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Digital and Social Media Marketing Week 4 Notes

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Digital Marketing & Social Media Marketing Week 5

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S is for Situational Analysis

Not a phrase that screams “SEXY MARKETING!”, but “situational analysis” is all about assessing your organisation’s current situation. To put the phrase into plain English it begs the question “Where are we now?”.

It’s all about assessing what you and your competitors are currently doing to attract, engage and retain your target audience and what areas need some work.

The questions that you need to ask yourself are:

Who are your digital customers right now?

How do they interact with your organisation and which digital channels do they use or want to use?

Can you build up a persona for your ideal online customer?

What is your target audience’s age, gender, location, personality, income/occupation, device use, what online and offline publications they read, what interests they have?

What are the digital strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business (SWOT analysis) as a whole?

Who are your competitors? How do they compete? What are they doing well? What are they not doing well in the digital landscape?
Of the digital channels your organisation’s using now, which are getting the most engagement and generating the most traffic?

During this process, you should look at “best of breed” competitors as well as those at a similar level to you. For example, if you are a small independent bike shop you should assess the digital activities of a large national retailer as well as your local rivals.

Yes, the larger rivals may have a budget 100 times yours but you can still take inspiration.

For example, they may have produced a professionally shot video on changing an inner tube that you could imitate with just your smartphone and a decent editing app.

O is for Objectives

Once you have assessed your current situation you can then start thinking about the objectives of your marketing plan. These objectives can relate to different stages of the customer lifecycle such as brand awareness, lead generation, acquisition, visitor conversion (website visitors who make a purchase or perform a desired task, such as downloading a white paper), engagement and retention.

Now, the marketing industry likes a good acronym and this is one of my personal favourites.

Rather than thinking of vague objectives or targets, you need to ensure they are SMART.

Which means

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-bound

As business management doyen Peter Drucker famously said “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” So by setting a specific objective, which is achievable and realistic within a given timeframe, you can measure the success.

For example, rather than stating that “We want to generate more web traffic” you need to reframe that as “We want to generate a 30% increase in web traffic over the next three months.”

At the risk of hammering home the point, the second statement is specific (30% increase in web traffic) measurable (you will know what your current rate of web traffic is from your situational analysis) and achievable and realistic (30% increase rather than 300%) and time-bound (within three months).

Now the 30% figure I have mentioned is rather arbitrary but this will be based on your current digital activity and those of your competitors (you can use tools such as Similarweb to gauge your competitors’ traffic) and how your organisation has performed at the end of the time period (using Google analytics), which we will discuss later in the blog.

S is for Strategy

So once you have set your SMART objectives you need to look at how you are going to achieve them, again using the information you have uncovered from your situational analysis. For example, you may have identified that your rivals are not doing any paid advertising on Google or social media.

Your competitors may have a blogging strategy but aren’t optimising their content for SEO.

Therefore, to achieve your objective of increasing your web traffic by 30% you could adopt a twin approach of utilising SEO and paid advertising on Facebook and Google (as your situational analysis has identified that a large proportion of your target audience uses Facebook and Google).

Questions you need to consider are:

Who is the target audience for your strategy?

Which segments of your customer base is your strategy going to target?

What activities are your competitors engaged in that relate to your objectives?

What are the activities and behaviour of your target audience that relate to the objectives?

What is your Online Value Proposition? In other words, how are you going to differentiate yourself online?

T is for Tactics

So what’s the difference between strategy and tactics? Well, “strategy” describes the overarching approach (such as adopting online advertising and SEO) while tactics get down to the granular detail.

For example, if you are adopting an SEO strategy, what keywords and topics do you want to target?

If it’s a Facebook ad campaign, what demographics and interests are you targeting and what is your budget? What format of Facebook ad are you going to use? What type of imagery and copy is most likely to resonate with your target audience?

By carrying out the work from the previous stages you are most likely to get greater success from your tactics.

For example, by spending time working on your customer persona, you are unlikely to have wasted hours creating blog content that uses inappropriate language and doesn’t resonate with your target audience.

Questions you need to ask at this stage include:

Which digital tools are most appropriate and effective in reaching and engaging your target audience?

How will you use these tools?

What content do you need to develop in terms of content to achieve your objectives –posts, ads, landing pages, white papers, infographics, etc?

How will you convey your online value proposition? And how will you select the right content in terms of imagery, copy, call-to-action, video, etc?

Is there any supporting setup required? For example, installing the Facebook pixel on your website and adding conversion goals in Google Analytics.

A is for Action

Once you’ve worked out exactly what you need to do to put your marketing plan into operation, you need to work out how it’s going to be implemented. In other words, who is going to do what and when?

A simple but effective way of planning this out is by using a Gantt chart, so you can keep on top of what needs to be done when and who is going to do it.

Questions you need to ask at this stage are:

Do you have the internal expertise and capabilities or do you need to hire contractors?

How much lead time do you need? Putting together a 12 week Facebook ads campaign for example is going to take less time than creating a 12-week blog schedule.

A simple but effective way of planning this out is by using a Gantt chart, so you can keep on top of what needs to be done when and who is going to do it.

C is for Control

Once you have implemented your plan you need to monitor the key performance indicators for each tactic, to see if you’re hitting your objectives.

If you’re not then, there’s no need to panic. As I mentioned at the start, there is no “bullet proof” marketing plan. There is a certain element of trial and error.

If you’re not getting as much web traffic from Facebook as you were hoping then perhaps you need to reassess your targeting, copy or images (it’s good practice to conduct A/B testing anyway – where you set up ads with slightly different variables to see which one is the most effective).

If you’re not getting the increase in search traffic, then maybe you’re not targeting the right keywords.

But by using the information in this part of the SOSTAC process you can then refine your situational analysis and objectives for your next campaign.

If you would like to see how deepsocial can help with your digital marketing planning, then please get in touch.

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What do I need to know?

The Consumer Rights Act came into force on 1 October 2015 which meant from that date new consumer rights became law covering:

what should happen when goods are faulty;

what should happen when digital content is faulty;

how services should match up to what has been agreed, and what should happen when they do not, or when they are not provided with reasonable care and skill;

unfair terms in a contract;

what happens when a business is acting in a way which isn’t competitive;

written notice for routine inspections by public enforcers, such as Trading Standards; and

greater flexibility for public enforcers, such as Trading Standards, to respond to breaches of consumer law, such as seeking redress for consumers who have suffered harm.

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Consumer advice
Get advice on consumer issues
About the Act

What is happening?

The Consumer Rights Act came into force on 1 October 2015. The law is now clearer and easier to understand, meaning that consumers can buy and businesses can sell to them with confidence. On the rare occasions when problems arise, disputes can now be sorted out more quickly and cheaply. Alternative Dispute Resolution, for example through an Ombudsman, offers a quicker and cheaper way of resolving disputes than going through the courts. The changes are relevant to all consumers and every business which sells directly to them.

UK consumers spend £90 billion a month. Transparent rights will help them to make better choices when they buy and save them time and money.

What do I need to know?

The Consumer Rights Act came into force on 1 October 2015 which meant from that date new consumer rights became law covering:

what should happen when goods are faulty;

what should happen when digital content is faulty;

how services should match up to what has been agreed, and what should happen when they do not, or when they are not provided with reasonable care and skill;

unfair terms in a contract;

what happens when a business is acting in a way which isn't competitive;

written notice for routine inspections by public enforcers, such as Trading Standards; and

greater flexibility for public enforcers, such as Trading Standards, to respond to breaches of consumer law, such as seeking redress for consumers who have suffered harm.

Most of these changes were important updates to existing laws. But two new areas of law were also introduced.

For the first time rights on digital content have been set out in legislation. The Act gives consumers a clear right to the repair or replacement of faulty digital content, such as online film and games, music downloads and e-books. The law here had been unclear and this change has brought us up to date with how digital products have evolved.

There are now also new, clear rules for what should happen if a service is not provided with reasonable care and skill or as agreed. For example, the business that provided the service must bring it into line with what was agreed with the customer or, if this is not practical, must give some money back.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 stands alongside Regulations to create a greatly simplified body of consumer law. Taken together, they set out the basic rules which govern how consumers buy and businesses sell to them in the UK.

And, what about Alternative Dispute Resolution?

Alternative Dispute Resolution is now available to all businesses to help when a dispute with a consumer cannot be settled directly. Before the Consumer Rights Act became law, this service had only been available in certain sectors. A business which is involved in a dispute will now need to make the consumer aware of a relevant certified Alternative Dispute Resolution provider. The business should also let the consumer know whether or not they are prepared to use the Alternative Dispute Resolution provider to deal with the dispute. However, a business does not have to use Alternative Dispute Resolution unless it operates in a sector where existing legislation makes it mandatory (for example, financial services).

What should I do?

The new laws mean you should be able to learn much more easily what your rights entitle you to and what they don't. You should bear in mind your rights when you research purchases and when you decide between providers. You should be clear where to go for more information in advance of a purchase and what to do if a problem arises.

Citizens Advice is now the primary source of information and advice on these new laws for consumers through its Consumer Service. You can call our consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 or you can talk to a Welsh-speaking adviser on 0808 223 1144. The helplines are open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. They are not open on bank holidays. Alternatively you can e-mail us your consumer inquiry using the form on our website.
Questions and answers about new consumer laws Examples of using the new consumer laws Summaries of your consumer rights

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You need to register for the Plastic Packaging Tax if you:

expect to import into the UK or manufacture in the UK 10 tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging components in the next 30 days

have imported into the UK or manufactured in the UK 10 tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging components since 1 April 2022 — this will change on 31 March 2023, when you will need to look back over the last 12 months on the last day of the month

You will need to pay Plastic Packaging Tax if you have manufactured or imported plastic packaging components which contain less than 30% recycled plastic.

Packaging should only contain recycled plastic where it is permitted under other regulations and food safety standards.

The tax came into force on 1 April 2022 and is charged at a rate of £200 per tonne.

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If you have manufactured or imported 10 or more tonnes of plastic packaging since 1 April 2022, you may need to register for the tax.

You need to register for the Plastic Packaging Tax if you:

expect to import into the UK or manufacture in the UK 10 tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging components in the next 30 days

have imported into the UK or manufactured in the UK 10 tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging components since 1 April 2022 - this will change on 31 March 2023, when you will need to look back over the last 12 months on the last day of the month

You will need to pay Plastic Packaging Tax if you have manufactured or imported plastic packaging components which contain less than 30% recycled plastic.

Packaging should only contain recycled plastic where it is permitted under other regulations and food safety standards.

The tax came into force on 1 April 2022 and is charged at a rate of £200 per tonne.

What you must do

1. Check which packaging is subject to Plastic Packaging Tax and the definitions of finished components and substantial modifications, to find out if the packaging you manufacture or import is subject to the tax.

2. Work out the weight of the packaging you manufacture or import to find out if you must register for the tax.

3. Find out how to register.

4. Check which records and accounts you must keep and how to carry out due diligence.

5. Find out if you can get tax relief on exported and converted components.

6. Find out how to submit your return.

Get help and support

If you have a question about Plastic Packaging Tax and cannot find an answer in GOV.UK guidance, you can ask HMRC to answer it. You should either:

To send a question using the online form, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you send your question.

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What intellectual property is

Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people stealing or copying:

the names of your products or brands

your inventions

the design or look of your products

things you write, make or produce

Copyright, patents, designs and trade marks are all types of intellectual property protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

What counts as intellectual property

Intellectual property is something that you create using your mind - for example, a story, an invention, an artistic work or a symbol.

Owning intellectual property

You own intellectual property if you:

created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design)

bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner

have a brand that could be a trade mark, for example, a well-known product name

Intellectual property can:

have more than one owner

belong to people or businesses

be sold or transferred

Intellectual property rights allow you to make money from the intellectual property you own.

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Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people stealing or copying:

the names of your products or brands

your inventions

the design or look of your products

things you write, make or produce

Copyright, patents, designs and trade marks are all types of intellectual property protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

What counts as intellectual property

Intellectual property is something that you create using your mind - for example, a story, an invention, an artistic work or a symbol.

Owning intellectual property

You own intellectual property if you:

created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design)

bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner

have a brand that could be a trade mark, for example, a well-known product name

Intellectual property can:

have more than one owner

belong to people or businesses

be sold or transferred

Intellectual property rights allow you to make money from the intellectual property you own.

Intellectual property if you're self-employed

If you're self-employed, you usually own the intellectual property even if your work was commissioned by someone else - unless your contract with them gives them the rights.

You usually will not own the intellectual property for something you created as part of your work while you were employed by someone else.

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What intellectual property is, how you can protect it, and which of copyright, patents, design right and trade marks applies to your work

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TOWS analysis is a tool which is used to generate, compare and select strategies. Strictly speaking it is not the same as SWOT analysis, and it is certainly not a SWOT analysis which focuses on threats and opportunities. This is a popular misconception. TOWS may have similar roots. TOWS is a tool for strategy generation and selection; SWOT analysis is a tool for audit and analysis. One would use a SWOT at the beginning of the planning process, and a TOWS later as you decide upon ways forward.

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Retail is no exception. In a survey conducted by the Journal of Consumer Affairs, about one-third of minority consumers responded that they have experienced racial discrimination from an advertisement.⁵ That percentage spikes when looking at what happens physically inside a retailer’s doors. More than 60 percent of African Americans say they have experienced racial discrimination inside a retail store, and half have experienced racial discrimination when making a purchase (Exhibit 1).

Furthermore, when looking at the leadership diversity among retail and consumer companies, it is clear that there is work to do. In 2019, women held on average only 26 percent of board seats for retail and consumer companies and made up 14 percent of executives. Even worse, ethnically diverse individuals held just 16 percent of board seats and 13 percent of executive positions. In the midst of these statistics, there is evidence of progress, with players like PVH leading the way. Through a dedicated focus on diversity, PVH’s senior leadership team is roughly 50 percent female with 33 percent of board seats belonging to women as well.

We also see top retailers taking recent actions that signal real commitment to change. Their actions have included pledging donations to support racial-equity initiatives, making bold commitments to increase racial representation of employees at all levels, and doubling down on training for employees at headquarters and in stores.

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The time has come

Today's crises, like the deaths that fuel the calls for racial equity, are not new; however, the responses to the crises are unprecedented. People in more than 4,200 cities and towns around the world have staged protests. Fifteen to 25-plus million people in America have participated in them, and not just people from Black communities. Over half of protestors (54 percent) are white, marking a notable difference from racial protests of the past. By contrast, the US civil rights movement had hundreds of thousands of protesters. In addition, the largest group taking to the streets represents America's newest generations, with the majority of protesters under the age of 35.

The statistics suggest that we are in the midst of the largest equity and justice movement of our time. It's big. It's powerful. And it will shape the future for consumer-centric businesses.

Retail is no exception. In a survey conducted by the Journal of Consumer Affairs, about one-third of minority consumers responded that they have experienced racial discrimination from an advertisement. That percentage spikes when looking at what happens physically inside a retailer's doors. More than 60 percent of African Americans say they have experienced racial discrimination inside a retail store, and half have experienced racial discrimination when making a purchase (Exhibit 1).

Furthermore, when looking at the leadership diversity among retail and consumer companies, it is clear that there is work to do. In 2019, women held on average only 26 percent of board seats for retail and consumer companies and made up 14 percent of executives. Even worse, ethnically diverse individuals held just 16 percent of board seats and 13 percent of executive positions. In the midst of these statistics, there is evidence of progress, with players like PVH leading the way. Through a dedicated focus on diversity, PVH's senior leadership team is roughly 50 percent female with 33 percent of board seats belonging to women as well.

We also see top retailers taking recent actions that signal real commitment to change. Their actions have included pledging donations to support racial-equity initiatives, making bold commitments to increase racial representation of employees at all levels, and doubling down on training for employees at headquarters and in stores.

For example, Gap has committed publicly to closing the space between the diversity of its employees and the diversity of the US population by doubling the representation of Black and Latinx employees in its US headquarters by 2025. Sephora was the first large retailer to take on the 15 percent pledge. In doing so, the beauty retailer is dedicating 15 percent of its shelf space to Black-owned businesses, thereby using its merchandising prowess to turn shopping into activism. Macy's has also accepted the pledge, which, alongside the retailer's "Workshop" project to educate women- and minority-owned businesses on growth, represents a dedication and cross-category commitment to diversity.

These leading retailers aren't just speaking out, they're acting.

When looking at the leadership diversity among retail and consumer companies, it is clear that there is work to do.

Diversity and inclusion are business imperatives

Diversity is a matter of who is in the workplace. Companies measure diversity with metrics on representation and advancement. Inclusion is a matter of how people experience the workplace. Companies measure inclusion through both employees' perceptions of the organization and their personal experiences at work. Both diversity and inclusion are critical and mutually reinforcing-organizations cannot simply focus on one or the other.

The business case for increasing diversity and inclusion is indisputable:

First, there are real financial benefits. Looking over five years of data, including 1,000 companies in 15 countries, we see a strong connection between diversity in company leadership and the likelihood of financial outperformance. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25 percent more likely to outperform those in the bottom quartile. Similarly, companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 36 percent more likely to outperform their less diverse peers.

Second, consumers care. Today's consumers are more diverse than ever, and they are expecting and demanding more from brands (Exhibit 2).

This growing cohort of younger consumers votes for diversity and inclusion with their wallets and spreads the word on social media. A recent survey found that more than 75 percent of Gen Z consumers will end relationships with companies that run ad campaigns perceived as macho, racist, or homophobic. We conducted customer interviews to understand, in their own words, what customers of some of the largest apparel brands think about the role of retailers in creating a more socially just and equitable world. The connection is clear. One said,
"By purchasing an article of clothing, I am also partaking in social responsibility with their brand identity."
On what "good" looks like, one customer said,
"I think the brands that are doing it best are being quantitative instead of qualitative. So they are saying 'we are going to commit to the number' or 'here is where we are and here is our goal.'"
We also heard that a single statement is not enough:

"If I wanted to know-I would see it in their marketing materials, their photographs, the labels, and other things; not necessarily this press release sent out to everybody."

Diversity and inclusion matter in the war for talent. Employees believe that their companies have a growing social responsibility. For 78 percent of millennials, that means a responsibility to better the world. And that responsibility takes center stage when attracting and hiring top talent. Almost 40 percent of millennials have not pursued or have turned down a job because they perceived their potential employer to lack inclusive mindsets and actions. More than half of people of color (52 percent) will not work for a company that fails to speak out on racial inequality.

In an interview with Jyothi Rao, President of Intermix (acquired by The Gap in 2012), she emphasizes the importance of winning the battle for diverse talent. She says,
"If your company isn't diverse and if you're not hiring and cultivating diverse talent, how much can you really have your finger on the pulse of culture? At the end of the day, consumer businesses are about relevance. If you aren't leading on diverse talent, you won't have your finger on the pulse of culture. And you won't be relevant."
Missteps can seriously damage reputation and sales, as Dolce & Gabbana learned after launching a 2018 ad campaign in China. The ad showed a Chinese model eating Italian food with chopsticks and caused the company's brand health score to plummet from 6.0 the week before the ad ran to -15.3 after. Given Chinese consumers account for about one-third of luxury-brand spending, boycotts ensued as a result of the grave misstep. In our interviews, we heard the cost of a misstep firsthand from a customer: "I don't spend money in places I don't believe in. I think it is really important to put your money in what you believe in."

Diverse teams that mirror their customer bases are more likely to spot missteps before they happen. Airbnb is an example of a customer-facing company who learned this early in their history in 2016. Building its first platform, Airbnb wanted to create trust, given that, at the time, renting an unknown person's home was a new and largely untested concept at such a wide scale. To foster trust between hosts and guests, Airbnb put user profile photos front and center under the assumption that visualizing someone would build trust.

Unfortunately, the team of white leaders did not foresee the very real bias that was inherently being built into the system. In fact, guests with African American names were 16 percent less likely to get the rental. Airbnb's CEO and cofounder reflected that "three white guys" did not realize how their well-meaning business decisions could lead to biases. He also realized that they were "slow to address concerns about discrimination because the company's employees are not sufficiently diverse." In an environment where 80 percent of consumers expect brands to solve society's problems, Airbnb vowed to change. Since then, Airbnb has taken actions to improve both diversity and inclusion at the company with the aspiration to "belong anywhere," including publicly sharing representation numbers.

The business case for diversity and inclusion has several practical implications for retailers. Sustaining and growing the business requires retaining current customers, who, regardless of race, are demonstrating with their foot traffic and wallets that diversity and inclusion matter. In addition, winning new customers who are increasingly diverse and committed to social justice requires reflecting their values in the retail business. Attracting and retaining the best talent to achieve growth aspirations requires responding to employee needs and building a workforce that reflects the customer base. If employees care, so must their employers. Leading the way requires proactive, not simply reactive, action.

Leading companies are showing what good looks like

No retailer has "solved" the diversity and inclusion imperative, and there is no one strategy or set of initiatives that can be applied to every company. However, the efforts of leaders across consumer-facing business, ranging from Delta Air Lines to Levi Strauss to CVS Health to West Elm, show the importance of acting on both internal and external fronts.

Looking internally, leading companies take an aspiration-back perspective. They ask themselves, "Who do we need to be to achieve our mission?" The aspiration-back approach starts by defining the desired outcome and then shaping actions to achieve it.

Levi Strauss, for example, set the aspiration of having the racial profile of its corporate employees match that of the US population. This aspiration led the company to pursue stronger partnerships with historically black colleges and universities in order to build a pipeline of more racially diverse talent. In addition, they set the clear goal of requiring that "half of the interviewees for open positions will be racially diverse candidates and ... ensuring that they are interviewed by a panel [of] racially diverse leaders."

Looking externally, leading companies take a capability-forward perspective. They ask themselves, "How can we use our unique capabilities and assets to be a change agent?" They look for opportunities to leverage their know-how, resources, relationships, footprint, or products to achieve meaningful societal impact that is aligned with their brand. West Elm, for example, is using its track record of collaborating with global artists and designers as a platform to deliver against the 15 percent pledge and put forth a more diverse design aesthetic that customers will live with and encounter daily in their homes.

Progress requires action

Leading companies do not just say the right things; they translate words into actions. More than 60 percent of US consumers agree that brands that issue statements in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion must follow up with action. If not, they risk being perceived as exploitative or opportunistic. However, successful companies do not jump into action without thought. They invest time and effort in understanding, examining their own facts and data, acknowledging their own starting point, and reflecting on the unique change they can create.

The companies that truly move the needle take a five-step approach to identifying, shaping, and deploying high-impact internal and external actions (Exhibit 3). They start with setting a bold but achievable aspiration grounded in a solid assessment of their current state qualitatively and quantitatively. Then they architect a series of initiatives to help move the organization from the current state to the desired aspiration.

For example, if a company sets an aspiration to increase Black representation by 2025, it needs to understand the current starting place and the barriers that are blocking progress. The intervention would look significantly different if, in the "assess" phase, the company found that there aren't enough Black applicants versus if they found that Black applicants aren't making it past the first-round interview. For the first situation, the company might increase its diverse sourcing channels; in the second, the company might deploy unconscious-bias training for interviewers or require diverse slates.

Sustained progress starts with the first commitment

Achieving change requires making bold, transformational moves, not just incremental steps. And it all starts with a commitment to both internal and external change-today.

For internal commitments, retailers should ask themselves, "Who do we need to be as a company to achieve our mission?" For external commitments, consider questions like, "What are the company's unique capabilities and resources? How can we use those as powerful tools to advance change?"

Then build the quantitative and qualitative fact base to understand the starting point:

Analyze where the company is against key metrics by role and location (for example, racial and gender diversity and inclusion sentiment in stores versus headquarters), and examine the differences in experiences between majority and minority populations.

Conduct a comprehensive and objective review of core processes to understand where risks for bias lie (for example, hiring practices, selling practices, product-design assumptions, marketing processes, asset protection, and technology). These reviews are often conducted in conjunction with a diverse, objective body to drive accountability.

Achieving change requires making bold, transformational moves, not just incremental steps. And it all starts with a commitment to both internal and external change-today.

Using the fact base, architect a road map to close the gap between today and the future aspiration:

Create a road map with both short-term and long-term actions to deliver against the aspiration. Success with short-term actions will help gain momentum for actions that require more time to execute.

Engage business owners to stand for diversity and inclusion through brand and marketing. For example, Aerie's #AerieREAL ad campaigns feature unretouched photos of diverse women across ages, ethnicities, and body types. Nike's powerful "For once, don't do it" campaign urged customers and followers: "Don't pretend there's not a problem in America; Don't turn your back on racism."

Engage store managers and associates to develop actions and to help hold the company accountable on the front lines.

Today's thoughtful planning and traction against short-term actions will establish the foundation; however, make no mistake that the road is long and requires dedicated effort and resources to ensure sustained progress.

Retail leaders can sustain progress by practicing the following:

Conducting regular pulse checks with customers to measure success and act on suggestions aligned with your strategy.

Progress takes time. The best retail leaders will launch meaningful initiatives immediately and also recognize the need for efforts that can take longer to complete, such as leadership capability building. Leaders need to start planning now to craft a capability-forward external strategy and an aspiration-back internal strategy that will deliver sustained progress and impact over time.

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Today's crises, like the deaths that fuel the calls for racial equity, are not new; however, the responses to the crises are unprecedented. People in more than 4,200 cities and towns around the world have staged protests. Fifteen to 25-plus million people in America have participated in them, and not just people from Black communities.

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82% of shoppers use social media to make a purchase

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Social commerce is booming with over 82% of responders having previously discovered a product on social media and made a purchase using their mobile phone. A new social commerce report The Influencer Marketing Factory found that a growing number of people prefer online shopping (40%) compared to on…

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The war in Ukraine is fuelling a cost of living crisis. On Tuesday, Eurostat said 12-month inflation in the Eurozone stood at 8.1 per cent - the highest figure ever recorded by the European statistics office.

This is squeezing households across Europe, with 83 per cent of Spanish families, 80 per cent in the UK, 76 in Italy, 66 in France, 65 in Denmark and 62 in Sweden all reporting rising day-to-day costs in a YouGov Poll.

It's not just Europe; far from it. Populations in the Middle East and Africa are under immense pressure as the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine spills across the globe.

In April, the head of the IMF warned the war in Ukraine was creating the risk of "shortages" and "social instability" in these regions by driving higher prices. But how is the Ukraine war contributing to the current crisis?

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How is the Ukraine war affecting the cost of living crisis?

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to record-breaking inflation. But how is the war affecting the cost of living? #ThisWillImpactYourLife

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The cost of living has been increasing across the UK since early 2021. The annual rate of inflation reached 11.1% in October 2022, a 41-year high, before easing to 10.7% in November and 10.5% in December 2022. High inflation affects the affordability of goods and services for households.

Increases in the costs of consumer goods, underpinned by strong demand from consumers and supply chain bottlenecks, have been factors causing rising inflation. Food prices have also been rising sharply over the past year.

Another important driver of inflation is energy prices, with household energy tariffs and road fuel costs increasing. From December 2021 to December 2022, domestic gas prices increased by 129% and domestic electricity prices by 65%. Gas prices increased to record levels after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and continued to rise during much of 2022 due to cuts in Russian supply. Electricity prices are linked to gas prices and have followed a similar trend.

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Political: 3 Prime Ministers in 2 Months and the Ramifications

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Political: 3 Prime Ministers in 2 Months and the Ramifications

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Rishi Sunak is the UK's third prime minister in less than two months - the fifth in six years. It is the fastest turnover of leaders in No 10 for nearly a century.

Since the summer of 2007, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Mr Sunak have all held the top office. In contrast, there were just three prime ministers in the 28 years before - Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair.

What is the cause of the revolving door at No 10? And could this trend be the new normal for British politics?

Jill Rutter, from the think tank the Institute for Government, believes the Brexit vote in 2016 has been the number one destabilising factor in British politics over the last six years.

"We can attribute almost all of the instability to a fallout of the Brexit referendum and what it has done to the Conservative Party," she says.

"David Cameron was a long-serving prime minister. Had he not had the referendum, he could have been on track till 2018 and would have handed over to either George Osborne or Boris Johnson.

"He was derailed by calling the referendum. It was a tactical error not to go all-out for the victory and thinking victory was in the bag," she adds.

Mr Cameron's resignation after six years in office paved the way for Theresa May. She spent three years and 11 days in office, while her successor, Boris Johnson, spent three years and 44 days at the helm.

"Theresa May was clearly brought trouble by a twin combination - the disastrous election in 2017 and the fact that she and the party could not agree what Brexit meant," Ms Rutter adds.

She says the Conservative Party "thought Boris Johnson could break the Brexit deadlock, but one of the ways he did that was by not paying much attention to norms and rules".

"It was his failure to do this that brought him down. It meant his ministers could not take it anymore. They'd gone for somebody in desperation."

Liz Truss's shorter premiership at barely seven weeks was, according to Ms Rutter, a direct legacy of the referendum.

"The membership had changed quite a bit," she explains. "They were ready for the message about ignoring orthodoxy. But they discovered when they went hell for leather against conventional wisdom, they fell over in a heap."

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King's College in London, agrees.

"The referendum has destabilised British politics," he says. "The difficulty has been to find the right relationship with Europe."

But is it really all about Brexit?

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University, believes the trend could be something that runs much deeper.

He points to what he calls the "presidentialisation" of the UK's parliamentary system, or the greater focus on party leaders, as one of the reasons that prime ministers' terms are not lasting as long.

"There is far more focus from voters and politicians on party leaders and rather less on the party as a whole - that means that the leader is often held personally responsible for anything that goes wrong," he says.

"It is now pretty much impossible for a party leader to lead his or her party [after] an election defeat," he explains, adding that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was the notable exception to the rule in 2017.

Aged 42, Rishi Sunak is the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years. He has risen through the ranks of the Conservative Party in the space of just seven years since he was first elected as an MP in 2015.

"MPs can come into parliament and very quickly gain a name for themselves," Prof Bale says.

"That has destabilised parliamentary politics. It used to be quite hierarchical, but MPs are generally impatient to move up the ladder but also if they think things are not working they would be piling onto Twitter and the rolling news channels to say 'something needs to change - and that includes the leader'."

Prof Bale believes the rise of social and digital media has also made a big difference to how voters view politicians.

In the past, "politicians were not faceless," he says, "but they were not the celebrities they are now. That feeds through to how voters view politics."

Prof Bogdanor disagrees. The governments of David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill during the two world wars, William Gladstone in the 19th century, and more recently Margaret Thatcher could all be described as "presidential," he argues.

"Governments have always been presidential," he says. "The power of the prime minister ebbs and flows really with their electoral position."

Prof Bogdanor believes Mr Sunak might now usher in a period greater stability.

"I cannot see him being overthrown in the next two years. There is going to be economic hardship, but the Conservatives have two years until the next general election."

But Patrick Dunleavy, emeritus professor of political science and public policy at the London School of Economics, believes an election will be held before the two-year deadline.

"I do not think that the two years is a credible timeline now," he says, arguing that pinch points for Mr Sunak include the local council elections next year and then his anniversary in office, depending on his opinion poll ratings.

Prof Dunleavy also sees the problem in other Westminster-style systems. Australia, which is also a parliamentary system, has had nine prime ministers in 12 years, owing in part to what are called spill elections. It has led to Australia being dubbed "coup capital of the democratic world"..

Leadership spills occur when members of the parliamentary party feel that the leader is taking them in the wrong direction, or not delivering on the promises made to those who elected them, and does not have the numbers to back their position.

"The Conservative Party has moved over to full spill election operations. They were threatening Cameron in 2016, they were used against May - she survived the first one then she had to give up - they were used against Boris and then against Truss," Prof Dunleavy says.

"Spill elections are definitely here in the UK."

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Three PMs in two months, is political chaos the UK's new normal?

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Rishi Sunak is the UK's third prime minister in less than two months - the fifth in six years. It is the fastest turnover of leaders in No 10 for nearly a century. Since the summer of 2007, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Mr Sunak have all held the top office.

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Political: Brexit's Impact on Supply Chains

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Political: Brexit's Impact on Supply Chains

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Six years on from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, Brexit is still proving the biggest headache for British businesses, ranking even higher than Russia’s war in Ukraine, Covid or rising energy costs.

Four in five UK businesses felt that Brexit had proved the biggest supply chain disruptor over the past 12 months, according to an Ivalua survey conducted by Coleman Parkes in August. An even higher proportion — 83% — think the worst is yet to come.

Almost a third of businesses said they had lost revenues as a result of the disruptions, estimating an average drop of around 18%, and around two thirds said they had either been fined or suffered reputational damage as a result of goods arriving late. The poll, released Monday, canvased 303 UK procurement managers at companies with 1,000 or more employees and revenue of more than £50 million ($60 million).

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Brexit Remains Biggest Headache in UK’s Recession-Prone Economy

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Six years on from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, Brexit is still proving the biggest headache for British businesses, ranking even higher than Russia’s war in Ukraine, Covid or rising energy costs.

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Defining The North Star Metric

The North Star metric concept originally emerged from Silicon Valley, and is best utilized by companies that invest in long-term sustainable growth. It focuses on the product and the core value it delivers to customers. The value your customers receive from your product is measured by key steps in the consumer lifecycle. Very often (especially in technology and SaaS companies), the North Star is related to the acquisition of new users and the engagement of existing users.

How To Find Your North Star Metric

In order to determine the single most important metric for your growth model, you should look at how your product delivers value to your customers. You should be able to understand the value your customers get from your product looking at user engagement and activity level. For example, for Medium (the reader and writer network) the metric is "total time reading," for Facebook it is "daily active users," for Airbnb the metric is "nights booked," and for KindCoins (a donation app that I co-founded) it is "monthly active users."

Monthly active users was chosen as the North Star metric for our app due to three major factors:

It allows us to gather data to more predictably calculate revenue linked to churn rates.

It gives insight on user engagement.

It guides marketing efforts due to market/customer feasibility testing.

We have additional KPIs that are specific to the customer funnel stage, but monthly active users, is our North Star for the time being.

The metric should hold inherent value and be able to tell you how to optimize your product and create more value for your users. You should also source information from all your teams and conduct in-depth analyses to define your key metric. It should clearly point your company in the right direction for long-term healthy growth, be able to bring the entire company to focus on this direction, and make sense for all teams.

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Running any business can be a complex ecosystem of many moving parts. Making them all work together in unison can seem more frustrating than the daily life of Sisyphus, but finding the useful takeaways and giving them structure is the key to success. That structure is rarely as simple as a single number defining direction or executive decision. However, actually having an overarching metric that gives direction and aligns all the other metrics together can be infinitely useful.

Your company has a defined mission to meet a need and a unique value proposition to meet that need better than anyone else (at least you should). The North Star metric gives you a direction that is in line with the value you offer to your customers. That direction is the single largest driver of sustainable long-term growth -- and is inevitably linked to your customers' engagement with your product. The key steps of that engagement help your team build your growth model.
Defining The North Star Metric
The North Star metric concept originally emerged from Silicon Valley, and is best utilized by companies that invest in long-term sustainable growth. It focuses on the product and the core value it delivers to customers. The value your customers receive from your product is measured by key steps in the consumer lifecycle. Very often (especially in technology and SaaS companies), the North Star is related to the acquisition of new users and the engagement of existing users.

The value that the product creates for your customers drives their engagement and ultimately creates value and strategic direction for your company. This direction and the metric that defines it should serve as the epitome of your company objective and should promote the focus of all your team. It should be able to serve you in improving or creating a mechanism that ultimately drives productivity and fortifies your growth model. Ideally, when selected correctly, the metric will be the core of your strategic growth tactics.
How To Find Your North Star Metric
In order to determine the single most important metric for your growth model, you should look at how your product delivers value to your customers. You should be able to understand the value your customers get from your product looking at user engagement and activity level. For example, for Medium (the reader and writer network) the metric is "total time reading," for Facebook it is "daily active users," for Airbnb the metric is "nights booked," and for KindCoins (a donation app that I co-founded) it is "monthly active users."

Monthly active users was chosen as the North Star metric for our app due to three major factors:

It allows us to gather data to more predictably calculate revenue linked to churn rates.

It gives insight on user engagement.

It guides marketing efforts due to market/customer feasibility testing.

We have additional KPIs that are specific to the customer funnel stage, but monthly active users, is our North Star for the time being.

The metric should hold inherent value and be able to tell you how to optimize your product and create more value for your users. You should also source information from all your teams and conduct in-depth analyses to define your key metric. It should clearly point your company in the right direction for long-term healthy growth, be able to bring the entire company to focus on this direction, and make sense for all teams.
Growth Hacking
Once you pin down your North Star metric, you can create a mechanism around it that can help you drive growth. In order to build your growth model, you should look into the variables that define your metric. Those variables are steps along the consumer journey, like new users, engagement and retention. Mapping them and creating a comprehensive model of their relationships can help you understand their interactions and grow your key metric.

The user steps are the inputs in this model and your North Star metric is the output. The ecosystem you create in the process is your growth model. It comes down to analyzing your user experience data and using it for deeper insight. You can use the data to segment your customers for more insight into their buyer journey so you can offer a more individualized pitch at each touch point.

This insight will help you align your priorities and give more structure and focus to your teams. Your teams will be able to look closer into user segments and discover significant drivers of growth. The more detailed you get, the better you will be able to forecast your growth.
Conclusion
It is important to keep in mind that the North Star metric is not an end solution in and of itself. A key metric gives focus on your growth efforts and can serve as a seed to grow a company ecosystem that gives you deep insight into your customer's behavior and creates levers to drive future growth. It leads to understanding your customers and unifying your team on how to better bring value. The North Star metric is a tool that focuses on results.

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Council Post: How To Find Your Company's North Star Metric

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Running any business can be a complex ecosystem of many moving parts. Making them all work together in unison can seem more frustrating than the daily life of Sisyphus, but finding the useful takeaways and giving them structure is the key to success.

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1.   Situation – where are we now?

2.   Objectives – where do we want to be?

3.   Strategy – how do we get here?

4.   Tactics – how exactly do we get there?

5.   Action – what is our plan?

6.   Control – did we get there?

What you may be weak at?

Do we fail to complete proper situational analysis?

Do we have an appropriate strategy? Tactics?

Do we control performance using analytics?

Are our objectives SMART?

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Porter's 5 forces are:

1. Competition in the industry
2. Potential of new entrants into the industry
3. Power of suppliers
4. Power of customers
5. Threat of substitute products

The Five Forces model is widely used to analyze the industry structure of a company as well as its corporate strategy. Porter identified five undeniable forces that play a part in shaping every market and industry in the world, with some caveats. The Five Forces are frequently used to measure competition intensity, attractiveness, and profitability of an industry or market.

1. Competition in the Industry

The first of the Five Forces refers to the number of competitors and their ability to undercut a company. The larger the number of competitors, along with the number of equivalent products and services they offer, the lesser the power of a company.

Suppliers and buyers seek out a company's competition if they are able to offer a better deal or lower prices. Conversely, when competitive rivalry is low, a company has greater power to charge higher prices and set the terms of deals to achieve higher sales and profits.

Rivalry amongst competitors – rivalry among existing competitors take many familiar forms, including:

·      Pricing discounting

·      New product introductions

·      Advertising campaigns, and

·      Service improvements

High levels of rivalry limit the profitability of an industry.

2. Potential of New Entrants Into an Industry

A company's power is also affected by the force of new entrants into its market. The less time and money it costs for a competitor to enter a company's market and be an effective competitor, the more an established company's position could be significantly weakened.

An industry with strong barriers to entry is ideal for existing companies within that industry since the company would be able to charge higher prices and negotiate better terms.

Threats of New Entrants:
“New entrants to an industry bring new capacity and a desire to gain market share that puts pressure on prices, costs, and the rate of investment necessary to compete”.

Barriers to Entry:

·      Supply side economies of scale (cost advantages companies gain from increasing production)

·      Buyer’s face switching costs in changing vendors (eg, ERP systems like SAP)

·      High capital requirements

·      Incumbency advantage

·      Access to distribution channels (eg, shelf space in a supermarket)

3. Power of Suppliers

The next factor in the Porter model addresses how easily suppliers can drive up the cost of inputs. It is affected by the number of suppliers of key inputs of a good or service, how unique these inputs are, and how much it would cost a company to switch to another supplier. The fewer suppliers to an industry, the more a company would depend on a supplier.

As a result, the supplier has more power and can drive up input costs and push for other advantages in trade. On the other hand, when there are many suppliers or low switching costs between rival suppliers, a company can keep its input costs lower and enhance its profits.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers – powerful suppliers capture more of the value for themselves by:

·      Charging higher prices

·      Limiting quality or services or

·      Shifting costs to industry participants

Sources of Supplier Power

·      There are few sellers in the industry (e.g., Microsoft’s operating system is a monopoly, lead any software - duopoly). Duopoly is a situation where 2 different suppliers dominate one market.

·      Products/services are differentiated

·      Buyers facing switching costs in changing vendors (e.g., ERP systems like SAP)

·      There is no substitute

·      Threat of forward integration (acquisition of companies in the lower side of the supply chain)

4. Power of Customers

The ability that customers have to drive prices lower or their level of power is one of the Five Forces. It is affected by how many buyers or customers a company has, how significant each customer is, and how much it would cost a company to find new customers or markets for its output.

A smaller and more powerful client base means that each customer has more power to negotiate for lower prices and better deals. A company that has many, smaller, independent customers will have an easier time charging higher prices to increase profitability.

Sources of Buyer Power

·      There are few buyers in the industry

·      Products/services are undifferentiated

·      Generally playing industry participants against each other

·      Buyers face few switching costs in changing vendors

·      Threat of backward integration (acquisition of companies in the upper side of the supply chain)

5. Threat of Substitutes

The last of the Five Forces focuses on substitutes. Substitute goods or services that can be used in place of a company's products or services pose a threat. Companies that produce goods or services for which there are no close substitutes will have more power to increase prices and lock in favorable terms. When close substitutes are available, customers will have the option to forgo buying a company's product, and a company's power can be weakened.

Understanding Porter's Five Forces and how they apply to an industry, can enable a company to adjust its business strategy to better use its resources to generate higher earnings for its investors.

Threat of Substitutes – a substitute performs the same or a similar function as an industry’s product by a different means.

·      Zoom is a substitute for travel

·      Plastic is a substitute for aluminium

·      Email is a substitute for “express mail”

Substitution threat is high when…

·      The substitute offers an attractive price performance trade off to the industry’s product

·      The buyer’s cost of switching to the substitute is low (e.g., switching to generic from branded drugs)

·      Buyers face few switching costs in changing vendors.

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Porter’s 5 Forces Explained and How to Use the Model

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Porter’s 5 Forces is a model that identifies and analyzes the competitive forces that shape every industry and helps determine an industry’s weaknesses and strengths.

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List of potential objectives that the brand could achieve:

1. Increase in overall company revenue
2. Increase in market share
3. Gaining more website traffic
4. Social media engagement
5. Increase in customer conversion rate
6. Increase in social media related website visits
7. Average order value (AOV) [3.5million / AOV: 72 = 12,867]

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Digital and Social Media Marketing Week 3 Notes

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A survey back in early 2021 of UK fashion bosses suggested that 59% were already seeing the impact of Brexit on their businesses, with 77% expecting that true impact to start to be felt post-lockdown.

According to the UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT), 98% of UK fashion businesses it surveyed in 2021 experienced higher costs through bureaucracy and paperwork, 92% experienced increased freight costs, 83% increased customers costs, 53% seeing cancelled orders from EU customers and 44% have seen increase in returned or rejected items due to customs costs and VAT issue.

As a result, finds the RetailX Fashion Sector Report 2022, 25% of fashion retailers were considering relocating some or all of their operations elsewhere in the EU to make logistics, staffing and manufacturing easier. 39% would move to the EU if they were offered tax advantages. 91% want a visa scheme to make it easier for creatives to operate across the UK and EU.

For European consumers, Brexit has predominantly led to changes in VAT, prices and ease of buying and having delivered UK fashion goods. From the onset of the UK’s departure from the EU, European customers of UK goods pay their own local VAT, which can be advantageous. Products sold by UK vendors that are made in, say, China, however may see additional duties added as they cross into the continent.

Paperwork for exports can also see prices rise for EU customers, as well as leading to much longer lead times – making the appeal of UK fast fashion less.

Together this is harmful to the UK fashion industry, but has led to benefits for the EU fashion industry to increase its sales within the continent to make up for the drop-off in purchasing of UK goods.

The UK does, however, stand to see some benefits from Brexit. Freed from EU collective bargaining, it could strike favourable trade deals with other markets – most notably the US and China – which could lead to increased sales of UK fashion goods in these markets.

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The impact of Brexit on retail: how three key sectors have faired - Internet Retailing

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Before the pandemic, Brexit was the most impactful thing to happen to retail. So, how have key sectors had to adapt?

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Methods of Digital Marketing and Reasons 

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Methods of Digital Marketing and Reasons 

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SEO
1. Improvement on SEO exposure
Content Marketing
Social Media Marketing
PPC
Affiliate Marketing
Native Advertising
Marketing Automation
Email Marketing
Online PR
Sponsored Contents

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Strategy, Consulting, Digital, Technology and Operations | Accenture UK

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Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.

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Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

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This is a shortlist of 5 brands that I would do some preliminary research on before making my final choice. These are;

1. Coach
2. Adidas
3. Palace
4. Diesel
5. The North Face

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Digital and Social Media Marketing Week 2 Notes

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Digital and Social Media Marketing Week 1