This thesis aims to create a digital marketing plan for the author's coffee shop in the future. Storm (2020) also mentions that the company can easily track and monitor its campaigns with digital marketing. Storm (2020) says that digital marketing allows a company to reach customers interested in its products and services.
The Company may collect information about audiences and use that information to shape digital marketing campaigns. It is possible to say that digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to market businesses.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Land (2020) defines search engine optimization (SEO) as improving a company's website for increased visibility through relevant searches. The better a company's pages are visible in search engine results, the more likely the company will attract attention and attract potential customers. When a company's website is ranked higher on search engine results pages, it can become the best form of advertising for products and services (Laurinavicius 2020).
A site with an "Ad" symbol is a site that has been paid by a company to appear at the top of a search engine results page. Large corporations can pay a lot of money to have a paid search appear at the top of the search engine results page.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Youtube is the second most popular social media platform after Facebook with approximately 2 billion active users. Lasting relationships between the business and customers can be built by connecting and engaging with customers on social media. To build trust and show appreciation to customers, the company can ask them questions about products and services and run giveaways on social media.
To humanize a business, the business must create a voice on social media by building a brand and interacting with customers. Customer interaction on social media accounts allows the business to show its compassion towards the customers.
Content Marketing
Customers will appreciate when they respond to the company's messages and get a personalized response instead of an automated response. When the company takes the time to craft personalized responses to customers on social media sites, it will be viewed positively, even if they may be responses to customer complaints (Blue Fountain Media 2020). Quality content enables the company to target keywords related to its products and services and answer queries from searchers, helping the company sites achieve higher rankings.
When the company posts quality content, followers of the social media community will “like” and “share” the company's content. This allows the company to tap into industry influencers who will review the company's products and services and provide links back, which would increase search engine rankings.
Video Marketing
Even though the number of viewers may be limited, this aspect makes videos that showcase the usefulness of products extremely beneficial.
E-mail Marketing
Interactive content enables the company to collect valuable data that can be used to guide marketing efforts. Email address is one of the choices that the business can acquire from followers. Weaknesses are negative internal factors that the company must improve in order to compete with its competitors.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) help the company know whether it has achieved its goals. The company should ask itself how the digital marketing goals help it in achieving the business goals.
Non-Participant Observation
Quantitative research provides data collected from large samples that enable measurement and statistical analysis (Hague et al. Compared to qualitative data collection methods, quantitative data collection methods are more structured. Quantitative data collection methods Data sources include online surveys, paper surveys, telephone interviews, and face-to-face interviews.
These metrics are necessary to determine the percentage of customers using products and services and their awareness of those products and services. The data from quantitative research can be used to segment the market or find out the buying tendency of customers. In this thesis, the author uses non-participant observation and an online survey to conduct implementation research.
Non-participant observation is used to learn about digital marketing channels that other coffee shops in Helsinki use and how they use these digital marketing channels to advertise their brands. The online survey is conducted to determine the target audience and discover customer habits and behavior on social media platforms.
Processs and Results of Non-Participant Observation
The coffee shop of Good Life Coffee closed in 2019, but its roaster is still in operation. In addition, Good Life Coffee sells its own branded merchandise such as tote bags, mugs and posters. The pictures of Good Life coffee shop inside and outside and the pictures of coffee, pastries and snacks can be seen in figure 11.
To find out the ranking of the three selected coffee shops on the Google search engine results page, the author "best coffee shops in Helsinki", "Cafetoria", "Good Life Helsinki" and. There are two results for Cafetoria, one result for Andante, and no result for Good Life Coffee. Good Life Coffee has the largest number of Instagram followers compared to Cafetoria and Andante.
From figure 17, it can be seen that Good Life Coffee uses the shopping posts feature of Instagram, while Cafetoria and Andante do not use this feature. However, Andante uses the Instagram TV feature, while Cafetoria and Good Life Coffee do not use this feature. Cafetoria and Good Life Coffee have higher ratings on TripAdvisor and Google Review compared to Andante.
The cafe has more reviews on Tripadvisor and Google Reviews than Good Life Coffee and Andante. After conducting online observations at Cafetoria, Good Life Coffee and Andante, the author found that these three cafes use social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, to promote products/services, increase brand awareness and engaged with their customers. Both Good Life Coffee and Andante use Instagram's business features, such as Instagram shopping and TV posts.
Survey
However, these three cafes do not have Youtube channels to post high-quality videos to promote their cafes. All three cafes listed above have high ratings and good reviews on Tripadvisor, Google Review and their own Facebook pages. However, none of them respond to customer reviews, both positive and negative. inferences from the population based on sample results.
Another definition of a survey is a data collection method that uses questionnaires or interview techniques to document the verbal actions of respondents. The researcher can use surveys to gather the opinions and attitudes of the respondents, as well as to record cause and effect relationships. In survey design, the questionnaire is one of the most common methods of data collection.
With the development of the Internet, an online survey has become one of the most popular data collection methods. Respondents can receive online surveys through various digital channels, such as websites, email, and social media platforms. According to Web Find You (2019), cost-effectiveness is one of the advantages of the online survey.
Another benefit of an online survey is that it allows researchers to collect data in a better amount of time than a handwritten survey. It only takes a few minutes to complete online surveys and this makes online surveys more attractive to respondents compared to handwritten surveys. Additionally, analyzing and segmenting online survey results is much faster than handwritten surveys.
Process and Results of Survey
The most popular social media platform is Facebook, which is used by 94 out of 112 respondents. This data is useful in choosing the most effective social media platforms to reach the audience. The results of this question are used to determine the best time to post and advertise on social media.
That means around 9 p.m. is the best time for new posts on social media. Facebook and Instagram are the two most popular social media platforms used by most respondents to follow coffee shops. 53 of the 67 respondents indicate that they follow a coffee shop on social media because of offers and discounts.
38 of the 67 respondents answered that they follow a coffee shop's social media because of the interesting or entertaining content. 29 of the 67 survey participants responded that learning about new products and services is why they follow a coffee shop on social media. Are you interested in participating in coffee shop social media contests to get prizes, discounts or coupons?” is the ninth question of the online survey.
This shows the importance of running contests on social media to promote the coffee shop brand. 67 out of 70 respondents want to see photos, and 52/70 respondents are interested in seeing videos of the cafe on social networks. In addition, quizzes and polls, blog posts, and infographics are the types of content respondents expect on coffee shop social media.
Business Description
SWOT Analysis and Target Customer
To determine the target audience, ChoCoCha builds target audience personas based on the online survey results in chapter 6. Good customer service is the fourth strength as customer service is one of the top priorities of ChoCoCha. Moreover, the limited Finnish proficiency of the owner is one of the weaknesses for Cho-CoCha as it will be opened in Finland.
In terms of threats, other specialty coffee shops in the Helsinki center such as Cafetoria, Andante, Artisan Café and Papu Cafe are direct competitors of ChoCoCha. Coffee franchises such as Robert's Coffee, Espresso House and Starbucks are indirect competitors of ChoCoCha. Pandemic is one of the threats that can reduce customer visits to ChoCoCha and slow down sales.
According to the online survey results in chapter 6, the largest customer age group of ChoCoCha is from 25 to 30 years old. She follows her favorite coffee shops on Instagram to see these coffee shops' artistic photos and stay up to date on discounts and special offers. This means that ChoCoCha should regularly upload photos and stories and inform about discount programs on Instagram to attract customers' attention and connect with existing followers of ChoCoCha on Instagram.
To satisfy her photography passion and build brand awareness at the same time, ChoCoCha is running a contest on Instagram and Facebook as follows. Customers take photos at ChoCoCha coffee shop or products from ChoCoCha and post these photos on their social media pages and tag ChoCoCha's account in their posts. This means that ChoCoCha has to post information about new products on Instagram around 21:00.
Digital Marketing Objectives and Strategies
Action Plans and Measurement
