Cheryl Ang

Kristin Barnes

Zachary Babbe

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY PLAN Fall 2012

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In partnership with Aileron Corporation, our team was asked to develop a Digital

Marketing Strategy Plan for Environmental Doctor to enhance its online engagement.

Looking to establish its brand presence in the digital space, Environmental Doctor needs

to begin with defining its digital marketing objective. In order to ensure that this definition

is aligned with the overall corporate mission of Environmental Doctor, we have

conducted a brief analysis of the company as well as its corresponding target audience.

Having developed a clear strategic vision, the next step is for Environmental Doctor to

initiate its digital marketing efforts on the most relevant online platforms. Understanding

that this will be Environmental Doctors first attempt in implementing and maintaining a

holistic digital marketing strategy, we have narrowed our recommendations down to

three tactics with the highest potential to help the firm generate buzz in the short run.

These tactics include website optimization, search engine marketing, and social media

optimization. Acknowledging that social media optimization plays the most significant

role in online community engagement, we have further elaborated on three social

networks that Environmental Doctor should leverage to enhance its digital brand

presence they are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Each tactic will comprise of a

detailed analysis of the firms current marketing efforts, which will be followed by our

recommendations on how to improve these efforts based on industry best practices and

our team expertise.

To facilitate in the process of implementation, we will summarize our analyses into an

actionable manual for Environmental Doctor to put our recommendations into practice

straightforwardly and easily. This manual will provide an assessment of the maintenance

efforts and pay-offs for all of our recommended tactics, thereby assisting Environmental

Doctor in determining the commitment it can invest in these digital marketing activities.

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CLIENT BACKGROUND

Founded in 1989, Environmental Doctor specializes in building a healthy, comfortable,

and energy-efficient indoor environment for both residential and commercial clients in

the greater Dayton area. Proclaimed as your prescription for a healthier environment,

Environmental Doctor taps on the expertise of its longstanding and multifaceted team of

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified technicians to provide personalized

services and equipment that solve air quality, water quality, comfort and energy cost

issues for its clients.1 Unlike his local competitors that focus on niche services, the President

of Environmental Doctor, Brenden Gitzinger, prides his company in being a diversified

indoor specialist with its all-rounded performance and capabilities.2 Drawing on Total

Home Performance as its central business concept, Environmental Doctor aims to brand

itself as the one-stop service provider for all indoor environmental concerns, offering

holistic solutions from mold remediation to heating and cooling technologies.

Currently, Environmental Doctor is certified as a woman-owned and family-owned

business with 12 full-time employees and a small variable number of temporary workers.

Owing to its small staff size, Environmental Doctor has been outsourcing its marketing

activities to a third-party New York based marketing agency called EB&L Marketing.

Nevertheless, President Gitzinger has also been assuming responsibility internally for

smaller scale marketing and sales operations.

To date, Environmental Doctor has been largely focused on traditional marketing,

including print advertisements, sponsorships for local exhibitions and realtor events, and

even a five-weeks billboard advertising campaign near the Dayton Mall. While these

traditional promotional efforts have been aiding in the growth of Environmental Doctor,

they have nonetheless failed to meet the companys goal of 30% business growth.

However, after observing how early adopters in the industry, such as SERVPRO, are

successfully increasing their brand awareness online, Environmental Doctor realizes that

digital marketing may be the stepping-stone to help it enhance its brand growth.

1 http://www.envirodoc.com/about.html 2 Interview with President Brenden Gitzinger. September 19th 2012.

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STRATEGIC PLANNING

OBJECTIVE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

In order to develop a holistic digital marketing strategy, Environmental Doctor needs to

begin with defining its objective. Based on our kickoff meeting with President Gitzinger,

it is estimated that word-of-mouth marketing contributes to 35% of Environmental

Doctors current customer base. Additionally, up to 40% of the companys current

customers are repeat customers. Not only do these statistics imply that Environmental

Doctor has established a strong loyal following, but also prove that its current

customers are presently the most effective marketing medium for the company.3

Aligned with the above statistics, we recommend Environmental Doctor to establish

building loyal customer relationships as the objective for its digital marketing strategy.

Owing to their repeat purchases and brand loyalty, the current customers of

Environmental Doctor are the most reliable source for the company to achieve long-

term brand growth, as well as the most accessible audience to engage with in the

short run. As such, Environmental Doctor needs to continue amplifying its word-of-

mouth marketing among its current customers and the digital space is the most ideal

platform for this viral marketing tactic.

Attributable to the trend of social networking and real-time information, people have

become increasingly technologically oriented by communicating and searching for

information online. In fact, 76.7% of the Ohio population uses the Internet, in addition to

a 48.9% penetration rate for Facebook users.4 More importantly, digital marketing is

reputed for its user-friendly social sharing mechanisms (such as Facebook likes and

Twitter re-tweets), which will be extremely useful for Environmental Doctor to amplify

its word-of-mouth marketing. Therefore, Environmental Doctor needs to leverage

digital platforms to build loyal relationships with its current customers in order to retain

their brand loyalty and motivate them to reach out to more prospective customers.

3 Interview with President Brenden Gitzinger. September 19th 2012. 4 http://www.internetworldstats.com/unitedstates.htm

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TARGET MARKET IN DIGITAL SPACE

Having defined what Environmental Doctor aims to accomplish through digital

marketing, the next step is to determine whom it is targeting in the digital space.

Branding itself as a diversified indoor specialist, Environmental Doctor has a rather

ambiguous target market as it serves both residential and commercial property owners

located within a 25 50 mile radius of its Dayton office. To be more precise, the

company has defined 50+ years old homeowners, with median household incomes

over $150,000, and houses older than 10 years to be its target residential clients. On the

other hand, realtors, facility managers, and property managers are expected to

occupy the largest market share of its commercial clientele base.5

Additionally, recognizing that heating and cooling technologies are among

Environmental Doctors core service offerings, we have referenced the United States

Heating and Air Conditioning industry as a benchmark to further reduce the ambiguity

of the companys target audience. Figure 1 below shows the segmentation of major

end-user markets in the US Heating and Air Conditioning industry.6

5 Interview with President Brenden Gitzinger. September 19th 2012. 6 http://clients1.ibisworld.com/reports/us/industry/productsandmarkets.aspx?indid=1945

Figure 1: Market Segmentation of the US Heating and Air Conditioning Industry

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While the above market segmentation is representative of the overall target market for

Environmental Doctor, it nevertheless does not reflect the online audience that the

company should aim to reach. In fact, it is important to realize that the targeted 50-

years old decision makers are unlikely to find and immediately engage the services of

Environmental Doctor through a simple Google search. Rather, Environmental Doctor

needs to identify who are the online audience that can help it to spread the word to

these decision makers, who are either offline or unaware of the companys expertise.

In order to humanize Environmental Doctors communication with its customers, we

reckon that it is necessary to put a name and face behind the market findings that we

have identified above. As such, we have created two personas to represent the

companys online audience the evangelist that influences residential clients, and the

industry thought leader that commercial clients look to for advice.

Evangelist for Residential Clients

Mrs. Amy Jones is a 45-year old private high school teacher and has been residing in

the suburbs of Springboro, Ohio, with her family of five for close to 15 years. Ever since

her neighbor introduced Environmental Doctor to her when they first moved in, Mrs.

Jones has been faithfully engaging the company to take care of all her indoor

environmental concerns, from air quality evaluation to her households utilities bills. She

conducts an annual Total Home Performance before every Thanksgiving family

reunion to make sure that the house is functional and spotless. In fact, this is the only

time of the year when she will take pictures of her family at her house to share it with

her distant relatives via email, Facebook, and even Pinterest. She never fails to credit

Environmental Doctor for its all-rounded capabilities whenever her friends ask her

about her household maintenance. As a very satisfied customer of Environmental

Doctor, Mrs. Jones is more than willing to recommend the company to her neighbors

and colleagues only if there is a simple and effortless means of doing so.

Industry Thought Leader for Commercial Clients

Sarah Bianchi has been the Executive Director of University of Daytons Facility Planning

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Department for close to 20 years. Her primary responsibility lies in overseeing all stages

of design and planning throughout the building commissioning process, which requires

her team to verify that the HVAC, electrical, and other building subsystems of University

of Dayton are operating smoothly. Aligned with this objective, Sarah contracts with

local established partners to aid her in her effort to maintain an aesthetically pleasing

and healthy campus environment. Environmental Doctor is among the many

specialists that Sarah has contracted with. Having been in partnership for the past 12

years (and counting), Sarah has been very impressed with Environmental Doctors

meticulousness in its services. As a member of the Daytons International Facility

Management Association (IFMA) LinkedIn group, Sarah occasionally shares industry

tips as well as her positive experiences working with contractors like Environmental

Doctor with other members. In fact, with up to 350 connections on LinkedIn, Sarahs

posts have always garnered many likes because of her credibility in the industry.

While Sarah does not have the time to post regularly, she loves reading environmental-

related articles online and share the most interesting ones with her following. With

complete trust in Environmental Doctors expertise, Sarah will be thrilled to share the

companys articles with her network only if she has easy access to them.

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STRATEGY ONE: WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

In view of the strategic objective and target audience that we have defined above,

we have generated three marketing recommendations that Environmental Doctor

can draw on to appeal to its audience in the digital space. Beginning with the

platform with the highest potential to aid the company in building loyal customer

relationships, website optimization is the first recommendation that we have identified.

Registered under the domain name www.envirodoc.com, Environmental Doctor has

recently revamped its 16-year old website on 5th July 2012.7 As a company-owned

platform, the website allows Environmental Doctor to have complete control over its

published content and visitor metrics, giving the company more opportunities to

personalize engagement with its online audience. Consequently, in order to align this

platform with Environmental Doctors overall objective to build brand loyalty, we have

applied the following frameworks and tools to analyze how the companys new

website has been and should be optimized for customer engagement.

GOOGLE PAGERANK

Google PageRank is a mathematical link-analysis algorithm applied by Google to

determine a web pages importance and trustworthiness for search engine users.

Measured on a scale of 0 10, a higher PageRank score indicates that the page has

more high quality backlinks (i.e. credible incoming links to a web page), and is thus

more likely to be positioned at the top of search engine results. Currently receiving a

relatively low PageRank score of 3/10, Environmental Doctor can improve the

credibility of its website by focusing on the following five key attributes of a web page:8

Comprehensiveness: The content published on the website is very informative

and demonstrates the companys knowledge in its areas of expertise.

Nonetheless, it lacks breadth in key components such as customer testimonials,

causing the company to lose a valuable opportunity to establish its credibility.

7 http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=envirodoc.com&prog_id=GoDaddy 8 http://www.checkpagerank.net

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Relevance: While the website content is educational, it contains many industrial

terms that end users may not necessarily comprehend. However, the website

contains pertinent information and call-to-actions that direct visitors to set up a

consultation with the company, thereby raising its content relevance.

Freshness: Following its major website revamp in July 2012, Environmental Doctor

needs to continue updating and publishing new information regularly. This can

be accomplished through the website, social media, and even a corporate

blog to boast the companys credibility and customer engagement. Currently,

the company is not updating any of these platforms on a regular basis.

Links: Environmental Doctor has done an outstanding job in attracting quality

inbound links. Out of its 23 inbound links, a few of them are from trustworthy and

authoritative sites, including Better Business Bureau and DaytonLocal.com.9

Speed: The website functions at a high speed, with a load time of 39 seconds.

HUBSPOT MARKETING GRADER

HubSpot Marketing Grader is a website analytical tool that measures the entire digital

marketing funnel of a company to generate actionable recommendations on how to

enhance three key dimensions: drive traffic through top-of-the-funnel marketing (such

as blogging and social media), generate lead conversions through middle-of-the-

funnel marketing (such as email and marketing automation), and measure analytics to

close the loop.10 Having received a significantly low marketing grader score of 38/100,

we strongly recommend Environmental Doctor to work on refining its current digital

marketing strategy by paying attention to the following key findings.11

General Findings

On average, Environmental Doctor attracts 169 unique visitors per month to its website.

Figure 2 is a graphical representation of the unique visitors that the company is

projected to have received across the past 12 months (as of October 2012). Based on

9 http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/envirodoc.com 10 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33670/Lessons-From-the-Best-Marketers-of-the-2012-Inc-5000.aspx 11 http://marketing.grader.com/site/envirodoc.com. Conducted on 26 November 2012.

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this trend line, it is conclusive that the website received an exceptionally high traffic

during the summer of 2012, with April peaking at 865 unique visitors.12

Blogging

Currently, Environmental Doctor does not have a blog associated with its website. With

HubSpot statistics revealing that companies that blog enjoy 55% more website traffic

and 70% more leads than those that do not, this implies that Environmental Doctor is

missing out on the opportunity to increase its online audience reach. Furthermore, with

companies that blog receiving 97% more inbound links than those that do not,

Environmental Doctor is forsaking an already proven marketing tactic to establish its

websites credibility and consequently improve its search engine results ranking.

Mobile

On the contrary, Environmental Doctor has kicked off to a good start by creating a

mobile version of its website. With 87% of smartphone owners accessing the Internet on

their mobile devices, the company cannot afford to miss out on this emerging online

audience. Nonetheless, the mobile website does not have a meta viewport tag. This

tag signals to a mobile device how to orient a page when it is loaded, and is the key

for Environmental Doctor to offer a user-friendly mobile site that can entice customers

to leave their details for a consultation request even while they are on the go.

12 http://siteanalytics.compete.com/envirodoc.com

Figure 2: Estimated Unique Website Visitors to Envirodoc.com (October 20112012)

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Search Engine Optimization

The current website appears to be missing a 301 redirect. This function is intended to

direct users to the correct URL if a wrong one has been inputted. For example, if a

prospective customer types in envirodoc.com, a 301 redirect will transfer the user to

www.envirodoc.com. Therefore, by implementing a 301 redirect, Environmental

Doctor can assure it still gets full credit regardless of how its customers organically

access its website. While HubSpot has gathered more findings on how Environmental

Doctor can better optimize its website to increase its organic traffic, we will specifically

elaborate on these recommendations in the next strategy, i.e. Strategy Two Search

Engine Optimization (page 14).

SEO MOZBAR

The SEO MozBar is a toolbar that grants marketers and business owners quick access to

many important search engine optimization and link metrics. With its home page

(which is also its main landing page) scoring only 3/10, Environmental Doctor needs to

pay attention to the following criteria that this analytical tool has used to assess it:13

Page Title: Untitled Document

Meta Description: None

Meta Keywords: None

Page Load Time: 39 seconds (good!)

Internal Followed Links: 32

External Followed Links: 3

Excluding its quick page load duration, the website is currently lacking in all of the

criteria identified above. Fundamentally, Environmental Doctor needs to recognize

that each of its landing pages necessitates a compelling page title, meta description,

and meta keyword list that must complement with its unique content. While these

three assets are just the bare minimum of a relevant web page, having them in place

will mark a good start for Environment Doctor as it progresses towards the

achievement of a higher organic search results ranking position.

13 http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

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INTERNET TOOLKIT: 7C AND 1U

The Internet toolkit is a marketing framework aimed at evaluating the overall customer

experience offered by a website. Applying this framework in the context on

Environmental Doctor, we will be analyzing as well as recommending how the website

can further optimize its visitors experiences based on the 7Cs as follow:

Criteria Analysis Recommendation

Content Informative and educational Hard to comprehend due to

excessive industry terms Dull due to lack of visually

appealing content Lack in breadth

Re-word content to make it more relatable and easy to comprehend by end users

Incorporate multimedia (demo videos and graphics) to user interface more visually appealing

Connectivity Quality inbound links, some of which are from trustworthy and authoritative sites

Links to companys email and social media accounts

Further increase number of quality inbound links from government websites (e.g. www.epa.gov)

Commerce Provides a contact page where prospective customers can request for a consultation appointment

Integrate e-commerce into its consulting services (e.g. e-payments when making online appointments)

Communication Layout is not cluttered User-friendly and easy to

navigate throughout site Consistently includes clear

call-to-action with contact information on every page

Embed interactive elements on website to encourage more customer engagement (e.g. forum, social widget that shows a live feed of Facebook updates)

Community Have Facebook and Twitter accounts, but few followers

Focused too much on sales, too little on community engagement

Implement a blog which updates community about local environmental issues

Encourage customers to submit their own home maintenance tips can even make this a simple contest

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Cost-savings Low cost as current layout and website features do not require high maintenance

Maintain multiple social networks using cross-platform management tools such as Hootsuite14

Computing Currently does not utilize any software to measure website return on investments (ROI)

Define key performance indicators (KPI): click-through rate, impressions, stickiness

Register for Google Analytics to monitor visitor activities15

Use HubSpot and WebTrends to track multiple platforms16

Usability Testing

Similar to the 7Cs, the objective of usability testing is to optimize the customer

experience on a website through the design of a clear, simple, and feasible navigation

system. This can be achieved by answering the following three key prompts arising

from a typical customer journey through the website:

Where am I?

All search engine results and inbound links direct customers to only one landing

page of the website the home page. While the home page does have the

companys logo, it does not have a page title. This is extremely unfavorable for

Environmental Doctor; especially if the customer has multiple tabs open on his

browser and cannot find any title that he would have assumed to contain the

companys name or related words. Nevertheless, Environmental Doctor has

done an outstanding job in maintaining the consistency of the whole website

layout, with all pages carrying the same header which comprises of the brand

logo, tagline, contact information, and social media links.

14 http://hootsuite.com 15 http://www.google.com/analytics 16 http://webtrends.com

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Where can I go?

Attributable to its clear call-to-actions and uncluttered layout, the website is

easy to navigate and locate information. While Environmental Doctor can

exhibit its expertise by introducing its services with industry terms, it needs to take

into account that these terms may be incomprehensible to residential clients

who are unfamiliar with the industry. In fact, by translating these industry terms

into laymen terms, Environmental Doctor can demonstrate its professionalism by

showing its capability to understand and relate to its customers. Additionally,

recognizing that household concerns are not the most interesting topics to

research on, Environmental Doctor can consider including multimedia content

(such as demo videos and graphics) in the description of its services to excite

customers with a more lively reading experience.

Where have I been?

While it is easy to navigate and find information, the website does not provide

any indication on which pages the customer has visited before (e.g. formerly

visited hyperlinks do not change color). This may cause visitors to get easily

confused between the different service offerings listed since they are given such

a wide selection to browse from and this is particularly true for customers who

are unfamiliar with the industry terms. Nonetheless, it does help that the content

of each page is formatted in its own unique style, thus making it easier to recall

which page has been viewed. In order to further reduce this confusion without

compromising the consistency of the whole website layout, Environmental

Doctor can consider adding a bookmarking toolbar at the right corner of the

website. This will allow customers to mark and track which pages they are keen

to return to without having to continuously press the backspace button.

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STRATEGY TWO: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

In addition to using owned media like website, Environmental Doctor can expand its

digital presence on established third-party platforms that have easy access to the

companys target market. One of the most accessible digital platforms to leverage is

search engine. Fundamentally, search engines offer two tactics for companies to

promote their businesses to online customers they are search engine optimization

and search engine marketing. While the two tactics differ in terms of cost and control,

they complement each other well, and contribute to a synergistic digital marketing

strategy that can help brands maximize their return on investments when integrated

together. The following sections explain how Environmental Doctor can adopt both

tactics to generate brand awareness, and consequently expand its loyal following.

KEYWORDS

To begin with, it is important to highlight that both search engine optimization and

search engine marketing share a common goal to make the content of a website

more accessible and relevant to search engine users. Aligned with this goal, search

engines apply mathematical algorithms to find website content that is compatible with

the likely intent of keywords inputted by search engine users. As such, companies need

to identify keywords that not only accurately describe the business, but also relate to

the needs of its end customers. Therefore, the first step Environmental Doctor should

undertake is to translate the keywords currently used on its website from scientific

jargons into customer language. To facilitate this translation process, our team has

recommended a word cloud (as seen in Figure 3.1) for Environmental Doctor, which is

essentially a visual depiction of easy-to-understand keywords that can be used to

describe the company.

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of examining a website to identify

ways to increase its visibility on the organic (or unpaid) search results of search engines.

Since only organic search results are affected, this marketing tactic does not incur any

advertising expenses for the company. Furthermore, as corrections are made to the

corporate-owned website (not the search engine), the company will have full control

over the implementation of this tactic. In an effort to help Environmental Doctor get

started with this implementation, HubSpot Marketing Grader has identified the

following key components that the company should work on to improve its ranking on

search engine results page in the short run.

Currently, Environmental Doctor only has 31 pages indexed by search engines. In other

words, there are only 31 pages of the website that can be displayed in search engine

results should a user be searching for content that is related to Environmental Doctor.

With 46% of daily Internet searches aimed at researching products and services, it is

necessary for Environmental Doctor to not compact all its content in a few pages.

Rather, the company needs to create more pages to be indexed by search engines in

order to increase its chance of ranking higher on the search engine results page.

Figure 3.1: Word Cloud for Environmental Doctor

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Additionally, each page of the website is currently either untitled or generically labeled

as Environmental Doctor Dayton, Ohio. Likewise, each page currently has no meta

description of its own. Since each page is intended to have its own unique content in

order to promote its respective service or product, it is crucial that each page should

have a corresponding title to match its content. For instance, the page

www.envirodoc.com/totalhomeperformance.html should be titled as Total Home

Performance instead of its current title Environmental Doctor Dayton, Ohio.

Moreover, this page should contain a complementing meta description that reveals its

content, such as Are you worried about the high utilities bills, old systems, and poor

ventilation in your house? Check out our Total Home Performance demo to see how

Environmental Doctor can help you solve these issues! With 75% of users never going

further than the first page of search results, it is crucial for Environmental Doctor to use

compelling page titles and descriptions in order to help it stand out and earn a higher

search engine results ranking.

Besides page titles and descriptions, images also play a vital role in helping search

engines locate the content of a website. Currently, there appears to be only one JPEG

image on Environmental Doctors homepage, which has an alt tag attached to it.

Since images cannot display words, an alt tag allows search engines to grasp what the

image is conveying. For instance, the image of the heating and cooling system

currently on the home page should have an alt tag labeled heating_cooling.jpeg.

Environmental Doctor needs to realize that alt tag is becoming increasingly important,

particularly as more users choose to surf the Internet with the image function turned off

in order to expedite downloading time.

Finally, Environmental Doctor needs to actively pursue and build links with authoritative

sites. Authority is defined as the credibility and trustworthiness of the content of a

website. Search engines tend to favor authoritative websites as they provide their

readers with more valuable and relevant information. Currently, Environmental Doctor

only has 23 inbound links, very few of which are from authoritative domains, including

Daytons Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org/dayton) and Montgomery Countys

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Dayton Regional Green 3 government initiative (www.drg3.org).17 While this marks a

good start, Environmental Doctor needs to further expand its database of authoritative

inbound links in order to achieve a higher search engine results ranking for its own site.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search engine marketing, or SEM, relates to the purchase of online marketing media to

increase the visibility of a website on the paid search results of search engines. While

most SEM platforms such as Google AdWords allow companies to adjust their ad

budget and content, companies do not get to enjoy full control and are still obliged to

adhere to the policies and legal issues of these third-party platforms. Additionally, in

contrast to SEO, SEM charges companies a fee for advertising on search engines. More

commonly known as cost-per-click, this fee is subjected to the popularity (i.e. search

frequency) of the keywords that the company chooses to promote. The more popular

the keyword is, the higher its price. As such, it is necessary for Environmental Doctor to

select the most relevant keywords to ensure cost-efficiency of its SEM tactic.

Aligned with this objective, we have gathered several insights from professional web

analytics tool, Alexa, on the keywords that are currently driving traffic to Environmental

Doctor from search engines. Figure 3.2 below lists the top search queries of

envirodoc.com, backed by the percentage of traffic they are driving to the website.18

17 http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/envirodoc.com 18 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/envirodoc.com

Top Search Queries Percentage of Search Traffic

Mold certification dayton oh 29.72%

Mold remediation certification dayton 27.88%

Hepa filtration 5.52%

Hepa filters air con 3.45%

Pureair600 3.30%

Whats a heap filter 3.11%

Purified water leech minerals 2.91%

Figure 3.2: Alexa Analysis of Top Search Queries for Environmental Doctor

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As observed from the list, mold certification dayton oh is deemed as the top search

query directing traffic to envirodoc.com. However, what is more impressive is that

Environmental Doctor dominates 81.73% of all searches for mold certification dayton

oh, placing the company far ahead of its competitors, including mincogroup.com

that came in second with a mere 5.69%, and indoorrestore.com with only 3.68%.19

Nonetheless, it is crucial to highlight that most of the top search queries listed above

are not representative of the core services (such as Total Home Performance, HVAC

systems, and duct cleaning) that are offered by Environmental Doctor. This implies that

the content and keywords currently driving traffic to the website are not compatible

with Environmental Doctors key business offerings. To rectify this incompatibility, we

have recommended the following list of keywords (as seen in Figure 3.3 below) that

Environmental Doctor can purchase in order to increase the relevance of its website

content, and consequently achieve a higher search engine ranking through SEM.20

19 http://bit.ly/11DKVFa 20 https://adwords.google.com/o/TrafficEstimator

Keyword Approximate cost per click (CPC) Competition

Indoor mold removal $9.83 High

Mold control $5.28 High

Heating and cooling systems $4.89 High

HVAC system $4.74 High

Home air check $2.98 High

Indoor ventilation $1.14 High

Indoor air quality $3.65 Medium

Energy savings $3.01 Medium

Air quality system $2.36 Medium

Figure 3.3: Google AdWords Estimates for Recommended Keywords

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STRATEGY THREE: SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION

ANALYSIS OF CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

With capabilities ranging from customization to real-time interaction, social media has

expanded to be more than just another passing fad it has gone mainstream and is

here to stay! As such, our team conducted a preliminary analysis for Environmental

Doctor to determine the state of the companys current social media accounts. Upon

initial investigation, Facebook and Twitter were assumed to be the only social media

channels used by the company based on the fact that these were the only two social

widgets on the websites home page. However, through further analysis, we realized

that Environmental Doctor also employs YouTube as well as a blog. The results of our

analysis are as follow:

Facebook

Quick Statistics: 39 likes Last activity on April 16th 2010

An analysis of Environmental Doctors Facebook business page revealed a severe lack

of content. The last post recorded was back in April 26th 2010, implying over two years

of page inactivity. During this time, customers had posted several times on the page

with one even commenting that your customer service is extraordinary!! (June 21st,

2011).21 Unfortunately, the company never acknowledged this positive review, missing

out on an opportunity to amplify its customer-oriented culture. The company has also

failed to optimize the basic features of its Facebook page, offering very minimal

corporate information in its description and neglecting the inclusion of a cover photo.

Twitter

Quick Statistics: 93 followers, 86 following, 65 tweets Last activity on Nov 30th 2012

A review of the Environmental Doctors Twitter account revealed that the company

has a relatively small following. This may be attributable to the fact that tweets have

21 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Environmental-Doctor/108571182493944?fref=ts

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been automated as most of them only comprised of the companys blog URL

accompanied by the title of the new blog post. While tweets occur every 18 days on

average, there are very few personal tweets being posted. Overall, followers have

tweeted the companys home page 18 times, which is a fairly good statistic. Finally, it is

important to note that despite majority of the tweets linking back to a blog post, none

of them have been successful in directing a follower to a landing page on the website.

YouTube

Quick Statistics: 1 subscriber, 161 video views Last activity on April 13th 2011

The Environmental Doctors YouTube page has three video uploads, which comprise of

two commercials and one video of a crew Ice Blasting the basement of a home. The

Ice Blasting video has 87 views over 50% of the channels views. None of the videos

have comments. Last but not least, the link on the YouTube page directs potential

leads to the companys blog, rather than to its website.

Blog

Quick Stats: Average 2 posts per month, 3 client reviews Last activity on 30th Nov 2012

The Environmental Doctors blog is updated twice a month on average. The posts are

usually around a paragraph long, and contain information about a relevant story in

the news or a quick pitch on one of the services the company has offered. Almost all

of the posts have 0 comments, and they have never been re-tweeted. Despite these

unfavorable statistics, blog appears to be the most informative and updated out of

the four social media channels the company owns. Finally, it is useful that the blog

does contain information on the companys products and services, in addition to

several client reviews.

Through this analysis, it is evident that Environmental Doctors social media channels

have both strengths and areas for improvements. While the company has a relatively

interactive blog, its biggest weakness is lacking meaningful and inspiring content

distributed across all of its social networks.

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SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

Typically, content strategy comprises of four main sections. These different sections

combine marketing, content development, and analytics to create a full-circle

approach that is aimed at helping companies to develop a strong brand presence on

social networks. These four sections are as follow: identifying the customers, creating

meaningful content, creating and executing a content publishing plan, and finally

tracking the results. Each section plays an essential role in supporting Environmental

Doctor to develop meaningful content and engagement with its customers thereby

aligning with the companys overall objective to build loyal customer relationships.

Identify Your Customers

As mentioned earlier in the proposal, based on Environmental Doctors target markets,

two personas have been proposed to personify its online audience. They are the

evangelist (for residential clients) and the industry thought leader (for commercial

clients). Moving forward, these personas should be the focus of all efforts to create a

meaningful content strategy. The following key insights have been identified for each

of the listed personas:

Evangelist

1. Cares deeply about the health of those residing in or visiting his home

2. Values warm customer service and a job well done

3. Enjoys sharing his experience and opinions, whether positive or negative,

with his friends and families

Industry Thought Leaders

1. Values, promotes, and only partners with companies that follow ethical

and fair business practices

2. Takes pride in basing his decisions off what is best for his business, his

employees, his customers, as well as the environment at large

3. Is open to, and actively searches for cutting-edge solutions to problems

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Create Meaningful Content

All social media content published by Environmental Doctor should be meaningful

to either one, or preferably both, of the previously defined personas. Meaningful

can be defined as providing some sort of benefit to the customer, and if truly

meaningful, will pass the following test:

1) It is content that people choose to engage with.

2) It is content that improves peoples lives.

If these two conditions are met, the content is considered to be meaningful. Once

the content passes this test, it can be broken down into one of three functional

areas, depending on the value it provides to the consumer. The three functional

areas are Solution Benefits, Connection Benefits, and Achievement Benefits.

Together, they constitute the Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing, as presented

below in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing

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Beginning with the base of the hierarchy, Solution Benefits cover basic household

needs and benefits for instance, a YouTube video which teaches the Evangelist

how to perform a simple inspection of his or her furnace. Connection Benefits build a

bonding relationship between customers and brands an example is a fun and

entertaining short story. Finally, Achievement Benefits allow customers to significantly

improve their lives, realize a dream, or positively change their community and their

world at large. An Achievement Benefit can include the promotion of a charity,

which allows customers to donate and improve the quality of the world they live in.

It is important to categorize content to ensure that a wide variety is being provided

in the overall strategy. The following lists a few content examples for each category:

Solution Benefits Content

Provide how-to instructional information, offer promotional discounts, provide

customer support, encourage customer reviews, utilize energy savings

calculator, stress company expertise

Connection Benefits Content

Offer a behind-the-scenes view for customers, demonstrate what the company

does, share employee stories and experiences, reward customer loyalty

Achievement Benefits Content

Create or promote a relevant charity, let customers help each other out,

encourage customers to contribute, engage with an industry leader

Finally, it is important to note that the company should first and foremost be focused

on creating meaningful content. Social media channels will then be addressed in

the next step, only after meaningful content has been developed.

Create and Execute a Content Publishing Plan

The next step is to take the meaningful content ideas and create a plan in which

the content will be published. Usually, this is a month long plan, and thus has to be

updated every month. The goal of creating this plan is to ensure that the published

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content will be consistent and relevant. It also ensures adequate time to plan for the

development of that content, and that content is pushed to the relevant social

media channels frequently and consistently. When developing this plan, it is

necessary to consider each of the social media channels that will be leveraged to

publish the content. Recognizing that each channel is unique, we have noted the

pros and cons specific to each platform as follow:

Facebook is currently the largest and most popular social network where

people can create profiles, exchange messages, and report status updates.

Pros: Great for brand exposure and customer relations

Cons: Not SEO-friendly

Ideal for: Posting pictures, creating events, and engaging with customers

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables users to publish text-based posts

of up to 140 characters.

Pros: Ability to respond to customers quickly, ability to easily share

content through re-tweets

Cons: Promotion must find a delicate balance between content and

spam, large follower drop-off rate once brand is perceived to be inactive

Ideal for: Recycling content through re-tweets, engaging with customers,

publishing tweets which direct customers to another landing page

YouTube is a video-sharing website that is popular for user-generated content,

video clips, and video blogging.

Pros: One of the best venues to build a brand through video tutorials

Cons: Traffic is often limited to site and difficult to redirect viewers to an

external landing page

Ideal for: Tutorials, how-to videos, customer reviews, and employee-

generated video content

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Blog is a social network in which content is constantly updated and shared,

usually in the form of articles.

Pros: Excellent information source for customers, frequent updates are

ideal for SEO, easy to share

Cons: Requires more time to develop content

Ideal for: More lengthy self-published content, ideally reinforcing

expertise or knowledge in a certain area

LinkedIn is a professional social network used to connect users with other

industry individuals, companies, and groups.

Pros: Excellent for B2B use, reinforces a professional image, easy

membership into professional groups

Cons: Not a lot of personal engagement, limited content published

Ideal for: Establishing relationships with commercial clients

As a result of the unique pros and cons of each social media platform, the content

publishing plan will contain content specific to each channel. More commonly

known as the Master Content Publishing Plan, this plan provides the publisher with

an overview of the content for each social media channel, allowing him or her to

plan and execute the strategy more accurately. Utilize a template that is similar to

one provided below in Figure 4.2 when creating the Master Content Publishing Plan.

Figure 4.2: Master Content Publishing Plan Template

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Owing to the unique purposes of each social media platform, we highly

recommend the use of specific channel publishing plans as well. These plans allow

for more detailed records and more space to plan ahead. Along with a description

of the content to be published, other relevant information can also be included,

such as the post date, author, tentative title, keywords, photo tags, hashtags, and

links. A channel-specific content publishing plan for Environmental Doctors

Facebook account resembles the template shown below in Figure 4.3.

Finally, when executing this publishing plan, we recommend Environmental Doctor

to utilize the free online social media management tool HootSuite. HootSuite allows

the company to schedule content to be published in advance. For instance,

assuming that Environmental Doctor wants to tweet Merry Christmas! Enjoy your

holidays from your friends at Environmental Doctor #hohoho, but no one wants to

work on the actual day of Christmas. Hootsuite allows a staff personnel to prepare

the tweet in advance on December 22nd, and schedule for it to be published

automatically on the actual Christmas day. This is just one of the many ways that

HootSuite can help Environmental Doctor to better manage and execute its

content strategy. Figure 4.4, on the next page, presents a sample of the

AutoSchedule function mentioned earlier.

Figure 4.3: Channel-Specific Content Publishing Plan Template

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Track Your Results

Measuring the results of optimization efforts is extremely important. Existing online

analytics software are automated to track not only the growth (or decline) in a

companys likes and followers, but also the amount of influence the company has

on its social media communities, the amount of traffic driven to its website stemming

from social media, and even demographics of the customers interacting with the

companys social media. There are four free analytics tools that can aid

Environmental Doctor in assessing the impact that its content strategy has on its

online audience in real time. These tools include Wildfire Social Media Tracker, Klout,

Google Social Analytics, and Facebook Insights.

WildFire Social Media Tracker is reputed to be the most user-friendly analytics

tool. It tracks how many likes a company has on Facebook or followers on

Twitter. Furthermore, it keeps track of these statistics on a daily basis. Through this

Figure 4.4: HootSuite AutoSchedule Function Example

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information, Environmental Doctor can determine whether its content strategy

for the day has contributed to an increase in likes/followers, or a decrease. From

there, changes can be made to specific content strategy components. Figure

4.5 shows a sample Twitter statistic that is being monitored by WildFire.

Klout generates a score based on the influence that an individual or company

has on others in the world of social media. As the amount of influence that

individual or company has increases, so does its score. The score is calculated

based on measurements including re-tweets, comments, and mentions.

Environmental Doctor can track the growth of its influence in the social media

sphere by monitoring its Klout Score. Details as to how the score is calculated

can be found in Figure 4.6 on the next page.

Figure 4.5: WildFire Social Media Tracker Example

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Google Analytics can calculate how much website traffic a company is

receiving from each of its social media channels. Again, this is an important tool

that can inform a company whether or not its content strategy is effective.

Figure 4.7 shows a sample statistic being tracked by Google Analytics.

Figure 4.6: Klout Scoring System

Figure 4.7: Google Analytics Example

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Facebook Insights is an analytics tool that is solely committed to track the

insights of a Facebook page or application. It monitors a number of statistics,

which primarily includes the visitors to a companys Facebook business page

and their on-page social interactions. This provides the company with an

overview of the demographics, likes, visits, and number of people talking about

its page. When cross-referenced with the content publishing plan, a company

can then determine what content has caused the sudden peaks or plunges in

the visitor behavioral patterns. Figure 4.8 presents a few of the visitor

demographic metrics that Facebook Insights tracks for a business page.

Figure 4.8: Facebook Insights Example

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SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION: LISTEN & ENGAGE

While it is important to publish meaningful content as a means of social media

optimization, companies should also not neglect the significance of listening and

engaging with customers in a meaningful and positive way as well. Too often, brands are

initially keen to create social media business pages, only to leave them unintended after

they realize the high time commitment required in maintaining these channels. This

aggravates customers who make the effort to engage with a company on its social

network, yet failed to receive any response for their sincerity. This is no different from

answering the phone, listening to a customers inquiry, and immediately hanging up on

them when they have completed their comment. As listed in the heading, there are two

main parts to this section of social media optimization listen and engage.

Listen

Regardless of companies being aware or not, someone is talking about their brands in

social media. Not only do current customers talk about their experiences with

Environmental Doctor, potential clients may also be tweeting prompts such as does

anyone know someone who can replace my water heater? Fortunately, there are tools

that can help the company to identify these potential clients. We have identified three

tools that can help Environmental Doctor to enhance its listening capability on social

media they are Google Alerts, Social Mention, and HootSuite.

Google Alerts is an extremely user-friendly tool for both marketing and non-

marketing personnel. By completing a simple query and supplying a verified

email address, Google Alerts will automatically send email updates regarding

any recently published information that is relevant to the specified query. Alerts

extracts it updates from a wide variety of sources, ranging from blog posts to

new aggregators. By utilizing this tool, Environmental Doctor will be in position to

respond immediately should an article or comment pertaining to the company

or industry be published on the Internet.

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Social Mention is very similar to Google Alerts. The only significant difference is

that Social Mention monitors activities only within the social media sphere.

Nonetheless, its function remains the same as Google Alerts as Social Mention

tracks anything that is being asked or said on social media sites. That being said,

Environmental Doctor can use that information to its advantage when trying to

manage its brand reputation or create new leads.

HootSuite has multiple functionalities that Environmental Doctor can leverage; in

addition to social media scheduling that has been identified earlier. This cross-

platform tool allows for the monitoring of all social media channels in one

central location. In the context of Environmental Doctor, the company can

monitor its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube accounts using this single

tool. Additionally, HootSuite provides live feed updates so that Environmental

Doctor can track any real-time posts that have mentioned the company or

industry-related topics. Figure 4.9 offers an overview of the tools functionalities.

Engage

By virtue of being a communication tool, social media also has the capability to

interact and build relationships with customers. In order to establish new relationships

as well as increase the strength of its current relationships, Environmental Doctor must

Figure 4.9: HootSuite Example

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take the initiative to engage with its consumers in an open, transparent, and honest

manner. When pondering the best way to engage with customers, it is helpful to

consider the following five tips for successful engagement:

People Do It For Themselves

Environmental Doctor must recognize that it cannot control, let alone exploit,

online communities. There must be legal and professional constraints, but even if

the company hosts a community, is has no privileges to cannot censor or delete

comments and content that it does not like.

Be Open and Honest

It is inevitable that there may be a minority number of customers who will

criticize the company, its products, and services. Therefore, how Environmental

Doctor responds is vitally important. The company should not trivialize or argue;

but rather, be polite and reasonable in correcting the error if the criticism is

deemed to be wrong.

Be Responsive

To participate in the community and ignore the feedback is worse than not

participating at all. Worst still, is a promise of action and then a failure to deliver.

Give Something Back

At minimal, Environmental Doctor should be proactive in engaging with its

community, making sure that all news about the company, products, and

services are posted in a timely fashion. Advance notice of a new service

offering, exclusive offer, or even a competition can create and reinforce

feelings of exclusivity among the companys current customers.

Measure

While online communities are inexpensive compared with other forms of

marketing, they carry costs in terms of staff time and other IT resources.

Environmental Doctor needs to ensure that its investment is worthwhile.

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FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS

In view of the detailed analyses that we have conducted above, we have generated

recommendations that Environmental Doctor can draw on to appeal to both its

residential and commercial target markets simultaneously. To present these

recommendations in a clear and concise manner, we have developed how-to

manuals that will guide Environmental Doctor in its implementation of our proposed

digital marketing strategy. More significantly, understanding that Environmental Doctor

has to explore a wide variation of recommendations with limited budget and

resources, we have evaluated and prioritized each of our recommendations based on

the following two dimensions:

Effort: Cost of implementation and time commitment for maintenance

Pay-off: Effectiveness of driving visitors to the next phase of the customer journey

(in the following order: Awareness Buy-In Retention Advocacy)

Acknowledging that this is Environmental Doctors first attempt in digital marketing, we

strongly advise the company to kick off with recommendations that require low or

moderate efforts yet offer a high pay-off. In that way, Environmental Doctor will be

able to enjoy a gradual but steady transition into the new realm of digital marketing.

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MANUAL 1: WEBSITE & SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Effort Payoff

AWARENESS How to direct customers to the website?

Develop a mobile site that is compatible with both iOS and Android platforms

High High

Incorporate QR code (that drives mobile traffic to website) on print advertisements

High High

Purchase keywords listed in Figure 3.3 (above) for search engine marketing on Google AdWords

High High

Apply search engine optimization (i.e. relevant keywords in page titles, descriptions, and alt tags) to increase search engine results page ranking

Moderate High

Attract more authoritative inbound links Moderate High

Direct traffic from social media sites to website Low Moderate

Develop a 301 redirect Low Low

BUY-IN How to click with customers and invite them to access the site?

Use unique page titles and meta descriptions that match the content of the landing page Example: www.envirodoc.com/about About Environmental Doctor With 23 years of experience,

Environmental Doctor specializes in offering healthier, more comfortable, and energy-efficient indoor environments

Moderate High

RETENTION How to engage with customers on the website?

Embed a blog within the companys website Low Moderate

Publish company-related articles, such as how-to tutorials and demo videos of services

High High

Publish industry-related articles, such as infographics and interesting case studies

High High

Add more pages to be indexed on search engines (e.g. page dedicated for Household services)

Moderate Moderate

Develop an interactive chat bot named ED to assist customers with concerns they may have

High High

Register for HubSpot or other website analytics software to automate tracking of visitor metrics, and use these insights for further website optimization

Moderate High

ADVOCACY How to motivate customers to spread the word about the site?

Regularly update content (twice per month) to excite customers with refreshing information

High High

Embed social bookmarking & sharing widgets on site so that customers can share or save the page

Low Moderate

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MANUAL 2: SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION

Category Recommendation Notes Effort Payoff

Overall

Set a social media budget $1000/Month

Hire a marketing intern 10 Hours/Week

Define your voice President Brendan

Content Strategy

Create a Master Publishing Plan

Utilize Wildfire Social Media Tracker

Create a Klout account

Create a Google Analytics account

Utilize Facebook Insights

Facebook

Create a Facebook Publishing Plan New plan per month

Post photos of at least 1 job per week Before or after customer interaction

Add a cover photo

Twitter

Create a Twitter Publishing Plan Follow at least 15 new people Every Week

Re-tweet at least two industry (non-company) articles per week

YouTube

Create a YouTube Publishing Plan

Create one how-to video per month

Add at least one customer review per month

Blog Create a Blog Publishing Plan

Minimum one blog post per week

LinkedIn

Create a LinkedIn Profile

Create a LinkedIn Publishing Plan

Create a LinkedIn Group

Invite 10 people to group per week

Join one relevant group per week

Listen & Engage

Sign Up on HootSuite

Sign Up for Google Alerts

Sign Up for Social Mention