Situation Analysis – SWOT Analysis
The report aims at providing an insight into digital marketing plan of a start tourism enterprise in Australia. The company chosen here is Bound Round that represented a travel business, servicing the consumers of Australia (boundround.com, 2019). Bound round allows kids in making a choice. In other words, Bound Round acts as the trip advisor to the children thereby keeping them entertained on the app by putting across an opportunity of checking the next destination. However, for the older people they contribute in providing an aid for family trip planning through checking the reviews. This app does not apply any charges and is a must for the kids and the family. The report focuses on the situation analysis, internal environment and the external environment of the firm. The report also provides an insight into digital marketing strategies with a focus on the revenue model strategy, target market strategy, position strategy, digital marketing mix (7Ps) and the social media strategy. The report even puts forward an evaluation of digital metrics and ends with a recommendation and conclusion.
Situation Analysis refers to the collection of the methods that managers uses for analyzing the internal and external environment of the organization in order to understand the capabilities, business environment and the customers (Proctor, 2014). SWOT analysis which is defined by the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats of the organization.
Strength:
- The new and updated app remains aligned with the curriculum so that it acts as the perfect tool for convincing the teachers in letting the children travel even beyond the school holidays
- Bound Round, the boutique tourism and the marketing consultancy have a strong focus on the digital content and the video production.
- Ensures effective search and in booking the perfect holiday. The firm not only has online incredible deals but has complete travel agency service.
Weakness:
- It might be the case that sometimes the market data might be out of date
- There might be problems of cash flow
- Creating and managing content for the brand in the own channel along with amplification of the distribution partners might face difficult.
Opportunities:
In targeted family travel market for Bound Round experiences a significant growth. This segment is expected to boom due to the interest of the consumers in spending some quality time with the family while travelling together (boundround.com, 2019). The findings for the family travel indicate major opportunity for travel industry. Thus, the family travel market possesses the following characteristics that act as the opportunity for the firm.
- The family travel market accounted for about $140bn
- Close to 93 percent of the family plans to travel in the coming two years
- Families travelling take close to 3.5 domestic and 1.25 international trips on an average with a year.
- The family travel account for close to 33 percent of the booked leisure trips.
Threats:
- Presence of competitors
- Downturn within the economy implies lesser spending of the people which would imply a direct impact on the travel business.
- Depending on the retirement segment will generate lesser profits as they undertake only one leisure trip in a year.
- Close to 51 percent of the baby boomers plans for travelling across Australia while 43 percent hopes in travelling both internationally and domestically.
Resources and Capabilities:
The resources and capabilities represent the potential sources that determine the competitive advantage of the firm. Resources are divided into tangible and the intangible assets of the firm while the capabilities are dynamic and operational (Greco, Cricelli & Grimaldi, 2013). The tangible resources represent the physical or the financial assets of Bound Round and are increasingly complex. The tangible resources on one hand represent the assets that are mostly non physical and do not find a mention on the balance sheet of the firm. The intangible resources include HRM policies, firm’s policies, managerial and employee skills, relational and social capital and the organizational culture of Bound Round. Capabilities on the other hand represent the bundles of accumulated knowledge and skills (Ritala et al. 2013). Thus, the operational capabilities represent routines that will enable Bound Round in performing activities on on-going basis using similar techniques.
Internal Environment – Resources and Capabilities
Suppliers: Bound Round is Startup Company that focuses on the niche travel and specializes in the segments that media brands and mass market travel finds it difficult to enter (Giaoutzi 2017). It provides service to the individuals on behalf of suppliers dealing with car rentals, airlines, activities, hotels, cruise lines, travel insurance, railways and the package tours. .
Customers: They primarily target the kids and also include Australia customers belonging to the family travel and the retirement market.
Competitors: Some of the competitors include:
- Townske: They provide a Instagramesque platform of guidance for uncovering the hidden secrets of a destination as well as venue for bringing the local knowledge to the visitors that were previously only known to the local people.
- TravelEggs: They provide the self guided tours that syncs with the map thereby giving specific directions in following a crafted path derived from the local knowledge.
Political: Australia is the member of Commonwealth Nations and maintains a closer association with United States. The country has a stable and safe political environment that provides a boost to the start up tourism enterprise.
Economic: Australia represented the thirteenth largest economy across the world that experience a growth of 2.4 per cent in the year 2017 that was much below the expectations. However, the expected growth of the firm was close to three percent in the year 2018. This in a way implied a growth in disposable income thereby giving a boost to the tourism sector.
Social: Australia represents the best country of the world in terms of education, wealth, health and the quality of the life. Besides, its small population close to 22.9 million including the retirees and the middle aged people who provide a boost to the tourism sector.
Technology: Australia is a technologically advanced country of the world that adopts newer technology at faster rate. The enormous growth of the technology over the years had provided a boost to the to the tourism sector.
Technological: Australia is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. It is well-known for adopting new technologies at a faster rate than many other developed countries. The country has witnessed an enormous growth in technology over the years
I. Revenue Model Strategy:
This strategy focuses on the revenue generated from the ‘Cost per Click’. Here the advertisers are charged not only based on the number of times their ad remains displayed but on the number of times they get clicked (El Sawy & Pereira, 2013). They represent textual ads similar to the sponsored links within the search engine through third party sites known as the Google Adsense Network. Thus, for most of the websites, Adsense helps in generating revenue of $5-10 for an approximate view of 1000 pages.
Advantages: Generating money from advertisements represents the easiest and simplest ways that acts as the source of the revenue.
External Environment – Suppliers, Customers, and Competitors
Disadvantages: For generating money it is required for attracting the substantial number of users. Most people find this to be annoying that can lead through lower click rates and lower revenue.
II. Target Market Strategy:
This strategy allows the marketers in undertaking an analysis of the market segment for choosing their target audience or segments who consider applying for the service put forward by Bound Round. The goal of targeting strategy remains in identifying a combination of the potential customers representing the strongest potential for profit (Dodson, 2016). Bound Round chooses middle aged and older demography for their disposable income or they target younger demography for building a long term loyalty.
III. Positioning Strategy:
This defines location of the market in relation to the offerings. In fact, it represents the means of presenting the desired impression towards customer base (Armstrong et al. 2014). The key to the positioning of Bound Hound remains in not undertaking a fight with the competitor but identifying the unchallenged identity of the market. In this case, this is done by ensuring the best value of the service.
Social media represents one of the most powerful marketing tools. It has been found that close to 90 percent of the marketers admitted the importance of social media to the business and close to 89 percent of the marketers agreed that the social media initiatives generates enhanced exposure. The benefits include (Killian & McManus, 2015)
- Increase in the traffic and exposure
- Ensures developing loyal customers
- Improves the search ranking and ensures generating leads
- Leads to the establishment of thought leadership
- Leads to increase in Sales.
Product: An authentic experience and a high quality tour
Place: Availability of the service through a mobile friendly app so that they can easily accept bookings.
Price: The Bound Round app can be installs the app for free and avail the travel plans and packages at a fixed cost.
Promotion: Makes use of the advertising techniques and the marketing campaigns for promoting the business
People: Bound Round invests in the right employees that will help in attracting more people
Process: The app ensures that the tour stick to the schedule and provides the customers with the experience promised.
Physical Evidence: It involves giving the customer a physical evidence for what they paid for by providing them with the necessary experience related to feel, sight and experience related to the tours.
The quality of service is a key aspect in marketing of digital services as the production and consumption of services takes place during the same time that involves both customers and producers. Besides, the intangible nature of the service marketing theories puts forward an appropriate background. It is therefore vital for measuring the experience of customer service. E-Servqual represents a measure for scaling the e-Service quality for digital service (Collier & Bienstock, 2015).
PESTLE Analysis
In this case, it resulted in a perceived quality of the service quality which implied that Bound Round successfully served the purpose of the customers. However, the evaluation is based on the subjective comparison of the customers regarding what they expected and what they actually received (Ahmad & Abawajy, 2014). It is found that the level of satisfaction is reached is the service is perceived as per the expectations of the customers.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, it can be said that the digital marketing plan depends on a specific strategies that includes revenue model strategy, position strategy, social media strategy and the target market strategy. The report shows how Bound Hound makes use of the digital marketing e tool for promoting the services. The report also puts forward an evaluation of the performance metrics and the measurement techniques.
The recommendations for improving digital marketing strategy are as follows:
- It is recommended to focus more on conversion than on leads
- For an effective digital marketing strategy it is necessary to set the stage for the long term value
- It is necessary for designing the customer service in a manner that would ensures repetition of the customer service tactics through repetition of brand consciousness.
References:
Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.
Chaffey, D., & Smith, P. R. (2013). eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge.
Hess, T., Matt, C., Benlian, A., & Wiesböck, F. (2016). Options for Formulating a Digital Transformation Strategy. MIS Quarterly Executive, 15(2).
boundround.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.boundround.com/
Proctor, T. (2014). Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.
boundround.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.boundround.com/work-with-us/family-travel-market/
Greco, M., Cricelli, L., & Grimaldi, M. (2013). A strategic management framework of tangible and intangible assets. European Management Journal, 31(1), 55-66.
Ritala, P., Hyötylä, M., Blomqvist, K., & Kosonen, M. (2013). Key capabilities in knowledge-intensive service business. The Service Industries Journal, 33(5), 486-500.
Giaoutzi, M. (2017). Tourism and regional development: New pathways. Routledge.
El Sawy, O. A., & Pereira, F. (2013). Digital business models: review and synthesis. In Business modelling in the dynamic digital space (pp. 13-20). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Dodson, I. (2016). The Art of Digital Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Creating Strategic, Targeted, and Measurable Online Campaigns. John Wiley & Sons.
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., & Kotler, P. (2014). Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.
Killian, G., & McManus, K. (2015). A marketing communications approach for the digital era: Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), 539-549.
Collier, J. E., & Bienstock, C. C. (2015). A conceptual framework for measuring e-service quality. In Creating and Delivering Value in Marketing (pp. 158-162). Springer, Cham.
Ahmad, M., & Abawajy, J. H. (2014). Digital library service quality assessment model. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 129, 571-580.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
