Identifying a digital marketing strategy for a start-up entering the UK entertainment sector. Case study: Evenses

The purpose of the research was to identify a digital marketing strategy for a case study start-up Evenses, entering the UK entertainment sector. This thesis aims to explore the crucial steps required when building a digital marketing plan. The idea behind carrying out this research is that the author was given a task to conduct a digital marketing plan for Evenses. The first focus of this study was to analyse the current situation of the company, taken into account the online marketing landscape. This includes conducting a market research, customer analysis, digital customer behaviour, market analysis followed by SWOT and competitor analysis. Afterwards, objectives, strategies, tactics and actions were introduced in order to build a coherent digital marketing strategy. The theoretical part of this work consisted of marketing and digital marketing literature. The main emphasis was on customer acquisition theory and inbound marketing channels that are most related to the case study. This thesis was focused on SOSTAC planning framework that enabled the author of this paper to provide a structure for the strategy as well as to specify all the steps required to identify a digital marketing plan. The study was also managed by qualitative method of conducting a semi-structured interview with company CEO - Thomas Verheul. Digital marketing activity was carefully examined through digital analytics and digital marketing tools. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were applied in this work. As a result, it was discovered that Evenses first has to optimise the website for search engines and improve the user experience on the website. Moreover, Evenses should create more engaging content for the website and social media and implement some of the search engine techniques, like Search Engine Optimization, to generate more traffic and reaching potential clients. After that, Evenses should think of relevant social media channels, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. When the company would be ready to invest in paid search, it then can create some AdWords campaigns. By implementing this strategy created and taken into account available resources, time and personnel, Evenses will gain awareness online and will reach the target audience. In future, when Evenses will grow with a budget for marketing initiatives, the company could think of employing more personnel or consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help the company establish a strong online presence to attract more clients