Digital Marketing Plan Recommendation For IKEA
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Table of Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u 1.Introduction PAGEREF _Toc41947930 h 32.Situational Analysis PAGEREF _Toc41947931 h 32.1.SWOT Analysis PAGEREF _Toc41947932 h 32.1.1.Strengths PAGEREF _Toc41947933 h 42.1.2.Weaknesses PAGEREF _Toc41947934 h 42.1.3.Opportunities PAGEREF _Toc41947935 h 42.1.4.Threats PAGEREF _Toc41947936 h 43.Target Audience Identification PAGEREF _Toc41947937 h 54.SEO Digital Marketing Strategy PAGEREF _Toc41947938 h 64.1.Content PAGEREF _Toc41947939 h 64.2.Tactics PAGEREF _Toc41947940 h 74.3.Channels And Tools PAGEREF _Toc41947941 h 84.4.Content Marketing Schedule PAGEREF _Toc41947942 h 94.5.Cost and Time Estimation PAGEREF _Toc41947943 h 94.6.Measuring Results And KPI’s PAGEREF _Toc41947944 h 105.Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc41947945 h 106.References PAGEREF _Toc41947946 h 11
Digital Marketing Plan Recommendation For IKEA
IntroductionIKEA is a Swedish organization that was founded in 1943, 433 stores are operating in 52 countries, becoming the top furniture dealer in the globe. The name IKEA is generated from the initials of founder Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, the farm on which he was raised and Agunnaeyd, the neighboring village. The company’s website contains over 12,000 products comprising of household accessories, ready-to-use furniture, kitchen devices and other accessories. Besides, IKEA has café and hotels that offers typical Swedish cuisines and also sell Swedish groceries. The vision of IKEA is “to create a better everyday life for many people” (IKEA, 2020), and expects to serve different customers around the world with various accessories and products that meet the customers’ needs. The business objective of IKEA illuminates how the company realizes the vision, IKEA applies five dimensions: function, low price, quality, form and sustainability (IKEA, 2020). The company provide functional, useful and well- developed home furnishing products at a relatively cheap price. Also, with the eco-friendly concern rising rapidly, IKEA implements sustainability on its stores, communications, suppliers and products range. It inspires the organization to approach its green goals and keep the positive effect on the environment. The objective of IKEA is to become the most sustainable choice for kiwi furniture buyers. It should therefore use an effective approach of developing an SEO strategy using a website that is responsive and able to adapt to different devices used by the target audience.
Situational AnalysisSituation analysis implies the analysis of the organization’s position in terms of the opportunities and challenges faced by the company. It entails the application of SWOT analysis which evaluates the position of the company in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis enables the marketer to strategically position the company in the industry by identifying the strengths and hence the areas which require improvement.
SWOT AnalysisThe SWOT analysis is a useful technique that can help the company to do better strategic planning, minimize the negative impacts and evaluate the greatest advantages to achieve the business objectives that includes Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (IKEA, 2018). Strengths and weaknesses may relate to financing, organization, or marketing aspects, opportunities and threats may refer to the environment, technological advance, economic or social change.
Strengths
IKEA’s strength lies on its global operation which gives it a powerful stand in terms of producing quality products that suits the requirements of the global market. IKEA is among the companies that fights for democratic design which implies that they attempt to reach optimal operational level by producing the required design, quality, functions and price, that aim to attract as much as customers. Additionally, IKEA has established permanent relationships with the suppliers to reach maximum commitments. The method is to order a large number of volumes from the suppliers for years and negotiate for the lower prices, also the supplier can get the guaranteed order, and this is a win-win situation.
WeaknessesWeakness assist organizations like IKEA to establish key operational areas which requires improvement and therefore provides direction in the development of an effective strategy. One major weakness faced by IKEA is its global business operation which poses a challenge in quality and standard management. It is also evident that some of its regional branches do not follow the legislation to maintain the working condition. The IWAY code is support by the instructors who visit the factory to ensure the supplier and the products have reached the standard.
OpportunitiesDevelopment of sustainable ways of living by households is an important opportunity for IKEA particularly in terms of creating recyclable and reusable products. Additionally, the company is set to reduce the level of carbon emissions by reducing product packaging and utilizing more renewable sources of energy. IKEA believes in being socially responsible towards the environment by focusing on environmental protection strategies (IKEA, 2019). The awareness of the environmental issue is rising, so the demand for green products would be increased.
ThreatsIKEA’s faces two major threats in the furnishing industry. First is the threat from new entrants joining the market and therefore reducing the profit margin. Second is the fluctuations in the price of furnishing products which is caused by economic factors facing the middle and low-income households. IKEA is required to strengthen its distinct brand image and the products’ quality. Furthermore, economic factors may change customers’ spending habits due to the reduction of disposable income.
Target Audience IdentificationThe target audience is identified through market segmentation, which is the process of classifying the potential clients into different groups in terms their preference and characteristics. (Keane, 2019). Audience identification is an important process that entails selecting and grouping customers with the same needs and preferences. Due to the wide range of products that IKEA deals with, it has a wide target market segmentation which mostly targets specifically the middle-income earners across the globe. Part of IKEA’s target audience comprise of young couples, middle-income households and university and college students. Segmentation of market by IKEA is done based on the consumers’ income, use of product, geographic location and brand-user terms. The company usually targets middle and low income earners, whose income are quite low and this section of the market is found in suburban parts of the country. Since New Zealand is a country dominated by middle and low-income earners, IKEA should make use of this economic benefit by employing a broad-based marketing strategy in its distribution framework (IKEA, 2018). When launching new products in New Zealand, IKEA employs behavior segmentation to identify the potential clients since consumers from various countries have unique characteristics. For instance, people in New Zealand are more outdoor and like to use the products which are greener and nature and that is one of the segmentation that base on consumers in New Zealand’s behavior to make the decisions on what kind of products and marketing way to satisfy the consumers in New Zealand. IKEA also employs the concept of demographic segmentation whereby consumers are classified in terms of gender, age, income among other characteristics. As mentioned earlier, IKEA target the middle-class consumers as one of their main target market in which they use demographic segmentation in New Zealand base on consumers’ income. Another target market for IKEA will be people who love unique and design features as there are variable products that IKEA have and are produce and design by their design team. For example, some consumers in New Zealand already heard about IKEA and are fans with IKEA’s products or like the design of the IKEA products will be another target market that IKEA will conduct.
IKEA also employs the analysis of the digital lifestyles of the audiences to identify potential customers. Currently, IKEA is among the leading organizations globally, selling furniture and its catalogues are highly decorated with visually appealing designs which attracts more than 2.8 billion individuals through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, twitter, among others (Clifford, 2019). According to research, Seventy-five per cent of smartphone owners use social media seven days a week, and 60 per cent use their phones to take photos and videos, more than listening to music, playing games or watching movies (NewZealand, 2015). For example, IKEA distributes the latest product information through Facebook. Attracting fans to the official websites, so that they can further understand the product information. Therefore, Ikea uses Instagram to interact with its followers, and through photos or videos. It immerses products into people’s lives. Ikea will also share how customers create their unique lifestyle with their products, and both sides will exchange positive feedback. Pinterest is like the brand museum of Ikea, which is used to record history and products. It also conveys the brand value, concept, and unique style of Ikea. 3.0. SEO Digital Marketing StrategyThe Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is a digital marketing strategy which is employed to enable the internet users to efficiently find the information they require, through the use of search engines instead of using random websites. Search engines aim at providing the best internet services for users and also helps marketing companies to reach the target customers in a convenient way (Patrutiu-Baltes, 2016). It implies providing the results on the pages of the search engine that are not just high quality but is also specific to what the internet user is looking for. The search engine achieves this by crawling various websites to understand what the site entails. Therefore, it helps the engines to provide more precise results to internet users who are looking for a particular topic or keywords. Additionally, the search engines will scan different websites to evaluate the efficiency of internet crawling and reading as well as rewarding effective sites with high rankings on the search engine results page. SEO is a digital strategy that enables organizations to ensure that their website have a high ranking in the search engines by utilizing specific keywords and terms.
Content
Google employs “robots” in an attempt to interpret the website and therefore it is essential to develop informative content for the website. The content that should be posted on the website for IKEA should provide a brief and precise description of the home accessories and restaurant services that the company deals with. It is referred to as functional content and it is an essential requirement in content marketing (Heinze et al., 2020). The company should develop and unique type of content that is engaging to acquire the attention of the target audience whenever they are roaming online. The content should be relevant and it must provide information about the brand. The content should use the relevant keywords and the content created should be outstanding. It is also essential to produce content frequently. Despite the fact that online content cannot disappear without deleting, Google encourages the use of fresh content and hence making sure a frequent production of content is significant (Mandal & Joshi, 2017). Besides, IKEA should post the content on its website. The engaging content produced should be live on the official website so that Google will be able to identify the origin and also to encourage other websites to connect back to IKEA’s website. Since the IKEA has established marketing pages in social media channels like, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it should consider the production of unique content for SEO to boost its performance. IKEA should also consider developing its content on YouTube as is an important tool for digital marketing.
3.2 Customer Persona-Jane and Howard
Jane and Howard are young couples, both working in community health center and in need of organizational tips and multi-functional commodities. They both have bachelor’s degree in community health. The couple likes purchasing stylish, affordable furniture for home furnishing, buying organic foodstuffs such as sustainable fish and taking care of their household. The dream of the couple is to own a restaurant and a café. They own a five storeyed apartment which they wish to rent in future after furnishing using facilities and products from IKEA. The couples uses mostly Instagram and Twitter as a social media platform for chatting with friends. They also use Facebook and WhatsApp every day for chatting with family members and interacting with friends.
3.3. Customer Journey Map for IKEA
Product Awareness
-59055324485 641985353060Research Product 613410343535Store Visit Product Purchase
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712470355600Social Complain
664845361315Product Issue and Response Product Receipt
The customer journey begins when the customer becomes aware of the existence of IKEA products in the market. Once the customer is aware, he or she conducts research about the features of the product such as price, quality and if the product suits the customer’s needs. If the customer finds out that IKEA’s product is best for his or her needs, he or she visits IKEA’s stores to confirm the qualities and therefore make a purchase. Once the customer has made the required payments for the product purchase, he or she is given a receipt of the payments made. The customer is then issued with the purchased IKEA product and the makes a customer about the product issued. Finally, the customer is expected to launch a social complain in case of any defect in the product.
3.4. Tactics
One of the tactics that this SEO strategy will employ is the use of voice search whose application in digital marketing is expected to increase in the coming years. Most people are beginning to realize the convenience associated with the use of voice-assisted machines rather than the cumbersome process of typing queries. IKEA should apply this tactic because of the expected increase in the number of voice users. Besides, voice users have unique habits as compared to text users and the machines they use to obtain data from SERPs to repeat the voice message from the featured snippet box as the response (Adams, 2014). The second tactic is the incorporation of video with YouTube SEO. It is an important tactic as YouTube video are classified as the top 10 of the Google search as compared to any other type of video. According to research, YouTube is the second most famous search engine with searches exceeding 3 billion in a month. IKEA should develop engaging videos and invest enough time into optimizing every video for YouTube SEO. YouTube videos have the capacity of increasing the audience on the company’s platform due to an increase in the number of individuals who can identify with the company. The third tactic is the establishment of different backlinks which are important aspects of the SEO strategy. Backlinks are provided by Google and they are essential in evaluating the search rank since, without these links, it becomes a challenge to rank the search engine. However, it is necessary to establish the difference between high quality and low-quality links (Lara, 2014). Low-quality links are easily spammed with paid links, blog comments among others and can easily destroy the website. Links that are acquired through high-quality content, influencer marketing and outreach are safer and highly effective in boosting the impacts of SEO marketing.
Channels And ToolsSeveral channels can be incorporated into SEO strategy. The first channel is writing articles for blog comments and posting on the company’s social media pages. The information should be relevant and precise to increase the efficiency of the search engines. The channel is the best as IKEA already has pages in social media platforms (Clarke & Clarke, 2014). The second channel is the pay per click (PPC) which enhances the company name recognition and significance, particularly when used alongside organic search results (Key, 2017). It is an important channel as it works best for SEO strategy and improves recognition by the search engine. The third channel is YouTube, which allows the company to post engaging videos that are crucial in enhancing the visibility of the organisation in the search engine. It is important to note that quality YouTube videos make people view the advert for more than three seconds, and the channel can identify the length of time that people spend on the videos and hence ranking them accordingly. One of the tools to use in ensuring that the tactics work is the Google Search Console which helps in optimizing the search results on the applied channel (Erdemir, 2015). A Google Analytics property owner achieves automatic verification on the company’s site where the Search Console gives information that is crucial to the performance of the Google Search. It is the best tool since it is free and helps the user to understand how the site is working, which includes sustaining and optimizing the prevailing rankings; and monitoring traffic. It can also recognize the type of machine that a visitor to the site is using.
The second tool is the Ubersuggest, which is a keyword technique which identifies the keywords that a potential client is likely to type in the search engine. Keywords that are hidden in the mind of an ideal customer are the most important in content marketing. UberSuggest is a keyword identification tool that provides a suggestion for possible keywords and long-tail terms that an internet user is looking for, based on the previous searches. It also rates the volume, difficulty and trends of the keywords (Kaufman & Horton, 2014). The third tool is SEMRush which is a tool that houses all other tools including pay-per-click, social media, competitive analysis and keyword search. However, with all these robust abilities, it requires a payment for its subscription. It enables the user to pull information about domains and keywords and apply the information to conduct research on the online operations of the competitors for the purpose of enhancing the company’s campaigns (Baltes, 2015). In order to realize success in the use of SEMRush, it is essential to employ the tool to transfer a list of the opportunities to optimize the existing websites. The tool is the best since it is an all-in-one digital tool and it is also a form of the competitor analysis tool.
Content Marketing ScheduleThe content marketing schedule is a weekly schedule that entails the execution of SEO tactics for maximum efficiency and timely accomplishment of SEO goals (Kannan, 2017). Once the company has implemented a tactic within a particular week of the month, then the relevant box is ticked to show that the tactic was implemented.
Important Dates
Blog post YouTube Videos Voice-assisted Devices
Week 1 of June 2020 Week 2 of June 2020 Week 3 of June 2020 Week 4 of June 2020 Cost and Time EstimationThe estimated cost required to run an SEO strategy is about $500 in a month, especially if the company decides to hire a top-level SEO company to launch and operate the project. For a regional or international SEO implementation campaign, a range of $ 2,500 to $5,000 per month is required (Kingsnorth, 2019). For a well-established and international company like IKEA, such a budget is considered to be within its means of implementing an effective digital marketing plan. However, it is good to consider that some firms provide a testing package at a lower cost, without entering into a contract and hence allows the prospective customers to try their service. It, therefore, minimizes the chances of risks. The estimated time taken to implement SEO marketing strategy is one month, considering the technical complexities associated with internet services. However, this timeline can be minimize by choosing a dedicated and experience team to implement the strategy.
Measuring Results And KPI’sMeasuring results and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) is achieved by use of varors strategies. The first strategy is analyzing the total number of visits to the website in terms of increase in unique visitors, views on the page and frequency of visitors to the site (Saura, Palos-Sánchez & Cerdá Suárez, 2017). It makes the company to recognize how the search engine is performing in terms of company recognition. The second strategy is by establishing the quality of the bounce rate, pages viewed by visit and length of time spent on the site. It determines the internet users’ interest to interact with the site. The third strategy keyword ranking whereby the company’s specific keywords are located in established search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The higher ranking of the company’s website implies a high number of keywords that are frequently searched. The fourth strategy is the conversions strategy which imply activities that internet users do when they land on the website. It determines the level of contact with a potential client and therefore conversions can be converted into sales. The fifth strategy is the page load time. If the load time is long, it makes the potential client visiting the website to return to the search results page. A website that takes long to load frustrates internet users and reduces their interaction with the site.
ConclusionThe most surprising thing about organizations and digital marketing is that it is usually overlooked and not adopted simply because of its complexity and poor organizational structure. To make sure that the SEO strategy is fully adopted it requires buy-in and ownership right from the top management to the bottom. Once the organizational directors have acquired the level of understanding of the SEO strategy offers, then there is a likelihood of other departments replicating the same. Digital marketing strategies are an improvement from the conventional marketing techniques and IKEA’s shift to digital marketing implies profound market opportunities for improved performance. The discussed digital marketing strategy is considered effective since it has proved to be successful for companies that have utilized the strategy. The SEO strategy should be employed alongside the tactics, channels and tools to maximum results. IKEA should develop invest enough time and resources in the SEO strategy. The most effective approach of developing an SEO strategy is using a website that is responsive and therefore is able to adapt to different devices used by the target audience.
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