Following this, the three-stage organic digital marketing process model is introduced and the findings of the study are presented. Practical and actionable steps are provided for Company X to improve its organic digital marketing efforts.
Company X
This section first provides a general overview of the case company, then presents the thesis' overall goals and research questions, and concludes by discussing key terms/concepts. It was recently accepted as a partner in a project funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic to develop the turbocirculator for the successor to the European fusion reactor.
Thesis objectives and research questions
In the first phase, 'Build', Jantsch (2019) emphasizes that companies must first have five important factors in place before they build up their digital marketing efforts. However, since it costs money to build and maintain, website building is not considered part of organic digital marketing in this thesis.
Definition of key terms
In addition, existing research, frameworks and models are discussed and related to SMEs and the digital marketing framework. There is a lack of academic literature on practical, step-by-step action plans that companies can implement to create effective digital marketing.
Digital Marketing
- An overview of digital marketing
- Four important prerequisites for implementing organic digital marketing
- Digital marketing and SMEs
- A digital marketing framework
In the paper, they present a framework for digital marketing that will serve as a core tool in this thesis. As mentioned above, the focus will be on four areas of modern, organic digital marketing (content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, and permission email marketing).
Content marketing
- An overview of content marketing
- A framework for content marketing
- The content of content marketing
- Content marketing and SMEs
- The metrics of content marketing
- Content marketing and the Kierzkwoski et al. framework
This can lead to repeat visits and the result is an increase in the consumer's cognitive, emotional and behavioral involvement in the digital content marketing. One of the goals of any content marketing campaign should be to get consumers to engage and participate with the brand.
Social media marketing
- An overview of social media marketing
- Owned content, user-generated content and curated content
- Becoming a trustworthy industry expert
- A discussion and framework on social media marketing and SMEs
- The metrics of social media marketing
- Social media marketing and the Kierzkowski et al. framework
It is also represented under the tag "Social Media Marketing" in the organic digital marketing model. Curated content allows a marketer to post frequently on social media (thus staying fresh in the minds of their followers) and establishes them as a useful expert in a particular industry (McDonald 2019b, 55-56). Attracting users (the first element of the Kierzkowski framework) in the competitive arena of social media is not easy, but it is possible.
Engaging the interest and participation of customers (the second element) and then retaining them (the third element) is essential to social media.
Search engine optimization
- An overview of search engine optimization
- White-hat SEO: On-page and off-page optimization
- Content, brand equity and SEO
- SEOs and SMEs
- The metrics of SEO
- SEO and the Kierzkowski et al. framework
Additionally, for e-retailers that are listed on the first five pages, a 1% improvement in ranking for a given search led to a 1.3% increase in clicks. While using black hat techniques may work in the short term, it is a risky long term strategy. Nofollow' comes in handy, for example, with spam comments and when using third-party widget links (Google, n.d.) Regarding the important issue of backlinks (also called "inbound links"), the initial guide is quite silent and vague, so it is more useful to use alternative sources.
As can be seen in Hollebeek and Macky's content marketing framework above, the ultimate result of consistent, high-quality content is valuable brand equity based on the consumer and company.
Permission email marketing
- An overview of permission email marketing
- The benefits of PEM
- Creating a PEM campaign
- PEM and SMEs
- The metrics of PEM
- PEM and the Kierzkowsi et al. framework
Regular contact with customers via e-mail increased brand loyalty, caused customers to recommend the brand to others, encouraged customers to visit stores, led to. customers buying more of the brand's products and increased customer traffic to the website through links in emails. As for the structure of the message itself, keep the email content short (100 words), the first paragraph should grab the reader's attention by providing the most important information, emphasize the benefits the recipient will receive, and use at least one hyperlink to take the recipient to the right landing page. The closing salutation should adhere to the formality of the salutation and list, line by line, the contact information of the person sending the email and/or the company itself.
Finally, the e-mail must end with a disclaimer and a chance for the recipient to opt out of the mailing list.
Conclusion
Unless a customer arrived at the website as a result of a shared link, PEM is not the way an organization initially attracts a customer (the first factor in the Kierzkowski et al. framework). As has been noted, organizations engage customer interest by offering special offers, providing information about new products, and holding contests. These three factors (creating prerequisites, identifying potential obstacles, and applying the updated version of the Kierzkowski et al. framework with modern, organic methods and tools) are used to create a three-phase organic digital marketing process model to assist SMEs in their digital marketing.
The process model will be presented and discussed in detail in the "Findings" section of this paper.
The case study approach
This section starts by describing the case study approach and justifying the use of a case study for this thesis. Yin also talks about five rationales that justify the use of a single-case study design (as opposed to a multi-case study design). The case study will partly examine how the situation for company X can change or promote the existing concepts regarding SMEs and organic digital marketing.
This case study focuses on Company X's digital marketing efforts and, within that, how it uses content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, and email marketing.
Methodological approaches
Other than social media posts from the recent past—which are considered part of the company's modern digital marketing efforts—there are no historical documents or archives to analyze. It is exploratory in that it seeks to discover what organic digital marketing best practices are and how SMEs in general (including Company X) are handling their organic digital marketing. It is descriptive in that it describes Company X's digital marketing as it is (and could be) through a semi-structured interview and assessment of their digital marketing efforts.
This study uses a variety of research methods to assess the organic digital marketing plan of Company X and offer practical, implementable solutions that clearly meet all the characteristics considered in the philosophy of pragmatism.
Collecting and analysing the data
It was then analyzed to clarify the best practices and tools (as well as the obstacles to consider) that an SME can use in their organic digital marketing efforts. Gathering and analyzing the data from the various aspects of Company X's digital marketing is more complex and warrants a more in-depth discussion. To answer this question, the current state of Company X's organic digital marketing needs to be assessed.
The case study also serves as a starting point in the development of Company X's digital marketing (which will be addressed in the conclusion).
The three-phase organic digital marketing process model
While the process may be tedious and daunting, it gives organic digital marketing focus and direction. In the second phase, the SME must realistically assess the potential obstacles to implementing organic digital marketing. Understanding the obstacles will help an SME take a reality-based approach to organic digital marketing.
This phase takes the four areas of organic digital marketing (content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, and permissioned email marketing) and places them into the relevant elements of Kierzkowski et al.
Company X and the process model
The four prerequisites
Second, their focus was on paid and organic digital marketing, whereas this thesis focuses only on organic digital marketing. Third, their research involved interviews with two digital marketing service providers, whereas this thesis used pre-existing literature. Having only a minimal digital marketing plan in place, the owners themselves have clearly not defined any of the four elements mentioned in this subsection and would therefore have difficulty implementing organic digital marketing measures in accordance with them.
This idea – that the main goal of Company X's digital marketing should be to build partnerships – came as an interesting surprise.
Obstacles that Company X faces
Sometimes it is possible to view the keywords on a page by right-clicking on the page and going to 'view page source'. In terms of environmental factors, a quick scan of Company X's competitors revealed that, with few exceptions, their online presence is broadly similar to Company X's: that is, they have well-designed websites with basic digital marketing elements, but don't put any effort into content marketing (more on that below).
Organic digital marketing methods, tools and metrics
The COO has more than 500 connections and promotes, in addition to liking others' posts (mainly around startups), also the posts of Company X. The Chief Designer has 136 connections and likes in addition to the posts of other (approximately) startups and research cases) like the posts of Company X. To measure the effectiveness of Company X's SEO, the researcher (lacking access to internal benchmarks) had to use two methods open to the public: The first is a manual search ranking based on two sets of keywords (in incognito mode to reduce the effects of localization and personalization), and the second is a Moz Domain Authority score (referred to earlier.) Although not too detailed, both of these scores together give a good overview of how a company performs with SEO.
In short, we try to somehow involve those who use our web page as well. The CEO thinks the COO uses the statistics on LinkedIn, but he wasn't entirely sure.
Summarizing the findings
This process model was the basis for Company X's digital marketing investigation (and will serve as the basis for its development as well). When combined with the semi-structured interview with the CEO and an analysis of her current digital marketing efforts, it allowed for some strong findings. Overall, Company X's digital marketing matches well with what you would expect from another SME.
They are also a product of their digital and competitive environments in a positive way (they have a high-quality website) and in a negative way (like their competitors they don't have content-driven digital marketing).
Developing Company X's organic digital marketing
The four important prerequisites
Considering the obstacles
Before thinking about implementing organic digital marketing, it's important to realistically and honestly outline the obstacles Company X faces in digital marketing. The researcher recommends that at least one person spend up to two hours on digital marketing on any given day (a different person each day). A schedule should be created that identifies who is responsible for organic digital marketing on any given day.
Does the following have a positive, negative, or neutral effect on your company's digital marketing efforts?
Implementing the organic digital marketing
Some examples of this evergreen content might be: "The Essential Guide to Active Magnetic Retainer Systems", a post that addresses some of the most frequently asked questions about their solution, an explanation of the technology behind condition monitoring theirs. Although blog posts are the easiest and most effective content vehicle – especially when considering Company X's time constraints – the company should consider expanding into other forms of content. Moving into the area of social media marketing overlap – which can be applied to all five factors in Kierzkowski et al.
LinkedIn because it is the number one business networking site; Twitter because once you get through all the noise, there are some great marketing opportunities for niche markets.
Reliability and validity of the study
External validity is the extent to which the findings of the study can be generalized beyond the study. However, statistical generalization is definitely flawed with the single case study approach due to the small sample size. Theories formed from the literature (that is, the accumulation of many past studies) were largely supported by the case study, thereby increasing the external validity of the case.
All of this together makes it clear that this is an easily repeatable case study.
Learning outcomes
URL: https://www-statista- com.ezproxy.haaga-helia.fi/statistics/696124/small-businesses-seo-activities-usa/. URL: https://www-statista- com.ezproxy.haaga-helia.fi/statistics/235180/organizational-goals-for-content-marketing- worldwide/ E aksesuar. URL: https://www-statista-com.ezproxy.haaga-helia.fi/statistics/881766/most- important-digital-marketing-tools-for-smes-in-finland/ E aksesuar.
Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing (What Kind Of Content?), SEO and Email Marketing (What Kind Of Content)?.
Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research
Semi-structured interview questions
List of abbreviations
