Digital marketing guide for B2B start-up. Case Circology

This thesis is a product-based study. The objective of this thesis is to create a digital marketing guide in the form of a handbook for the commissioning company - Circology and give them insights into different business concepts in modern business. The commissioning company is a construction start-up who is finalizing its product development phase and preparing to enter the market. After discussing with the founder of the start-up, it was decided that there is a need for this kind of a marketing guide. The project tasks are (1) establishing the knowledge base of B2B digital marketing, (2) presenting practical approaches and tips for different digital marketing platforms, (3) benchmarking relevant companies within the construction industry, (4) creating the digital marketing guide for the case company and (5) summarizing and evaluating the process. The knowledge base introduces to readers definition and trends of digital marketing in a business-to-business market. The presentation of practical approaches follows the structure of the knowledge base part, where the author applies case company’s situation to most recent and authoritative guide in every digital marketing channels. Three construction companies were benchmarked by carrying out a desktop research and utilizing web analytic tools. The product of this thesis is a tailor-made handbook for the commissioning party, that covers detailed guidance at an intermediate level through different aspects of digital marketing: PPC advertising, display advertising, remarketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, mobile marketing, social media marketing and content marketing. The handbook can be used by the commissioning party in the future as a reference document when setting up and running its digital assets. And by doing so, the handbook helps the start-up to acquire new B2B customers and expand the business. The last chapter includes a summary of what has been discussed throughout the whole thesis, evaluation of the project and further recommendations in order to apply the thesis outcomes successfully from the author. This thesis was planned and executed between October 2017 and January 2018. The author recommends establishing a digital marketing strategy to use in accordance with the created handbook. This thesis strengthened digital marketing knowledge, research, and project management skills of the author significantly