE 8. FIGURE 8. Segmentation. (Adapted from Mindtools 2020.) Demographic • Age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, sex, education, occupation Geographic • Country, region, state, city, neighbourhood Psychographic • Personality, risk aversion,values, lifestyles Behavioral • By use of product, loyalty, benefits people looking 22 The next step is targeting what segments we are going to target online? How to do segmentation and whom we are going to target? Target market? How to get into the customer’s mind? What are the product, its price, and its value in the market? Social media is an online tool that is used to build brand awareness. This platform is also used for communication and engagement purposes. E-marketing is a strategy that is used for target markets, positioning, and propositions. (Chaffey & Smith 2013, 554 – 555.) Positioning is the last step of the STP model which means why a customer should give preference to your product over your competitors which could be done using a unique selling proposition, position- ing mapping, or by creating a value proposition. (Mindtools 2020.) The online value proposition has a connection with positioning which means who we are? which market we serve, and what makes us unique? Online value proposition does not mean only selling proposition as it is a mean of showing offers through content, products, services, and customer’s experiences for online customer’s engage- ment. Online value proposition enforces people to click on, to come back, and to get register or buy from the website or it attracts the customer, so customer shares their online review. It is a way to de- fine a brand identity through a customer’s experience which is an opportunity for the business. (Smartinsights 2020.) 4.5 Tactics Tactics represent the tools of a digital mix used to achieve the objectives of a digital marketing plan. In strategy, it is important to define the segment you want to target in a digital marketing plan. To realize objectives 7Ps of the marketing mix can be used such as product, price, place, promotion. For promo- tion, many online tools are used for promoting the product range and the unique selling point, for in- stance, email marketing. Through old purchases set the email targets and send to the existing custom- ers e.g., buy one and get one free, special discount offers on some product line, offers some incentives such as send the email to 5 people, after registration get 15% discount on next order. Create online voucher codes to offer a 10|% discount with time specific. Use social media to engage people and provide the newest information. Use people force to engage with customers who will be responsible for customer’s question & answers, for order delivery, and live chats with the new and ex- isting customers. The process includes the following purchasing steps e.g., customer visits the website, 23 makes an order after registration, pays the bill, and receives the confirmation email and separate mail is sent when the order has dispatched. (Smith 2020.) Marketing tactics are mentioned in FIGURE 9. FIGURE 9. Marketing tactics. (Adapted from Smith 2020.) 4.6 Action Action means who does what, when, and how? determine the responsibilities & structures systems, processes, checklist, guidelines regarding internal marketing performance quality of internal staff vs agencies. (Smith 2020.) So, action means bringing the plan into reality to convert actions into calculations. Under Action, it is decided for each tactic what needs to be done? That has already been mentioned under tactics to achieve the objectives of the digital marketing plan. SEO (Search engine optimization) tactics mean keyword analysis, which keywords to target, optimize websites for a good ranking on Google, reach the industry bloggers, forums, and websites for building relationships through content, link target peo- ple with similar characteristics. •To provide plaform for search engine optimization •To increase brand visibility •To perform key analysis using google SEO •Alongside SEO,keywords plays a role of foundation to target •creates traffic to the site •Increase brand visibility Pay-per-Click •To launch a program •To build affiliated marketing network through lead generation such as display,search and voucher codes Affiliate Marketing •Newsletter to the existing customers •Retain good click-through rate •Open rate & conversion to sale •Existing customers database used to attract their friends and collegues •Through weekly campaigns Email Marketing 26 and social media marketing so to cope with the challenges they need a proper digital plan to avail fu- ture opportunities and to meet business needs. They possess some delivery services by Foodora, Wolt, and their self-delivery service as well. The restaurant’s environment is clean, cozy, and peaceful which is perfect for winter dine-in and with a good parking facility. (Indian Masala kebabish 2020). 5.1 Situation analysis There is a short review of the Facebook page for Indian Masala Kebabish, the restaurant has more than 200 likes on Facebook since it was established in August 2020 so, the number of followers is increas- ing. The Facebook page of the restaurant is not active which means they do not post regularly. The res- taurant does not put any engagement content on their Facebook page such as questioning the followers about their experience/expectation to increase engagement. The content on Facebook is mostly in text format, which means a variety of content is limited on the Facebook page. The rating of the Facebook page has not started yet because the number of reviews is not enough to calculate the rating. people have recommended the restaurant with 5 stars that is a symbol of trust towards the restaurant that at- tracts new customers. Below are some recommendations by the Facebook page insights FIGURE 10. The total page reach is 943, page views are 418 and 5 people click on the website. Page check-ins 1, page button clicks, and phone number clicks are zero. The post that created the engagement is funny pictures of the pizza and the new addition to the menu. Few more posts created the engagement in- cludes the kebab brand name used by the restaurant and new tempting pictures of the curries brand, and some delivery-related posts. (Indian Masala Kebabish 2020.) Here are the profiles of two custom- ers who are regular customers of the restaurant. Joe is 30 years old boy who runs his own business, provides maintenance service in Kokkola who earns a good income. He goes to the gym regularly because he is so conscious about his health and likes healthy tasty food. Therefore, he likes to go to those places where food is in good taste and healthy also economical but also like sometimes pizza. Mostly he checks companies’ social media pages to know the new trend on the page and try the food which has more likes, and he has his account on Facebook and Instagram. Janne is 50 years old man who has his own construction company running in Kokkola, who is well set- tled in Kokkola. He comes to eat in a restaurant once a week with the whole family, he like Indian 27 taste and food as he likes to eat spicy food so prefers Indian masala over other restaurants due to taste, big portion, and cheap eating. For him the quality of food is important. He is also an active user of so- cial media and has his account on Facebook and Instagram and actively checks the pages on Facebook and Instagram and follows its favourite food chains and he likes some gaming organized by his favour- ite brand. 5.1.1 SWOT analysis With the help of SWOT analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the company on social media can be identified. FIGURE 11. FIGURE 10. SWOT analysis (Adapted from Indian Masala Kebabish 2020.) The restaurant created its Facebook page immediately. The plus point is their Facebook page running with more than 200 plus followers. The picture gallery of Indian food attracts customers because food in Indian traditional style represents Indian culture and appeals to the customers. The review tab of the page shows a good image of the restaurant. Selling different food is also an advantage to the restaurant as there are not many restaurants selling Indian taste. Strength 1.Sell Indian food,Pizza &Kebab under one roof 2. Central Location 3.Facebook presence 4.Good reputation 5. Initial satisfied customers Weaknesess 1.No instagram 2.Customers not aware about Facebook page 3.Facebook page is not up to date 4.Lack of Knowledge about social media marketing 5.Name confusion Opportunities 1.Chnaces to inrease more followers 2. Engagement with existing and potential customers 3.New customers increasing 4.Developing strong brand image Threats 1.Not utilizing enough time on social media marketing 2.New entrance of competitors 3.Bad image 4.Followers decrease 28 The weaknesses of the restaurant are as follows: the Facebook page is not well managed and moni- tored with few new pics and engaging content. The Instagram page has not been created yet. Many customers are not aware of the restaurant’s Facebook page. All the customers are not on their Face- book page as people visit them randomly. The owners are in lack social media marketing techniques. The name of the restaurant is a little confusing e.g., Indian Masala Kebabish means people may misun- derstand the restaurant sell only Indian curries & kebabs but no Pizza. Social media provides a lot of opportunities to the restaurant because active social media pages can give a bird' eye view about cus- tomers, their needs, demand that increases followers. More followers increase the engagement between customers on the page via comments, suggestions, and satisfactory reviews that attract new customers. Social media marketing can build a strong brand image easily instead of traditional marketing. One of the biggest threats to the restaurant is, not monitoring their Facebook page properly. It is im- portant to handle the social media pages actively in form of comments and replies. Plan weekly posts for the restaurant, active management of social media pages is important otherwise it is a threat to the company. If the company fails to gain followers on social media pages, it is also one of the biggest threats to the company so the restaurant needs to plan something to gain followers because if followers will not increase it means there is nothing special in the content of the page. New competitors are al- ways a threat to the business as social media is used for brand building but conversely, it can create a bad image through words of mouth. 5.1.2 Competitor’s analysis Indian Masala Kebabish's main competitor is Punjab Grill who sells Indian food and pizza also. This analysis will give an in-depth insight into Facebook and Instagram pages, likes, followers, post types, activities rating, and hashtags. Punjab Grill has a Facebook page and selling Indian food for many years. They have 855 likes and 873 followers on Facebook. They post every day on their timeline. Their post is mainly based on everyday lunch offers in text and sometimes with pictures. They have 169 photos on Facebook and have hardly one or two videos on Facebook while the rating is 4.9. (Pun- japgrill 2020.) Punjab grill possesses its Instagram page, but the page is not so active. They have 50 followers and 12 posts on their Instagram. They have not posted a single video, the pictures are about the curries, and 31 the customer instead of any other offline method such as, phone calls that can be annoying. The restau- rant can add an automation marketing tool that is time saving. The local advertising can be used by the restaurant; sometimes on TV or in the newspaper, to promote the brand and to attract new potential customers which are measured through comparison with previous advertisement expenses. Sizzle is the last objective of the model which describes the importance of brand awareness. Internet brings new prospects of brand awareness and helps to strengthen the brand that adds value to the brand, increases the experience, and improves the image (Chaffey & Smith 2017, 41.) 5.3 Strategy Increasing engagement and performance on social media pages are two important objectives of the company. STP model will be used to develop the restaurant’s strategy which means segmentation, tar- geting, and positioning will be used to achieve the restaurant’s objectives. Indian Masala Kebabish customers are both men and women from Kokkola and nearby places of Kokkola. Couples, friends & families who like some unique Indian food come for a get-together, for lunch or dinner, some business people and tourists the age falls from 18 to 60. Mostly, people like to order food online using Wolt or Foodora which is nowadays most common due to COVID-19 and weather conditions. Also, sometimes people order food from the restaurant by phone and pick it up by themselves and prefer to eat at home. Tourists take away the food most of the time as they look for Asian trendy food. They all like Indian trendy unique, tasty, and value pack food which is common in all these segments. Most customers are families, adult people, and business people. The restaurant owners want to sell some unique, quality food at a reasonable price. Their restaurant should be perceived as serving good quality Indian food restaurant among people. It means the posi- tioning of the restaurant’s products is significant to compete with its competitors which is possible through OVP (Online value proposition). OVP is closely connected with the positioning and provides information about offers, which market they serve, and what makes them different? The benefits for restaurant’s customers on social media pages are information about offers, discounts any upcoming event, menu, also information about food and nutrition. The benefits restaurants can provide through social media to the customers are described in FIGURE 13. 32 FIGURE 12. List of benefits 5.4 Tactics The communication will be done only on Facebook and Instagram, tactics for the restaurant are to post visual and written content such as the restaurant’s pictures and some internet-based images and videos (which could be self-made), to go live, to put stories on Facebook and Instagram, articles about the restaurant industry and some infographics, etc. The purpose behind these posts should be entertain- ment, impress, persuasion, and knowledge. It is important to create calendars for both Facebook and Instagram because it may help the restaurant to plan for future events such as setting dates and times for some posts, important days such as public holidays, advertisements, events), many things that can be added to the calendar. A content calendar helps to stay organized in scheduling the content it’s better to plan for consistency on social media. In this way, potential customers will remain updated at the time of buying. Include the following information while building the content calendar for Facebook, for instance, date, theme, visual description, and format means where to post. (Facebook for business 2020.) Post pictures of customers, staff, food, restaurant premises, products, organic ingredients used in food. Videos while customers enjoying food, food making videos could be a good addition. For engagement ask the cus- tomers about food taste, like or dislike, have you tried our meal? Ask about feedback, special offer on Special offers • Test the Food for half price valid from Monday to Tuesday Discounts • Offering an item for free in return for a customer refer the page to friend: • Review us on Facebook, show it to our staff and get a free coffee/tea or cold drink New Menu • Our new menu coming next week ! Come and enjoy. • Insert a visually appealing picture to the post. Upcoming event • If any event/day is right around the corner! Put this in your calendars, and don’t forget to book table at Kebabish Indian Masala. • Insert an ad to the post stating the date, location and menu. 33 the meal, for instance, buy a curry get a naan bread for free, buy three days consecutively and get the fourth day 50% off on all items. (Facebook for business 2020.) The restaurant should start some questions and answer sessions with its customers. Sometimes the res- taurant should go live with its followers to show the cooking process and the owners of the restaurant. Share some Facebook stories, the optimal time to post is between 6.15 a.m and 12.15 p.m. on week- days. Reply to all messages received by the restaurant for doing so include chatbot on messenger as discussed under chapter 2. While on Instagram the engagement can increase by posting pictures and videos in stories regularly. The best time to post on Instagram is midday on a weekday and in the evening when people are not working. Wednesday is best to post on Instagram alongside hashtags and use captions wisely also add some giveaway, for instance, some gifts. Use hashtags to increase follow- ers besides Instagram stories and videos also increase engagement. TABLE 2. Summary of tactics Channels Content structure Post frequency Time Facebook Pictures Videos To go live Put stories. infographics Questions Offers Funny pictures/expe- rience related ques- tions Industry news Weekdays 6:15 AM and 12:15 PM Instagram Pictures Videos User-generated con- tent Hashtags stories Weekdays P.m or evening 36 TABLE 5. Monthly action plan for Facebook & Instagram Facebook Instagram W-1 1. Post customers picture 1. Picture of Kokkola 2. Curry picture 2. Curry picture 3. Questions 3. Post videos 4. Post videos 5. Event picture W-2 1. Ask questions 1.Customer picture 2. Chef picture 2. Discount offer 3. Hotel industry news 3. Chef picture 4. Curry picture 4. Curry picture 5. Weather picture 5. Hotel industry news Rotate the content in week 3rd and 4th to bring the new things into customer’s consideration. 5.6 Control Use Facebook/Instagram insight tool or some online tools to monitor performance. Monitor the perfor- mance regularly every 1-3 months. Here are some recommendations by the Facebook Insight tools for the restaurant. FIGURE 13. Recommendations (Adapted from Indian Masala Kebabish 2020.) 1. Reach people with photo or video in the stories section at the top of the news feed 2. Encourage people to recommend your page where people can leave feedback about their experience. 3. Post regularly for engagement because people visit the page for updates and see what’s new with the business. 4. Create event to reach people , for instance create interest in your local community to bring people together with an event. 5. Post video about your page, engage with short video about yourself, about the business or your cause. 6. Boost a post to reach more people connect with potential customers who have not been to the page yet. 7. Encourage people to like the page such as promotion highlights the page, so people know more about the business. 8. Boost post to reach people connect with potential customers who never been to the page yet. 37 6 CONCLUSION Writing a thesis is not an easy process it requires in-depth study about the topic. I have learnt many new things during writing a thesis such as time management, consistency, and activeness. I also learnt about digital marketing planning, its components, and its effectiveness for the business, also some more conceptual knowledge about social media marketing. The selection of a thesis topic is a confus- ing task because I got confused many times about the topic, it’s important to do some research about the topic and gain some knowledge beforehand. The reason behind the selection of my thesis topic is the restaurant is a family-owned business and the owners of the business don’t possess enough knowledge about social media and digital marketing also the social media presence of the restaurant is very weak for the new business. I realized digital marketing plan will help the restaurant to achieve its objectives also enhance my learning about digital marketing. As I applied SOSTAC® (situation analysis, objective, strategy, tactics, action, and control) planning model in my thesis which was easy to apply where I first analysed the situation of the restaurant on Fa- cebook through SWOT analysis, Competitor’s analysis, and through the Facebook insight tools. The situation analysis highlighted the main issues of the restaurant. After the analysis, I set the objectives which should be SMART and measurable. To achieve objectives designed the strategy and used the STP model which means segmentation, targeting, and positioning. For the tactics, I used Facebook and Instagram tools and provided some suggestions to improve the performance of the social media pages. Under the action, I developed two action plans one for Facebook and the other for Instagram also sug- gested the Facebook/Instagram insight tool for the control. I analysed that digital marketing has some merits and demerits e.g. If a Facebook page of a business is not monitored actively it can leave the wrong perception into the customer’s mind such as the risk of losing followers. Inactive pages cause low engagement among followers so ultimately people leave the pages or will not take interest in page activity, so it is important to update the business page wisely and actively. As the restaurant was opened in August 2020 and their Facebook page had a very low en- gagement rate and the content quality was poor so in this plan, I highlight the issues of the restaurant and provided some recommendations in form of the SOSTAC® planning model. Once the thesis is ready, I will hand over it to the restaurant authorized persons after my graduation. The restaurant will implement the plan as soon as possible and I hope it will help them and give them 38 an advantage. My thesis process has been so slow due to COVID-19 and some of my busy routine, but I tried to work on it on and off. Writing a thesis was challenging as it was time taking and require time management, but I learned while writing the thesis it is very important to be very active otherwise it will be hard to complete it on time. This thesis expands my knowledge about social media marketing such as, I learned what is digital marketing and about its different social media channels. As I did not study digital marketing as a course what I learned is through reading books, journals, and newspapers, etc. The second thing was about time management if spend at least 3 to 4 hours every day on writing it’s possible to finish a the- sis within a specified period. I started to write my thesis in June 2020 then the summer holidays came, and I start to work in the summer so I could not write a thesis during that period after summer I start writing as I had some work alongside so could not give time properly but when I became little con- sistent, and I complete it. Besides, I also improved my academic writing with guidelines. Due to COVID-19, I could not go to the library very often so mostly I used online resources for my thesis such as books, journals, and reports, etc. I did not find it difficult to access the online resources as the thesis topic was so popular, so I got the material very easily. During the pandemic working on a thesis at home was not easy because you get lazy and distracted so easily. So, I will suggest it’s better to work in the library or school because chances of distraction decrease. 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