MARK1330 – Communication in the digital era

December 21, 2011

The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

 

2

Tab l e of Conten t s

Summary  .............................................................................................................  3  Assumptions  ........................................................................................................................................................  3  Implications  ..........................................................................................................................................................  3  

Understanding the media mix  ..........................................................................  4  Why digital media?  ..........................................................................................................................................  4  Why traditional media?  ..................................................................................................................................  4  It’s all about… the media, the offer and the creatives  ...................................................................  5  

The media  ............................................................................................................................................................  5  The offer  ................................................................................................................................................................  5  The creatives  ......................................................................................................................................................  6  

AIDA  ........................................................................................................................................................................  6  

Current affairs  ....................................................................................................  7  SWOT analysis  ..................................................................................................................................................  7  Target audience  ................................................................................................................................................  8  Corporate objectives  .......................................................................................................................................  9  

Awareness and attitude  ................................................................................................................................  9  Customers and objectives  ..........................................................................................................................  9  Word of Mouth  ................................................................................................................................................  10  

Actions and recommendations  .....................................................................  10  POST  ....................................................................................................................................................................  10  Recommendation #1: Facebook Page  ................................................................................................  12  Recommendation #2: Blogs  ......................................................................................................................  13  

Her own blog  ....................................................................................................................................................  13  Other bloggers  ................................................................................................................................................  13  

Recommendation #3: Partners  ...............................................................................................................  14  Recommendation #4: SEO and PPC  ...................................................................................................  16  Recommendation #5: improving her website  ..................................................................................  16  

Measurement  ....................................................................................................  17  

Conclusion  ........................................................................................................  17  

Reference list  ...................................................................................................  19  Books  ...................................................................................................................................................................  19  Websites  ..............................................................................................................................................................  19  

 

3

Summary In this document I will set up a marketing plan for the company the Cupcake

girl. It will include target audience, objectives, specific

actions/recommendations, and measurement. I will also include theories and

models in addition to the practical context, as the basis for my claims and

recommendations. It will also include a brief and somewhat shallow SWOT

analysis. This is an important part of a marketing plan, but as I don’t have a lot

of work experience and because of lack of time, this will not be in depth.

As I started this assignment long before we talked about it in class, it doesn’t

necessarily follow the ”recipe”.

Assumptions It is hard to find a lot of information about the Cupcake girl online, except from

the company’s website. I assume it is a small and local business with less

resources and capital, and that Nicole is the only employee as well as the

owner. As there is no indication about the companys strategies or existing

marketing plan, I also assume the Cupcake girl has differentiation as the main

corporate strategy (because of the large amount of different types and tastes),

but no specific marketing objectives (because of a neutral/anonymous website

with little information), and for the most only Staten Islanders knows about the

company (current location, and geographical segmentation).

Implications As I am Norwegian, I may use Norwegian websites and statistics to get

information. I will list these as normal in the reference list, basically just to

verify I didn’t make things up myself.

For corporate information about the Cupcake girl I have only used

www.statenislandcupcake.com.

 

4

The Cupcake g i r l

Understanding the media mix

Why digital media? Digital and social media has developed rapidly the last few years. Three

outstanding trends has created a new era: people wants to communicate with

each other, new interactive technology, and that traffic on your website equals

money (Li, Bernoff; Groundswell 2008; 11). Those are trends you cannot

ignore, and as a company you should definitely keep up with this

development. Digital and social media can, among other things, help you

increase the efficiency of customer services, make tracking of competitors

easier, improve and simplify partnerships, more efficient spread important

information to customers, and the list goes on. Word of Mouth (WoM) has

become very powerful when it comes to marketing, but a company cannot

control it. Since ”all” customers uses social networks it is also important to see

and track what they are saying about your company, and possibly do

something about negative publicity before it’s too late. Customers can also

communicate with each other and non-users very easily, give tips, answer

questions and so forth, saving a company time and money spent on customer

services.

Why traditional media? Even though digital media is influencing our lives more and more, I also

believe the Cupcake girl should pay attention to traditional media, e.g. ads in

local newspapers. This will make the marketing plan more holistic and

integrated and, as we discussed in class, regular mail can increase the

opening rate of e-mails. I believe this can be transferred to newspaper ads

versus banner ads as well. The media mix is always hard to figure out, but

although digital/social media is spreading out like fire, I strongly recommend

the use of traditional media as well. Also, as this is a small and local

 

5

company, social media may not be the most important channel to use. I will

return to these issues for my recommendations.

It’s all about… the media, the offer and the creatives Due to lectures, it is said that the media is 50%, the offer is 35% and the

creatives are 15%. This can be compared to the ”thumb of rule” of direct and

interactive marketing, which says 40% is correct targeting and databases,

40% is an efficient offer and 20% are the creatives.

The media In direct and interactive marketing, media is about half of it. There’s no need

to be a rocket scientist to understand that what media used is very important.

The Cupcake girl’s current media is the internet; her webpage. There is no

indication of traditional media usage, or e-mailing lists or any other kinds of

subscriptions. It also seems she relies on Word of Mouth to attract new

customers.

The offer Effective offers have three characteristics, according to Contemporary direct

and interactive marketing (2010; 91): believability, involvement and creativity.

It may also be useful to have in mind that the offer should solve some

problem(s) the customer has. There is no specific offers on the websites right

now, so the product itself can be seen as the offer.

I believe the cupcakes are within the expected range of price (neither too

expensive or too cheap), and in general it is no reason to believe the products

are too good to be true. Hence, the offer is believable. The cupcakes are

colorful, themed, looks great, etc, and with customization available the offer

may seem creative.

 

6

In contrast, involvement is low. The Cupcake girl doesn’t really motivate or

encourage customers to find out more or make an order, and the webpage is

quite neutral.

The creatives As the creatives are ~15-20%, it is often the creative solutions that encourage

action. In direct and interactive marketing we need a response, a transaction,

or even multiple clicks on the company website to know whether the creatives

works or not. That’s why it is so important to monitor e.g. conversion rates and

click-through rates. Human beings are in general never 100% rational, so

emotional appeals are ”mandatory” to create response. The visual content is

therefore very important, i.e. the product itself must be viewed, and favorably

in an emotional setting.

The visuals of the webpage are somewhat neutral, but still holistic in addition

to design, image and the product itself. Themes are a great option, particularly

as Christmas is coming up and busy house wife-wannabes will need a little

teaspoon of magic to make the ends meet. That can also be one of the

problems the offer can solve; customers don’t buy tasty cupcakes, they buy

themselves time and relaxation.

AIDA AIDA basically describes your target audience’s desired consumer behavior.

AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action; you want your target

audience to be aware of you, to take interest in you, to desire you, and

eventually take action AKA positive purchase behavior. This is one way of

optimizing your media strategy, but as the Marketing Funnel has developed,

Loyalty and Advocacy is added to the traditional AIDA.

There are several issues about this model, and I won’t follow it slavishly. It is

still a good strategy to have in mind when dealing with both traditional and/or

digital media, and I will return to e.g. awareness in the ”Corporate objectives” section.

 

7

Current affairs

SWOT analysis Strenghts:

• Customization availability is high, and the Cupcake girl offers themed

cupcakes

• A wide range of flavors to choose from

• Freshly made and hand delivery adds a touch of uniqueness and

personality to the cupcakes, as well as customer often perceives hand-

made products more positive

• No delivery charge

• Inexpensive

Weaknesses:

• Possible high demand may lead to dissatisfaction of delivery time,

quality etc, as there’s only one employee

• It is hard to find information other than what’s on the website, and the

company is not very well branded

• Unpersonal/neutral webpage

• Not specialized; it’s ”a little bit of this, a little bit of that”. There are many

flavors and themes to choose from, so what I mean is that she doesn’t

currently highlight her expertise

Opportunities:

• Market expansion

• Economic recession can lead to change of consumer behavior, hence

customers might try cheaper alternatives to their usual habits of

purchases

• As Daniel Miller puts it in his ”A theory of shopping”, shopping (i.e.

grocery shopping) is actually a way to show love to your dearest. This

kind of shopping often includes a ”treat” as a reward for doing the dull

necessity shopping is, which brings me to the opportunity: a small store

in a shopping mall may attract tired shoppers for a treat.

 

8

Threats:

• Many competitors

• Product features are mostly the same

• I assume cupcakes are low-involvement products for most customers,

hence they will pick ”the first and best” available

Target audience The website says nothing about what segments the Cupcake girl targets. It’s

important to know your target audience in relation to actually reach out to

them. If you don’t identify your (potential) customers, you don’t know how to

communicate with them. As I have no information about the Cupcake girls’

target audience, I will try to identify it myself in the next section.

”Sex & The City” made cupcakes famous, more or less. Tv shows such as

”Cake boss” and ”Cupcake girls” expands this popularity. Who are the

viewers? Mostly women. Cupcakes are tasty, delicious treats appealing to

women. Cakes and cookies has been a part of a woman’s life since the time

of house wives (or at least it feels like it), and I think it’s ”natural” for women to

treat themselves with some cookies or cakes. Because you deserve it!

Pictures and descriptions of the cupcakes on statenislandcupcake.com shows

colourful and cute cupcakes, so these women may also have children or are

young themselves. The prices are quite inexpensive and affordable for

(young) adults, and the business is located on Staten Island outside NYC. All

the above refers to a segmentation profile called VALS, Value & LifeStyle,

meaning companies can target heterogeneous groups with similar habits of

life.

On this basis and with VALS in mind, I would say the target audience are

women aged 20 – 35 years old, possibly with children. These women are

trendy, wear heels, and likes to be/feel independent but also wants to be a

modern house wife (very generalized). As the cupcakes are freshly made they

may not withstand long transportation, so Staten Island and nearby locations

(e.g. NYC) will be the natural geographic segment.

 

9

Not only do you need to know who to target, you also need to know why you

are targeting them.

Corporate objectives If you don’t know where you are going, no road will get you there. It seems to

me that the Cupcake girl has applied the differentiation strategy to her

company, which is one out of two major business level strategies. As this isn’t

a corporate strategy-project, I assume her strategy is differentiation and leave

it there. With a current strategy, it’s easier to make suggestions for

improvements.

Awareness and attitude Brand awareness and brand attitude should always be (some of the)

objectives of marketing and communication, as these are the basis of building

brand relationships. If customers don’t know who you are, how can you make

your way into their evoked set of brands (which of course is where you want

to be)? Cupcakes as a phenomena has great awareness among the target

audience, and as they get more and more popular I guess the general attitude

towards them are positive as well. The Cupcake girl is a small and local

business, so I believe the most important objective is brand awareness.

Customers and non-customers need to be aware of the brand before they

form attitudes and beliefs about it. As mashable.com says it: ”Awareness is

social media’s bread and butter.”

Customers and objectives For current customers the objective will be recall brand awareness, as they

already know about the brand but we want them into the evoked set of

cupcake brands. Recall brand awareness is what’s called unassisted, as

customers recalls the brand without seeing a logo, etc. For non-users the

objective will be recognition brand awareness, as they have to get to know

this brand and recognize it as their need arises. This is the opposite of

 

10

recalling, hence called assisted as the customers recognize any of the brand

elements.

Word of Mouth To understand how your target audience is thinking, you need to monitor and

listen to them (Groundswell: 2008; 68). Dialogue and communication will be

important to increase both recall and recognition brand awareness, as the

brand gets more visible. It may also encourage commitment among

customers, which again may turn into positive WoM. Committed persons are

also the most enthusiastic and if you don’t listen to them, they might turn the

positivity to negative WoM.

Actions and recommendations To succeed in todays world of marketing, you need to be holistic even to

survive. That is, you need to integrate yourself into all relevant channels,

whether it is digital media, social networks or traditional media. As we’ve been

talking about in class, traditional media can even enhance and reinforce the

results from digital media (e.g. regular mail in advance can enhance e-mail

open rate). I recommend the Cupcake girl to take advantage of these

possibilities, but will focus more on the digital/social part.

POST One of the authors of Groundswell, Josh Bernoff, has come up with a method

for digital media. A lot of companies makes the same mistake over and over

again; focusing on the technology itself. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn –

everything’s new and exciting, and they tend to forget about the most

important part of it. The customers.

 

11

Source: http://www.digitalstrategist.ca/wp/2009/09/the-post-method-for-digital-strategy/

The most important step in succeeding is to focus on the People. You need to

know who they are, where they are, why they are there, and how they involve.

Media aren’t social, people are. Media doesn’t communicate, people do.

The second step is to find your Objectives. Five common objectives are to

listen, to speak, to involve, to support and to embrace. This is essentially

communication, which is what social and digital media is all about.

Third, you need a Strategy for your changes, and finally there’s the

Technology part. To know which sites and technologies to use, you need to

know who you want to communicate with and where they are. Why

communicate via Facebook if your target audience are dedicated to Twitter?

It’s like trying to open a bottle of wine without an opener. Most likely, it goes

wrong.

 

12

To me it seems like the Cupcake girl has fallen into the same trap. The only

way to find her is to know her location, or check out the website. And the

website is not actually communicating with customers as it is pretty neutral

and static. Hence, there are several changes that needs to be done with the

website itself, but there are also other strategies and tools to consider. I will

explain my general recommendations first, and return to specific

recommendations for the website later.

Recommendation #1: Facebook Page As I mentioned, the Cupcake girl is not really communicating with her

customers and potential customers. How are potential customers supposed to

find her? Googling will give them hundreds of alternatives, and the Cupcake

girl does not stand out. I defined the target audience to basically be young,

trendy women living in Staten Island and NYC. Young trendy women in Staten

Island/NYC are, I believe, mostly Facebookers and they might even be

bloggers. They’re not hi-tech geeks, they like to KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Simple social networks such as Facebook will attract the target audience, if

done properly. As the recommendation says it’s all about people, so the

Cupcake girl will need to pay attention to and follow up on Facebook page

questions and interaction, both positive and negative. She needs to be

proactive, i.e. if she knows in advance that customers will likely react

negatively to her actions, she needs to be prepared. As we see now

(December 2011), PayPal is having a hard time when it comes to their

Facebook page. PayPal stepped up as Scrooge in a Disney Christmas movie

when they froze money on an account, which were supposed to be donations

to poor kids and their families. When I checked their Facebook page a few

days ago, the wall were continuously filled with angry messages from users

and potential users. Today all those messages are deleted, only leaving their

own post apologizing the event. A brilliant example how not to do it.

In general, her Facebook page will mainly be a place for her to listen, to talk

to, and to support her customers. This will create communication and

 

13

dialogue, and it’s easy to monitor what customers say about her and her

brand.

Recommendation #2: Blogs Young, trendy NYC females are also likely to read blogs or be bloggers

themselves. It is possible to leverage this to create stickiness to her own

website.

Her own blog O is for Objectives; you need to talk to your customers, especially to enhance

brand awareness. As the Facebook page can be more the listening area, her

own blog can be the talking area. This blog can in advantage be a part of her

website, both to create stickiness and also because of SEO advantages. This

will be a more personal approach, and the Cupcake girl can communicate and

talk to her customers as well as non-customers. She can give tips how to

make cupcakes and show how much effort she puts in her company,

highlighting the value of her cupcakes. It is also important to give the readers

a little extra to make them curious, and I recommend her to think about the

”WIIFM” and ”IDKT”-methods. ”What’s in it for me” and ”I didn’t know that” will

make readers return, and it might even create positive WoM.

S is for Strategy; with a blog on her website she has the opportunity to

establish a two-way relationship with customers and others. Once a

relationship is established, it is far easier to make actions AKA sales out of it.

Other bloggers Bloggers are important in this digital and social world. They are often opinion

leaders, and have lots of influencing power towards their readers. Blogs are

also an effective way of creating WoM, and the Cupcake girl needs to assure

this WoM is positive. So how can she do that?

 

14

When it comes to WoM you can never be sure of the outcome, as it changes

rapidly. What the Cupcake girl needs to do, is to be proactive and team with

some of the most important bloggers; those with the most power and

communicating skills.

What I’d like to suggest to the Cupcake girl, is to throw a bloggers ”party”

where they can taste, smell and see how she’s making the cupcakes. To

create buzz and WoM even before this event, I recommend the Cupcake girl

to send out ”mystical” invites to the selected bloggers, including a trial or a

small gift hinting what the party will be about. Not mentioning her brand, just

where and when they should meet. Doing this, she will create a buzz in

advance, and when they meet up at the event they’ll discover her brand and

get to know the Cupcake girl better. What she wants to achieve with this, is of

course blog posts about her brand and her fabulous cupcakes. As these

bloggers are a part of her target audience, it will most likely also reach out to

her target audience. To reinforce the experience and indirectly encourage

them to blog about the event, she should e-mail them shortly after asking if

they had a good time. It’s important that these e-mail are personalized, or at

least looks personalized (e.g. ”Dear Angelina” or even ”Dear cupcake

Angelina” to use puns). This will also remind them of her brand, and might

enhance their recall brand awareness.

Recommendation #3: Partners On the menu provided online there are several flavors containing Hershey

products, like Kiss and Reese’s peanut butter cup. As a citizen of the country

which is the last stop before the North Pole, I am not familiar with the Hershey

company, but assume this is well know in the US. That is why I would like to

recommend the Cupcake girl to partner up with this company, as it will

decrease her costs. The chances for reputational spillover and positive

contagion effect are also great. Associations and attributes will most likely

transfer from the well-known Hershey Company to the Cupcake girl in

consumers mind set, and help the branding in a positive way e.g via classical

conditioning. Branding is expensive but necessary to succeed, but if she form

 

15

strategic alliances and partnerships with Hershey (among others) she will

”lend” brand value and thereby lower her own costs.

Degree of accordance might be critical to elicit the wanted attitude nd

outcome of the partnership(s). Cupcakes and the Hershey Company seems to

me, after a brief research of their website, to be matching. Hershey’s and their

subbrands’/endorsed brands’ main products are chocolate and candy, which

is tightly linked with cupcakes. High degree of accordance often cause less

degree of reflection in the consumers’ minds. However, unconsciously

processing occurs no matter what whitin matching, according to Mandlers

theory of congruence.

Source: the Norwegian textbook ”Merkevareledelse på norsk” and its slides, available online:

http://merkevareledelse.cappelendamm.no/?page_id=591 (the one called ”Kap 16:

Merkesamarbeid”).

 

16

Recommendation #4: SEO and PPC Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are two ways to

attract customers, as SEO and PPC makes your website more visible when

customers make an online search. The Cupecake girl will attract lots more

customers when her website appears at the top of the search, in relation to

bein gon page number 3. No one really even goes to page number 2 when

googling… According to searchengineland.com SEO has also the biggest

impact on a firms lead generation goals in the Business-to-Consumer market

(B2C), which is the market Cupcake girl is in. 41% of the marketers in B2C

believes SEO has the biggest impact, followed by PPC (34,2%) and SoMe

marketing (24,8%). As I’ve already recommended the Cupcake girl to have

Facebook page, I believe it will work because of her target audience and that

she needs a place to communicate with her target audience, but she also

needs to put SEO and PPC in to her budget.

Recommendation #5: improving her website This is my last recommendation to attract more customers and generate

better sales. To make it more clear, I set these up as bullet points.

• Be more personally relevant

In general, when something is more personal it will increase both

motivation and ability to reflection within the customer, according to the

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). This means they might consider

purchasing at a ”deeper level”, e.g. these cupcakes have better quality;

these cupcakes are more environmentally friendly; these cupcakes

gives something back to thensociety; etc.

• In the menu: pictures if the cupcakes

Looks more tempting and delicious, and customers like to see what

they buy. A picture says more than thousend words, and more pictures

might increase purchase behavior.

• On the ”about” page: a picture of Nicole, not just an illustration

In relation to the first bullet point, this will be more personal and

inviting, hence might increase the website stickiness. It will also trigger

the thought of the cupcakes being home made by a real person.

 

17

• On the ”contact” page: make it easier!

This is where she would put the social media-buttons, add a contact

form (including opt-in options, and letting the customer decide how and

how often they wants to be contacted), put down the physical address

to her store, and add a ”buy now”-form. She should also change her e-

mail address, as ”info” looks like a spam address.

Measurement As you probably have noticed, I haven’t included or estimated any numbers.

Marketing and finance should always work together to create the best

outcomes in the real world, and sadly many firms forget about this. The

reason why I haven’t estimated the Cupcake girls’ extra revenue or profit by

implementing my recommendations, is because I believe this course is all

about communication. There are so many ways and formulas how to estimate

the outcome, but in this assignment I have chosen to focus on the

recommendations itselves. It is also hard to estimate profits when you don’t

have any numbers at all, and I feel like it is a waste of time to focus on the

potential extra revenue.

Conclusion To summarize the recommendations, this is what I believe will boost the

Cupcake girl’s profits:

• Create a Facebook page to interact 24/7 with her target audience

• Start a blog on her own and also connect with other great bloggers, to

create WoM

• Collaborate with Hersey’s and other potential partners to boost her own

brand and brand awareness

• Start using SEO and PPC

• Make improvements on her website to increase stickiness and make

target audience curious

 

18

• Measure! Surveilling social media, both what the target audience says

about the Cupcake girl, and at least as important what the target

audience says about her competitors

 

19

Reference list

Books: • Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff: Groundswell

• Lisa D. Spiller, Martin Baier: Contemporary direct & interactive

marketing

• Bendik M. Samuelsen, Adrian Peretz, Lars E. Olsen: Merkevareledelse

på norsk 2.0

• Leon G. Schiffman, Leslie Lazar Kanuk, Håvard Hansen: Consumer

behaviour: a European outlook

Websites: • The Cupcake girl website: www.statenislandcupcake.com

• SEO beats PPC & social media for generating leads:

http://searchengineland.com/seo-beats-ppc-social-media-for-

generating-leads-

99064?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=f

eed-main

• Merkevarebloggen, kap 16: merkesamarbeid (Norwegian blog / text

book; this chapter is called ”sponsorship”):

http://merkevareledelse.cappelendamm.no/?page_id=591

• The POST method for digital strategy:

http://www.digitalstrategist.ca/wp/2009/09/the-post-method-for-digital-

strategy/

• Social media strategy in four steps:

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/social-

media-strategy-in-four-steps/

• Staten Island statistics: http://www.city-data.com/city/Staten-Island-

New-York.html

• Hershey’s website: http://www.hersheys.com/

• How to: Optimize your social media marketing strategy:

http://mashable.com/2010/10/27/optimize-social-media-marketing/