This writing is a reflection of digital marketing skills gained from preparing a PowerPoint presentation on an integrated marketing campaign (IMC) for a startup service (web design) launch using Facebook. The primary purpose is to highlight the importance and application of Facebook in promoting a new service (Web Design Service) launch. This also includes whether the chosen digital marketing tool will help to meet the objectives of IMC. How to monitor the success of the campaign and ROI to be generated from doing the campaign will also be discussed.

Facebook is commonly known as a social site to connect with friends, families and unknown but genuine people. However, it is more than just a platform for social activities. I was not aware of it until I became a part of a recent project on IMC. The project was for all those startup ventures who wish to utilize the growing opportunities of the UK web design industry. Desiring to launch a new service in the target market requires taking into consideration quite many factors. By just knowing the market opportunities does not mean these will be attained as well. Instead, a thorough understanding of the desired industry will also require. This is where an IMC can be useful. An IMC campaign is a complete package that comes up with the industry analysis for a product or service, situational analysis for the business and discussing IMC strategies to be followed to launch a product or service. IMC can be used for reputation buildup in a new marketplace. It lets one know the appropriate message to be communicated to the target market. IMC shows how different teams and departments within a new business can be synthesized to yield the best result. IMC inform on the skill needs, and facilitate collaboration between teams and departments.

IMC is essential for businesses those who wish to develop two-way communication with customers. It means to access users’ feedback in real-time. It does not just allow access to diverse channels of communication but also helps to make faster and relevant decisions. While I cannot say anything at this point about the same still, I believe there will be certain benefits. Startup ventures with web design as their service will get to know about the nature of task orders and service expectations of different users. Such information can be used to assess the current skills in business. Web design companies will get to know about their skills needs. In this way, the overall decision for the recruitment and selection process will be influenced. I believe that Facebook attracts users from a diverse field of expertise. A business can generally have a rough idea of the service demand for an industry based on its current trends. However, it is good to offer something out of it and cater to the needs of a more diverse consumer base. A more capable business in terms of service expertise should also have more job orders. However, it is also undeniable that such companies will face comparatively more problems related to resource management, appropriate allocation of budget and the time management.  

Having been the part of the IMC project, I could learn and tell about some of the applications of IMC done using Facebook. In today’s marketing climate, sticking around the marketing basics won’t alone help. There is a need to show more efforts on identifying the broader options of marketing a product or service. Internet marketing can provide faster connectivity with the target audience more than the television, radio and print advertisements. The web design service to be launched will be considered successful if it can meet to its desired net profit and also maintain a higher customer satisfaction rate. The net profit set as the target to be achieved from doing the campaign will require a large number of leads in quick times. Facebook can generate higher leads in less time.

I selected Facebook as the chosen digital marketing tool and not any other means. YouTube is continuously adding more users into its users base; however, Facebook is still the leading social media site in terms of active users. On Facebook, we can be more creative with our presentation of service than YouTube. YouTube is just videos, whereas Facebook can be used for multi-purposes. It can be used for video-image presentation, pictograph presentation and so forth. It means these different options can be used to communicate various aspects of a business. Business expertise can be explored in numerous ways on Facebook. The reason I did not select any other digital marketing tool such as Twitter and LinkedIn is that I found Facebook more effective in reaching to my exact audience. Besides, Facebook is the most widely used form of advertising. It also helps to differentiate users based on their age, location, behaviour and interests.

Various tests can be performed to monitor the success of the campaign as well as its ROI. Pre-testing is one of the tests to be applied to identify the areas where the IMC plan still lags into. This will follow testing whether the campaign is a potential concept. The test will require identifying the focus groups to observe the influence of the campaign. Focus groups can be selected basis on the age brackets. Focus group observance will determine the difference in responses of the target market. As far as my viewpoint of focus groups is concerned, this will help to discover the purchase behaviours of different age groups. Copy testing will follow the focus groups. Copy testing will help to identify whether there is still any flaw in the IMC plan. Copy testing will help to make a few amendments to the program if required. Once the procedure is being implemented, there will be scopes for post-testing. Post-testing will communicate whether the project is successful or else. Post testing will base its actions on KPIs (key performance indicators). KPIs can be as mentioned below:

• Revenue boost for the advertising of the web design service
• Boost in service orders

Bibliography

Bruhn MS Schnebelen, ‘Integrated Marketing Communication – From An Instrumental To A Customer-Centric Perspective’ (2017) 51 European Journal of Marketing

Finne ÅC Grönroos, ‘Communication-In-Use: Customer-Integrated Marketing Communication’ (2017) 51 European Journal of Marketing

Statista.com, ‘Global Social Media Ranking 2019 | Statista’ (Statista, 2020) <https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/> accessed 11 January 2020

Uddin MA Razu, ‘Influences Of Facebook Advertisement On The Buying Behavior Of Youth Groups: A Comparative Study Of Bangladesh And Turkey’ (2019) 9 International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences