MPILO BOUTIQUE HOTEL

digital marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL
 MASERU
Avani Maseru, No. 12 Orpen Road, Old Europa Maseru Lesotho Mobile: ‘Moea
Makhakhe [+266] 57627956 [+266] 58447812 Tel: (+266)22327763 Fax (+266) 22327764
Email: [email protected]

BLOEMFONTEIN
20 President Brand Street, Bloemfontein 9301, South Africa. Lucas Phiri -Mobile: +27
73828-4367,
Office: +27 74042-0580, Fax +27 86218-1677
Email: [email protected]
CONTENTS
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Opportunities
05
Challenges
Things To
Keep In Mind
Building Blocks
About Mpilo

CRAFTING A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

Introduction
15
Benefits
Pillars

THE PROBLEM 19
THE PROPOSAL
20
THE SOLUTION
Trendscape
Unique Value Proposition
21
Objectives
Tactics
The Team

ABOUT US
31
THE BUDGET
32
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL
 05

PAGE
DIGITAL MARKETING PROPOSAL
____________________________
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

To start designing a digital marketing

strategy, we have to identify a specific business
challenge or set of objectives to pursue and decide on

Digital
the best course of action for fulfilling it.

A marketing strategy is a set of choices we make as

Marketing well as the processes and tactics required to chart a

course of action for moving from the current state to

Strategy the desired state.

A digital marketing strategy is a constantly iterating

and evolving blueprint that builds on and adapts
on principles of traditional marketing using the
opportunities presented by the digital medium,
while at the same time remaining cognizant of the
challenges it poses.
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Opportunities
Measurability Feedback Interaction
the ability to which can be used which leads
measure the for optimization to greater
effectiveness of and improvement engagement and
various strategies better relationships
and tactics
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

The digital medium’s flexible and

dynamic nature can be challenging.

CHALLENGES What worked yesterday might not

work today and certainly won’t work
tomorrow.
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VOLATILITY DYNAMIC EVOLVING AMPLIFIED
New platforms NATURE NEEDS CONSUMER
and tactics Customer People’s needs VOICES
emerge every behaviors change and wants from The voice of the
week. over time. brand evolve as customer becomes
their relationship amplified through
grows. social media.

To overcome these challenges, brands have to move away from merely being
present in social media towards actively using it, aligning it with actionable objectives
and their corresponding metrics.
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

Analytics
Digital marketing is highly

User-Centric Thinking empirical. Almost everything can

Things to
be measured:
It is vital to place the user at the
• Behaviours
core of all decisions.

Keep in Mind • Actions

• Action Paths
• Results

Actionable Insights
But it’s measurability enables us to build agility into our strategy to allow us
to stay agile and nimble by giving us the data and insights required to stay
aligned with our objectives and to measure ROI.

The outcome of a digital marketing strategy is the achievement of your

organization’s overall business and brand-bulding objectives or challenges.
 011

PAGE
To structure our strategy, we will divide it into building blocks which -
collectively - give us a starting point and a way to think about problems.

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis

Building Blocks

The Four Ps Tools SWOT Analysis

Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

ABOUT MPILO
The Mpilo Boutique hotel offers luxury and elegance displayed with kinship
warmth that is customary to the people of Lesotho.

Launched in December 2015, the Mpilo Boutique Hotel with its distinct
architectural style is the latest landmark in the diplomatic district of Maseru.

Recognized as the social and business hub of the region, guests of the
Mpilo Boutique Hotel can expect to enjoy an unrivalled experience,
that is distinguished by gracious hospitality and the highest standard of
personalized service.
PAGE
013
CRAFTING A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
 015

PAGE
This document is a proposal for the formulation, execution and
management of a digital marketing strategy for Mpilo Boutique Hotel.

A digital marketing strategy is a blueprint (plan of action) designed to

INTRODUCTION help you integrate digital into your overall marketing and communications
strategy by taking advantage of the opportunities presented by digital
platforms and technologies while at the same time minimizing the
challenges presented by this medium.

The outcome of a digital marketing strategy is the achievement of the

hotel’s overall business, marketing and communications challenges.
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL BENEFITS

A properly-defined digital marketing strategy can help you:

BENEFITS
Create Brand Increase
Attract new
Awareness Brand Equity Connect with
clients
Partners &
Clients
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PAGE
PILLARS
Online, you are what you say - or what you show. The
most successful brands in the digital space are the
ones that behave more like publishing houses.

Content - therefore - is at the core of the strategy

proposed in this document.
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL TRENDSCAPE

WHY CONTENT?

CONTENT IS CRITICAL because people care about their

problems more than they care about your products/ services.

A content-based digital strategy will enable you to take your

organization’s expertise (and unique value proposition) and
package it up to help your prospects and clients to achieve
a specific goal while telling them how to do business with your
organization.

Search
If you don’t rank on your keywords, you won’t get traffic.
Great content propels you up the search engines.
Search
Social
Content gives you something to bring to the
social party. You need content to engage.

Social Inbound
Inbound
Content gives you an offer for your inbound
calls-to-action, driving up response rates and pushing
propsects further along the buying journey.
 019

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Companies can no longer assume they will get the attention of their
prospects. Online audiences are not captive. They are distracted
switching their time and attention between devices and platforms.

The most important assets in the digital space are the time and attention

THE PROBLEM of prospects.

To make things worse, you are not just competing against your immediate
competitors. You are also competing with analysts, thought leaders,
bloggers and wannabes.

The biggest problem facing most organizations is harnessing the full

potential of digital by creating the right content, for the right customer/
segment and delivering it through the right channels at the right stage
in the customer journey with the intent of soliciting specific, profitable
outcomes.
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL PROPOSAL

MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT
ADVERTISING&AWARENESS
AWARENESS
THE PROPOSAL
R COMMUNITY

C MMUNITY
SUPPORT
Mpilo Boutique Hotel requires a comprehensive, holistic
E
digital marketing strategy. A strategy that will enable it to
P
use digital tools and technologies for:
U
• Communication & Outreach
CUSTOMER SERVICE T
• Community Management COMMUNICATIONANDOUTREACH
LEAD GENERATION TI
ADVERTISING

LEAD
SALES
• Support & Customer Service
• Reputation Management ADVER O
• Advertising Awareness
TISING N
• Sales & Lead Generation
 021

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A digital strategy is a blueprint that defines the overall approach consisting of strategies, tactics and
activities to be followed and implemented in the pursuit of your business objectives through digital means.

THE SOLUTION Creating a digital marketing strategy requires careful planning, and a strong foundation that will allow
for flexibility while re-maining consistent, staying aligned to overall business goals and remaining focused
A blueprint that defines the overall throughout the implementation phase.
approach consisting of strategies,
tactics and activities to be followed and The following is a breakdown of the proposed digital strategy.
implemented.

A strategy needs to cover these questions:

WHO ARE YOU?

WHAT ARE YOU OFFERING? 1 2 3 4 5

TO WHOM? TRENDSCAPE OBJECTIVES TACTICS
ONGOING
UNIQUE SELLING &
MARKET FORCES OPTIMISATION
WHY? PROPOSITION EVALUATION

HOW?
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL TRENDSCAPE

TRENDSCAPE
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1The Environment
Market Forces
What is the context in which you are operating?
How will this change in the future?

2 The Organization
The Brand
Who are you?
Why does your brand matter?

01
What makes your brand useful and valuable?

TRENDSCAPE
Market Forces 3 The Customers
Target Audience
Who are your customers?
What needs, wants and desires do they have?

4 The Competitors
Market Forces
Who are your competitors?
Who are your indirect competitors?
What or who else competes for the same attention
and mindshare?
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL USP

Value Exchange

Upon thorough examination of

the market situation, the second
step is to examine your value
proposition or brand promise.

UNIQUE VALUE
What unique value can your organization
add to the market?

02 ADDITIONAL VALUE
UNIQUE SELLING Can you identify additional value adds that
are unique to the digital landscape?
PROPOSITION
Value Exchange
EXTRAS
What are the unique extras that you offer
which you can leverage specifically for the
digital space?

In order to determine what will be valuable to them, it is important to

research your users and gather insights into what they want and need.
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03.1 Objectives
Purpose/Outcome
Why are we doing any of this?
What goal, purpose or outcome are we looking for?
What are you trying to achieve?
How will you know if you are successful?

03.2 Tactics
Tools/Aprroaches

03
We will have multiple tactics working together to
meet the same objective. While the tactics may
(and should) change, the objective remains the
same.

OBJECTIVES
Desired Conditions 03.3 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The Metrics
The specific metrics or pieces of data that you will look at
to determine whether our tactics are performing well and
meeting your objectives.
KPIs are determined per tactic with an eye on the overall
objective.

03.4 Targets
The specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific
time period.
If you meet or exceed a target, you are succeeding. If you don’t,
you’re falling behind on your objectives and need to tweak either our
approach or your target.
Digital Marketing
TRENDSCAPE

Social Media Marketing

STRATEGY PROPOSAL

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04 Tactics and Evaluation
Many tactics are available once we have determined our

TACTICS
marketing objectives.
T&E’s
The specific tactics that will be utilized in carrying out this
proposed strategy will be discussed in more detail in the next
Action Plan section - were the will be defined in more detail as part of our
tactical approach.

They are, however, summarized briefly on the following page.

Once objectives and tactics have been set, we cross-check

and re-evaluate them against the needs and resources of
the organization. This is to verify alignment and to ensure no
opportunities are being overlooked.
 027

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TACTICS

SEO SEARCH ADVERTISING ONLINE ADVERTISING SOCIAL MEDIA

This is the practice of optimizing a website to In pay-per-click advertising, the advertiser Online advertising covers advertising in all Social media, also known as consumer-
rank higher on the search engine results pages pays only when someone clicks on their ad. areas of the Internet. generated media, is media in the form of text,
for relevant search terms. HOW? visuals and audio created to be shared.
The ads appear on search engine results pages. HOW?
HOW? Ads in emails, ads on social networks and HOW?
By creating relevant, useful and original OUTCOME: mobile devices and display ads on (mobile) Social media allows collaboration and
content that is relevant to your product or - Sales, websites. connection in a way that no other channel has
service. - Customer Retention been able to offer.
- and Acquisition OUTCOME:
OUTCOME: - Branding OUTCOME:
- Customer Retention - and Acquisition - Branding
- Customer Acquisition Value Creation
- and Participation

EMAIL MARKETING VIDEO MARKETING AFFILIATE MARKETING

Email marketing is a form of direct Video marketing involves creating video
marketing that delivers commercial and content.
content-based messages to an audience. every referral they give.

HOW? HOW? HOW?

It allows for the sending customized bulk
messages in an effective, measurable way.
This can be outright video advertising or can
provide proof that they sent leads your way.
And More...
be valuable, useful content marketing.

OUTCOME: OUTCOME:
- Customer Retention OUTCOME: - Sales
- and Value Creation - Branding - and Branding
- Customer Retention
- and Value Creation
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

COMMUNITY/SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Community/social media managers have the Community managers schedule content,
responsibility of helping the digital team plan and The role of the community manager is to initiate, respond to queries and communicate with the
execute projects. maintain and amplify engagement on social project manager and client marketing teams to
media channels and to protect the reputation of streamline campaigns with business objectives.
They create, execute conversation (content) the brand.
calendars and manage subsequent interactions
with that content according to the specified
community guidelines.

PROJECT MANAGER
Project managers have the responsibility A project manager should be considered They communicating with client marketing
of helping the digital team plan and the primary point of communication. They teams regarding product decisions in order

05
execute projects. help strategists and account managers to come to an agreement with a direction for
streamline their digital strategies by the strategy across all teams.
They provide team members with the making deadlines for deliverables,
time and resources to be able to create scheduling times with clients and account
and facilitate communication and managers.
THE TEAM marketing campaigns in collaboration
with your marketing team.

Our digital marketing

team will be composed of
individuals tasked with the
following roles: VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS DESIGNER(S)
A visual communications the brand guidelines and the business Visual communication designers communicate
designer creates visual assets for objectives. Designers help the marketing with developers to flesh out designs of a
digital campaigns and channel team communicate clearly as well as product in order to refine it through code. They
communications. the functionality of your digital platforms would also talk with the marketing team to
(website, social media platforms). discuss alignment with overall business goals.
They ensure that the designs of all
collateral are aligned with both

Writers/Researchers
Writers have the responsibility of crafting They do this by observing, listening and They create content for campaigns, the
brand stories that resonate with the learn how people actually use and blog as well as other digital collateral, • Content Calendars
target audience. experience products and services. They while ensuring that all communication
conduct market research in order to maintains consistency and speaks with • Social Media Strategy
understand exactly what motivates the voice and tone of the brand. • Social Media Guidelines
people, what bothers them and where
there are opportunities for creating Writers - in collaboration with the project • Monitoring and Listening Plan
delightful experiences. manager - also craft documentation • Reports
that accompanies all digital marketing
campaigns. This includes:
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Thank you for taking the time to consider this digital marketing strategy
proposal.
For more information, please contact us using the information provided at
the end of this document.

Next Steps Kind Regards

The Managing Director

Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

About Cognitio
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Cognitio is a full-service digital, media and communications agency that provides
creative and uniquely localized but world class business solutions that deliver excellent
results.

At Cognitio we are purpose-driven, perhaps neu- rotically obsessed, by our belief that
consumer trends are forever changing. Today, people have more channels, more
devices, more bright, shini- er objects competing for their attention than ever before.

How they spend their time has become fractured into bite size chunks, with advertising
constantly influencing what they pay attention to or not.This is why we refuse to follow
the same old marketing approach.

It’s no longer about simply interrupting people. It’s about engaging them in the places
they’re actually paying attention and delivering a compelling message that creates
impact.

Founded in 2016, COGNITIO COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA GROUP is a full service,

digital, media and communications agency that provides creative and unique world
class results across all disciplines.We pride ourselves in delivering work that is backed
by a real understanding of our citizens and overall market insights.

How We Approach Work What Makes Us So Special?

Creative ideas can drive We are a winning creative team

business objectives, ultimately that fuse their understanding of
driving the way a business the consumer trends with business
operates. acumen.
Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

A budget should be set aside for carrying out the activities outlined in this
digital marketing strategy.

BUDGET Below is a breakdown of the cost of a digital marketing strategy per

month.
 033

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THE BUDGET

ITEM DESCRIPTION TOTAL

Strategy & Research and provide actionable recommendations M5, 000.00

The design and development of visual and digital assets for various campaigns and the overall look and
Graphics & Content Design fell of digital platforms. M6, 500.00

Analytics & Reporting Integrating analytics data from a number of sources to track trends and changes over time.
M3, 500.00

Subscriptions & Services • Subscriptions to marketing automation & other digital marketing tools.
M5, 000.00
• Basic social media marketing budget.

Managing blog (adding, editing content), creating additional landing pages, embedding tracking code, etc
Website Maintenance M3, 500.00

Campaign design, scheduling and Social Media Management. Liaising with the client and coordinating
Campaign Management the digital team. Producing reports as well as actionable insights and recommendations M6, 500.00

GRAND TOTAL M30,000.00

Digital Marketing
STRATEGY PROPOSAL

MASERU
Avani Maseru, No. 12 Orpen Road, Old Europa Maseru Lesotho Mobile: ‘Moea
Makhakhe [+266] 57627956 [+266] 58447812 Tel: (+266)22327763 Fax (+266) 22327764
Email: [email protected]

BLOEMFONTEIN
20 President Brand Street, Bloemfontein 9301, South Africa. Lucas Phiri -Mobile: +27
73828-4367,
Office: +27 74042-0580, Fax +27 86218-1677
Email: [email protected]