Digital Marketing Report New.docx

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT NAME: Jingyi Chen TUTOR: Matthew Denes DATE:11.03.2019 WORD COUNT: 2024

Executive summary This report critically evaluates the theories on customer engagement behaviour and social media as digital marketing channels. Based on the academic literature the customer engagement of ASDA is analysed across various platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Based on the analyses there are a few recommendations made to better manage customer engagement behaviour.

Table of Contents

Executive summary........................................................................................................... 1 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 3 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 4 Application of theories ............................................................................................................. 7 1. 2.

TWITTER .............................................................................................................................................. 7 INSTAGRAM ....................................................................................................................................... 10

3. RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................. 11 4. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 12

1. INTRODUCTION Asda is one of the leading supermarkets in the UK with about 15% market share. It is third in terms of market share after TESCO and Sainsbury’s. ASDA stores limited was originally founded as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd, in the year 1949 in the city of Leeds UK. It was in the year 1965 when Peter Asquith partnered with Associated Dairies ASDA was born. ASquith+DAiries= ASDA. As the first discount offering retailer Asda has based its marketing campaign on being Britain’s lowest priced supermarket offering their customers products at great value (Asda, 2019). As of October 2018 Asda had 635 stores across UK of which 339 were superstores. Being one of the biggest company in the UK Asda has its presence on various social media platforms. According to a study by searchmatic.com (2015) an online marketing researcher Asda along with Tesco was the most visible supermarket brand on Pinterest. Jim Leichenko (2016) regarded Asda to be the leader in paid online advertisement amongst the other supermarket retailers. The following section looks at the literature on customer engagement behaviour and critically evaluates how Asda has used the theories in managing customer engagement behaviour. Section three provides a few recommendations on how Asda and improve in customer engagement.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW With constant growth in local and global online population the amount of time spent online has also spiralled up in the recent past. People are more often online and spend a good amount of time online. All of this has increased the scope of digital marketing. Organisations across the globe have taken notice of this growth and are employing their resources towards digital marketing (Ryan, D., 2016). The consumers these days have access to abundance of information at their convenience, they are better connected to one another across the globe than ever before. This has resulted in making todays customers better informed, better connected and in control. The customers are better informed about various products, the have the ability to communicate their needs and personalise products as per their needs. Reviewing this development in technology, Julian Smith (2005) as marketing analyst at Jupiter research identified seven trends in consumer engagement behaviour influenced by technology. 1. Interconnectivity: Technology has enabled the consumers to connect to one another easily regardless of geographic location at any given time. Tools such as email, phone messaging, social media, etc. have made is very easy for people to connect with each other. This has resulted in successfully creating virtual communities. 2. Uniformity of information: Internet access has facilitated content creation, access and consumption. This has resulted in making available a wide range of news, opinion and information for the consumers of it. Digital technology helps a consumer to gather more knowledge which makes the consumer a better decisionmaker. 3. Consuming relevant information: The internet consists of huge amount of information which may or may not be relevant to a consumer. Consumers with the help of information management systems are able to filter and extract relevant data to avoid digital obesity. 4. Growth in niche aggregation: The ease of connecting with others help the consumers to form niche communities with like-minded people resulting is homogeneous consumer groups. 5. Publishing personal content: The interactive nature of the digital networking environment encourages individuals to publish personal

content online at low cost. Reliable personal content and reviews influence consumer preferences and opinions. 6. Rise of the ‘prosumer’: The development in the digital networking environment has given rise to consumers that are getting involved in developing and creating better products and services. Better communication platforms have improved the communication between the producers and the consumers. This has resulted in opportunities for customers to customise products as per their needs. 7. On-demand everything, everywhere: Digital technology has helped business accelerate growth and close the gap between the producer/ service provider and consumer. Digital technology has been able to eliminate barriers like time and geographic location making it convenient for the consumers. In an environment where information is readily available and consumer influence is remarkable keeping up with the competition is a tough job. Quality and brand value cannot be still considered to be the only factors that affect the performance of a firm. Firms are focusing their attention towards customer engagement behaviour in order to enhance consumer value. Understanding consumer behaviour is curtail for organisations in order to strengthen their association with their consumers (Zhang, K.Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016.). It not only focuses on the current consumers but also includes the stake holders such as suppliers, regulators, government, employees and potential customers. Dooren et al. (2010) pointed out that customer engagement behaviour can be of positive or negative nature he also identified various sources of engagement such as blogging, review, word of mouth, feedbacks, etc. customer engagement behaviour could also include post-sale service, co-creation and collaborations. There are a number of theories that focus on consumer engagement behaviour, theories such as relationship marketing by Brodie et al. (2011) or SD logic by Brodie et al. (2013), etc. consumer engagement behaviour is of interactive nature Brodie et al. (2011) and both the theories regard the consumer to be a dynamic participant in brand building. Bowden et al., (2018) applied congruity theory to review customer engagement behaviour for online brand community. The congruity theory relates to the objective of communication with customers, creating trust amongst the customers and increasing the sales revenue for the brand.

Bowden et al., (2018) argued that consumers tend to have a positive association with the objects that have been constant with their current state of environment and this leads to minimize dissociation towards such objects. Congruity theory suggest that personal preference for an object is related to the consistency of beliefs and perception of the object. Brodie et al. (2011) reviewed customer engagement based on five themes which assess various areas of consumer engagement. Brodie et al. defined the concept of customer engagement to consist of multitude of dimensions such as awareness, conduct and emotions. Bowden et al., (2018) considered consumer behaviour as the reflective second-order outcome of cognitive processing, affection and engagement. Organisations are investing huge amount of money for consumer engagement as a present customer has a great contribution in firms development relating to innovations, promotions and communication. This has made the consumers to be referred as pseudo marketers for they are great source of attracting new customers. Social media platforms have great contribution towards consumer engagement. As the consumers are online for a considerable amount of time social media is a great platform for firms to engage with their customers. The following section looks at how ASDA’s social media presence can be related to consumer engagement behaviour theories.

Application of theories 1. TWITTER I. SHARING (Brodie, 2013) Sharing is sub-process of customer engagement, sharing of relevant information, knowledge and experience through online community helps to enrich the overall engagement experience. In the tweet below the consumer is sharing her experience on the Asda service team page contributing towards customer engagement process.

The Asda service team page on twitter is a very good tool for managing consumer engagement by Asda. The tweet above identifies a problem with the online application, valence is evident the this tweet. Valance can be positive or it can be negative (Dooren et al. 2010), it is negative in this case. Customer engagement can also have a positive or negative and its magnitude can be identified by it reach to the stakeholders. Identifying the negative consumer behaviour and also considering the effects it can have in customer engagement Asda service team assists the consumer to resolve the problem faced, this goes in line with Dooren et al.’s, (2010) three stage process to manage customer engagement behaviour. Shevlin (2007) also states that consumer engagement is a process that includes interactions that satisfy the requirements of the customers resulting in solidifying the emotional connection of the consumer with the brand. Asda service team has taken efforts to communicate satisfactory solution in order to solidify the customers trust in them. II.

CO-DEVELOPING

Brodie et al., (2013) argued that customer engagement is an interactive process which take place overtime at various level and in a number of state of engagement. We can relate this tweet by the customer to Bordie et al.’s (2011) third theme. It was also observed that the consumer engagement process is highly interactive and initiated by customers based on an number of subprocess that includes ‘learning’, ‘sharing’, ‘advocating’, ‘socializing’ and ‘codevelopment’. Sharing personal experience customer can help co-develop and add value to the firm. Co- developing is a process in which customers contribute to an organisation in developing and or improving new products, services brand or brand meaning (Brodie et al., 2013) Customer engagement is multidimensional which is evident in this case as the customer shares her personal experience to help co-develop while demonstrating the trust in the brand. It also confirms the notion that customers initiate the brand engagement process. III.

ADVOCATING

Advocating as a sub-process of customer engagement is evident from the above tweet as the customer appreciates and advocates for Asda over twitter indirectly recommending the brand for its services and price point. Also Brodie et al.’s (2011) first theme points out the importance of interactive experience among customers and/or other parties in the marketing chain. Customer engagement also includes customer to customer interaction on brand related topics at various platforms. Positive customer engagement can be noted in the above tweet where one customer replies to another customers tweet appreciating the brand showing brand loyalty.

2. INSTAGRAM

Asda’s Instagram is mainly about food and recipes. As the page description says “for delicious recipes and inspiration” the Instagram feeds focuses of inspiring customers try new recipes. Brodie et al.’s (2011) second theme suggest that customer engagement can be highly context-driven and characterize motivational state. Through their Instagram feeds Asda is trying to

engage with customer over a specific interest. This would motivate people to try the recipes posted for which the ingredients would be easily available in nearby Asda stores. This would play a role in revenue generation for the company. This can also relate to congruity theory of self-branding process. IV.

DORMANCY

The Asda Instagram page has 243k followers but their posts have comparative very few likes, this is defined by Brodie et at., (2013) as dormancy. Dormancy is a state in which the customers tend to get in to an inactive state or passive involvement with a brand’s online community. The state of dormancy is temporary but if congruency of belief is lost it may lead to disengagement Bowden et al., (2018).

3. RECOMMENDATIONS The previous section highlight some of the customer engagement aspects of Asda on social media and how they relate to various theories for customer

engagement. By evaluating the literature and analysing the application of customer engagement behaviour by Asda on various social media platforms a few recommendations can be made. These can help Asda to be more efficient in utilizing their resources and enhance their customer engagement online. In this day and age the customer has the great impact on a firm this makes it very important for any firm to effectively manage customer engagement behaviour. It can be recommended for Asda to employ more resources to address comments and feedbacks of customers online. Although they have a good social media presence but efforts can be taken for responding to more comments and feedbacks to improve customer engagement. Asda actively engages with customers on their main twitter page it as noticed that on many occasions the negative comments are not addressed/ignored. This is also the case on Facebook where a fair amount of people respond to the posts but only very few are addressed. Asda needs to dedicate more time and efforts towards such post. It is also commendable that Asda has a service team handle of twitter that intends to resolve issues faced by customers but the overall customer engagement is not adequate. The Asda service team needs to be managed well and worked upon to enhance customer engagement. It can also be recommended for Asda to have posts that interest people and motivate them to engage. They should have advertise offers at store on their stores to attract more customer. Asda Facebook page consists posts of selfbranding because of which dormancy can be seen which is not a good sign and need to be worked upon. Asda on Instagram focuses of motivating their customers try new and attractive recipes. Even though the posts are frequent customer engagement is very less. Asda should make their page more engaging by starting new fun cooking challenges or contests to engage more people. Posting works of their customers on their Instagram feed can also help in getting people involved with Asda online.

4. REFERENCES Brodie, R., Hollebeek, L., Jurić, B. and Ilić, A. (2011) "Customer Engagement". Journal Of Service Research 14 (3), 252-271

Brodie, R., Ilic, A., Juric, B. and Hollebeek, L. (2013) "Consumer Engagement In A Virtual Brand Community: An Exploratory Analysis". Journal Of Business Research 66 (1), 105-114 Leichenko, J. (2016) Asda Leads Paid Search Advertising In UK Online Supermarket War[online] available from [9 March 2019] Most Visible UK Supermarkets On Pinterest | Searchmetrics (2019) available from [11 March 2019] Our History - ASDA Corporate (2019) available from [11 March 2019] Ryan, D. and Jones, C. (2010) Understanding Digital Marketing. London: Kogan Page Smith, J. (2005) Seven Digital Consumer Trends, Part 1 - Clickz [online] available from [11 March 2019] van Doorn, J., Lemon, K., Mittal, V., Nass, S., Pick, D., Pirner, P. and Verhoef, P. (2010) "Customer Engagement Behavior: Theoretical Foundations And Research Directions". Journal Of Service Research 13 (3), 253-266 Zhang, K. and Benyoucef, M. (2016) "Consumer Behaviour In Social Commerce: A Literature Review". Decision Support Systems 86, 95-108