Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Consumer Business

Digital Marketing Strategy

Lecturer Dr. Theo LynnModule Next Generation Management 2012

Students

Patrick Greene

Shannon Rushe

James Dellinger

Stephanie Mc Greehan

Executive Summary

RocknBowl.ie is a children’s soft play and ten pin bowling venue in Mullingar, Co.

Westmeath. The aim off this paper is to highlight the benefits off digital marketing for this

company. According to Smith (2009), results online are dominated by user content and

opinion, it is a user driven technology. Keeping this in mind the importance of Rock ‘n’

Bowl’s presence online is crucial for them in attracting potential customers. Our goal was to

generate greater awareness of RocknBowl.ie and/or create new business by increasing

bookings for each off the activities offered. The following will draft the main features of the

report and how we suggest Rock ‘n’ Bowl progress for the future.

Firstly, the target audience which were set; adults with young children looking for activities

for entertainment, be it parents, teacher. Adults themselves looking for an entertainment

venue, to host corporate events or simply enjoy good food and bar services. The last target

group are teenagers who require a venue to meet with their friends, this target audience would

be the most likely to be using social media and likely to come back as they would be living

within the vicinity.

Various analyses were conducted such as a listening audit, market and competitor analysis.

This allowed us a look at the industry, what is out their already and peoples perception off

RocknBowl at this point. The listening audit was carried out from April 28th to May 5Th 2012

it gave us insight into what people were saying about RocknBowl on such sites like Facebook

and Twitter. The market analysis resulted in us discovering that Rock ‘n’ Bowl are within a

seasonal market, their peak season is in the winter were their facilities are availed off for

corporate events around Christmas for example. With the current economic climate also they

have been affected, this would suggest offering off deals or discounts. The competitors also

hold a threat for Rock ‘n’ Bowl. Local cinemas and another venue similar to this in

Tullamore create competition for Rock ‘n’ Bowl. Currently Jumpin Jack’s is higher ranked

than Rock ‘n’Bowl within search engines on some generic searches but as Jumpin Jack’s

don’t have any other presence online, there is opporutnity Rock ‘n’ Bowl to maximise on

that.

To outline our objectives we have used Chaffey and Smith’s (2008, cited in Chaffey et al.

2009) Model of e-communication (see Appendix 2.0). They are as follows; Customer

Acquisition, Growth, Improvement of organic growth and conversion. These objectives will

follow this model and will further improve Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s growth prospects in the short and

long term.

Now to mention our operational plan, this suggests six tactics, which could be implemented

to again improve RocknBowl’s online presence.

1. Search Marketing – this involves SEO and improving the sites visibility within search

engines.

2. Online PR – online services are usually cheaper than traditional operators.

3. Online Partnership – for example link building which finds relationships between

other WebPages and in what ways.

4. Interactive Ads – this is just advertising via display or banner ads, Microsoft provide

this for example in their hotmail account service.

5. Opt in emails – this would allow you to continue to market to previous customers and

possibly generate repeat business.

6. Social Media Marketing – this is engaging online through sites like Facebook or

YouTube. This is a cheap and easy option for RocknBowl to communicate with their

audience.

Whilst Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s main challenge is attracting new and repeat customers we suggest

strongly that they take into consideration the content included within this report. From

conducting the AdWords campaign it was evident that once you put the effort into your

online content then traffic will begin to visit your site and through that creating impressions.

“50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media – most

notably through Facebook and LinkedIn” (Mershon, 2011).

The above figure further highlights the potential of Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s presence online.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all who contributed to the Digital Marketing Learning, especially our

lecturer Dr. Theo Lynn and his team for his diligent structuring of our Techspectation

seminars, workshops and conferences. Every conference & workshop was very beneficial

and she created an enjoyable platform for enhancing out innovation, entrepreneurial and

creative skills.

We would like to thank our point of contact for this project Laura Farrell. We appreciated the

time Laura took out of her busy schedule to give us her information on Rock’n’Bowl.

Thirdly we would like to thank all the guest speakers in particular Nicola Byrne, Caroline

Casey and Andrew Jenkinson for using inspiring presentations to grab our attention with

insightful stories of digital marketing success stories

It was clear to us that a lot of time and effort was put in and we hope that both of you are

somewhat pleased on the conclusion of the course for class of 2012.

Thank you all very much,

Patrick, Shannon, Stephanie and James

Table of Contents

Situation

Introduction.....................................................................................................................................6

Situation Analysis:

Customer Insights…………………………………………………………………………………………7

Listening Audit......................……………………………………………...........................................8

Analysis of existing Digital presence.........................………………………………………..12

Market Analysis:

Irish Market………………………………………………………………………………………………15

Competitor Audit................................……………………………………………………………...16

PESTEL……………………………………………………………………………………………….......16

Marketing Mix…………………………………………………………………………………….........17

SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………...19

Objectives

Digital Marketing Objectives.................................................................................................21

Strategy

Market Strategy:

Marketing Mix……………………………………………………………………………………

Targeting and Segmentation………………………………………………………………

Positioning………………………………………………………………………………………….

Operational Plan: Tactics, Actions, Controls

Tactics…………………………………………………………………………………

Action.................................................................................................................

Controls..............................................................................................................

Situation

Introduction

Developing a distinct e-marketing or digital marketing plan, that is separate from a

conventional marketing plan, is important for a company if they wish to effectively achieve

success from their digital marketing activities (Chaffey et al. 2009).

We have employed Chaffey and Smith’s (2008, cited in Chaffey et al. (29009, pp. 211))

Sostac model in our digital marketing plan, to cover analysis for the client of the current

Situation, from where we will outline Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control.

Chaffey (2011) mentions that most organizations focus on analysis, but do not give enough

effort to strategy, so this plan focuses on robust recommendations and how they will be

implemented.

Rock ‘n’ Bowl activity centre was established in 2009. Situated 10 minutes outside Mullingar

town centre, it incorporates a bowling alley, Jungle Joe’s kids soft play area, kids go karts,

kids party rooms, laser tag game, pool tables, bar, and cafe.Rock ‘n’ Bowl employs two

managers and 15-20 part time staff; JP O’Brien is the General Manager and there is also

another Deputy Full-Time Manager. The venue’s website www.rocknbowl.ie was created by

Halo Studio but local web designer Ray Carolan now manages the content. JP created and

adds content to the Rock ‘n’ Bowl Facebook page, and he also is active on personal Twitter

and LinkedIn accounts. As part of our recent GOMCHA project a Google+ profile was also

established for Rock ‘n’ Bowl just two weeks ago.The unique selling points of Rock ‘n’ Bowl

are ‘clean, new and modern’, ‘wide variety of activities available’ and ‘ability to cater for

kids and adult entertainment’ .But we have noted that these USPs are not thoroughly

communicated in Rock‘n’Bowl’s online presence. At the moment the website is updated

regularly (3-4 weeks) and the Facebook page updated consistently (everyday). We feel that

the website updates are adequate considering the website usage is more an information source

for customers. However the social media accounts need to be updated consistently everyday

at the same time range (if possible).At the moment ‘Jungle Joe’s’ and kids parties generate

the most profit. The owners are concerned that the bowling facilities are not being used

enough and have introduced numerous package deals to make it more popular (This mainly

what is updated on website). Business is seasonal, with peaks in winter and spring and a

severe drop off in the summer. The client did not want to provide us with turnover or

projections.Customer InsightsPrimary Target:Adults interested in finding entertainment for

young children: Parents, Guardians, Teachers, and Summer Camp Coordinators.This

D i g i t a l M a r k e ti n g S t r a t e g y 2 0 1 2 | 2 0 1 2

http://www.rocknbowl.ie/

Situation

audience is typically aged 18-50. They want the facilities and staff of Rock ‘n’ Bowl to

entertain children successfully in a safe and clean environment. They are also interested in

café/bar facilities and lounge/seating area so that they can be within close range and observe

the children in their care, potentially interact with them and relax themselves in the

knowledge that the children are happy and safe. Group bookings will be seeking value and

safety. Parents and Guardians will also be seeking value in order and incentives to encourage

repeat visits, the facilities and level of entertainment will also be important to them or else

they and potentially the children, will not be interested in coming again. Deals and the quality

of the venue need to be communicated clearly; quick responses to queries and displaying

activity online will communicate a venue and management that is responsive and

responsible.Secondary Target:Adults interested in entertainment for themselves: Adults of

any age, HR Managers or Events Coordinators for Corporate Groups.This audience will

mostly be ad hoc as adults do not habitually visit leisure entertainment venues such as Rock

‘n’ Bowl. This target wants to know that the facilities are adequate for their entertainment and

will be interested in how modern the facilities are, perhaps what the ambience of the venue is

like and certainly what bar/food services are available. This is where a short video showing

off facilities would be informative to potential customers.They are interested in having a

good night out, and will most likely only visit at night time.There is potential for Rock ‘n’

Bowl to establish or encourage existing bowling clubs to compete at Rock ‘n’ Bowl on a

regular basis.This target has money to spend and will need to access relevant information

quickly and will need rapid responses to any queries.Tertiary Target:Teenagers interested in

entertainment for themselves.Teenagers are looking for a comfortable place to send time with

friends to use the entertainment facilities and the café. As most teenagers visiting the venue

will be from the surrounding locality, they will be aware of the venue already and may have

visited Rock ‘n’ Bowl as a child. However, they are also interested in the appeal of the venue

as they may feel as though they are growing out of it, so ensuring that events and new

developments and deals are communicated online and maintaining engagement via social

media is important for this target. Teenagers are also interested in value, so special deals, and

midweek deals in particular, will need to be communicated effectively to boost midweek

visits from this localised target. Since teenagers would be very active on social networks,

updating our status’s with funny, relevant content (trending stories, Memes, latest of viral

videos) would appeal to the teenagers and give Rock’n’Bowl the image of being

“cool”.LISTENING AUDITWe conducted a seven-day listening audit for Rock ‘n’


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Situation

Bowl, beginning April 28th to May 5th 2012 to establish what customers and other

stakeholders were saying about Rock ‘n’ Bowl. There was some activity on social media

(Facebook and Twitter) examined below. Social media provides the greatest opportunity for

customer engagement. However, there was a lot more as well as via Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s own

social media profiles, there are many other channels through which Rock ‘n’ Bowl can

engage with customers and stakeholder: online media, review sites, forums, and specifically

parenting forums. Rock ‘n’ Bowl supports a number of local initiatives such as the Mullingar

Town Band http://sites.google.com/site/mullingartownbandireland/web-links/sponsors and

the recent Midland Triathlon (featured this week on Facebook and Twitter). These initiatives

would benefit from Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s support online and in return would highlight Rock ‘n’

Bowl’s community engagement.7-day Listening Audit Rock ‘n’ Bowl Mullingar

faces a competition via Twitter as another profile using the name @rock_n_bowl has a

significant Twitter presence already:

Howev

er, we did pick up on this tweet mentioning Rock ‘n’ Bowl Mullingar. With no Twitter

profile or monitoring of Twitter, these positive acknowledgements cannot be highlighted.

This shows there is a need for a Twitter account.

There was six ‘likes on the photo album of birthday cakes, and a number of ‘likes’ from

Laura Farrell and Denise Bardon on specific photos.The post below from Fighting-Cancer

Triathlon was the only external post to the Facebook page during the week. Given that Rock

‘n’ Bowl supported this event, there was an opportunity to highlight that support and respond

to the triathlon’s proactive communication.


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http://sites.google.com/site/mullingartownbandireland/web-links/sponsors

Situation

Analysis of

existing Digital presenceOnline Media A ‘Westmeath Examiner’ article mentioning

Rock ‘n’ Bowl in a local initiate appeared in last week’s edition of the local newspaper:

http://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/news/roundup/articles/2012/04/25/4010194--gargains-

galore-in-mullingar/ Previous articles from other sources also appear online, such as some

content garnered when the venue opened. Rock ‘n’ Bowl should be highlighting this free

publicity via their social media channels. It would be recommended that Rock’n’Bowl feature

some of these articles on their websites this would increase external link, which would

benefit for SEO.Online reviews Tripadvisor: Rock ‘n’ Bowl has just six reviews to date on

Tripadvisor. Their rank at #4 of 7 attractions in Mullingar could be improved upon. Perhaps,

some successful parties/customers could be encouraged to add reviews. Venues that deal with

the general public will always get negative reviews, so it is important to ensure that positive

reviews are added regularly.


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Situation

There is just one review on yelp.ie from last year.


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Situation

Parent

ing Forums This post below is from magicmums.com, and garnered positive responses. There

are a number of parenting forums online and groups within Facebook (such as Mummy

Pages) and Twitter (such as @mummymaps) that Rock ‘n’ Bowl could be monitoring and

responding to. We have noted that competitors Jumpin Jacks are using Parenting Forums

regulary.

Gener

al Forums This query appeared on boards.ie and received a couple of responses.


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Situation

This is

one other discussion re: rocknbowl.ie between adults who were interested in the bar facilities

but didn’t have enough information on prices ... etc. This provided an opportunity for Rock

‘n’ Bowl to encourage adults to use the venue at nighttimes.

The MarketBusiness is seasonal, with peaks in winter and spring and a severe drop off in

the summer.Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s customers are mostly from the local area, within a 20-minute

drive. Ireland’s midlands now have a diverse population consisting of different nationalities

and demographics (town, countryside). Typical customers are school tours, birthday parties,

corporate events, Easter and summer camps, and local population. There are 26 primary

schools in Mullingar, so there is great potential for engagement with these facilities. As a

leisure venue, business is focused on the weekends and Saturday and Sunday are the busiest


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Situation

days. Rock ‘n’ Bowl can cater for four parties at a time and up to 22 parties in a day, but 15

parties is average for a very busy day (one staff member per party). The industry is not

saturated but leisure and activity venues such as this struggle to bring in customers during the

week. Leisure venues such as these are a novelty and many people visit once off, so Rock ‘n’

Bowl’s key challenge is to encourage repeat business and midweek visits.

CompetitorsRock ‘n’ Bowl’s main competition in Mullingar comes from entertainment

venues such as cinemas, paintballing and other local attractions. The nearest similar venue is

Jumpin Jacks in Tullamore and is Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s main competition in the region.Many of

the cinemas are part of a franchise and therefore their websites are impressive, e.g. IMC

Mullingar has comedy Podcast from Nob Nation and they also offer a mobile app. Rock ‘n’

Bowl has a number of partnenerships with local attractions to encourage people to visit more

than one site, such as Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s main rival is Jumpin Jacks- jumpinjacks.ie located in

Tullamore, roughly 35km away. The site does not have an online booking facility and design

is limited. Jumpin Jacks does have Facebook page but it is not active and there is no link to

this on the core site. In organic search, Jumpin Jacks listed 2nd on Page 1 results for

‘Bowling Ireland Midlands’, which Rock ‘n’ Bowl needs to challenge. It also has many

incoming links from online directories and tourism sites. Jumpin Jack has a fun and friendly

website that has a webpage with information about fundraising, aswell as that they advertise

exclusive products on sale.have their own website but advertise on platforms such as

entertainment.ie and familyfun.ie, nightout.ie, fundays.ieIndustry Analysis -

PESTELPolitical – Rock ‘n’ Bowl could initiate more involvement with Westmeath County

Council (WCC); maybe try to be more prominently featured on the WCC site or get involved

with local county initiatives that could be promoted online. Economic – There are significant

economic constraints on all target segments for the venue at the moment. The value that the

venue can provide should be communicated; perhaps special deals purchased only online

could be made available. Sociological – It is important that Rock ‘n’ Bowl makes every effort

to try to appeal to their targets at every stage, and the transitions in between: children to

teenagers and teenagers to adults. Technological – The venue must remain current in terms

of the video games that it provides and the technology used for laser tag and the bowling

facility. Environmental – Rock ‘n’ Bowl does rely on electricity to power its services.

Westmeath County Council has a number of environmental initiatives. Perhaps Rock ‘n’

Bowl could consider some schools competitions or involvement with WCC to increase

community engagement. Legal – There are legal considerations to keep in mind regarding


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Situation

use of images and video as children are the main users of the facilities. Rock ‘n’ Bowl

currently ensures that all images used are permissible.Marketing MixProduct Online

channels are used to promote the offline facilities. No products/services are sold online,

and a number of the facilities, such as the bar, are not promoted online Price Special

deals advertised on the site – should be communicated via other channelsPlace Website,

Facebook and Google+ profiles – Need to also consider strategy for monitoring forums, other

social media platforms, online news content, review websites and any other channels

Promotion No online advertising, recent Google Ad words campaign was successful in

raising awarenessPeople General Manager JP adds content but Rock ‘n’ Bowl could leverage

its staff and customers to a greater degreeProcess Site managed offsite and content added by

a third party. JP edits social media content, social media and forum discussions are not

always responded to Key Partnerships Current partnerships are in place with Belvedere

House and Farm Safari Park (although no link of Farm safari park site to Rock ‘n’ Bowl).

These promotions need to be promoted elsewhere (just limited presence e.g.

http://www.budgetbus.ie/Stroll_n_Bowl_Tour/Default.161.html). There is also an existing

relationship with the local paintball venue. Again, opportunities to have more cohesive

communications around these special offers, which would make it easier for target audiences

to get information about the venues and deals. Incoming Links: Rock ‘n’ Bowl has

incoming links from discoverireland.ie, tripadvisor.ie, ireland.com, yelp.ie and

mullingaryalwa.ie (local area guide) among others. Rock ‘n’ Bowl is featured on the

Belvedere House site, but not on Farm Safari Park’s. The Local Chamber of Commerce

promotes the venue on their site, and Rock ‘n’ Bowl receives a great deal of support from

local organisations and businesses, such as http://boutiquecamping.ie/what-to-do/ for

example. SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

The website is very colourful with plenty of images reflecting the ‘fun’ and ‘child-friendly’ image of the service offering.

Large variety of activities to advertise online – bowling, events & parties and soft play area, laser tag, go-carting

Rock ‘n’ Bowl has incoming links

The website does not show images of the actual venue; the images could be generic.

There is no facility to make a reservation online

The page rank value of Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s homepage is 3/10

There is currently no online advertising invested in by the venue


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http://boutiquecamping.ie/what-to-do/

http://www.budgetbus.ie/Stroll_n_Bowl_Tour/Default.161.html

Situation

from discoverireland.ie, tripadvisor.ie, ireland.com, yelp.ie and mullingaryalwa.ie (local area guide) among others

Good support from local and tourist websites

Opportunities Threats

Geo-targeting: We will attempt to target a market of people within roughly 65 kilometres or one-hour drive from Rock ‘n’ Bowl in Mullingar.

Perhaps video would showcase the facilities more vividly, particularly games like laser tag.

A blog of recent activity would be helpful as Rock ‘n’ Bowl have a good level of activity on their Facebook page

Be more active in the community

It is worth noting that Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s main rival Jumpin Jacks listed 2nd on Page 1 results for ‘Bowling Ireland Midlands’


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Objectives

ObjectivesOur objectives are split up into short, medium and long term but these

objectives mainly could be implemented in the short to medium term. We have also

divided them into key digital strategy areas: customer acquisition, growth, conversion

and customer development. We have made it easy to monitor progress by including

important key performance indicators to help note progress or lack of.The return will

be of course be more awareness and people visiting Rock’n’Bowl to use the facilities. It

is imperative that this strategy is aligned with organisational goals. This will help

colleagues believe more in the strategy. The long term vision should be to become

synomonous with Mullingar and Westmeath. This can be achieved by being very active

in all county events and showing support for local’s success.

D i g i t a l M a r k e ti n g R e p o r t | 2 0 1 2 Page 19

Objectives

Customer Acquisition: This can be achieved by increasing our current relationship with online fans. We will update the status daily with humorous images or funny video content along with incentives to like, share our status and give peer recommendations by offering prizes, discounts, offers.

GOAL 1: Customer Acquisition

Objectives Action Lead(who) Timeline Resources Comments

1. Establish strong customer relations with new & existing customers

Use YouTube,Facebook, Twitter & G+. Forums, parenting forums in particular

Manager ShortInternet/websites

Market research

Discussion with peers

This objective will provide results across all of our key targets

Key Performance Indicators:

1. Increase in website hits & online fans social networks.

2. Increased awareness of the service to the Midlands

3. Speed of responses to queries

Growth: When people think of Mullingar, we want them to think Rock ’n’ Bowl. Effective marketing would be to get endorsement with local well known people in the area, take a completely different approach to their competitors and look at making a viral video. In this video we could feature local celebrity influencers such Got to Dance sensation little Hustlers, Brezzie, Westmeath Gaa team. Other potential opportunities lie with Westmeath County Council and the environemental prigrammes that are currently in place, or Rock ‘n’ Bowl could consider some initiatives with local schools.


Objectives

GOAL 2: Growth

Objectives Action Lead(who) Timeline(by when)

Resources Comments

1. Become synomonous with Mullingar via online advertising.

2. Improve on Organic Search results

Effective & proactive marketing

Get a site that creates content

Manager

Manager

Long Term

Short term

Advertising to online users from nearby towns.

Wordpress website, blogs, videosLinks: external & internal

This objective will target adult segments.

Key Performance Indicator:

1. Hits on website from outside Mullingar area2. Improved interaction with online customers3. Improvement in organic search on search

engine4. This campaign leads to new bookings of

lanes, kid’s soft play, and events at Rock ‘n’ Bowl.

5. Start Blog

6. Launch advertising video

.Conversion: Organic search can be improved by getting a website (wordpress.com) that can be easily updated by JP. Other ways to improve this is to use blogs and get links externally and internally, this will greatly improve search engine results

GOAL 3: Conversion

Objectives Action Lead Timeline( Resources CommentsTo target online advertising Manager Short Internet/websites This objective will

D i g i t a l M a r k e ti n g R e p o r t | 2 0 1 2

Objectives

as main major marketing resource

Our goal was to be present and show in many locations as much.

term

Phone

Mainly Facebook ads. Occasionally Google Ad words

Social advertising as primary and Google ad words.

target adult segments.

Key Performance Indicator:

1. Launch Facebook Ads and Google Ads2. High CTR and more interaction with customers3. Review of sales and effectiveness of marketing on a

monthly basis.

.Customer Development: At the moment current advertising exists via billboards on the M50 motorway and in the local area. We could use Facebook ads to reach the same audience for half the price

GOAL 4 Customer Development

Objectives Action Lead Timeline Resources Comments

To examine all avenues of improving customer engagement with Rock'n'Bowl online

Post to customers online via social media, review sites and forums.

Give special offers if they like, share etc.

Incentives to give peer

ManagerShort/Medium/ Long term

Internet/websites

Social media

Phone

This objective will cater to all segments


Objectives

recommendations

Key Performance Indicator: More people talking online about Rock’n’Bowl Frequent interaction with customers 10 comments from customers every s days


Strategy

8Ps of Marketing MixProduct – New online deals, promote all services of the venue,

particularly bar and café to target adults and corporate groups.Price – All deals should be

promoted across all channels. Specific online deals should be introduced to encourage

customers to engage online. Incentives to “Like” and “Share” should be given.Place –

Create Twitter profile, increase engagement via Facebook and Google+. Promotion –

Continue Google Adwords campaign to establish whether it is beneficial long-term and how

it could be utilised throughout the year or sporadically. Online advertising via social media,

Groupon/Livingsocial deals. People – Leverage staff and customers by encouraging

testimonials and increasing engagement on social media channelsProcess – Change the

architecture of site so that JP can add content when needed; add a blog. Routinely check

review sites, news sites, social media and forums to respond to comments/queries. Engage

current fan base via existing social media by promoting activities. Partnerships – The

"Stroll'n'Bowl" Tour has just been updated with a nice downloadable PDF. Improve

partnerships with other facilities, local paintball venue perhaps. Rock ‘n’ Bowl should be

included in some other local sites, such as Westmeath County Council.“I definitely

recommend Rock'n'Bowl for large groups of children, there is so much activities to cater

for all the children needs”“Rock’n’Bowl is ideal for any class trips, lots of room, great

activities and a lovely place to have let the kids play while you can relax with a

nicecoffee!”Targeting and Segmentation Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s online audience has many

similarities to its offline audience. As the venue is well-known in the local vicinity, the current key

purpose of the site is to provide information (specials and contact information) to its existing audience

who want to find the latest information on the venue quickly and hopefully, attract new customers in

the wider region, particularly schools and adult groups (sports organizations and corporate groups).

Positioning As Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s services provide an experience, these need to be communicated

online.The fun and kids-friendly environment are communicated through use of colour on the site.

However, the comfort of the café, the venue’s appeal as a place for adults to enjoy (particularly the

bar), are not communicated enough on the website and social networks. Some pictures and

testimonials on the site, or perhaps more content on the social media profiles would communicate

this.

D i g i t a l M a r k e ti n g r e p o r t | 2 0 1 2 Page 25

Brian Toolan

Summer Camp C0-ordinator

Catherine McCloat

Teacher


TACTICS, ACTIONS, AND CONTROLSUsing the Chaffey and Smith (2008, cited in

Chaffey et al. 2009, pp. 29)) Digital Marketing Channels Model we will develop a

Digital plan for Rock ‘n’ Bowl (see Appendix 2.0). Before we do so we will briefly

discuss the requirements to get to a digital marketing campaign functioning

effectively.The Chaffey Smith Model assumes a few things that are important to

discuss before we begin. The first assumption is that staff and staff-time or financial

resources to hire help the dedicated to active digital marketing activities which

require a fair amount of staff time to implement. The HR element to a successful

digital marketing strategy cannot be stressed enough; many campaigns fail to

achieve the stated goals and objectives for not realistically taking into account the

staff time and financial resources that could be involved. Therefore, we will attempt

to discuss these optimal vs. budget options for each channel we will mention. The

second important assumption that must be discussed is that the organisation

beginning a digital marketing plan has a website that is flexible and sustainable and

easy to update moving forward. Not having a standardized content management

system (CMS) and having an expensive custom build site with little ability to update

and evolve the web design of the site or the infrastructure that supports it is a

serious and common problem many SME and even larger organisations face. This

happens for a variety of reason among the most common is the desire of site

designers and developers to have clients needing easy to them services, but

generally overpriced monthly service contracts. No SME should have to pay to

change basic content on a website in an era of free self-publishing began by blogger

but perfected by Wordpress and other vendors.Our client Rock ‘n’ Bowl currently

has a proprietary site with no build in CMS for less technical staff to make basic

content changes and updates. This is unacceptable moving forward as we discuss

the use of various digital marketing channels for Rock ‘n’ Bowl. The first thing that

needs to be done is for the current rocknbowl.ie website to be pages to be extracted

and redeveloped on a new CMS platform, we recommend free Wordpress or

tumbler to start and if need be a hosted Wordpress solution. The best part about

moving to a commonly used platform is that if issues ever arise with a technology

vendor (web design or development) many more are available a reasonable price

and that the service is free to start.As we move forward we should remember to

utilize the Six Principles of Viral Marketing according to (Wilson, 2000) regardless



of tactic.1. Gives away valuable products or services 2. Provides effortless transfer

to others 3. Scales easily from small to very large 4. Exploits common motivations

and behaviours 5. Utilises existing communications networks 6. Takes advantage of

others’ resources Using the six principles of viral marketing we suggest that

Rock’n’Bowl take a completly different approach to their competitors and look

making a viral video. In this video we could feature local celebrity influencers such

Got to Dance sensation little Hustlers, Brezzie, Westmeath, Gaa team.Email

MarketingEmail marketing is something that should be looked into, this Micro-

targeting based on the type of customer recorded in the fields of the customer

profile e.g age, sex and geography. As a once off, based on its its large audience

groupon and grabone as a form of marketing should be explored. Bases on research

regarding Groupon: close to 80% of deal users were new customers, significantly

fewer users spent beyond the deal’s value or returned to purchase at full price.

( Dholakia 2011) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?

abstract_id=1863466&rec=1&srcabs=1696327Social MediaAnother approach to

take would be to utilises existing communications networks to give its online

followers an incentive to comment, like or share their website by using special gives

away offers over their social network. By giving incentives such as this we would

aim to go form small to very large audiences in the midlands.Peer recommendations

are also the most effective form of viral marketingSection 1: Search

MarketingSearch engine optimization (SEO) and improving a sites ability to create

and deliver organic search traffic is an important consideration once a solid

updatable and evolvable CMS is in place and staff are comfortable and trained to

add regular content.Regular unique content is the element of SEO that does not get

mentioned enough, where as many SEO gurus like to baffle clients with keywords

and tag tricks that worked magic 8-10 years ago that are now more marginal of a

useful improvement tool do to the changes made in the evolution of search engines

and their spiders’ that gather information about you web pages.The most

important thing to remember when it comes to proper SEO is first regularly

created fresh unique readable content. In the era of Internet self-publish having a

‘flat site,’ 4-6 un-updated pages no longer grants a SME a useful search engine

return slot like it may have in 1998. These days even fresh content must compete

with each other for the top organic search engine return spots. This requires

addition acknowledgement of best practices. This includes dates and key subject


http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1863466&rec=1&srcabs=1696327



words the article is about being in both a descriptive title and resource URL. Many

newer CMS builds do this automatically or have easy to change setting to do this

fairly easily, however many custom CMS builds do not.SEO Where is we now at

rocknbowl.ie?

Opensiteexplorer.org a product of SEO consultants and tool builders SEOMoz

gives rocknbowl.ie site in its current form fairly low marks. The page rank value of

Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s homepage is 5/5 (www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php).

Below are some keyword search results:

Keyword Search (4th April, 2012) Google PageRank Result List

‘Bowling Ireland’ Page 4 5th

‘Bowling Ireland Midlands’ Page 11 11th

‘Rock ‘n’ Bowl’ Page 1 4th

It is worth noting that Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s main rival Jumpin’ Jacks listed 2nd on Page 1 results

for ‘Bowling Ireland Midlands’. Rock ‘n’ Bowl has a few incoming links from

discoverireland.ie, tripadvisor.ie, ireland.com, yelp.ie and mullingaryalwa.ie (local area

guide) among others. Rock ‘n’ Bowl is featured on the Belvedere House site, but not on Farm

Safari Park’s. The Local Chamber of Commerce promotes the venue on their site, and Rock

‘n’ Bowl receives a great deal of support from local organisations and businesses.Rock ‘n’

Bowl a few months back took part in the local St Patrick’s Day parade but offline activity has

been limited. There is currently no online advertising invested in by the venue and the

manager does not currently include the URL in his signature. The URL is included in flyers

that are available onsite, but these are not distributed locally.With Alexa we examined

www.rocknbowl.ie and it offered some insight into this lightly trafficked site

(http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Rock ‘n’ Bowl.ie#). Terms such as ‘jungle joeys’,


http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rocknbowl.ie

http://www.rocknbowl.ie/

http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php


‘Rock'n'Bowl’ and other misspelled terms were in the top10 search queries. The term ‘rock n

bowl’ showed a one-month decline of 31% at the time of our evaluation.RECOMMENDED

ACTIONA new more content blog centric website that is more naturally search engine

friendly along with a few modest changes to the date and title settings. The current design

and layout features are more than adequate and of a professional quality. We suggest maybe a

talking about subjects of interest to the bowling alley and Jungle Joe’s regular patrons. An

increase in content going from a flat site with no new pages to a dynamic site with regular

new webpages will reduces most of the elements holding rocknbowl.ie back from a larger

audience via organic search traffic and will improve showing on all relevant search engine

return pages and likely many more currently not considered relevant or active at all. Cost

should not be prohibitive and this action should be of a short to long-term goal

overall.CONTROLThe primary control here is first managerial, who will transmit the website

from its current proprietary site to a function CMS that less technical staff can update.

Current contracted developers and designers should be able to do this for a price. The second

control concern is editorial. Who can produce the content for this new rocknbowl.ie blog who

will edit it and be sure the content is suitable for the audience and complies with local law.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Test Campaign For AdWords

ChallengePPC campaigns are common and a huge part of the Internet advertising industry

for many factors two of which are cost and ease of getting started for those of modest

budgets. Recently we were lucky enough to run a modest three-week €190 Google AdWords

campaign for rocknbowl.ie the below is some of our thoughts on what it informed us in

development of a more comprehensive digital marketing strategy for Rock N’ BowlA

Proposed success metrics for a campaignDoes this campaign lead to new bookings of

lanes, kid’s soft play, and events at Rock ‘n’ Bowl? If not, then has the campaign, raised

awareness of the bowling alley and its online profile within an hour’s drive of the location

and add traffic to the rocknbowl.ie? These are the softer goals. The metric goal within the

campaign will be 750 click-throughs and 145k ad impressions driving awareness. Some

Operational Details of Campaign- Impressions, Clicks, CPC and CTR

Clicks 268

Impressions 90,251

CTR 0.30%

Avg. CPC €0.70



Avg. CPM (Imp) €0.002

Total Cost €187.19

Our Googel Adwords campaign ran between April 11th and May 2nd of 20012 it came well in

our range of metrics of success. However, tactical improvising was needed as we had

assumed operations in USD 250 and not EUROs 190.39, given exchange rates we were still

in range. Despite the local nature of our Rocknbowl.ie Campaign (65 km) from its location

keyword prices were more expensive than we had assumed before the campaign. We also

used 5 ads with 4 separate AdGroups in order to target different customers that may be

interested in our client. We initially budgeted to be even over the 21 day Campaign beginning

at €9.70 a day budget.One of our team members was assigned to monitor the campaign and

make small tactical adjustments and major changes were made at weekly meetings conducted

in person. We chose to set the CPC bid price ourselves starting low and testing at what level

was required to maintain our ads at the 1-3 position in the bidding and placement process.

Part of the reason our Avg. CPC was higher than anticipated was our desire to keep the top

three positions’ that required daily methodical increases to our bid per click. Our CTR rate

was lower than originally anticipated because we forgot to account for our use of display ads,

which generally produce clicks at a lower CTR than search ads. Our data showed this,

however; clicks via the display network were cheaper than search keywords and aided our

attempt to have a high number of impressions in the geographic region around the Rock N’

Bowl facility. We began our campaign with less than 50 keywords and we ended it utilizing

401 keywords, on which 74 were clicked upon run ads on 250 of which at least one

impression made on those 401 keywords. 54 of the keywords strongly averaged over a 2%

CTR during the campaign. We chose not to use negative keywords and were pleasantly

surprised to see the high CTR of some keywords we had not expected. We chose to evenly

serve our ads with some weight toward performance. Below is a table showing the key stats

over the three week campaign The most heavily served was our: “Jungle Joes’ soft play with

34.97%; second was “Midland Party Fun” at 26.25%; followed by late addition “Things to

Do in Westmeath” at 21.71%; and lastly our “Premier Midlands Bowling” ads, combined for

D i g i t a l M a r k e ti n g R e p o r t | 2 0 1 2


17.07% served. The bowling ad

group was the cheapest to run and average the best ad position. The party venues ad had the

highest CTR at .45% but was the most expensive per click at €0.80.The last two lines of the

above show our campaigns unique breakdown in the positives and negatives of running an

SEM campaign on search keywords vs. the display and third party network depending on

goals. However, for our goals of both click throughs and impression use of both was useful in

attempting to brand our client online to the community 65km around their physical location

as we assumed most people would not drive more than an hour and 20 minutes (at speed

limit) for these services. We chose to run an AdWords campaign for our client, because of

their websites low visibility online even within their targeted local region. They remain

currently without an easy to update CMS and their site does not change regularly enough to

warrant high return results in Google Search, even among keywords they should perform well

upon. Given that Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s site is not optimized for search nor easy to adjust we

wanted to see if a SEM campaign might increase the site and brands visibility among a local

audience who is not familiar with the site. Our goals were not conversion as there is

currently no way to ‘convert,’ no purchases, calls to action, or etc. are on the website just

observe, read, and place a phone call if bowl lanes, soft play, or a party venue was

desired.However, increased traffic and visibility in the local community online was our

desired outcomes and based upon the Google Analytics looking at website traffic over the

three week AdWords campaigns duration vs. the prior three weeks of traffic data, we would



argue the campaign has been effective to reach local people who were not aware of the

services rocknbowl.ie can provide offline. Arguably, the

numbers above make our point as these new SEM driven visitors stayed on the site less time

and viewed fewer pages than the previous three weeks before the campaign ran. However, the

point of the campaign was to find new visitors and additional site visitors and expose them to

the services Rock ‘n’ Bowl provides its community. Given the changes in site traffic and

strong 90k ad impressions in the small not heavily populated subsection of Ireland we

consider this campaign to have been a success. However, we have learned from the campaign

that we wished we had all four Ad Groups running from day one, and had thought calculated

the bid and budget escalators to maintain our strong ad positions at 1 or 2 in the pre-campaign

phase. Site traffic quickly declined over the last three days

after the AdWords campaign was suspended The good news remains that if the client wished

to run a strong local AdWords campaign to drive knowledge of their venue and services

online they are ready to go as soon as they decide on a budget and timeframe. PPC ADS

FOR FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE +We did not get the opportunity to run PPC add on

Facebook during the above test campaign however we have had success with them in the past

via: https://www.facebook.com/advertising/



Arguably, social advertising PPC is the more modern innovation, like search engine and

keyword and display adverting 5 to 10 years ago. The ability to target individuals and

groups with self identified interests, like ‘bowling’ or ‘parenting’ and the strong ability to geo

target based on identified city and not IP address is an incredibly powerful tool at a price

similar to other PPC systems like Google AdWords. In the near future we may see Google

Plus ads function in a similar fashion to Facebook ads and they be integrated into AdWords

as Google has done with display advertising after the purchase of Double-click and other

smaller but growing segments like mobile ads.RECOMMENDED ACTIONA dedicated SEM

budget and campaign via Facebook Ads and Google AdWords between €8.00 and €15.00 a

day using the four ad groups ready to go or new evolved ones, in order to effectively be in

front of possible customers when they are looking for a local party venue, soft play area, or

bowling alley in search or in front of individuals who have aligned self-identification of

interests on Facebook. Be aware also of a near term launch of Bing in the EMEA market and

specifically Ireland, given the minimal use ads may be particularly cheap. Cost should not be

prohibitive at the above budget and this action is effective in aiding short-term goals and is a

cost effect way to reach new customers overall. CONTROLThe primary control here is first

managerial, who will build and manage these marketing operations, or train less technical

staff can update. The second control concern is editorial. Who can produce and approve the

advertising copy and maintain that the ongoing campaign is achieving stated goals

effectively.Section 2: Online PRMany organisations and SMEs take a public relations firm

under contract to aid their messaging strategy and focus and many that operate primarily

through online channels are cheaper than their traditional brethren. However, in the case of

Rock ‘n’ Bowl the traditional services like Publisher outreach, community engagement,

Media Alerting, and Brand/reputation protection are not needed. Unless Rock ‘n’ Bowl

decided to do something big like a large national bowling tournament or some other large



event. In a situation like that an online PR could be very helpful.However, with regard to

review sites, forums and social media, Rock ‘n’Bowl need to monitor negative feedback and

potentially respond.RECOMMENDED ACTIONAt this point none, unless Rock n’ Bowl

decides to create an event of major event. At that point a firm that provides these may be

quite helpful. Prnewswire.com is a popular online PR press release forum/agency; however,

at Rock n’ Bowl current size and needs it is too costly and will not add value to the goals and

operations. Monitor negative comments, negate potential negative reviews and feedback by

maximising opportunities and increasing positive reviews.CONTROLWho would manage an

integrated PR firm that would aid Rock ‘n’ Bowl should it be needed? Systematic plan to

trawl forums and review sites as well as montirong social media profiles and groups. Section

3: Online partnershipsThe pursuit of online partnerships has been popular in recent years. At

this point in Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s digital evolution, attempting affiliate marketing, product or

service co-branding would likely not be worth the time or effort.Link building on the other

hand may be helpful, however, the risk of doing it incorrectly and getting negative marks

from the search engines could be a problem. Widget marketing is not recommended, as this

is better suited for content industries and online games. Be careful and remember you must

reciprocate if a friend or vendor gives you a link to your site because you requested one. Be

warned some may make unreasonable demands to do so, they are not worth the

hassle.RECOMMENDED ACTIONOrganic link building could be helpful, which is in

opposition to ‘paid link building.’ If approached to do paid link building our advice is to

decline to offer. A few quality links from friends, vendors, and partners goes much further in

helping the organisation than the paid services, which generally are link farms that carry

negative marks from the search engines that will penalise your site if you use them.

CONTROLDecide who would manage the asking and encouraging of vendors, partners and

friends to add links on their site to your homepage and where you may reciprocate on the

rocknbowl.ie site as link building is about exchange not just take or give.Section 4:

Interactive adsSite-specific media buys are still a very useful way to get noticed by possible

future patrons and customers. Excellent examples would be advertising with Microsoft

Advertising and therefore of msn.ie as well as Yahoo.ie which is in entrance point to

advertise in the email accounts of many individuals. These operated similarly to the way that

Google places ads inside Gmail except they are generally costlier display and banner ads.

Often these ads are built in flash and have some form of video, quick game or other catchy

movements going on. Generally buyers of these ads have the resources to hire ad operations

developers to built out the technical and create aspects to the ad or if the organisation is large



they work in house. The most common sizes are below and in order of most to least common

spaces to purchase online.300 x 250 - (Medium Rectangle) this size is the most common

often appearing in a right sidebar advertisement online.728 x 90 - (Leader board) this is also a

very common ad type and size appearing at the top of most homepages and it sometimes will

extend down.180 x 150 - (Rectangle)160 x 600 - (Wide Skyscraper) The side skyscraper is

common in ads found in hotmail and other logged in interfaces where the 300 x 250 does not

fit.Ad sizes on reputable sites are generally required to conform to local iAB standards.

(http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1443/1452) Here are few

more examples of less standard ads sizes.

(http://webdesign.cybernet-images.com/AboutAdvertisingBanners.asp)Ad networks that

support behavioural targeting features like Microsoft and Yahoo and even AOL’s content

network a can be useful to getting the word out and driving interaction on a site with a rich

media ad buy; however, at the current operational turnover of Rock n’ Bowl these may be

considered too expensive and for the return on value. Other smaller organisation like

newspapers also often have resources available to SME’s, if they wish to purchase online

advertising, but these are often packaged with mandatory print and email newsletter

purchases. These various networks and options seem to have been very effective for larger

brand marketing efforts in recent and not smaller SMEs with limited products or services and

shallow ad spend budgets. If Rock n’ Bowl wants to get into display ads and richer media

advertising consider using Google’s display network and display ads features inside

AdWords as the costs/value/time to create is more realist for an SME media buy and

advertising campaign. Sponsorships, co-sponsorship, or the contra deal (non-cash exchanged

barter) deals with other sites or events is popular with many SMEs attempting to buy a bit of

scale without having to spend too much like many rich media networks may require many

have minimum buy sizes. Event driven sponsorships and co-sponsorships may be a viable

cheaper alternative to find audience scale by sponsoring the site of a big event for example in

the towns or county Rock n’ Bowl is near.RECOMMENDED ACTIONWe recommend

attempting a sponsorship, co-sponsorship or contra deal for an event in the county where

local targeted customers would be online or offline and notice the sponsorship. It may be

worth the effort to price the costs for a local digital purchase on a newspaper or

geographically targeted segment of major Irish newspapers read locally if a rich media

campaign is desired. The only hesitation is cost, as it is much more expensive and time

consuming to gain online awareness this way for an SME. CONTROLThe control issue

would be editorial, who would create the rich media advertisement and who would approve


http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1443/1452


the ad and the total size of the ad buy.Section 5: Opt-in emailsEmail is the grandfather of all

online social media interactions. Having and regularly use an in-house e-mail list is very

common and effect for SMEs worldwide to interact with their most loyal and regularly

interested customers and patrons. Many start with basic small lists out of a Gmail, Yahoo, or

other free or internal webmail. The problem here is the white list / black list ISPs maintain in

order to minimize spam and size of emails you can send out (per send, per day) of a personal

free webmail account. If you have an email list of say, twenty people you will be fine, but if

its five-hundred people and growing it is time to purchase and send emails through an

inexpensive and easy to use email marketing client like Constant Contact, MailChimp,

Vertical Response, or iContact. Here is a useful table to compare what each service offers.

(http://www.werockyourweb.com/email-marketing-services-comparison-table)

The

se days we recommend MailChimp as its pricing is fair and its interface is easier to use than

Constant Contact, you get a nice WYSIWYG editor and do not have to compose emails in

raw HTML. The other thing MailChimp offers is interesting support for third party add-ons

that allow SMEs and smaller senders some of the fancier features found in much more

expensive enterprise level email systems that Tesco or very large companies would use. One

add-on MiraPost is excellent to help micro targeting via providing a level of A/B testing not



provided by any of the entry level email marketing systems above. If you want to get fancy

with your segment targeting this is the most affordable way for SMEs to do so. Micro

targeting based on the type of customer recorded in the fields of the customer profile e.g. age,

sex and geography. As a once off, based on its large audience Groupon and Grabone, as a

form of marketing should be explored. Bases on research regarding Groupon: close to 80%

of deal users were new customers, significantly fewer users spent beyond the deal’s value or

returned to purchase at full price (Dholakia, 2011). Since renting email lists not legal in EU

an alternative may be to piggyback and offer a Groupon or LivingSocial.ie deal once your

sites email marketing system and website are available for interested individuals to sign up.

Consider these deal carefully before proceeding, but if you have no emails and you want to

drive awareness of your services and you location this is a good option to do so, just make

sure you refuse any ‘deals’ that end up being an unmanageable and unworkable loss leader

that may end up causing crowds that annoy your regular usual customers.Co-branded emails

and even running ads in some third parties e-newsletter also is an option. These would be

considered more traditional local marketing options and definitely should be considered as

they may be completed at an affordable price with minimal dedicated staff

time.RECOMMENDED ACTIONFirst begin using the [email protected]

account to sent weekly updates to regulars and build a small list. This will require asking

patrons if they wish to sign up for the email list to get deals. This will also require changes to

the current website so that people could sign up for these emails if they so chose. Once a list

is of adequate size review and purchase an integrated entry-level email-marketing client.

Integrate a way to sign up for emails online and send emails on a sustainable regular basis.

We suggest once a week to email blasts to continue. We also suggest them to be sent on the

same day every week and offer these special people special incentives, once they allow you

in their inbox. We recommend one researching the parameters of a ‘daily deal’ promotion to

see whether they would be worth the efforts even if just a one of use of them promoting Rock

n Bowl to their massive email lists. CONTROLEditorial control is again very important what

does the email say, what kind of deal are you or a third party you contracted with offering? Is

it sustainable or a one-off, deal? As for the regular weekly email blast, who will design it and

who with write and approve the language in the weekly note? Caution: These can take a bit to

get right in the first couple of weeks doing it and it may take a few months to get traction, but

for a coupon from a spot a customer regularly goes to people are willing to share their email

and sometimes even more market research data at a later time.Section 5: social media

marketingEngagement and creating customer participation and continued interactions with


mailto:[email protected]


your business is the purpose of using social networking sites like: Facebook; Google+;

LinkedIn; Foursquare; Pintrest; YouTube; and Instagram. We will explain some of the

possible business goal positives available from using and participating in the mentioned

networks. One approach would be to utilise these existing communications networks to give

its online followers an incentive to comment, like or share your content by using special gives

away offers over the various social network. By giving incentives such as this we would aim

to go form small to very large audiences in the midlands. This approach is important across

all target segments, from adults with kids, teenagers and adults or corporate groups.Peer

recommendations are also the most effective form of viral social marketing, indeed.

However, other than the above-mentioned social sites, review sites like, tripadvisor.ie,

yelp.ie, and even the old standby, boards.ie get read and reviewed by customers or potential

customers scoping out your facility, before they even decide to get in the car. This would be

management of customer feedback issue, even if in these cases you have no control over what

the customers are saying and its positive/negative or true/false nature in regards to your

facility or services.The good news is the only review on yelp is positive.

The reviews on tripadvisor.ie

are mostly positive; however, note the one, ‘Terrible’ review. Let’s look at it further.



This is the negative review.

A reminder, it cannot be removed by you, either.

The

se reviews can also be shared with others via the author’s social media connections. So what

does a public retail services merchant do? Get proactive. Dialog with your customers and

potential customers and manage a great social presence.Customer relations and feedback is

too important to be left entirely to whim and third party websites. The problem is that most

people are interested in doing a venue review if they have a bad time or experience and not if

they have an acceptable or enjoyable one. That have to be reminded to do so and why it’s

important to the future of your business. Fortunately, with an active social media presence

even small SME can monitor feedback and troubleshoot ongoing problems live as if they

were a much larger organization.Customer relations and feedback are not just about yelp.ie

and tripadvisor.ie, they are, however, extremely important to SMEs in dealing with potential

customers who know nothing of your business and this is why we mention it first. It does not

stop here in our 3G mobile always connected work tweets about a dirty bathroom or

foursquare notes about what to do and not to do on your grounds are important to note and



respond to. Twitter and foursquare are increasing becoming more important and useful to

merchants for customer relations and feedback and not just self-promotion or dialogued

interactions, however, they do remain useful for self-promotion. Both should be used for

customer services and self-promotions. Foursquare contests or ‘check-in’ specials are

becoming very popular way businesses to get customers to promote their business via their

networks for something as simple as €0.50 off a cup of tea or fancier deals. Google Places is

also helpful in that it allows your business to be more deeply integrated with Google Maps

and its mobile versions so that your address and name shows up quickly if an individual is

looking for your place of business on Google Maps. Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest pages

are the next most important subject channels to discuss in regards to continuing a dialogued

relationship with your regular customers. I mention all three for different reason as to how

they could help an SME like Rock n Bowl. Facebook is the ubiquitous utility of social

interaction whether online or a mobile phone.

Ro

ck n’ Bowl’s Facebook page is quite active and decent for a SME with 566 likes. However,

one thing to note is a lack of interaction with the commenter’s and users of the page other

than to post new pictures or content on the page. This page should be used to create a back

and forth interaction so that people know a real live person is on the other side of the page

that they are having interactions with. If this is done the level of interaction on the page and

use of the page will grow quietly at first and quicker as the level of conversation and

interaction increases. The use of photos are encouraging, we would also suggest the use of

contests to promote interactions. As a ubiquitous social medium we feel that this page is

heavily used by staff as the primary business website is not currently setup for non-technical

staff to have similar forms of interactions on it. Google+ is another growingly popular way

to interact and dialog with future and potential customers. One common question these days



is, “If I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, do I really need a G+ account?” It

depends. This new network is growing in popularity between SME and businesses for a

number of reasons. (http://holykaw.alltop.com/20-reasons-to-switch-to-google-infographic?

tu2=1)The most important for a smaller SME is the added search engine value G+ will give

your business. G+ is a newer, weaker, but strategically important member of the

Googolplex’s products offered to the public, would you want to bet that their all powerful

search engine has some bias toward this products pages over say a competitors, (even if they

could never say so publicly.) So if you are an SME in need of better search engine return

placement a good G+ page is very helpful. Besides it is improving and has some very good

features like ‘Hangouts,’ which is like a free group video chat, which can be useful to have

real interactions with actual humans. We have already set one up associated with the

[email protected] email account.

An

other site, Pinterest is very popular with younger women who are ‘nesting.’ A page all about

Jungle Joe’s “kid’s soft play” and the joys of a child meeting a first friend; the mental

development value of care free play; and creative mind wandering time for young children,

would be very helpful in drawing the attention of young mothers interested in energetic

activities for their little one. This is also one of the fastest growing new networks. This would

be the best place online to use the Jungle Joes angle to find potential new customers for the

kid’s soft play and parties.Finally, last but definitely not least YouTube. This video site is still

a monster social media site a viral YouTube video is still as much of a ‘big deal’ as it was

three or four years ago. However, the site has matured a bit from its launch days. Sure there is


mailto:[email protected]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/20-reasons-to-switch-to-google-infographic?tu2=1

http://holykaw.alltop.com/20-reasons-to-switch-to-google-infographic?tu2=1


still a ton of zany, silly, worthless, or pirated content on it. The other side of the argument is

that it is now also a wonderful place for “How to videos.” We recommend doing a “how to,”

about something a business knows well. The only warning we like to give is that the video

needs to be of a higher quality, not a camera phone, and use a real microphone. The only bad

YouTube viral video is the one that sounds and looks low budget, if you are a business. The

video should also be cut into roughly seven-minute sections. Any longer than that and the

audience just disappears and the videos are harder to load under poor Internet connections. A

‘how to bowl,’ video or a ‘how to score bowling’ video could be useful. RECOMMENDED

ACTIONMonitor and respond to customer feedback on third party review websites. Ask your

customers when they have a great experience to please add positive feedback to

tripadvisor.ie, yelp.ie or boards.ie and remember to tell them, why they should. Continue

using Twitter and further implement it as a customer service communication option. Don’t

forget self-promotions via twitter and foursquare. However, foursquare contests are an easy

and cheap way to get your customers to promote your business. Offer them a little something

and add a few different “check-in” locations at your facility. "The lanes," "the Jungle Joe’s,"

"the Pub at Rock ‘n Bowl" for example. Continue using Facebook fan pages, but add much

more depth in the level of interaction with the fans on the page. Continue to interact on G+

page after the conclusion of our six-week campaign and continue to have monthly hangouts.

Implement a new Pinterest page dedicated to Jungle Joes and it role in healthy childhood

development. Finally, commission at least two “how to,” around the subject matter of

bowling, likely subjects could be, “How to bowl” and “How to score bowling.” These videos

would be wonderful evergreen content and can be reused and re-shared via your other social

media channels in the future.CONTROLThis is a ton of digital work. Who will manage this

wonderful new digital garden, where Rock ‘n’ Bowl is hip and everyone’s friend and parental

helper? Who will write this new content and who will approve the content? How will we

judge success and whether the time and effort bears positive fruit? These questions must be

answer clearly before a campaign can be begun. TACTICAL CONCLUSIONIn judging

success or creating a conception of what ‘success will be,’ remember a good bit of play and

experimentation is often required to figure out the correct balance and blend of use of the six

digital marketing channels. No two enterprises are SME will come up with the same blend or

mix of who is responsible for what parts of the digital strategy. Remember, that in our rushed

connected mobile world most business have some limited resources, money, time, and staff

time. Often these resources and limitations are the normal constraints on any digital strategy.

The other constraint is an inability to link and loop the offline activities and online activities



together. If an SME cannot thread the needle in person offline then the online strategy will

never succeed. What does this take? Asking customers for emails, and to review their good

time online, and to give us a tweet, check-in, to follow on Facebook, or Hang out with on G+.

Many organisations cannot accomplish all of the above without hiring addition staff, some

can. Often digital strategy starts with picking low hanging fruit instead of assessing where the

most value and ‘bang for the buck,’ in capital, time, and staff time is present. Best Value

Quick Assessment Ranking:1. New Wordpress (most long term value but may cost money up

front, but little staff time, SEO will follow a content centric website platform.)2. Search

engine and Social Marketing (will cost money, but return new visitors to your website and

Facebook fans, but should not take much staff time to maintain)3. Email Marketing (free to

setup, will be a monthly charge after a certain mass is reached, and this will require some

regular staff)4. Social Media Marketing (free to start doing better, can be very strenuous on

staff time if done correctly, however many are vital or low hanging fruit up front but require

maintenance time going forward)5. Interactive Ads (expensive up front, but requires little

addition staff efforts) 6. Online Partnerships (can be free up front very time consuming to do

correctly)


Appendix

Appendix 1.0 The SOSTAC planning framework applied to digital Internet marketing

strategy development (Chaffey and Smith, 2008 (cited in Chaffey et al. 2009, pp.211))

Appendix 2.0 Chaffey and Smith’s (2008) six categories of e-communications tools or

media channels (cited in Chaffey et al. 2009, pp.29)


Appendix

Appendix 3.0 – Listening Audit Links

Bibliog

raphyChaffey D., (2011). SOSTAC Marketing Planning Model Guide [online]. Available

from: http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/sostac-model/ [Accessed:

18th April, 2012]Chaffey D., Ellis-Chadwick F., Mayer R., and Johnston K. 2009. Internet

Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. 4th Ed. London: Prentice Hall.Dholakia,


http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/sostac-model/

Appendix

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Livingsocial, Opentable, Travelzoo, and BuyWithMe Promotions. Available at:


[Accessed: 6th May 2012]Edelman, D. 2010. Branding in the Digital Age You’re Spending

Your Money in All the Wrong Places Harvard Business Review. Gupta, S. and Armstrong,

K. and Clayton, Z. 2011. Social Media. Harvard Business Review, Note. 510-095.

Hoffman, D. Marek Fodor, M. 2010. Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media

Marketing?" MIT Sloan Management Review Vol. 52 No.1Mangolda, G. Faulds, D. 2009.

Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, Volume 52,

Issue 4, pp. 357-365.McAfee, A. 2009. Shattering the Myths about Enterprise 2.0. November.

Havard Business Review, 87 (11), pgs 1-6.Mershon, P., 2011. 26 Promising Social Media

Stats for Small Businesses. [online] Socialmediaexaminer.com. Available at:

<http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-promising-social-media-stats-for-small-

businesses/> [Accessed 4 May 2012]. Smith, T., 2009. The Social Media Revolution.

International Journal of Market Research, 51(4), p.559-561.


http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-promising-social-media-stats-for-small-businesses/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-promising-social-media-stats-for-small-businesses/


Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Consumer Business

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