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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Sandbanks Hotel is a 4-star small family hotel operated under the brand name of FJB Hotels, which
is situated on the Sandbanks peninsula in Poole, Dorset on the South Coast of England. Their large
target audience consists predominately of families and offers various unique selling points (USP),
such as ‘kids go free’ deals, combined with having exceptional family sea view rooms with direct
access to the blue flag beach, providing a choice of water activities. A customer persona is created to
identify a value proposition in order to develop a strategic digital marketing plan by using the
SOSTAC framework as a guideline throughout the report to develop recommendations based on
objectives. Objectives include, reducing dependency of online travel agents by converting to affiliate
marketing networks to increase direct bookings. Expanding social media presence by interacting
with potential customers through user-generated content. Furthermore, retaining customer loyalty by
optimising repeat sales through increasing outbound e-mail marketing providing exclusive offers.
The recommendations could potentially be achieved by executing promotional campaigns to retain
customer advocacy.

Word count: 2,746

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary: ........................................................................................................................ 2

1.0 Introduction: .............................................................................................................................. 4
2.0 Situation Analysis: ..................................................................................................................... 5
3.0 Customer Persona:..................................................................................................................... 6
4.0 Customer Journey: ..................................................................................................................... 8
5.0 Value Proposition: ................................................................................................................... 11
6.0 Objectives: ............................................................................................................................... 13
7.0 Current Marketing Strategy: .................................................................................................... 15
8.0 Tactics and Recommendations: ............................................................................................... 17
9.0 Actions: .................................................................................................................................... 22
10.0 Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................ 23
11.0 Refernces: .............................................................................................................................. 24

1.0 INTRODUCTION:

According to Mahajan and Wind (2002, p.3), the digital uprising has “shaken marketing to its core”.
Digital marketing has revolutionized the way consumers engage with products by putting them in
charge, and therefore creating an important modification in the dynamics of marketing.

The Sandbanks Hotel has recently adjusted their marketing plan to integrate more with consumers
through digital platforms in order to gain further customer insight. By focusing on the upcoming
digital trend of mobile search and social, Sandbanks Hotel invested £60,000 to their website in 2014
with web developers, Shotgun Front. However, the website consists of tools such as videos of the
hotels facilities and features, which are unresponsive on mobile devices. Brands should optimize
their website for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure all devices are responsive on all
search platforms to increase recall and engagement (Tilton 2012). Additionally, navigation on the
website can be confusing, particularly for the older generation who are a key target market that
favour a more simplistic design and approach.

The structure of the report will initially outline the customer’s demographic persona in order to
further understand consumers journey and behaviour. This will allow for a clear marketing

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integration plan to impose a value proposition by convincing potential customers to successfully
rectify Sandbanks Hotel current situation by driving website traffic, increase direct bookings and
revenue. Evidently, this will be achieved by using PR Smith’s SOSTAC Model as a guideline to
implement a strategic plan based on the objectives. The RACE framework will be applied to ensure a
tactical approach is followed by providing recommendations through key performance indicators
(KPI’s).

2.0 SITUATION ANALYSIS:

In order to critically analyse and plan the Sandbanks Hotel’s digital marketing strategy, PR Smith’s
SOSTAC Model (Figure 1 below) will act as a foundation to the structure of this report. Specific key
aspects of the SOSTAC Model will be analysed throughout to implement certain marketing planning
frameworks and to make feasible recommendations going forward.

Figure 1: PR Smith’s SOSTAC Model

The model is becoming increasingly common amongst industry professionals to produce marketing,
e-marketing and advertising plans (Chaffey and Smith 2013). SOSTAC stands for: Situation
analysis, Objectives and Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control. To gain a further understanding of

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customer insights, the situation analysis is a key component in identifying personas. The broad
segmentation of situation analysis is, ‘where are we now’ in terms of the number of customers who
are currently buying or influenced by the online content offered (Chaffey and Smith 2013). These
include areas such as, how Sandbanks Hotel are currently performing, competitors, utilising the
appropriate communication channels and how effective is the current marketing mix (Swan 2016).
However, to optimize future online marketing growth, a customer persona needs to be created to
enhance the existing customer base and understand their motivations (Swan 2016).

3.0 CUSTOMER PERSONA:

According to Target Internet (2016) a marketing persona is a fictional character that has been created
to characterise specific key traits of a certain group associated with your target audience. According
to Vaughan (2015), understanding your buyer’s personas is crucial to driving content creation and
sales to maximise customer acquisition and retention. As seen in figure 2 below, Ben Simmers is a
38-year-old male who is married with two children, Lucy 8 and George 11.

Ben is significantly tech savvy due to his young age and became heavily influenced by the rise of
social media once he graduated from Warwick University. The Simmers are a very adventurous
family who enjoy trying new activities and exploring new destinations. Ben thoroughly enjoys
capturing quality moments with his family on his Canon camera and sharing the experiences to his
social media followers.

His key attributes are implementing social media for his Letting Agency to advertise and promote a
specific target market of students. Social media engagement has allowed for significant reach due to
the increasing popularity of mobile search, by targeting key demographic areas within the suburbs of
London. His wife, Mary describes her husband as “utilising their broadband to the maximum by
browsing the web on his mobile an average of 2 hours a night”.

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Figure 2: Customer Insight Persona

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4.0 CUSTOMER JOURNEY:

Understanding consumer behaviour has never been more important due to constantly changing as a
result of advances in technology (Calcott and Weller 2012). As consumer behaviour changes so must
the ways in which companies engage with their audience by interacting every step of the customers’
journey (Lecinski 2014). As a result, Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) was introduced as a framework
for companies to revolutionize the way “consumers search for information online and make
decisions regarding brands” (Lecinski 2014, p.28). Creating a stimulus is a key component to
interacting with customers and generating interest to successfully incorporate the four moments of
truth, which is key to understanding the customer journey (Solis 2013). A customer journey is the
full lifecycle view of a customer’s engagement and interaction with a particular brand, which allows
for a feasible prediction of establishing certain behavioural patterns towards purchasing (Zener
2013).

“42% of businesses have no digital customer journey”

Brian Solis (2013)

“Touch points are only updated with new social and mobile technologies”

The stimulus occurs the moment a customer is first exposed to a brand through advertising such as
radio, video or podcasts (Sharma 2013). Ben is driving to work listening to his local radio station
when he hears Sandbanks Hotel in Poole are offering a ‘kids go free’ campaign throughout
September. Due to work commitments and saving for a bigger family house, Ben advised his
children that a summer holiday was unlikely this year, however his awareness to Sandbanks Hotel
promotion was too good to turn down and acted as a stimulus. Figure 3 below identifies the ZMOT
model, which is key to the customer journey as it shapes the consumers purchase decision.

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 Figure 3: PR Smith’s Zero Moment of Truth Model

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According to Solis (2013), the connected consumers of today value information from friends,
reviews and shared experiences the most, compared to what companies publish online. Therefore,
influence is a key component to the experience a customer encounters in the Zero Moment of Truth
(ZMOT), as this defines the expression people share of your company. Sandbanks Hotel has a good
online presence of digital channels that allows the customer to engage and share their experience.
More importantly, understanding the new customer journey throughout the ultimate moment of truth
(UMOT) is important to discovering touch points and sources that influence truth to what people
share online through their experience (Solis 2013). Sandbanks Hotel has numerous bad reviews on
TripAdvisor in conjunction with their afternoon tea service and quality. However, responding to the
reviews through action will ultimately create positive word of mouth by generating awareness,
advocacy and influence for the next persons ZMOT (Chaffey and Smith 2013). A customer’s journey
showing how people leap from one channel to another during the buying process is illustrated in
figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Customer Journey Touch Points

Source: B2B Marketing Experiences- De Baere (2015)

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5.0 VALUE PROPOSITION:

Online value proposition concerns emphasising core brand values and effectively summarise what a
customer can get from you online, which they can’t find anywhere else (Chaffey and Smith 2013).
According to Chaffey and Smith (2013, p.300) there are 3 core online proposition components that
an organisations website should ensure they are offering that; “is different from your competitors, is
not available in the real world and makes a difference to your customers lives.” To help businesses
create a suitable strategy to develop products or services that customers want to buy, Peter Thomson
(2013) created the ‘Value Proposition Design Canvas’ as seen below in figure 5, with the purpose of
examining the human experience of their customers. The design specifically for Sandbanks Hotel
can be seen in figure 6.

The success of a service industry is heavily dependent on its positioning and differentiation strategy
that determines a well-crafted value proposition, which gives the company a competitive advantage
(Murray 2013). Marketers should compare their value proposition in conjunction with competitors to
ensure how they can optimise and develop a unique online experience (Chaffey and Smith 2013).

Figure 5: Peter Thomson Value Proposition Canvas

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Sandbanks Hotel is in the service industry offering a variety of products that forms a value
proposition for specific customer segments (Thomson 2013). The hotel offers unique selling points
(USP) in terms of being located on the sea front offering a variety of water activities, which
differentiates itself to other competitors. Additionally, the hotel offers easy access to a variety of
kids’ activities and entertainment such as; kids club and water sports summer camp, therefore
offering touch points to customers needs and wants. A core aspect of the value proposition is to
address the fundamental needs of the customers by fulfilling their happiness. A solution to rectify
this customer’s pain is to provide a set of objectives surrounding the unique products or services
offered, such as watersports, parking facilities and family rooms whilst implementing strategy by
offering great value for money. As a result, this will improve gain by developing brand loyalty and
engagement.

Figure 6: Adapted Value Proposition Canvas

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6.0 OBJECTIVES:

Objectives are a key component to the long-term strategy of a business to develop clear benefits that
will gain a competitive advantage (Smith and Chaffey 2013). To achieve this, appropriate resources
need to be allocated to achieve the objectives of where Sandbanks Hotel is going before deciding on
strategy of how to get there. A useful framework to achieve the objectives is utilising the 5’s (Sell,
Serve, Speak, Save and Sizzle) as seen in figure 7. According to Smith and Chaffey (2013, p.24)
there are five broad benefits to optimise e-marketing as seen in table 1 below.

Table 1: 5 key objectives for e-marketing

1. Grow sales through wider distribution, promotion and sales.

2. Add value by giving customers extra benefits online.

3. Get closer to customers by tracking them online, asking questions and creating
dialogue.

4. Save costs of service, promotions, sales transactions, print and post to increase profits
on transactions.

5. Extend the brand online. Reinforce brand values in a totally new medium.

The main objectives for improving the business of Sandbanks Hotel is by creating a content hub to
extend presence online through sizzle by refining branding metrics such as, reach and engagement
(Marketing Insights 2016). The dependency of independent hoteliers on online travel agencies
(OTA) is rapidly increasing with 74% of bookings in Europe believed to come from OTA’s in 2015,
see figure 6 (Kearney 2016).

“87% of hotels named Booking.com as their top producing OTA” (Kearney 2016)

One of the main objectives is to substantially decrease the heavy presence of dependency Sandbanks
Hotel currently has on OTA’s, which falls under sell of the 5’s. The hotel presently deals with over
ten OTA’s including Booking.com and Expedia (see figure 7 below), with the key objective set to

13
reduce this by 20% in the next 12 months, thus optimising direct online bookings and evidently
increasing customer acquisition. Currently, Sandbanks Hotel guarantees their customers the best rate
if booked directly on their website. However, to increase reach and direct bookings to landing pages,
a call to action instruction, such as ‘book today for guaranteed best rates’ can be implemented to
owned media channels such as Facebook.

Search engine marketing (SEM) encourages click through rates to the website when user types a
specific keyword phrase targeting audiences at moments of intent to increase Sandbanks Hotel’s
average position. Additionally, Sandbanks Hotel currently lacks paid media tools such as Google
AdWords to measure SEO, which is important to boost
average position amongst competitors to achieve high
levels of traffic and improve conversion results (Kaushik
2010). Integrating retargeting, keywords and PPC will
drive more direct searchers to owned media sites. ‘Speak’
is key to getting closer to customers by improving
response rates by 50% through optimising social media
marketing. As a result, this will increase Sandbanks Hotel
awareness by sizzling customers experience through content media by showcasing videos, therefore
generating social engagement such as shares and comments. Content marketing allows businesses to
potentially create a better customer experience and add significant value (Angulo 2016). Video will
account for 75% of all Internet traffic in 2017 according to Angulo (2016).

Figure 7: Objectives for the 5s e-marketing

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7.0 CURRENT MARKETING STRATEGY:

Media is a key component to contribute a fundamental digital marketing strategy through earned,
owned and paid media (see figure 8). In order to rectify the current situation of Sandbanks Hotel and
improve service, the existing marketing strategy needs to be assessed. The hotel integrates well with
content participation through third party websites, such as TripAdvisor by responding to feedback
and therefore maximising favourable mentions. However, backlink distribution can optimise website
traffic when responding to feedback, which can also be integrated amongst other owned media, such
as Facebook and Twitter.

The website contains content media on the homepage of aerial footage of Sandbanks to engage site
visitors. However, videos, interactive and user generated content can be improved on owned digital
properties to increase awareness to drive visitors to the website, which can influence and convert
potential buyers. This can be paramount to gaining credibility online by encouraging click through
rates. Evidently, the content media can be uploaded to owned social media accounts, which can
generate mentions, shares, likes and online word of mouth to promote Sandbanks Hotel by targeting
specific segments. Current marketing also consists of dependency of online travel agents (OTA) such
as Booking.com, Trivago and Expedia, which increases substantial reach on high-ranking websites.
Alternatively, by providing a proposition value of combining products such as family room with
watersports for a special price can add value through service.

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 Figure 8: Showing Sandbanks Hotel current paid, owned and earned media content
with recommendations for future strategy

Paid Owned Earned

Google AdWords Facebook Facebook images

and video shares
Booking.com Twitter
TripAdvisor
Expedia Linkedin Reviews

Trivago YouTube Facebook Reviews

Kayak Google Plus Geo­tagging

Secret Escapes Website

Sanbanks Hotel have a high presence on owned media such as
Facebook, however limited engagement with customers is evident.
Therefore implementing a strategy to increase response rates on
reviews by commenting and sharing posts will substantially increase
awareness and engagement. Additionally, acting to reviews by
responding on third party website such as TripAdvisor (earned media)
with backlinks to peoples issues or problems will lead customers
directly to the website, therefore reducing bounce rates, converting
potential customers to buyers and building customer reputation.
Increasing conversion rates through marketing investment (Paid
media) using influencers with high number of social media followers to
blog about Sandbanks Hotel to raise awareness and promote offers.

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8.0 TACTICS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

Essentially, tactics are the core details of strategy by requiring an understanding of how each tactical
e-tools work or cannot work, such as opt-in email, social media marketing or display ads (Chaffey
and Smith 2013). In order to successfully implement Sandbanks Hotel’s objectives through content
marketing, a tactical approach is needed to ensure each stage of the RACE framework is analysed by
giving recommendations of how to achieve the strategic goals, as seen in figure 9 below (Chaffey
and Smith 2013). Key performance indicators (KPI’s) are implemented to measure and control
performance as demonstrated in the last section of the SOSTAC planning framework.

Figure 9: PRACE Framework combining objectives to E- marketing tactics

Source: Smart Insights by Dave Chaffey (2015)

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Objectives Recommendations to achieve strategic KPI

goal
Boost search According to websitegrader.com (2016), Create a Google
engine Sandbanks Hotel is currently ranked 30 out AdWords account to
optimisation of 30 for SEO suggesting the website to be effectively measure
(SEO) easily reached via Google search engine, ‘Click Through Rates’
therefore creating substantial reach. to convert traffic to
Additionally, utilising keywords such as Sandbanks Hotel
‘best hotels in Poole’ are heavily occupied landing page. Our
by OTA’s who significant levels of reach in Google AdWords
Google search engine, which may suggest campaign budget was
their dependency of OTA’s. However, a only $200; however
more holistic approach is recommended to increasing the budget
increase reach and direct bookings to could considerably
landing pages, a call to action instruction, increase a return on
such as ‘book today for guaranteed best investment (ROI).
rates’ can be implemented to owned media
channels such as Facebook through SEO to
boost organic visibility.

Increase reach Sandbanks Hotel has a large social media Monitor social media
and awareness following with nearly 5,000 Facebook likes, performance by the
by building a 40,000 check-ins and over 3,000 Twitter number of followers
relationship followers. However, they do not utilise their converted and the
with 1-2 large following by externally targeting engagement rate.
influencers influencers within the travel industry.
within 12 Targeting influencers such as bloggers can

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 months generate substantial reach through their
large following, which can influence trust,
exposure and popularity for the hotel
through promotional campaign. Shares,
comments and e-word of mouth can convert
potential new customers to buying the
service and saving costs on traditional
media. Marketers look at influencers as a top
of the funnel tactic to generate the most
awareness through familiar and trusted
online channels such as Facebook
(Doughetry 2015).

Objectives Recommendations to achieve strategic goal KPI

Create and Although the home page engages with Use social media
deliver at least customer with video content consisting of management system such
one online drone footage of Sandbanks, minimal as Hootsuite to measure
content media engagement is created via owned social media conversion rates before
per month to channels. Interactive tools are recommended and after implementing
enhance brand to create video content to interact with new content media across
image and customers, which leads traffic directly to the owned channels.
reduce the website and reduces bounce rate. Uploading Similarly, measuring
bounce rate by videos of user-generated content of bounce rates using
25% families/couples using gifts offered by the Google Analytics to
hotel such as watersports can increase social analyse percentage of
media engagement and fuel lead generation visitors who explore the
by reducing bounce rate due to exploring website past the landing
Sandbanks Hotel website further. page

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 Objectives Recommendations to achieve strategic goal KPI
Reduce Sandbanks Hotel is heavily dependent on Reduce dependency of
dependency of OTA’s to fill empty rooms but this also online travel agents by
OTA’s by 20% increases reach. Consequently, Sandbanks 20%, which can be
in the next 12 Hotel pays 15-20% commission to online measured using the
months travel agents, resulting in a reduction of conversion rate metric
revenue. To successfully convert the number on Google Analytics.
of customers booking directly to the website, Additionally, affiliate
a clear and simple engagement funnel is networks provide
required to increase customer acquisition. To regular advertising
increase conversion rate and reduce third methods such as PPC
party bookings, developing affiliate marketing and SEO.
partners such as Affiliate Window, can
subsequently reduce high commission sites
such as Booking.com. Engaging with affiliate
marketing networks such as Affiliate
Window, only charge commission of 6-8%
opposed to 20-25% by OTA’s once a
customer has purchased a hotel room (Weston
2013). This e-retailer marketing strategy can
significantly reduce costs (save) by less
commission and increase ‘sales’ through
reach. According to Affiliate Window (2016),
UK consumers spent over £150m via affiliate
websites in 2013, suggesting a growing digital
trend.

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 Objectives Recommendations to achieve strategic goal KPI
Increase Reviews equal ‘trust and social proof’ (Chaffey Measure performance
customer 2013, p.128). Increasing reviews from 0-50 drivers such as active
engagement significantly increases conversions by 4%. social followers and
and response Sandbanks Hotel is good at engaging with active customers via
rates online by customers on TripAdvisor by responding to nearly website and email.
50% through all reviews. However, Facebook reviews and
social media Twitter reviews are becoming increasingly
(Owned media) popular, which the hotel fails to engage with.
Commenting on posts will lead to growth in
conversions on their owned media, contribute to
SEO by optimising content and encourages
prospective buyers to buy rooms.

Increase Developing long-term customer loyalty is seen as Measure customer

outbound e- one of the most challenging components for advocacy by customer
mail marketing marketers (Chaffey 2013). E-mail marketing is satisfaction surveys
by 50% in next applied by Sandbanks Hotel using ‘promotion’ of distributed by email.
12 months the marketing mix to promote offers and serve Measuring the number
through previous customers on a monthly basis with of repeat bookings per
exclusive offers dialogue updates through e-newsletters. However, customer is another
to increase developing a lifecycle marketing automation by key performance
repeat integrating a promotional email campaign will indicator (KPI).
customers significantly add customer advocacy and benefit Additionally,
Sandbanks Hotel due to having a large distribution measuring the exact
net. To optimise repeat sales, the client can return on investment
implement special offers to existing customers via using Google

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 online distribution channel, consisting of email Analytics ‘Beyond the
that must be booked directly on the website to click tracking’, which
redeem offer, therefore potentially converting measures customer
existing customers to purchase again, creating a behaviour of people
sizzle effect. A price marketing mix can be who clicked directly
applied through exclusive offers that include to the website through
booking a family room, which includes half price the email (Chaffey
offer on watersports or kids club to maintain 2016).
satisfaction and customer loyalty.

9.0 ACTIONS:

According to Chaffey and Smith (2013), action includes executing the tactical details of strategy by
putting the marketing plan to work. In order to action the plan, three key budget resources are
needed: Men (manpower to do the job), money (financial resources) and resources (time to meet
deadline) (Krishnan 2015). Sandbanks Hotel’s marketing department consists of three members of
staff who must action the objectives and tactics mentioned within the marketing plan by distributing
the workload. Social media channels must be constantly monitored and managed by uploading
content media and creating dialogue by responding to queries to generate USP by offering
competitive advantage as ‘95% of Facebook questions remain unanswered’ (Meyer 2014). Boosting
SEO requires constant attention to measure and update specific keywords in order to improve the
performance of organic searches to increase average position. Engaging with influencers and
communicating with affiliate networks to reduce OTA’s is another key component that requires
resources. Frequent meetings and project management schedules need careful preparation in order to
implement the series of action for each tactic. Furthermore, a realistic budget must be integrated to
efficiently measure ROI and amend costs depending if sales are lower or higher than expected.

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10.0 CONCLUSION:

Creating a customer persona allowed for a detailed analysis of Sandbanks Hotel’s current situation in
order to identify potential customers online behaviour and motivations. A key aspect of utilising the
customer journey effectively is for Sandbanks Hotel to optimise the ultimate moment of truth, which
lead to developing a ‘speak’ objective of increasing customer response rate and engagement by 50%
through owned social media channels, will raise conversion rates allowing to influence another
persons ZMOT. With being a service industry, the hotel is heavily dependent on positioning and
differentiation. Evidently, a focus on USP was recommended to enhance their value proposition with
the aim of increasing outbound e-mail marketing by 50% in the next 12 months. Achieved by
combining products to optimise repeat sales by implementing special offers exclusively to existing
customers via e-mail marketing to save costs, therefore increasing satisfaction and loyalty. To
reduce Sandbanks Hotel’s heavy dependency of OTA’s by 20% in the next 12 months, it was
recommended to develop affiliate marketing partners to reduce commission rates, increase reach,
boost average position and ultimately drive traffic directly to the website and potentially increase
direct bookings.

According to Angulo (2016) digital video and social media will become the biggest game changers
within content marketing by triggering brand advocates. Furthermore, video is set to account for
74% of Internet traffic by 2017. Therefore, it was recommended for Sandbanks Hotel to create and
distribute at least one video content per month to reduce the bounce rate by 25%. Uploading user-
generated content will raise social media engagement through sharing and commenting on content
and provide an incentive for lead generation by exploring the website further past the landing page.
According to Smart Insights (2016), the most common starting points for mobile research are
through search (48%) with travel/tourism accounting for 28%. Providing web pages that are
responsive to mobile use is highly recommended, with mobile users estimated to spend 94% of their
time on apps in 2017. A feasible recommendation would be for Sandbanks Hotel to create an app to
ultimately increase direct bookings and optimise revenue.

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