**** THIS HAS TWO PART *******. ******** PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ***********

**** PLEASE READ and COMPLETE(used) ATTACHMENT*******

PART 1

Objectives:

• Conduct market research to develop an effective digital marketing strategy
• Define a business concept, target market, and keyword strategy
• Identify direct and indirect competition and the strengths and weaknesses of their marketing strategy
• Compare and contrast digital properties

Instructions: Sections 1-4

This week, you will develop Part 1 of your Digital Marketing Strategy. The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your ability to conduct market research, to lay a strong foundation for your company’s digital marketing plan. 

For this assignment, you will submit a 4-5 APA-formatted page paper that includes your company structure, competitive analysis, target market, and analysis of digital properties.

Section 1: Business Concept Overview

Provide a short (4-5 sentences) description of your business concept and your point of differentiation (what makes your business unique.)  

In bullet point format, include the following:

• A link to your Business Model Canvas (BMFiddle.com) that was created in Month 4: Business Storytelling and Brand Development
• Business Location: City, State.  Is it online, brick & mortar, or both
• Type of marketing: B2C/B2B/Both
• Specific products/services offered and pricing

Section 2: Competitive Analysis

Conduct research to identify three of your competitors, and evaluate their current marketing efforts.  Develop a chart that identifies the following for EACH competitor:

• Traditional & Digital Marketing channels
  • Provide a web link to the company’s homepage ***A marketing channel is a defined grouping of tools, resources, platforms, and people necessary to deliver products and services to the consumers. Traditional marketing channels include: TV/Radio Advertising, Print Advertising, Direct Selling, Direct Mail, and Billboard Advertising. Digital marketing channels include: SEO, Social Media, Digital PR, Email Marketing, Display or Social Media Advertising, Paid Search, and Affiliate Marketing.
• Social Media Platforms, use and effectiveness
• Marketing Strategy Strengths
• Marketing Strategy Weaknesses

Section 3: Target Market

Conduct research to identify at least two customer segments (primary segment and secondary segment), or groups of people who will buy your products/services. Elaborate on the characteristics that make up each group of people: demographics, geographics, interests, behaviors, hobbies and activities, etc. If you are doing B2B marketing, describe the people within the decision-making roles in the businesses you will target.

Resources that can assist with determining demographics and psychographics: 

Section 4: Digital Properties and Keyword Strategy

Identify the digital properties that belong or will belong to your business.  

In a bullet point format, include the following:

•     Your company website domain name (Be sure to check its availability.)
•     Social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Sound Cloud, etc.
•     External e-commerce accounts, such as Etsy, eBay, Amazon.
•     Mailing lists, newsletter subscription lists, such as Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, aWebber, etc.

Next, identify the SEO techniques you plan to use to optimize your website.  How can you optimize landing pages and increase traffic through the use of images and content?

Using the keyword research tools provided during week 1, provide at least five long tail phrases one could use to search for your company.  Why did you choose these specific long tail phrases? 

PART 2

Objectives:

• Develop creative content examples
• Create an editorial calendar
• Identify a campaign objective and marketing channels for a marketing strategy
• Develop a content strategy that incorporates a variety of content formats and forms of distribution

Instructions: Sections 5-8

In Part 2 of your Digital Marketing Strategy you will develop your campaign strategy. The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your creativity and campaign knowledge. 

For this assignment, you will submit a 4-5 page APA paper that includes your campaign objective, marketing channels, content strategy, and mock-ups. Please note: this is a proposal, so it must be stated in a third-person tense throughout. 

Section 5: Campaign Objective

Every marketing plan should have a single focus, which is identified in the campaign objective. Based on this focus, marketing strategy is developed to support the campaign objective. Determine if your first year-long marketing campaign will focus on “increasing awareness of your brand or business”, or if your efforts will focus on “prompting sales of your products or services”. Examples: This campaign’s objective is to increase awareness of XYZ Business and the product offerings over the one-year campaign. This campaign’s objective is to prompt sales of XYZ Business’s products and services over the one-year campaign. 

Use the following format: This campaign’s objective is to [complete the sentence with your campaign’s objective – see examples above.]

Section 6: Marketing Channels

Choose three digital marketing channels to use in this marketing campaign. If your campaign objective focus is “increasing awareness”, you will have the most success with SEO, Social Media, and Digital Public Relations. If your campaign objective focus is “prompting sales”, you will have the most success with Email Marketing, Paid Search, Display or Social Media Ads, and Affiliate Marketing. 

A solid integrated market plan also includes the complementary use of traditional marketing.  Choose one or two traditional marketing channels you plan to incorporate into your campaign.  Some traditional forms of marketing include print advertising, billboards, radio/television broadcasting, direct mail, etc.

In an organized manner, please describe your marketing strategy for EACH marketing channel. Address the following: 

• What platforms, tools, technologies and resources will you employ specific to this channel? 
• How will these efforts help support your brand, brand identity, and campaign objective? 
• What is the sales funnel/”call to action” for visitors when interacting with your marketing? 
• How will you optimize your marketing efforts to ensure the highest return on investment? 
• How will you keep customers and visitors engaged with your marketing efforts, and encourage repeat visits? 
• How will you drive traffic with your efforts? 

Section 7: Content Strategy

Next, brainstorm different types of content that will appeal to your customer segments, such as blogs, videos, photos, infographics, articles, white papers, press releases, etc..  Make sure you include content that is compelling enough to give the reader the information he or she needs to think or act in a new way.

Using a format of your choice, create and insert an editorial calendar showing a typical month in your year-long marketing campaign. Each of your digital and traditional marketing channels should be included in the calendar. Focus on specific marketing efforts and content themes.

Section 8: Mockups

Include three mockups/examples of content that will be used on three separate platforms.  Don’t forget to include a description of which channel will be used for each mock-up.

Research Requirement

Cite the research using APA in-text citations. Add the full APA reference to the references list at the end of the document, on the References page. Do not include the full APA reference inside the body of the document.

Deliverable:

When your paper is complete, save it as a Word document.  Name your file LastnameFirstinitial_DMKPart2.docx and upload it to both the FSO platform and Turnitin.com site before the deadline.