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1. Digital Marketing Plan November 2014 Kate Baumann Bill Theis
Robert Yanik
2. 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary
.....................................................................................................................................2
Situation
Analysis...................................................................................................................................
3-29 Industry Analysis
.......................................................................................................................................3
Internal/Client Analysis
.............................................................................................................................6
External
Forces...........................................................................................................................................9
Competitive
Analysis...............................................................................................................................11
Competitive Matrix
..................................................................................................................................16
Digital Marketing
Audit.....................................................................................................................
17-26 Current Website
..............................................................................................................................17
Email Marketing
.............................................................................................................................20
Online
Advertising..........................................................................................................................21
Social Media Channels
...................................................................................................................21
Mobile.............................................................................................................................................26
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
.................................................................................26
SWOT Analysis
.......................................................................................................................................27
Marketing Objectives
................................................................................................................................30
Marketing
Strategies..................................................................................................................................31
Plan of Action
..........................................................................................................................................31
Segmentation
Method................................................................................................................................32
Implementation/Tactics.......................................................................................................................
33-61 Marketing Objective 1
....................................................................................................................33
Marketing Objective 2
....................................................................................................................51
Gantt Chart/Timeline
................................................................................................................................62
Budget
Breakdown.....................................................................................................................................64
Evaluation...................................................................................................................................................66
Contingency Plan
.......................................................................................................................................68
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................70
Appendix............................................................................................................................................
71- 109 Works
Cited..............................................................................................................................................110
3. 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Pink Elephant is a boutique event
branding company seeking to provide premium branding services for
weddings, corporate events, and other special life moments. As a
new firm that opened earlier this year, Pink Elephant is working to
increase their brand awareness within Chicagos North Shore Lake and
Cook counties. The firm is owned and managed solely by Devika
Kagereillas who designs an array of event branding and decorations
such as invitations. Pink Elephants current digital presence exists
on its website and through its Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and
Twitter social media platforms. Pink Elephant has two main
objectives in order to strengthen its digital presence. Objective
1: Increasing traffic to the website to approximately 1,000
visitors per month mainly targeting brides, brides-to-be, wedding
planners, and event decorators. This objective can be achieved
through a redesign of the company website in terms of design and
content, SEO activities on the website, the creation of an email
marketing plan and CRM system. Objective 2: Building content on
social media sites to increase following by 50%. This means having:
241 Facebook Likes, 210 Pinterest Followers, 81 Twitter Followers,
and 312 Instagram Followers. This objective can be achieved through
a comprehensive social media strategy including hiring an intern to
manage and maintain the channels as well as creating accounts on
Yelp, Etsy, and The Knot to increase company exposure to the target
market.
4. 3 SITUATION ANALYSIS Industry Analysis Pink Elephant is an
event branding company and is part of two industries: event
planning and graphic design. The company officially launched in
August 2014 and is operated full time solely by the owner, Devika
Kallergis. According to IBIS World, the Party and Event Planning
Industry is a competitive service industry with success relying on
multiple economic variables. Economic variables most pertinent to
this market include disposable income or available company profit,
marriage and birth rate, access to credit, and leisure time. This
industry is well-established and has low barriers to entry and
exit, making it easy for new competition to enter. There is little
regulation over this industry. This allows companies to base
decisions on company created values and norms rather than
government standards. In addition, there is relatively low fixed
capital investments required to participate in this industry,
making company success highly dependent on human capital and
business partners. The market is segmented into three main sectors
including weddings, birthdays, and corporate events. As of 2013,
weddings comprise the largest proportion of this market. There is a
diverse range of pricing and offerings to fit a wide range of
customer needs. The event planning industry is a $6.5 billion
revenue industry and is made up of many small to mid-sized
companies. Each company makes up less than 1% market share. The
projected annual growth rate for this industry is 3.4% from 2013
through 2018, which is based on the economic variables impacting
this industry.i Since the company is dependent upon location, the
industry is fragmented across many geographical locations. Pink
Elephant is also part of the graphic design industry since design
is the companys primary competency. According to IBIS Industry
Report, this industry encompasses activities
5. 4 involved in creating visual materials for the purpose of
communicating a message. In Pink Elephants case, this would be
communicating a specific brand for an event. This industry depends
on various economic factors similar to the event planning industry.
These factors include corporate or advertising budgets, disposable
income per capita, and demand for such communication tools. It is a
$11.3 billion revenue industry, which has grown 2.2% since 2013.ii
Like the event planning industry, the graphic design industry is
also fragmented among many companies with over 83,000 companies
within the industry. In fact, many people working within this
industry are freelancers or work in-house within a company
conducting business in another industry. Half of this industry
supplies static design services opposed to video services and
consulting. Historical growth for this industry is only 1% since
2009 and is projected to be only 1.8% looking into 2019; the
graphic design industry took a deep nose-dive in terms of revenue
from 2008 to 2009 where industry revenue growth was -14.9%.ii This
industry is lightly regulated and requires low capital startup
costs, suggesting that market entry is relatively easy. However,
this industry is in the mature stage. This suggests that graphic
design services may be saturated within the market. In addition,
graphic design services are highly dependent on technology
advancements making competition high when technology is rapidly
changing. To succeed in both the event planning industry and the
graphic design industry, companies need a number of key success
factors including providing services for companies in an array of
industries so that the source of income is not dependent on any
single industry event. In regard to the changing technology,
companies who are able to adopt new technologies easily are more
competitive. The ability to customize work and make it unique is
another key success factor in these industries. Being able to make
changes and adapt to clients needs indicates higher quality and
satisfaction with the service.
6. 5 Competitors of Pink Elephant include both in-person and
digital companies specializing in graphic design and/or event
planning. In addition, some online, open source websites can be
seen as a competitor. Although Pink Elephant stands out with custom
event designs, social media sites such as Pinterest encourage
people to do it yourself. This trend appeals to many individuals as
a means of saving money. These social media sites are indirect
competitors and will be discussed in more detail later. Primary
competitors, however, will be other local businesses operating in
the northern suburbs of Chicago. Pink Elephant targets high-end
customers with relatively low price elasticity. These customers
typically have high disposable income and are less likely to rely
on do-it-yourself (DIY) forums. Pink Elephant is in a prime
geographic area for these types of customers. For example, Highland
Park where Pink Elephant is located estimates to have a population
29,763 individuals with a median household income of $119,126.iii
Highland Park and other north suburban towns offer similar high
income, low unemployment, and large populations that are ideal for
Pink Elephant. Although the company has historically branded
weddings, it does not want to be limited to only this type of
event. Pink Elephant plans to expand its portfolio into other
events, including but not limited to Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, corporate
events, birthday parties, and showers. This will provide Pink
Elephant a competitive advantage over other companies that have
only a wedding focus. It also provides the company with a more
stable sales stream as it does not limit its work to only one type
of event. One of the main competitors for Pink Elephant is Bliss
Weddings and Events. This company offers a variety of event needs
from decorations and photography to transportation and venue
selection. Also a small, woman owned local organization, Bliss
Weddings and Events poses as a threat to the local market share for
Pink Elephant. Mint 102 is another top competitor which uses the
same website design. This company offers wedding and
7. 6 corporate events branding products for its clients. Mint
102 is also on multiple social media platforms such as Facebook,
Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. As these are the same channels
Pink Elephant uses, Mint 102 competes directly with Pink Elephant
for customer attention. Internal/Client Analysis Pink Elephant is a
wedding and event branding company. They offer a variety of design
and branding services for events and weddings ranging from
invitations and rehearsal invites to gift tags and party favors. It
mainly focuses on paper goods and decorations. Pink Elephant is
owned and operated by Devika Kallergis. She is the only employee
and works out of her home in Highland Park, Illinois. Since the
company is new, it has not yet grown enough to require more
employees or interns. Ms. Kallergis performs all the tasks needed
for her clients events. Pink Elephant differentiates itself from
its competitors based on the quality of its products. The materials
that Pink Elephant uses can range from gold leaf to imported
fabrics and materials from all over the world. These high-end
materials can be included in any of the event or wedding branding
supplies made my Pink Elephant. Pink Elephant is very flexible with
their clients desires, so there is really no limit to what they can
do for their customers. Additionally, it is unique in the way that
it provides clients with a completely customized brand for each
event instead of reusing templates. Pink Elephant works to provide
its customers with a one-stop-shop for event branding with service
from start to finish. Promotion Pink Elephant currently does not do
very much in the way of promotion; this is partly due to how new
the company is. That being said, the companys main form of
promotion is through
8. 7 social media. Pink Elephant is currently connected on
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. Additionally, Pink
Elephant has a blog, which is actively updated by the owner of Pink
Elephant. On the blog and on its social media sites, the company
showcases its past and current projects with pictures and
descriptions of the events that took place. In addition to social
media, Pink Elephant has a partnership with a small printing
company in Glencoe called Miteprint. Pink Elephant has its business
cards by at Miteprints retail location to and attract new clients.
Pink Elephant has had one promotional contest which was not well
received by the public. In this contest, Pink Elephant was going to
award the winner with a coupon for 15% off one Pink Elephant
branding service. The contest was on Instagram and unfortunately,
due to the lack of followers, there was no response to the
promotion when Pink Elephant contacted them via email. Online
Positioning As mentioned previously, Pink Elephant specializes in
using the highest quality supplies for its event branding services.
While this is very evident when clients meet with Pink Elephant for
a consultation, it is not very evident from its website. Its
website provides an un-intimidating and inviting feeling for
potential customers, but it does not align with the high-end event
branding that Pink Elephant provides its customers. Pink Elephant
has positioned itself in the market as an ultra-high-end event
branding and design company. Her competitors (while some do convey
high-quality design as well) are more focused on event planning,
which divides their focus into the many aspects of the event as a
whole rather than focusing on each piece individually. Many
competitors will provide event branding services, but outsource
them to other
9. 8 companies. Unlike its competitors, Pink Elephant focuses
on event branding alone and does all the design in-house and
provide each customer with custom, one-off branding designs. Pink
Elephant Website: Frank Event Design Website: Profile of Customers
Pink Elephant is located on the border of Lake County and Cook
County just outside of Chicago. Since Pink Elephant targets
customers in the north-shore suburbs of Chicago, its primary
customers are women between the ages of 22 and 40 within the
northern area of Cook County and the southern area of Lake County.
According to 2010 Census Data pulled from SimplyMap, the average
disposable income for Cook County is greater than $55,000 and
the
10. 9 average disposable income for the southern towns of Lake
County is $65,403 and up.iv Since money spent on events is
dependent on disposable income, these high disposable income
figures are idea for an event branding company such as Pink
Elephant Event. Lastly, most of the population has at least some
college or a bachelors degree. External Forces There are many
external forces outside of the companys control that affect the
companys ability to succeed in the branding and event planning
industry. Political and Regulatory Political and regulatory force
that affects the event branding industry is copyrighting. Branding
and creative works need to follow copyright laws. This imposes a
small restriction on Pink Elephant in that the company must rely on
original work or creative commons. Economic Economic forces affect
this industry because if the economy is down, brides spend less
money on their weddings. According to a report from US News, in
2009, 34% of brides stated that their wedding budgets were
decreased due to the impacts from the economic downturn in 2008.v
Pink Elephant charges a premium for customizable event branding.
Since a substantial number of wedding budgets are cut when the
economy is down since disposable income decreases during these
economic periods, brides may not want to pay a premium price for
branding services. This can create a shortage in demand for Pink
Elephant Events service
11. 10 Social Recently there has been a trend towards people
getting married at a later age. According to Business Insider, the
average age for women to get married is 27, while the average age
for men is 29.vi This allows individuals to become more established
in their lives with a steady income stream or higher educational
level before getting married. The heightened maturity level and
higher education suggests these couples have a higher disposable
income and a higher budget for event branding services. At the same
time, there is a trend towards people not getting married. Pew
Research on Social and Demographic Trends has noticed that in 2010,
28 percent of adults in the United States have never been married
and only 51 percent is actually married.vii . Couples getting
married have been on a steady decline since 1960 and negatively
impacts the industry. In June 2014, Illinois same sex marriage law
went into effect. Now that these couples are allowed to get married
legally and acceptance of same sex unions has become more
prevalent, the desire to celebrate these marriages is at a higher
demand. This social change has a positive effect on the event
planning industry. Technology Technological forces help the company
create the products and allow for the products to be customizable.
As technology becomes more pervasive, consumers may want use it
more for their events. In addition, companies wanting to have a
corporate event might want to include technological branding.
Evolving with technology to meet future needs of event branding
will make companies stand out in this industry.
12. 11 Environmental Environmental and sustainable actions have
increased dramatically over the past few years to the point where
they have become common household terms. One environmental force
that affects Pink Elephant is sustainability. If clients request
products made out of certain materials that Pink Elephant does not
have access to could negatively impact the business. Alternatively,
as green initiatives increase, the availability of environmentally
safe products increases. This can have a positive effect on
businesses in the industry. Competitive Analysis/Matrix There are
many companies in the Chicagoland area that also provide similar
event branding materials as Pink Elephant; however, many of these
companies do not customize the materials specifically for each
customer. While Pink Elephant did not initially provide us with
specific competitors, we did find a few companies with similar
services. These services include catering, floral, venue planning,
scheduling and entertainment, in addition to branding. Pink
Elephant focuses mostly on branding as well as providing print and
decorative materials. Many competitors offer these services in
addition to things like floral, food, entertainment and makeup.
These competitors provide more wedding and event plans versus
branding; however, they also provide some custom branding
materials. Because Pink Elephant does not offer all of these
services, it is important for the company to make sure that it
emphasizes the fact that it can offer a higher-end and more
impressive event branding materials. In addition, it is important
to note that the event planning companies that we identified as
competitors are firms that are taking potential clients away from
Pink Elephant as these firms already have established vendor
relationships with event branding, invitation, and decoration
companies.
13. 12 One of Pink Elephants competitors in the Chicagoland
areas is Frank Event Design. This company is located in Rogers
Park, which positions itself perfectly for both downtown and
suburban customers. This design company focuses on wedding and
event planning in addition to branding. It has the resources to
work on everything from lighting to hotel arrangements. It provides
its customers with a much broader variety of services, which could
put Pink Elephant at a disadvantage. Frank Event Designs website
does not have a clear call to action. Frank Event Design is on
social media, but it only has a Facebook and Twitter account. It
does not have a mobile application and is not optimized for mobile,
but the website does maintain most of its functionality on mobile.
Their website is very organized and intuitive. They do not do any
SEO. They have a blog, which is posted directly to their website.
Most posts are short, but do a great job of showcasing their work,
which is the blogs main focus. Another competitor is Two Sisters
Events. It does not have a physical store front. It is entirely an
online business, similar to Pink Elephant. This company is more
similar to Pink Elephant than Frank Event Design because it only
offers wedding branding and decorations. It provides a
beginning-to-end service for its customers, just like Pink
Elephant. Two Sisters Events also emphasizes its ability to create
custom dcor and branding that highlights each couples unique
tastes. Its website has a simple, but clear call to action. To
interact with its customers, Two Sisters Events is active on social
media through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Like
Pink Elephant, Two Sisters Events also has a blog, which is used
primarily to showcase their work and to provide helpful information
to couples getting married, such as makeup tips and trends. Their
blog is uploaded directly to their website. It does not have a
mobile application nor is it optimized for mobile and they have no
SEO. Although the website is not optimized for mobile, it does
maintain most of its functionality on mobile.
14. 13 Another competitor identified is Bliss Weddings and
Events. It is located in the West Town, a neighborhood of the
Chicago. Similar to Frank Event Design, it offers a variety of
different services for both weddings and events. However, it has a
greater focus on event branding over planning planning being
defined as providing services like sound, lighting, food, and
beverages. Bliss Weddings and Events has a very interactive and
professional website with a clear call to action. It has an active
online presence with Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter accounts in
addition to a blog. Bliss Weddings and Events blog is posted
directly to its website and contains work samples, how-tos for
couples and new information about the company. Bliss Weddings and
Events is not mobile optimized, but they have done some very
minimal SEO with keywords. Despite not being mobile optimized, the
website does perform its functions on mobile. One company that Pink
Elephant identified as a competitor is Oh So Beautiful Paper. This
company provides paper product design ideas for events and
weddings. Although the company does not actually make products for
customers, it provides a lifestyle blog for a DIY audience. The
website is basically a giant blog, which allows users to browse
through paper designs for things like invitations and cards. The
images posted are the works of paper design companies. The website
provides a place various designers to come together to post
pictures of products that they would like to sell. All sales are
linked to the designers website where the customer can complete the
order. The website is very heavily search engine optimized and on
the search engine results page, it is the first website that pops
up when you type in Beautiful Paper or Oh So Beautiful Paper. The
second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth that pop up on the search
engine results page are social media accounts for this company. The
website has a logical, vertical layout. The website is linked to
five social media accounts, including: Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest and an RSS feed. Oh So Beautiful Paper is
optimized for mobile.
15. 14 Another competitor that Pink Elephant identified is The
Paper Perfectionist. The Paper Perfectionist is a single-owned
business run by a women with kids from Rhode Island. They
specialize in paper event branding materials. Their website offers
a portfolio of prior work, ranging from events like graduation,
holidays, weddings and birthdays. The owner has an option where the
customer can design their own paper products. They have over 100
styles to choose from and then there are options to choose colors
and upgradable features (pearl paper, glossy images, etc.) to make
their products higher-end. In contrast to Pink Elephant, The Paper
Perfectionist focuses on semi-customizable paper products. The
Paper Perfectionists website is bold, colorful and uses an
auto-scrolling picture rotation. The layout is logical and the
entire website helps identify the brands identity to the viewer.
Their website has the links to their four social media accounts,
but the link for Twitter is invalid and it appears that they do not
actually have a Twitter account set up. The Paper Perfectionists
website is heavily optimized for search engines, but is not
optimized for mobile. Mint 102 is another event branding company
that competes with Pink Elephant. Similar to Pink Elephant, it
operates without a storefront out of the owners houses. Like Pink
Elephant, this company is run by female owners with backgrounds in
graphic design. It is clear on its website that it is not a wedding
and event planning company, but rather event branding
professionals. It specializes in all sorts of events but focuses on
events like birthday parties, weddings and bridal showers. Mint 102
is not as interested in event planning for corporate or more formal
events, which is a crucial difference between them and Pink
Elephant. Mint 102s website is colored brightly, which makes the
text and pictures difficult to see and read. The website does have
a clear call to action and the websites layout is intuitive. Mint
102 is connected on social media with links to its Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, RSS feed
16. 15 and blog on its homepage. The blog is posted directly to
its website and the posts are long and very specific, but are
uploaded less frequently than Pink Elephant. The posts showcase
their work, ideas for events and to provide information to couples
planning their weddings. They are not mobile optimized and have not
incorporated SEO. While the website is not mobile optimized, it
does perform normal function on mobile and most features still
function normally. Results on First Search Engine Results Page
(SERP) Not many of these websites are actively optimized for search
engines. There are only a small amount of keywords in which Pink
Elephant and its competitors come up on the first SERP page. Pink
Elephant and its competitors all come up on the first page of
results when their full company names are put in. All of Pink
Elephant Events competitors (minus Bliss Weddings and Events) still
come up on the first SERP page when pieces of their names are typed
in. For example, when Frank is searched (In place of Frank Event
Design) the company still comes up. Pink Elephant and Bliss
Weddings and Events do not come up on the first SERP page when Pink
and Pink Elephant or Bliss are typed in. Proper SEO will help Pink
Elephant get placed in the first SERP page and allow it to come up
when pieces of the name are entered.
17. 16 CompetitiveMatrix
18. 17 Digital Marketing Audit Pink Elephant is very hard to
find on search engines. There are many companies around the world
called Pink Elephant, which makes finding the company difficult
even when searching Pink Elephant specifically. When typing Pink
Elephant, the company does not come up within the first 10 pages of
results. Additionally, there is another company called Pink
Elephant Parties that offers similar services and come up in Google
before Pink Elephant does. This implies that Pink Elephant is
currently not optimizing its website. To begin, Pink Elephant
Events website performs correctly on all internet browsers but is a
hard to view on a mobile browser because the images take time to
load. The homepage is visually appealing and consistent in design
but does not direct visitors to do anything, rather the website
seems to act as a portfolio. There are a lot of images of the
designs and of past events that Pink Elephant has done; however,
there is nothing on the homepage directing a visitor to products or
services. There is a contact tab on the website where visitors can
email Pink Elephant, suggesting that the purpose of the website is
to convert consumers to use Pink Elephants event branding services.
The contact tab is located at the top of the page, along with:
home, portfolio, info, about and blog. The tab is very easy to find
and the resulting page has a form that asks for the customers name,
email, subject, phone number and a place for a message. We feel
that this is the correct amount of information to ask from an
inquirer. Navigating the website as a first-time visitor, there are
no clear calls-to-action (CTAs) on the home page. Going along with
the large amount of images as mentioned before, there is very
minimal messaging on the home page. The numerous pictures make the
website look beautiful, but a visitor may not know what the company
does until he or she navigates through the website
19. 18 for more information. The images display ability and
style of the types of branding that Pink Elephant is capable of but
make it harder to navigate around the website. There is a tab
called info on the homepage. In the tab, a visitor can find a list
of services and printing options. There are no prices for the
services listed on the website, but that is common for the
industry. Additionally, consumers can access past projects easily
from the info tab. This is good because the visitor can see what
past projects looked like and can anticipate what to expect if they
use Pink Elephants services. While Pink Elephant Events website
works on all browsers, it is not optimized for search engines. When
pictures are placed on a website, it is possible to tag the images
with words, which can easily be found by search engines, like
Google or Bing. Adding these tags helps a search engines find a
companys website and, therefore, move up the companys listing on
the search results page. Pink Elephant has a lot of pictures
without these tags, which makes it harder for a search engines to
locate the website.
20. 19 Looking at the pictures above, the website does have
messaging that pertains to the types of services and printing
options offered. This messaging is relevant to the company and
helps visitors get to that end goal of being converted into a
client. Although, there is one flaw about the messaging: all the
messaging is presented through images. This makes the website not
optimized and the content look blurry. Search engines are not able
to find images without tags or text attached to the image in a
caption. The messaging in the images above are images themselves,
not text on the website. The images do not have tags or captions,
so search engines will not place pinkelephantevents.com as highly
on a search engine results page as they would a company with
properly tagged images. If a consumer searches Pink Elephant, Pink
Elephants website is listed towards the top. If a consumer searches
Pink Elephant, Pink Elephants website is not on the first five
pages of the search results. *See other keyword searches in
competitive analysis/matrix section*
21. 20 The website collects information from visitors through
its contact webpage. This is a huge step in reaching the end goal
to convert the consumer into a client. The information is collected
by a visitor filling out a form located on the contact webpage.
Through this form, visitors are able to submit emails and ask for
more information about services. However, the website does not do a
very good job of directing visitors to a goal or attempting to
convert consumers into clients due to the lack of a call to action.
The contact webpage is vital to any companys functionality. On Pink
Elephants webpage, the visitor is greeted with a picture of the
client. This webpage acts as a means of contact in order to convert
the visitors into clients. Pink Elephant does do a great job of
adding accents to this webpage that coincide with the brand and the
personality of the company. Instead of saying phone number, the
client used the term digits. Instead of saying write your message
here, the client used say hello! Also, the user interface is simple
to use; Consumers simply fill out the form on the contact webpage
and then submit the information to Pink Elephant for follow-up.
Lastly, usually a marketing audit involves an evaluation of the
website traffic. However, the website has not been live long enough
to evaluate metrics because there is not enough data yet.
Email-Marketing Pink Elephant currently does not have any email
marketing efforts and prefers social media platforms to communicate
company messages. Focusing solely on social media and excluding
email marketing efforts can limit the companys success in obtaining
email addresses as well limits the companys ability to engage
customers in private, online communication. The
22. 21 reason the company does not have an email marketing plan
is because the company is still new and is not be explicitly
focusing on email campaigns right now. Nevertheless, building an
email list is recognized as an important goal in the next coming
months in order to retain customer contacts. Online Advertising
Online advertising is essential to any online-only business. At
this point, Pink Elephant does not pay for online advertising.
Social Media Channels Social media has become a global phenomenon.
Pink Elephant has taken advantage of this paradigm and has
integrated social media into its marketing efforts. Pink Elephant
is currently active on the following social media outlets:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, engagement
across the platforms with followers is universally low. Across all
social media platforms, Pink Elephants posts have few-to-none calls
to action. A lot of Pink Elephants posts are links to shared
content, but do not inspire followers to follow the link other than
their own interest. There are no other incentives to encourage
click-throughs. On the positive side, all of these channels are
branded consistently. The design of each account page and each of
the handles match from platform to platform aside from twitter.
Twitter uses @pinkelephantevnt while the others use
@pinkelephantevents. There are two letters that were not used for
the twitter handle. Also, all of the social media profiles link
back to Pink Elephants website. This creates a consistent flow and
tries to direct followers to the website.
23. 22 Facebook Engagement levels on Facebook are low; on the
average post, Pink Elephant receives less than 10 likes and 0
comments and shares Pink Elephant has liked many local businesses,
which shows a deep connection to the local community 161 Likes The
name on Facebook is Pink Elephant, not Pink Elephant. This can
create confusion when searching for the company on search engines.
On Facebook, Pink Elephant posts pictures, highlights of past
projects, thought leadership, and promotions. The content is
colorful and concise and provides opportunities for consumers to
engage with Pink Elephant. An example of what a typical Facebook
post looks like on Pink Elephants page is shown below. Pink
Elephant also uses Twitter to drive consumers to the companys
Facebook page, share pictures, and interact with consumers. Pink
Elephant does not pay for any sort of advertising on Facebook. In
terms of posting frequency, the posts are not consistent and the
content fluctuates between personal, lifestyle posts and
promotional, company related posts. The Facebook posts also do not
consistently contain call to actions.
24. 23 However, the content on twitter is clear and has good
calls to action as seen below. Pink Elephant does not currently use
the video features on Facebook. Pinterest Pink Elephant has more
followers than people it follows, which shows that there is an
online interest in the boards she pins 140 Followers Following 132
7 Likes across 39 Boards 1295 Pins The name on Pinterest is under
the owners name, not the name of the company The Pinterest doesnt
have a theme to brand itself on the site Pink Elephant Events
company bio. suggests that it primarily a wedding branding company.
This can discourage customers with branding needs for other types
of events. The boards on Pinterest are diverse and go beyond
branding ideas to things like quotes, food options and costumes.
Some of these boards can be confusing when posted on the brands
board, as they may not seem relevant. Pink Elephants Pinterest
profile is more about the lifestyle of the companys owner than it
is about event branding. The content is relevant to Pink Elephants
target market but again, is more about lifestyle rather than the
companys branding.
25. 24 Twitter Interaction on Twitter by the company in the
form of favorites and retweets are nearly zero; alternatively,
Twitter followers also hardly ever favorite or re-tweet the
companys posts. 54 Followers Following 72 2 Favorites 331 Tweets
Pink Elephants Twitter handle is branded as the company. However,
the name is the name of the owner. This can cause confusion among
those searching for Pink Elephant. Many of Pink Elephants Twitter
posts link to its Facebook page. This is positive, as theres many
links. However, visitors are being directed to the Facebook page,
not the website. The use of hashtags is inconsistent. At times,
there will be tweets without any hashtags and other times there are
three or four hashtags attached to a tweet. Twitter posts use Smart
URLs, which allows for more non-link characters. Occasionally, Pink
Elephant tweets at other companies, which encourages interaction
between visitors and higher tweet visibility among networks. Pink
Elephant primarily tweets text and does not make advantage of the
image feature.
26. 25 Instagram Pink Elephant has between 1-25 likes on
Instagram posts and between 1-5 comments on most posts 208
Followers Following 740 225 Posts Posting is inconsistent Some
weeks Pink Elephant posts multiple times. Other times, there are
days and even weeks between posts. Pink Elephant uses Instagram to
help share pictures that are posted on Facebook. Doing this helps
increase exposure and creates connections with consumers that are
on Instagram. Links on website to the Instagram account leads to
INK361.com, not Instagram. Pink Elephants Instagram is not named
after the brand, it is named after the company owner. The bio. is
different from Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. The image on
Instagram is of the owner, not the company logo. Content posted on
Instagram is the same as whats posted on Facebook.
27. 26 Pictures posted are primarily company and portfolio
sharing related, which is cohesive with the brand. Mobile Pink
Elephant Events mobile website is not a web application but has
been optimized by the website service provider, WordPress.com.
Because of this feature, consumers are able to conduct business on
Pink Elephants website on their mobile device. Consumers are still
able to fill out the forms on the Info and Contact tabs of the
webpage as well as engage in social media links on the website. In
fact, the process of sending Pink Elephant information via the Info
and Contact tabs is just as simple as the process of doing it on a
computer. There are no delays in sending Pink Elephant a
personalized message. In regard to social media, engagement is as
easy as pressing the Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest icon at the
bottom of the page. Selecting one of these buttons opened the
respective social media site on a new web page on the mobile
device. Lastly, Pink Elephant is not tracking its mobile
performance based on the information provided thus far. Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) CRM systems help companies organize,
track and create reports, and provide software to help create,
enhance, and deliver marketing campaigns to consumers. At this
point, Pink Elephant does not use any CRM software system.
Currently, Pink Elephant uses a form on the contact page to collect
consumer data and information. Through this means, Pink Elephant is
slowly building an email and contact list.
28. 27 SWOT Analysis STRENGTHS Various channels for its online
presence Photos used on site are not stock photos
Experience/interface of website Volunteer/giving back aspect
Portfolio Site is updated frequently Blog Mobile Optimization
WEAKNESSES Online website is not differentiated from other event
planning businesses Difficult to find on internet (via searches)
Does not do any SEO No clear call to action Long, block text Text
is actually an image The image makes text appear blurry Awareness
of company is low OPPORTUNITIES Increase SEO Tagging images FAQ
section Partnerships with complementary businesses THREATS
Competitors Both boutiques (i.e. Bliss Weddings and Events and Mint
102) and large event stores (i.e. Party City) Other companies with
same name Economy/company success is based on disposable income
Demographics such as marriage rate SWOT Discussion Pink Elephant
has an online presence through its website, Instagram, Twitter
handle, blog, Pinterest, and Facebook accounts. This multi-channel
online presence is a strength for Pink Elephant. Since the company
specializes in design and branding, it is important to have online
channels that can visualize the companys deliverables. In addition,
the company uses only company generated photos; there are no stock
images displayed on any of its channels. This speaks to the
companys values of custom designs and personalization. Another
strength of the company is that the website is optimized for mobile
users as according to a Pew Research Internet Project conducted in
May 2013, 63% of adult cell phone users use their phone to
29. 28 conduct online searches.viii Having a mobile optimized
website can help Pink Elephant increase its website traffic. Other
strengths include the user experience of the website. Each page has
a consistent layout, allowing visitors to easily navigate through
the website. At the bottom of each page, Pink Elephant displays its
social commitment of giving back to the community. The company also
has a broad portfolio with custom descriptions to give website
visitors an in-depth perspective of the types of deliverables Pink
Elephant gives to its clients. Lastly, the website is updated
frequently with blog posts. This is another strength for the
website as it gives website visitors a reason to come back to the
website and increases the companys SEO. Despite Pink Elephants
distinguished, high quality products and handmade work, its website
is not distinctive from other event planning or branding websites.
The website is visually appealing; however, none of the pages have
a clear call to action. Pink Elephant is not only difficult to find
online through search engines (indicating that it is not actively
working on SEO), it does not have a clear sustainable advantage at
this time. Working on SEO is very important for a companys success.
This is especially true as there are also three other easily found
event planning and branding companies with a similar name as Pink
Elephant. Although the website has comprehensive information about
its services, the text on the website is very lengthy. Visually,
there is a lot of block text, which can distract the visitor or
create reader fatigue. In addition, there is little actual text on
the website as most of the information uploaded is an image (a PNG
file). These texts that are uploaded as an image look blurry
because they are actually an image. Lastly, the awareness of the
company is low. Coupled with low SEO, this can lead to high bounce
rates and prohibit potential clients from finding the website.
Nevertheless, there are many opportunities for Pink Elephant to
strengthen its weaknesses and create a sustainable competitive
advantage. First, there is opportunity to increase the
30. 29 companys SEO through creating headers, tags, text
content, and other SEO tactics. Adding a FAQ or next steps section
to the website will help visitors know what to expect throughout
the event planning process. This helps visitors overcome potential
barriers prohibiting them from contacting the company for their
project. Recognizing that Pink Elephant already has a couple
established partnerships with local printing businesses, expanding
the scope of business partnerships will be beneficial for Pink
Elephant to decrease costs of supplies. In terms of threats, Pink
Elephant faces three large forces of opposition that can hurt
business: competitors, economics, and demographics. Competitors
such as Bliss Weddings and Events and Mint 102 pose a threat to
Pink Elephant as both companies have the same target market, are
located within close proximity, and offer the similar value to
customers. Creating differentiation between the companies is
important to neutralize this threat. Secondly, there are three
other companies with similar names as Pink Elephant; they are Pink
Elephant Parties and Events Boutique, Pink Elephant Celebrations,
and Pink Elephant Party Planning. Again, differentiation along with
SEO tactics will give Pink Elephant a sustainable competitive
advantage over these other companies. Economic health such as the
amount of disposable income as well as demographics in terms of
marriage and birth rates will always be a threat for Pink Elephant
if it does not monitor and adjust its market strategy
accordingly.
31. 30 MARKETING OBJECTIVES Objective 1: Increasing traffic to
the website to approximately 1,000 visitors per month mainly
targeting brides, brides-to-be, wedding planners, and event
decorators Objective 2: Building content on social media sites to
increase following by 50%. This means having: 257 Facebook Likes
210 Pinterest Followers 87 Twitter Followers 452 Instagram
Followers *Note that these numbers in objective 2 are based on
likes and followers as of 11/19/2014
32. 31 MARKETING STRATEGIES Plan of Action Proposed re-design
of website to appeal to all potential customers; this includes
individuals interested in weddings, birthday parties, and other
anniversary events as well as companies interested in corporate
events. This will entail restructuring the top navigation pane
Restructure home page layout Restructure header/footer across pages
Restructure content on each page Include internal links within blog
Address the text vs image issue Create CTAs for each page Increase
SEO Finding keywords, creating tags, headers, alt-text Writing
content that includes keyword phrases Improve blog to include
inter-site links Simplify content on site and enter it as text
instead of image Increase online visibility outside of search
engines Get on review sites: the Knot, Yelp, Etsy Improve inter
social media cohesion Analysis of social media use and design
strategy for each Create email plan and CRM system Look into paid
advertising Analyze costs and benefits
33. 32 Segmentation Method Pink Elephant primarily targets
brides and wedding planners in the northern suburbs of Chicago.
Pink Elephants secondary market includes corporate event planners,
corporate businesses, and other event hosts. Given the demographic
of the North Shore, Pink Elephant is physically well positioned;
however, by effective employment of online media channels, Pink
Elephant will be better positioned in the online arena. Pink
Elephants primary customers are young brides with high disposable
income in suburbs around Highland Park, and the website
demonstrates this through cohesive coloring and verbiage that would
appeal to this segment. Since, Pink Elephant would like to target
additional segments, the website should be rebranded. Improving
Pink Elephants online visibility by means of increasing its search
engine optimization (SEO) will impact visitor traffic by both the
primary and secondary markets. Social media channels will be
rebranded to appeal to the younger audience and promote further
referrals to the website.
34. 33 IMPLEMENTATION/TACTICS The following strategies are
designed for Pink Elephant to attain the two objectives identified
by Devika Kallergis. Marketing Objective 1 Increasing traffic to
the website to approximately 1,000 visitors per month mainly
targeting brides, brides-to-be, wedding planners, and event
decorators. Strategies and Implementation for Objective 1
Transition to New Website Design From the digital audit, we noticed
redundancies on the website. For example, the info and contact page
showed similar forms which could cause confusion among website
visitors. In addition, the website has a lot of image content and
moving media which limits Pink Elephants ability to rank high on
search engines. Redesigning the website will help to improve
visitor usability and appeal to both Pink Elephants primary
35. 34 and secondary markets. First, we recommend restructuring
the home page. Currently, the home page of the website has a layout
of the image on the right. We recommend redesigning the website
layout to follow the image on the right. The style of the website
was created as a template in PowerPoint and is therefore a crude
design. When creating the new layout in WordPress, it will look
more professional. The template is to demonstrate location of
content. The header of the website should be configured to follow
the scroll. Therefore, when a user is at the bottom of the page,
they will still have access to the header without scrolling to the
top of the page. Social media buttons should be accessible from the
top pane. Studies have shown that online users eye motion when
opening a websites is a reverse F with high visibility in the top
left corner.ix The logo will have a link following to the websites
homepage, removing the need for a home button. Further description
of the change in the top navigation buttons will be explained
later.
36. 35 We included a Contact Us button that will lead to a
quick form that visitors can fill out for a consultation. This will
improve ease of access to the contact information. The next section
of the website is similar to what was there before; however, there
are three distinct changes. First, there should be relevant text
overlay on the image to increase the websites text content which
will help SEO. In the image it is designing stunning materials for
wedding and events in the Chicago area. By including this text, the
mechanism by which search engines screen websites will be able to
pick up this text and rank the website higher when online users
search with similar terms. Second, this section needs a clear call
to action. In the template, this is made manifest through linked
buttons to the contact page and to the gallery to encourage
visitors to remain on the website rather than bouncing out. Third,
we recommend removing the automatic picture rotation to a static
slider where the user is in control. Each option would have an
image, textual content with keywords, and call to action buttons.
This decreases browser to browser image-motion variability and
decreases the chance visitors will be overwhelmed by an abundance
of moving imagery. The second layout of the slider will be similar
with an image, text, and buttons for visitors to click. The section
below should provide testimonials since people have a larger trust
in people. Thus, with user generated content on the main home page,
people can read positive reviews about the company. Again, this
slider should be manual so that users are in control. This increase
visitors usability and decreases moving content which can be
overwhelming to first time visitors.
37. 36 Below, we recommend internal quick links to the wedding
event page, the corporate event page, and the blog. After the
testimonials, comes the footer. This content will appear on every
page within the website. We recommend inserting information about
the company using keywords that will be picked up and will increase
SEO. One example of links that should be put in the footer would be
Partnership Opportunities for potential partners to contact the
company. This will also be an optimal space for the social
responsibility link. Other additional information to include would
be text concerning the communities in which Pink Elephant serves.
For example, Pink Elephant could include serving wedding planners,
corporate event planners, and hosts of lifes special moments across
North Shore Chicago. The footer is also a good place to include a
phone number, a company email for quick access to contact
information, and a subscribe button for visitors to subscribe to
the email list for regular Pink Elephant updates. Although our
template is for the homepage specifically, the layout should carry
through the whole website. Specifically the header and footer will
remain exactly the same through the website. Redesign Color Content
Pink Elephants current color options are perfect for its wedding
target market; however, it can raise concerns for corporate event
planners. We recommend blending complementary colors with the
current palate. We suggest addition one or two other color to the
current palate, such as gold coloring to supplement the high
quality products Pink Elephant designs.
38. 37 Complementary color palate example: The colors shown
above are a good example of complimentary colors that Pink Elephant
could incorporate in its website. The versatile range supplements
its versatile portfolio of work while the bright colors still
reflect the Indian heritage. Restructure Site Map We recommend
restructuring the navigation titles to pull the site into a more
cohesive layout in term of its page hierarchy. Currently the
navigation titles are as follows: We recommend the following site
map. We recommend this because it eliminates redundancies that
occurred on the current site map. For example, since the logo links
to the home page, there is no need for a home tab. This layout
streamlines the user experience. This site map also uses common
phrases that online users would commonly search for on search
engines, which helps Pink Elephant's SEO.
39. 38 Design Services Selecting design services will lead the
visitor to a page with a brief overview of the services offered per
category with a picture or two to illustrate an example of the end
result. The categories we included are: Wedding Events, Corporate
Events and Life Events, and are all sections in the Design
Services. This section will include information located in the info
section of the current navigation bar. A description of the content
will be covered in the content/content optimization section
(below). Gallery This will include images that are currently in the
portfolio section of the website. Images should be tagged
appropriately. For example, wedding branding images should be
tagged as wedding branding and wedding invitations should be tagged
as wedding invitations. This will help improve the website SEO.
About us This page will provide an overview of what the company
does, who they serve and where they serve. This section should have
short, direct content with headers. Example: Mission Statement We
are an event branding company, specializing in custom designs in
order to make your event memorable for all your guests for years to
come Vision We strive to be the most sought after custom event
branding firm for every clients needs. Who we serve Brides and
Wedding Events Corporate Events Life Events (including all of lifes
special moments)
40. 39 Event planners - select the partnership opportunities
button at the top of the page to learn more Social Responsibility
Good Karma: We donate a portion of our proceeds to an all-girl
school in India that specialized in education for women Behind the
Design This is the blog. It will lead to a page with an article
title, an abstract and an image. Selecting the title will lead the
visitor to a new page that will encompass the article. We suggest
updating the name of the blog to Behind the Design to make it more
personable to the brand. It will also help when online users are
searching for the blog. For example, when a person searches for
blog online, there is zero probability that Pink Elephants blog
will appear due to the vast volume of online blogs. By having a
unique name, the blog will be more easily identified on search
engines. Note that we recommend removing the contact bar from the
navigation site. This is because of our earlier recommendation to
include a contact us button above the bar in the header. Content
Design Some of the content on the website is lengthy to read and
contains a lot of information. It is recommended that Pink Elephant
simplify the content, include keywords in the text, and incorporate
call-to-actions in order to generate lead and spread awareness. It
is important that content is written directly onto the webpage so
that search engines can recognize text and keywords. This allows
for search engines to rank Pink Elephants website higher because
the website will appear more relevant when consumers search for
topics or words related to Pink Elephant. We therefore recommend
typing the text directly into WordPress rather than uploading any
content.
41. 40 Additionally, content must also be consistently updated,
especially for the blog. This encourages visitors to continuously
visit the site and will also help search engine rankings as updated
information is part of Googles ranking algorithm. Another aspect of
search engine ranking algorithms is the amount of times a website
is linked to is one item, such as a blog page. Thus, posting new
content on the blog that links back to Pink Elephants website will
help generate the links to increase search engine ranking. Overall,
continuous updating of Pink Elephants blog will positively impact
the companys online visibility on search engines. As for the more
concrete information about the company that does not need to be
updated as frequently as a blog, we recommend making a few
adjustments to this text. Pink Elephant should rephrase its static
text (text about the company that will not be continuously updated)
to include clear, concise phrasing with relevant keywords. This
will help enhance user experience and make it easier for consumers
to navigate and collect information from the website. Below are
examples of what that simplified content could look like for some
of the web pages: Example of simplified content from the About web
page: INSERT Mission. INSERT Vision Statement. INSERT client
background. INSERT short description about the philanthropy that
Pink Elephant is tied to and why that charity was chosen. Removing
a lot of the conversational language will provide visitors with
direct, easy to access information about the company. It will also
help search engines quickly find information to increase search
engine rankings for the website.
42. 41 Example of simplified content from the services tab
under the info tab that will be included in the new Design Services
tab: At Pink Elephant, we offer a variety of premium, customized
services to meet any of your branding needs required for your next
event. The services we offer include: Include a list of all the
services offered without the descriptions of what each service is.*
If you would like to find out more information about our offerings
or would like to receive a quote for your next event, feel free to
send me a message here (insert link to the form submission on the
contact page) or select the Contact Us button at the top of the
page.** *Not listing in-depth descriptions of the services invites
interested parties to email the client to find out more information
about a service. **Both the link and the Contact Us button will
lead to the same form. We recommend doing this so that visitors are
aware of the quick access contact button next time the visitor
comes to Pink Elephants website. By encouraging visitors to click
on one of these links is an example of a call to action, since they
are calling the visitors to take action and remain within the
website. Below is an example of simplified content from the
processes tab under the info tab that will be included in the new
Design Services tab. This information will be included under the
list of services with its own header labeled Next Steps to Planning
an Event. This title is recommended since it is similar to common
language that users type in search engines. Providing common
languages as headers increase the websites SEO.
43. 42 Power Hour: An hour-long consultation session to discuss
details of the event and gain an understanding of what services you
want for your branding needs. Estimate and Deposit: Following the
consultation, an estimate will be provided with a detailed
breakdown of all expenses for the services that would be needed.
Once the estimate has been approved and a contract has been
drafted, a deposit must be put down before any designs are created.
Design: After receiving the deposit, design concepts will be
provided to the client for feedback. Approval and Production: After
feedback has been received, a final proof is given to the client
for approval. Upon approval, materials are ordered and go into
production. Order Completion: Once the order has been completed, a
pick-up time is scheduled or shipping arrangements are made. Final
payment is due upon shipping or at the time of the scheduled
pick-up. Simplifying the websites static content similar to the
examples above, consumers are able to learn about the process
effectively without having a lot of content to read through.
Additionally, a lot of the text throughout the website is presented
through images, which makes the website not as optimized and makes
it load slower on mobile platforms. It can also make the content
appear grainy or pixilated depending on the internet browser a
consumer uses or the image quality that loads for a user. We
recommend removing any images that include text and recommend
hard-entering the text from the images into the website code so
that it appears as text which makes it easier to optimize the
webpages. This would allow Pink Elephant to appear higher on search
engine results pages (SERPs). Nevertheless, images are important to
a website. Images uploaded to the website should be tagged and have
alt-text in case the image is not able to load on a visitors
device. One way to do this is to save the file on the computer from
which
44. 43 the image will be uploaded with a relevant name. Once
uploaded, this text will be attached to the image. It is therefore
important to include keywords in tags, alt-text, content headers,
and general website content. Identify keywords associated with
event planning It is important to identify keywords that Pink
Elephant should use to tag its content with. This will help
increase the rank for search engines. Identifying keywords can be
done using Google Trends. Below is a graph that shows the rank for
certain text searches as it relates to Pink Elephants industry
since 2008: Blue line represents searches for event planning Yellow
line represents searches for branding Red line represents searches
for wedding planner Green line represents searches for custom
invitations Purple line represents searches for wedding decorations
Based on this data, it is recommended that Pink Elephant choose
keywords that are similar to the ones above as these words are have
a high volume of search inquiries. Adding
45. 44 keywords should increase the rank of Pink Elephants
website so that appears more relevant in searches for the keywords
that are tagged for the content and website. A relevant exercise to
complete if Pink Elephant is looking for keywords is to go to
Google and begin typing text. Words and phrases that pop up when
typing are terms that online users are currently using to search
the internet. Establish Communication Design We recommend designing
an email marketing plan to increase regular communication with
interested parties. The direct benefits of email marketing include
automation, the ability to targeting specific audiences, acquiring
metrics of user behavior, speed, and efficiency. Because email
marketing is such a key driver of sales for both big and small
companies, we suggest that Pink Elephant implements an email
marketing plan. Not only is email marketing very cost-efficient,
but it provides some of the best consumer turnover rates in the
consumer marketing process. Strategically segmented email marketing
provides the highest click through and email open rates; therefore,
we recommend an email campaign that uses different language
depending on the segment that the email is sent. Please note that
recommendations in this section should be continuously tested in
order to find the best language use that result in the highest user
engagement. We suggest that Pink Elephant uses MailChimp in order
to help them design and send emails easily and efficiently. Not
only will MailChimp help with the sending and design of emails, but
it will also provide email analytics which will help Pink Elephant
make future decisions regarding what to include in emails.
46. 45 Email Analytics It is very important for Pink Elephant
to use email analytics to see what content is most effective in its
emails. By looking at and analyzing this information, Pink Elephant
will be able to better understand what information is effective at
encouraging user engagement and what information is less impactful.
This will help Pink Elephant better tailor its future emails so
that traffic to the website will increase. MailChimp analytics
include numbers surrounding the times an email is forwarded, email
conversion (emails to sales), click through rates (open and
immediately close), and open rates. Marketing email content should
include six key features. The first feature includes important
links to the companys website or social media site. Email
communications should include at least one link, but no more than
three. Any more, the cohesive message of the email may be confused.
In addition, links should send the user to the specific section of
the website, rather than the website homepage. This will give the
user a purpose. If the user clicks on social media link, they
should be taken to that social media page, not the website. Link
included in the email should also have complimentary language
encouraging the user to click on the link, also known as a call to
action. This is the second key feature to emails. This language
lets the reader know what Pink Elephant wants them to do. For
example, if the email discusses wedding services, the link should
lead the email recipient to the Design Services section of the
website. The emails complimentary language would include, click
here to learn more about our custom wedding services or check out
the latest images from this past seasons top wedding. The goal is
to spark email recipients interest to click the link and go to Pink
Elephants website.
47. 46 The third element to email communication is to add
pictures to the content that complement the text. This requires
limiting the images to only a couple so as to not detract attention
away from the emails message. The fourth element is a logical
layout that is vertical. This ensures that recipients are able to
view the message on mobile devices. Fifth, the email communications
need an effective subject line. Subject lines are the first thing
that recipients see. Providing a descriptive and relevant subject
line will increase the likelihood that a recipient will open the
email. The subject should encourage the recipient to open the email
and should refrain from using spam words such as click here, open,
or anything including the word free. HubSpot has a good list of
spam words to not include in email subject lines.x Lastly, content
written in emails should be limited to less than 300 words total.
This will counteract reader fatigue that can occur when online
users see a large amount of bulk, block text. These features and
characteristics should be applied to all email communications. We
suggest that Pink Elephant sends out emails with different
purposes, such as upcoming events, new promotions, important
company information, and scheduled newsletters. Before writing
emails, it is important to consider the following questions and
base the content of the emails in response to these questions. This
will ensure cohesive, direct emails with clear communication. The
questions are: What is the purpose of the email? Who is the
audience? What is your format? What is the long/short term plan for
your email marketing?
48. 47 Create email template designs using EmailChimp An
important step to take with email marketing is to make email design
templates. We suggest that Pink Elephant apply these templates to
all emails in order to look professional and to brand themselves
consistently. We suggest that Pink Elephant create a few templates
for the different types of emails that are sent and to test each
layout against an alternative layout with the same content to
discover the best email communication template for its consumers.
If Pink Elephant wants to use different templates depending on the
purpose of the email (promotions vs newsletters), the templates
should not stray too far from each other in terms of colors and
design. All Pink Elephant emails should be easily identifiable as
Pink Elephant emails. We suggest that Pink Elephant designs these
templates with the help of EmailChimp. Above is an example of an
effective marketing email layout. It includes the six features
mentioned above. Recall the six features: 1. Limited text (approx..
300 words)
49. 48 2. Pictures that help, not hinder 3. Logical layout 4.
Properly linked links 5. Clear call to action 6. Relevant subject
Branded Holiday Greeting Cards for Winter 2014 This sample is a
good example as it is clearly branded as Pink Elephant due to the
integration of color and font that are similar to the websites
design. Design a CRM System/Build Email List Building an email list
is essential before email campaigns can be launched. This list
includes previous customers, customers who signed up for company
updates from the website, and emails obtained at trade shows. As
previously mentioned, the subscribe button in the footer is one way
visitors can subscribe to email communications. Developing and
maintaining this list will require a customer relationship
management system. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a
companys system to manage its customers. We suggest that Pink
Elephant focuses on incorporating CRM into its marketing strategy
for a few key reasons. First, a CRM will help Pink Elephant
continue to build stronger relationships with its customers. Since
it is typically less costly to retain customers than it is to
acquire new customers, maintaining high customer satisfaction is
integral in customer retention. In addition, since word of mouth
advertising is such a large piece of all of Pink Elephants
advertising, having strong relationships with its customers will
ensure that these customers have
50. 49 only good things to say about Pink Elephant to other
potential clients. It is very important for companies like Pink
Elephant to work on CRM due to the very specific and small niche
space it fills in the event branding market. MailChimp, which is
the same program that we suggested Pink Elephant use for its email
marketing, can be used for CRM. This program will provide the
critical customer data that Pink Elephant needs in order to build
its CRM and, therefore, develop strong relationships with their
customers. Pricing for MailChimp ranges from $10-$525 depending on
the amount of subscribers. With pricing around $10 for less than
20,000 subscribers, Pink Elephant can expect to pay about that
amount. Plan/Budget Paid Advertisement Campaign Paid advertisements
are an effective way to spread communications about the company to
a vast audience that is naive about Pink Elephant. Paid advertising
can be done on a variety of social media sites, search engines, and
websites. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, the
Knot, and search engines such as Google have options to implement
paid and unpaid advertising campaigns. Paid social media
advertising is something that we strongly suggest for Pink Elephant
if there is an increase in the marketing budget. Due to the
expensive pricing, we do not suggest using this type advertising
until the company grows. If Pink Elephant wants to invest in paid
advertising, we suggest beginning with The Knot. The Knot is a
wedding planning website where wedding clients, branders, and
planners can connect with each other.
51. 50 For reference, advertising campaigns are on average $15
CPM (clicks per thousand impressions) and are purchased
individually for each device. Therefore, if Pink Elephant wants to
make its advertisements available on laptops, tablets, and
smartphones it would cost up to $45 CPM. Paying to advertise on
this website will be effective because the main audience of the
website is the same as Pink Elephants target audience and would
save Pink Elephants resources. At this time, we suggest that Pink
Elephant begins by using social media as the primary channel for
marketing and communications. Simply using effective promotion for
news, events, pictures and promotions on Pink Elephants managed
social media will help increase the publics awareness of the Pink
Elephant brand. There are distinct benefits of advertising on
social media. First, it is very easy. It requires minimal resources
to create effective promotions and post on the companys social
media channels. Second, it is inexpensive. Third, posting on social
media channels will increase brand awareness, especially if
effective social media strategies are implemented. This will be
discussed in the next section.
52. 51 Marketing Objective 2 Building content on social media
sites to increase following by 50%. Strategies and Implementation
Social Media Plan Overview Social media is an important forum where
Pink Elephant and its potential customers can interact. The most
important factor is information acquisition and engagement. Since
Pink Elephant has limited resources in terms of staff, it is
essential to have a social media plan in terms of where to post and
what to post. Content posted on one social media platform should
not be reposted on another. Instead, each channel should have its
own unique content. Pink Elephants brand between channels, however,
should remain consistent. Because Pink Elephant is already active
on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, we suggest that
Pink Elephant does not open any more social media accounts. Pink
Elephant should optimize and brand its current social media
accounts consistently across each platform. There should also be
clear calls to action for each post, and each channel should be
updated on a routine schedule. We suggest posting to each channel
at least twice per week. Across all social media accounts, it is
recommended to follow aspirational companies to see what they do.
Sometimes it is not always necessary to be the first to think of
something; taking what works well and using it when relevant to the
company is one way to benefit on others success.
53. 52 A social media calendar and schedule should be created
and maintained to make social media marketing is an integrated part
of the business practices rather than as an add on, post when there
is time activity. Sample editorial calendar: Optimize Facebook For
Pink Elephant, Facebook should be used as a platform to share and
engage consumers with the companys latest events and happenings,
such as new blog posts. All links posted on Pink Elephant's
Facebook page should link to the companys website. The value of
Facebook is that businesses are able to post a variety of media,
including text, images, URLs, video, vines, and gifs. This gives
visitors unique and dynamic options to engage with content. Pink
Elephant should continue to employ these media to supplement its
text content. Recently Facebook has changed its algorithm in terms
of who is able to see content posted from a business account.
According to a techcrunch article, engagement is essential.
Posts
54. 53 that have less engagement determined by less click,
likes, and comments will be displayed less in future newsfeeds.xi
Posts that include these diverse media types, specifically
pictures, have a higher engagement among visitors. The implications
for this are to create clear posts with direct actions for
consumers to take. For example, Pink Elephant needs to have
specific language that encourages users to interact with the post.
Posts should have a clear link to Pink Elephant's blog and should
encourage visitors to (a) like the Facebook page, and (b) follow
the link to the company blog. Ways to engage Facebook users include
posting conversational questions where visitors can supply thoughts
and reactions. This method of posting has higher engagement over
the post-and-tell method where the page owner posts images of what
they have done without encouraging visitors to take an action.
Engaging posts bring the business to the same level as the visitors
and makes the business seem more like a human and less like an
entity. Examples of engaging Facebook posts: Like this post if
youve ever had a DIY disaster (include video, image, or gif
relevant to the text). Interested in how you can make your next
birthday party scream YOU? Read my latest blog post: 5 ways to
brand your birthday (include link to blog post). Although there are
options to advertise on Facebook, at this time we do not recommend
it as there are more effective channels to advertise given the
budget of $1,000. Lastly, one of the best times for a company to
post content is from 1PM 4PM. During this time, interaction between
Facebook users is higher than other times of the day. Pink Elephant
should post to its Facebook account during this time frame.
55. 54 Optimize Pinterest For Pink Elephant, Pinterest should
be used as an extension of the companys blog. Since extensive image
use can slow down a companys website, Pinterest works as a means to
post content that would otherwise not be posted on the blog but may
be useful for visitors to see in order to gain a holistic
perspective on the company or an events life cycle process. All
links posted on Pinterest should direct consumers to the companys
website. Pinterest is a hub that aggregates online content in one
space. One of the best features Pinterest has for businesses is its
business account. On this account, business owners are privy to a
myriad of analytics to help monitor clicks, pins, and redirects to
the company website. Thus, if Pink Elephant is not using a business
account, it should consider changing its settings as to take
advantage of these analytic features. To ensure that Pinterest
users know that the board is a company, Pink Elephant needs to
change the accounts alias as Pink Elephant instead of the name of
the companys owner, Devika Kallergis. The companys Pinterest
account and the owners Pinterest account should be separate but
should also interact with each other. Currently Pink Elephant uses
its Pinterest site as a center for sharing the owners lifestyle.
With over 40 boards, however, there is not a strong connection
between Pink Elephant and the Pinterest account. It is recommended
to streamline the site around a central theme of branding. Boards
and pins relevant to creative or branding ideas should be kept. In
addition, some boards on the site are closely related to another
board on the same site and should be melded to one board. Offering
a more condensed board will give followers a manageable perspective
of the brand without being overwhelmed by the many choices to click
on.
56. 55 Pinterest is all about a lifestyle. Pink Elephant should
use this aspect of the site to help followers through the event
planning lifecycle process. Although Pink Elephant offers
customizable branded pieces for events, not all online users are
able to pay for tailored decorations or invites and therefore rely
on DIY content. Pink Elephant could take advantage of this need to
create a DIY or tips for event branding that anyone can do and post
this content to both its blog and on its Pinterest site. When
posting content, it is important to label things as a consumer
would search for it as mentioned in the keyword section previously
mentioned. One example is that Pink Elephant could create a blog
post of 5 Tricks to Making Your Invites Look Great. Then, on its
Pinterest board, Pink Elephant could pin photos and provide a link
to the blogs website. This allows consumers to easily find the
content and then redirect them to the company website. Another
reason Pink Elephant should consider posting DIY content is to
generate positive word of mouth, also referred to as future sales.
Those consumers who cannot currently afford Pink Elephant's
services but follow the company on Pinterest because of the useful
and engaging content the company has will have Pink Elephant's
brand name in mind when friends are looking for a company to brand
their event. Recommended by the Entrepreneur, business success on
Pinterest depends on engagement.xii It is therefore a good idea to
link pins to the company blog. Providing links to the blog
encourages followers to remain up to date with the companys latest
events. To keep engagement high, Pink Elephant needs to interact
with its followers. Examples of how to do this include commenting
on a follows new board, conduct competition for followers to create
their own design, comment on followers designs. The purpose is to
exchange ideas around design and branding so that followers gain an
understanding behind Pink Elephant's expertise.
57. 56 Lastly, make sure that pins have a clear call to action;
in other words, ensure that the pins make the followers or
potential followers do something, whether it is go to the company
website, like a pin, or visit the blog. Every post should have an
actionable calling for users. Optimize Twitter Twitter is a micro
blogging tool that allows users to share their thoughts and
reactions to events in the world. It is also an important tool for
business owners to raise awareness of their brand and create leads.
As stated above, Pinterest is for lifestyles and Facebook is for
deeper engagement and advertisements, so what should Twitter be
for? So as not to duplicate content, Twitter should be used to
raise awareness, push relevant updates to followers, and engage
with other companies in idea generation. This can be done through
posting promotions and titles of new blog posts with links to the
blog site. Using pictures as well as text provides followers with
diverse media and can make a tweet stand out against competitors.
In addition, citing and referencing other Twitter users builds
credibility and a larger network with whom to reach to share the
companys updates. All links in the companys tweets should provide
links to the website and not its Facebook page as are most of the
links on Pink Elephants Twitter handle. First, it is important to
note that a companys Twitter account description on Twitter impacts
whether or not people will follow the company. Adding words such as
expert or leader in the field make it more likely that people will
follow the Twitter account. Second, to ensure that Twitter users
know that the @pnkelephantevnt handle is a company, Pink Elephant
needs to title the handles alias as Pink Elephant instead of the
name of the companys owner,
58. 57 Devika M. Kallergis. The companys twitter account and
the owners twitter handle should be separate but should also
interact with each other. Pink Elephant's Twitter presence is
consistent with the Pink Elephant brand; however, posts need to be
more scheduled. It is optimal to post less than 3 times a day.
According to Fast Company, engagement drops after a company posts
its third tweet.xiii For now, it is recommended to tweet once a day
or every other day and provide clear calls to action in each tweet
to build a credible Twitter handle. It is recommended for Pink
Elephant to create a branded hashtag. This hashtag can be shared
between followers and the company to code their tweets. This allows
users to easily interact with the brand without having to directly
tweet the companys handle which can use up some of the users 140
character limit. Pink Elephants hashtag should be memorable and
relevant to the company. Examples of possible hashtags include
#designedit #brandingpink #behindthedesign (name of the blog) As
with the other social media channels, Pink Elephant should remain
reciprocal in the engagement. This means favoriting a followers
relevant tweets or re-tweeting posts. This makes the company seem
more human to followers which is seen as a positive thing and will
encourage followers to interact with the company more frequently.
The best times to tweet is on weekdays from 1PM 3PM.
59. 58 Optimize Instagram For Pink Elephant, Instagram should
be used as a showcase. Content on Instagram should link followers
back to the companys information or contact page on its website.
Instagram allows users to share pictures with its followers.
Therefore, Pink Elephant should post relevant pictures that tell
followers a story. One example would be a compare and contrast,
before and after picture of the latest invitation design. The
Social Media Examiner suggests connecting the Instagram account to
Facebook and to use relevant hashtags to gain greater
visibility.xiv We therefore recommend that Pink Elephant continues
to use its branded hashtag across platforms. Videos are also
supported on Instagram and are encouraged when relevant. Posting
short 30-40 second videos ensure that consumers viewing the videos
watch the whole thing. Again, Pink Elephant needs to follow its
followers and comment on its followers posts to encourage their
engagement. Just like the other social media channels, each post
should have a clear call to action. Instagram allows businesses to
capture a moment of time. Encouraging users to post their own
images or link the companys posts to the website provide ways for
users to interact with the brand instead of just seeing it. To
ensure that Instagram users know that the @pinkelephantevents
handle is a company, Pink Elephant needs to title the handles alias
as Pink Elephant instead of the name of the companys owner, Devika.
The companys Instagram account and the owners Instagram account
should be separate but should also interact with each other. To
obtain the latest information about Instagram for business owners,
Pink Elephant should visit the Instagram for Business blog posted
by Instagram.
60. 59 Create Yelp Account Yelp is an important channel for
Pink Elephant. Having a Yelp site will allow previous customers to
post relevant information about how the company is doing. It also
provides a neutral platform which can increase the credibility of
the reviews. Pink Elephant should create a Yelp site for its
company and encourage past clients to review their experience. One
way to engage users to review on Yelp would be to send out an event
followup email congratulating the