Executive Summary 3
The Concept of Social Media Marketing (SMM) – An Introduction 4
A brief introduction of Gordmans Stores Incorporated and the manner in which its vision and mission statement has influenced its digital marketing strategy and decision-making 4
Three Key Recommendations on How Gordmans Stores Incorporated could Apply Digital Marketing Strategies and Benefit from this Concept 5
Recommended Strategy Number 1 - Social Media Marketing Approaches 5
The Passive Approach 5
The Active Approach 6
Recommended Strategy Number 2 – Reach Unique Target Market for B2B Connections 6
Recommended Strategy Number 3 – Interact Actively with Visitors and Customers to get Personal 7
Conclusion 8
References 9
Executive Summary
This paper is aimed at making simple, concise and relevant strategic recommendations using which Gordmans Stores Incorporated could apply and benefit from initiatives concerning social media campaigns or digital marketing. This organisation aims to deal in clothing as well as accessories for men, women and children. The marketing objective of Gordmans Stores Incorporated is to reach more and more customers so that profitability could be increased for creating stakeholder wealth. It is recommended for Gordmans Stores Incorporated to follow active and passive approaches to digital or social media marketing by inviting the general public participation in blogs, forum, communities as well as different social network websites. Not only Gordmans Stores Incorporated should try to know about its customers but the company should also make industrious efforts to listen to customers’ voice and resolve their complaints, if any. Moreover, Gordmans Stores Incorporated should also add certain innovative features to its social networks webpages such as adding a shopping cart icon and purchase option without letting the customer to leave Facebook page to finalise the process.
Social Media or Digital Marketing for Gordmans Stores Incorporated
The Concept of Social Media Marketing (SMM) – An Introduction
As the globalisation pressures are increasing consistently, businesses are tempted to come up with innovative ways to carry out their operational activities regardless of their size, nature of operations and profitability. This requires managers to introduce dramatic changes to internal controls and business processes for efficiency . Among those changes, the rise of technology is of prime concern to almost every business of today. Technological advancement requires every business to automate core operations and internal controls so that none of the activities go unchecked and possibility of human errors as well as fraudulent behaviour should be minimised.
One of the important contributions of technological advancement is the automation of marketing activities. This is probably true because of the emergence of internet and the related devices that keep every individual online all the time . Social networking sites (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace etc) have brought people together. These sites have become a popular medium or platform to every business as companies can now interact directly with a broader market compared to traditional marketing. This activity is particularly known as social media marketing or digital marketing.
The Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a process by which organisations use web-based technologies and social networking websites to access broader consumer market and gain more attention from the targeted audience. It represents a platform where potential and existing consumers share their ideas and encourage exchange of valuable feedback across social networking sites over the internet. These days, Social Media Marketing (SMM) has become more prominent with the rise of different social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and MySpace etc .
Instead of going through traditional marketing channels, marketing managers use social media campaigns to better segment their target market. With the employment of broad range of strategies and tactics, Social Media Marketing (SMM) allows managers to gain access to detailed personal, demographic and geographical information. The concept underlying Social Media Marketing (SMM) is that marketing managers develop electronic content and messages which family members, friends and professionals share among each other . The idea behind this activity is to create more market demand through “Word of Mouth”.
In its true essence, Social Media Marketing (SMM) represents internet based marketing campaigns that aim to utilise social networking sites as an important tool of marketing products and services. Social Media Marketing (SMM) helps companies to gain customer information and feedback directly. An important concept of Social Media Marketing (SMM) is that customers should not only be able to know about latest products, services and deals but should also be able to voice their complaints and ask questions in case any problem arises.
A brief introduction of Gordmans Stores Incorporated and the manner in which its vision and mission statement has influenced its digital marketing strategy and decision-making
Gordmans Stores Incorporated is a value price departmental store that features everyday selection of brands, styles and fashions at up to sixty percent off specialty and department store prices.
Gordmans Stores Incorporated's merchandise includes footwear and apparel for men, women and children, home fashions, fragrances, and accessories. Gordmans Stores Incorporated offers men's, juniors', young men's, women's, team, maternity and children's clothing which includes offerings for toddlers, infants, boys and girls. Its accessories business includes sunglasses, handbags, intimate apparel, designer fragrances, sleepwear, and leg-wear and fashion jewellery.
Gordmans Stores Incorporated operates ninety seven stores approximately under the trade name Gordmans in twenty one states situated in different formats such as power centres, lifestyle centres, and regional enclosed shopping malls. Gordmans Stores Incorporated competes with Wal-Mart, Target, J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Macy's, Dillard's, T.J. Maxx, Old Navy, Stein Mart and Ross Stores.
As far as the vision and mission statement of Gordmans Stores Incorporated is concerned, they have a strong influence on the digital marketing strategies and decision-making process because these statements help Gordmans Stores Incorporated emphasise whether it should focus on consumer service and experience or should focus on market expansion. These statements provide a guideline to media managers of Gordmans Stores Incorporated about how social media marketing could help company’s customers and the business at large. In all, the vision and mission statement of strategy is the process of specifying an organisation’s guidelines that help managers decide on different digital marketing initiatives in future.
Three Key Recommendations on How Gordmans Stores Incorporated could Apply Digital Marketing Strategies and Benefit from this Concept
Social media marketing or online campaigns are platforms where companies get in touch with their existing customer base and potential target market all the time. Different digital marketing platforms offer their own customised social media marketing tools . Here, the names of Pinterest Promoted Pins, Google+ Local, Facebook Pages, and Twitter targeted ads are quite notable in this regard.
Effective social media marketing or successful employment of digital marketing requires that promotional messages and content should consistently be pushed towards the existing and potential target market. This is because the world of today has become more technology savvy where businesses need to assume the digital marketing strategy for building longer term relationships . Therefore, this section is aimed at making three important recommendations using which the business can successfully apply the model of digital marketing and benefit fully from it. Such suggestions are elaborated with succinct detail in the following manner:
Recommended Strategy Number 1 - Social Media Marketing Approaches
It is highly recommended that the business must divide the digital marketing campaigns into active and passive approaches so that related plans could be formulated and strategies may be implemented.
The Passive Approach
Social media marketing or digital marketing is a very good platform to gain accurate access to a variety of market information as well as voice of the consumer base. To successfully implement digital marketing campaigns, Gordmans Stores Incorporated must follow “the passive approach” by launching forums, online communities, content and blogs. By using the passive approach to social media marketing, Gordmans Stores Incorporated should allow its customers and the general public to share their ideas, review as well as experience with a certain brand, product and service. By using this passive approach to digital marketing, Gordmans Stores Incorporated is able to access and analyse the voice of consumers recorded or posted on the social media/networking websites for marketing purposes. The passive approach to social media or digital marketing is recommended because not only this will allow Gordmans Stores Incorporated to interact with consumers and the general public but it also serves as a cheap source of tracking market problems (demands) and opportunities. This is also known as “Market Intelligence”.
The Active Approach
This approach demands that Gordmans Stores Incorporated should implement social media or digital marketing campaigns as a way to communicate messages to the broader target market. This is because social networking websites should not only used publicly and passively to interact with the consumer base but should also be used as a direct marketing and consumer engagement tool as well as a communication channel.
LinkedIn and Facebook are leading social networking websites and online arenas where users are able to hyper-target their advertisements. In this regard, it is highly recommended that various online posters and videos should be posted onto a page related to a certain social networking site. For instance, in case of a page created and launched on Facebook, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can post photos and advertisements of the new product.
Furthermore, to use social media marketing sites actively, it is recommended that Gordmans Stores Incorporated should either place a direct link for customers or visitors to direct them to an order page (online store) or should place a shopping cart option directly onto the page. This active recommendation is presented to Gordmans Stores Incorporated as it will enable visitors to select items and make purchases without even leaving their Facebook page.
In other words, this active approach will not only help visitors shop for Gordmans Stores Incorporated’s products and services but will also keep them on the social network page to view other offerings as well. One interesting feature about this recommended active approach is that it is mobile responsive. In other words, shopping facility discussed above could also be made available on mobile devices due to increased attention towards mobile commerce (m-commerce). This recommended solution would provide seamless shopping experience to all customers for their longer term retention.
Recommended Strategy Number 2 – Reach Unique Target Market for B2B Connections
For Gordmans Stores Incorporated, it is highly recommended to understand that using social media marketing, reaching every individual is impossible. Therefore, it is suggested that Gordmans Stores Incorporated should make efforts to reach and target the right audience using digital marketing. This suggestion, if implemented, will make wonders for Gordmans Stores Incorporated because reaching a specific group is quite easy to manage through social networking platforms. By reaching the right audience, Gordmans Stores Incorporated could easily connect with the daily lives of the market by using social media or digital marketing. This recommendation would also enable Gordmans Stores Incorporated to gain actual information about the demographics and voice of its consumers .
Apart from reaching out customers, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can also exploit the opportunity to engage with its business partners over the social media network. By reaching out unique consumer base, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can collaborate with partners to educate people about their offerings, sell their leads, finalise deals, develop trustworthy relationships with prospects, and actively engage consumers. Here, it is recommended for Gordmans Stores Incorporated to implement a digital marketing strategy to understand the audience to be reached, its issues and information relevant to educate this target group over the social networking sites. This could be done only if company’s officials enter into interactive conversations with a specific audience.
When media managers of Gordmans Stores Incorporated can easily reach a specific audience over the social networking platforms, it facilitates them to build long-lasting relations and explore new opportunities. This is the beauty of automating marketing activities by using strategies and tactics of social media or digital marketing over the Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, etc. the successful implementation of this recommendation would definitely help Gordmans Stores Incorporated to use social network sites as a marketing and sales generation weapon.
Recommended Strategy Number 3 – Interact Actively with Visitors and Customers to get Personal
Social networking websites are arenas where consumers can be genuinely engaged in certain dialogue sharing activities that often result in brand loyalty and longer term customer retention. Therefore, it is imperative for Gordmans Stores Incorporated to customise its social marketing campaigns so that it could interact with customers on a regular basis to promote product deals . Gordmans Stores Incorporated has liberty to use any or all of social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook for sharing non-product related visuals and stories to invoke positive emotions.
This could only be done if online social campaign is aimed at positioning the product and service positively in the minds of visitors and customers. Such an activity would help Gordmans Stores Incorporated to encourage ideas and feedback sharing with other users. While interacting with customers, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can also get personal with them to share their insights, stories and experiences related to its industry. By doing so, Gordmans Stores Incorporated would make its customers feel comfortable, valued and connected to the brand. With this recommendation implemented, customers will be more tempted to trust Gordmans Stores Incorporated, purchase its products/services frequently and refer them to acquaintances.
As Gordmans Stores Incorporated provides an online platform on social networks for people to come together and share information, customers feel encouraged to interact and engage actively with others with just a click. Due to this, digital or social media marketing provides a comprehensive platform for Gordmans Stores Incorporated and its customers to get connected to each other in real-time. When Gordmans Stores Incorporated follows both the active and passive approaches to the social media marketing, it is enabled to monitor all conversations about its products and the overall brand. By implementing this second recommendation, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can also gain insights about the industry and its business rivals’ offerings from different blogs, forums, websites and online news etc.
When social media campaigns are promoted using digital marketing, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can get connected with everyone in the market to gather information about demographics of all customers . An important outcome of this recommendation is that as Gordmans Stores Incorporated is able to listen to the voice of all customers through interaction, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can prioritise customer service.
There is a potential that some customers may be dissatisfied with Gordmans Stores Incorporated’s products and after-sales-services. To deal with such unhappy consumer base and prevent any negativity to broadcast against the brand, the media managers can stay alert all the time to immediately spot any issue being raised by any customer. They should also make efforts to have any complaint resolved within a stipulated time-frame. However, if a positive experience and feedback is shared, it should be immediately recorded and the customer should be asked for ways to improve overall experience .
The idea here is to use the online social media as a means to handle customer service activities. This recommendation is profitable for Gordmans Stores Incorporated itself as customers want to reach the seller conveniently to have their issues resolved as efficiently as possible. Twitter and Facebook have become leading mediums to manage complaints and comments because of simple and informal features of communication.
Conclusion
After carefully recommending three different social media or digital marketing for Gordmans Stores Incorporated, it is concluded that if this company utilises these three recommendations effectively, its business is more likely to flourish in the field of online or automated marketing. By implementing active approach to digital marketing, Gordmans Stores Incorporated can connect itself directly with its target market using forums, communities and blogs etc. Nonetheless, the passive approach calls for utilisation of social networking sites to broadcast content and messages while welcoming customer feedback and complaint resolution mechanism.
Gordmans Stores Incorporated should try to not only reach its target market on a broader level but should also actively engage customers in interactive conversation to know about their personal lives. Gordmans Stores Incorporated should also make arrangements to allow consumers to lodge complains in case they encounter any problem related to a product and service. By doing so, Gordmans Stores Incorporated will gain an opportunity to know about any issues and resolve them at a faster pace while revealing its seriousness towards the general public and social media activeness.
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