Digital marketing plan for an aromatherapy company. Case study: Bulba
LAB University of Applied Sciences Bachelor of Business Administration International Business
Spring 2022 Lene Seppänen
Author(s)
Lene Seppänen
Publication type Thesis, UAS
Published 2022 Number of pages
39 Title of Thesis
Digital marketing plan for an aromatherapy company. Case study: Bulba
Degree and field of study
Bachelor of Business Administration, International Business Abstract
This project-based thesis focuses on researching and creating a digital marketing plan for a small company in the aromatherapy industry. The aim of this project is to figure out the best methods for online marketing activities in various digital platforms.
Additionally, to find out the most effective ways to measure success of the marketing efforts. The finished result will provide a practical digital marketing ready to be implemented.
The object of this thesis is to create a B-to-C digital marketing plan for the case
company to find out which marketing tools would be the most beneficial in order for the case company to gain brand awareness, reach new potential customer and increase website activity and sales.
The case company lacks an established online presence compared to its competitors in the market. The absence of a strong brand image online risks the company’s ability to develop, expand and reach new potential customers. However, if the company puts more effort towards organic and paid marketing, it can have even rapid growth
because the aromatherapy market in Finland is as of now still quite small-scaled.
The theoretical framework in this thesis studies the fundamental digital marketing concepts as well as analytics tools and key performance indicators. The digital marketingplan follows the guidelines of the SOSTAC© marketing planning model, which was created by PR Smith. It attempts to provide thorough instructions for the case company to implement in its own marketing activities.
Keywords
Digital marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Google Analytics, Digital Marketing KPI’s, SOSTAC©
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1
1.2 Project objective ... 1
1.3 Research questions ... 3
1.4 Case company ... 3
1.5 Research method ... 4
1.6 Theoretical framework ... 4
2 Theoretical framework ... 6
2.1 Definition of digital marketing ... 6
2.2 Content Marketing ... 7
2.3 Social Media Marketing ... 9
2.4 Facebook Marketing ... 10
2.5 Instagram Marketing ... 11
2.6 Search Engine Optimization ... 12
2.7 Marketing Analytics and KPI’s ... 13
2.7.1 Google Analytics ... 15
2.7.2 Implementation of Google Analytics... 15
2.7.3 Key Performance Indicators ... 17
2.8 SOSTAC Planning Model ... 18
3 Digital Marketing plan ... 21
3.1 Situation Analysis ... 21
3.1.1 Current Digital Marketing Activities ... 21
3.1.2 Competitor Analysis ... 23
3.2 Objectives ... 24
3.3 Strategy... 25
3.3.1 Segments and Target Markets ... 25
3.3.2 Short-Term Objectives... 26
3.3.3 Positioning ... 27
3.4 Tactics ... 27
3.5 Actions ... 29
3.5.1 Website ... 30
3.5.2 SEO ... 31
3.6 Control ... 32
4 Conclusions and Recommendations ... 34
4.2 Recommendations For Further Research... 34 4.3 Conclusion ... 35 References ... 36
1 Introduction
This chapter will first introduce the background of this thesis and why the topic is important and worth researching. Next, the objectives and the case company will be presented, followed by the theoretical framework and research methods used in this thesis.
1.1 Background
Digital marketing is the use of different digital channels to reach customers. These channels include for example search engines, website, social media and email. Using digital marketing is increasingly important nowadays because it allows companies to reach their target audience in a way that is cost-efficient and effective. (Digital Marketing Institute 2021.)
Creating and carrying out a digital marketing plan brings many benefits to a company such as helping it reach its goals while maximising revenue while putting in little effort. Still, quite often especially small companies don’t think they have enough money or resources to do it well therefore they just wait for customers to find out about the company (Digital Marketing Institute 2021). However, building proper website and establishing good social media presence is incredibly important in order to attract the right customers.
The case company, Bulba Oy, does not have a specific digital marketing plan in place at the moment. Developing a new digital marketing strategy for the company is especially beneficial because the company’s product range is very specific and therefore, it’s feasible to do more customized marketing directly to different customer groups. The company has a lot of growth potential and with the right kind of marketing plan they could benefit a lot by getting more revenue while still keeping marketing resources and costs low.
1.2 Project objective
The aim of this thesis is to create a B2C digital marketing plan for the case company. The objective is to find out what digital marketing tools would be best for the case company to generate more sales. This digital marketing plan will be the case company’s first, therefore the goal is to make it comprehensive so that it can act as a base for the company’s current and future marketing activities. After an analysis of current performance of the case company, a digital marketing plan is going to be introduced along with an action plan.
The main goals for this digital marketing plan are to establish a better online presence for the company, increase brand awareness and traffic on the website so that the company could generate more sales and reach more potential customers.
This project is divided into five different main tasks that are presented in the table below.
Project task 1.
Creating a theoretical framework by studying different digital marketing related sources such as books and websites.
Project task 2.
Analyzing the case company’s current performance with different methods followed by competitor analysis
Project task 3.
Creating a digital marketing plan with practical action recommendations for the case company based on the information from PT 1 and PT 2.
Project task 4.
Presenting the marketing plan to case company management.
Project task 5.
Evaluation of the thesis process and outcome based on the feedback.
Project Task Theoretical framework
Project management methods
Outcomes
1. Digital Marketing theory
Digital marketing theory, social media marketing
Desktop study Theoretical framework for thesis
2. Current performance analysis of case
company
SOSTAC analysis, competitor
analysis, marketing data, company website
Desktop study Current situation of the
case company’s
performance and
marketing
3. Creating a digital
marketing plan
Task outcomes of previous project tasks 1 and 2
Desktop study Digital marketing plan
4. Presenting the digital marketing plan
Using information from task 3
Meeting the case company
management
Evaluation of the project, action recommendations, possible improvements
5. Evaluation of the project
Task outcome of all the previous
Feedback Final digital marketing plan
Table 1 Project overview 1.3 Research questions
The main research question is:
- What kind of digital marketing plan would be the best for the case company?
2 sub questions were also developed to answer the aim of this research:
- How is the company’s digital performance currently?
- What digital tools would be the best for the company to use?
At the end of this research, these questions should be answered.
1.4 Case company
Bulba Oy is a Finnish online company that retails aromatherapy machines, essential oils and lamps. They also sell their products to other retail stores where customers can see, touch and compare the products before buying. Currently their products are being sold in 18 stores across Finland. The company was established in 2018 in Espoo, Finland and has offices there (Bulba 2022).
The company is part of a larger company called Trenntech Chemicals Oy, which is registered as an Ltd. The company’s turnover is about 100 000 euros per year, according to the owner of the company.
The founder of Bulba Oy started the company, because he liked to use aromatherapy machines in Asia, but coming back to Finland he thought all the aroma diffusers here were large, unattractive and overly expensive. He wanted to market beautiful machines that are small and well-priced so that people in Finland could also find aromatherapy machines more accessible and enjoy them.
The company specializes in aroma diffusers, which work by putting essential oil drops into the machine. The machine then humidifies the indoor air while also producing a good smell at the same time (Bulba 2022).
1.5 Research method
This thesis is a case study that uses qualitative research methods. Qualitative research consists of analyzation and collection of data that is not numerical for example texts, video and audio to comprehend experiences and concepts (Bhandari Pritha 2020). The case study is qualitative because the data was collected by analyzing existing performance of the case company. The research was done by evaluating marketing literature and different online sources and then applying them to the observation data collected from the case company.
Primary data was collected straight from the case company. The case company gave general information and financial and marketing related information that was analyzed.
Secondary data was collected from different digital marketing online and literature sources.
Study materials for this case study were selected based on their authenticity, credibility and suitability for the project.
1.6 Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework in this thesis is based on review of digital marketing literature and different online resources. Theoretical framework introduces the basic elements of digital marketing, followed by different digital marketing tools and methods such as social media marketing, email marketing and content marketing.
SOSTAC planning model is going to be used in creation of digital marketing strategy.
SOSTAC was originally created by PR Smith in 1990s (Peter Smith 2021). The SOSTAC model is a digital marketing planning model guide that provides a clear structure for creating any kind of marketing plan. The framework has six steps that are: Situation, Objectives and Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control which altogether make the word SOSTAC (Dave Chaffey 2022).
The planning model has been voted as top 3 business model worldwide by Chartered Institute of Marketing (PR Smith 2021). Using SOSTAC has many benefits for example managing marketing planning processes is easier because the model present structure that is easy to follow. The process can also be tracked while predicting if goals can be
accomplished which ensures an efficient marketing planning. This model was chosen for this project because of its simple framework and guidance.
Main concepts:
• Digital Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Key Performance Indicators
• Google Analytics
Figure 1. Visualization of Digital Marketing concepts
2 Theoretical framework
In this chapter, theoretical framework for digital marketing plan will be created. The chapter begins by defining digital marketing and after that different marketing channels to understand how to affectively make use of them while creating a digital marketing plan . After that, SOSTAC, the marketing planning model and its steps will be reviewed to understand how to use it in the creation of the marketing plan. Along with these concepts, different analytics tools will be introduced. The theoretical framework will be designed without any budget or resource limitations because the case company has not set any restrictions.
2.1 Definition of digital marketing
The systematic process of distributing, promoting, pricing, and discovering customer desires using online tools and features is referred to as digital marketing. On the internet, there is a lot of competition, as gaining potential customers is a challenging task for those who are unfamiliar with the use of internet and its different features. Businesses must go above and above to catch the interest of their customers (Hoffman and Novak, 2000).
Digital marketing benefits organization of any size, however it works effectively for small businesses which are looking to grow and promote their products and/or services. (Chaffey
& Ellis 2019, 15). As the internet continues to develop, with more than a billion users, digital marketing allows businesses to connect with consumers on a platform where they continuously spend time (Chaffey & Smith 2013 4-5; HubSpot 2019).
Digital techniques are usually less expensive than traditional marketing techniques like television advertisements or print ads. As a result, it is especially suitable for small and medium businesses with minimal resources (Dodson, 2016). Of course, while digital marketing can be very efficient it cannot in any way replace any traditional marketing methods.
Still, investments towards online marketing are growing every year. Statista conducted a study on spending in digital advertising worldwide that shows how it’s going to keep growing in the upcoming years. The research also shows forecasts until 2024 which represent that each year marketing funding is projected to grow 50-70 billion in US Dollars. The research was published in May 2021. (Statista 2021.)
Figure 2. Spending of Digital advertising worldwide 2019-2024 Source: Statista
Taking all these points into consideration it can be concluded that while digital marketing does provide a lot of opportunities and unique set of benefits, for the best results it’s good to combine it with methods of traditional marketing. Combining the two approaches has also been called ‘’Fusion’’ marketing (Taylor and Miles 2011).
2.2 Content Marketing
Content marketing is a type of marketing which includes producing, creating and distributing content to a particular online audience (Pulizzi & Barrett 2010). Content marketing strives to engage customers and can be in the form of text, videos, or any other media. Businesses utilize it to draw attention and initiate leads, grow their customer base, build or increase online sales, grow brand awareness and engage the target segment online. Content marketing also helps companies in establishing loyalty to the brand and increase the propensity to make purchases from the company in the future (Le, 2013).
The purpose of distributing marketing content is to promote social sharing. The marketer must generate content that will organically lead to social media shares and brand visibility.
For a better chance of attracting new clients and generating sales, each business should thus develop customized content that is relevant and to their brand. It is also important that a company precisely defines their target group so they can produce material that introduces their brand in the right way. (Chaffey 2019; Kannan 2017.)
According to Patel (2016a), content marketing should be a long-term approach that concentrates on developing a strong relationship with your potential customers by constantly producing high-quality content that is valuable and useful to them. Content Marketing Institute (2016) points out however, that after only a short time the audience becomes more demanding in the sense of what they consider to be valuable. It quickly becomes challenging to find new approaches to increase the impact while keeping up with the growing demand high-quality material. At this point, companies tend to compensate the decreasing social engagement with producing content more rapidly in all their social channels and usually stop thinking their pieces of content as strategic business activities.
This kind of operating often then leads to not creating anything of lasting value.
To avoid mistakes when doing content marketing, CMI (2016) has developed a content marketing framework for more profitable operations. They introduce five core elements that help in creating successful content marketing operations. First element is ‘’Purpose and goals’’, which means to think what value the content will bring and for which purpose.
Second element is ‘’Audience’’, which indicates to who the content is intended to and how will they benefit. Third element is ‘’Story’’, that implies which unique ideas will content consist of. Fourth element ‘’Process’’ suggests how the operations around content marketing will be managed. Fifth and final element is ‘’Measurement’’ which means to evaluate what efforts and performance should be improved.
According to CMI (2016), it is not beneficial for a company to think content marketing as a straight line to revenue because it is usually not any cheaper, quicker, or more effective at getting new customers than other methods. However, it can help to develop a better and a more loyal customer that increases the value he or she brings to the company.
The main building block to successful content marketing is to think it as a strategic business activity instead of advertising tactic that is used with the goal of replicating incremental successes or enhancing upper-funnel marketing results. All in all, content marketing should not be seen as a replacement for any marketing forms but rather as an asset that brings value to the company by getting the audience to be more receptive. The purpose of the content should be to give a new dimension to all the marketing efforts by providing a new style and functionality. (Content Marketing Institute 2016.)
2.3 Social Media Marketing
The practice of producing content for social media platforms in the sake of promoting products or services, engaging with a target market, and generating activity to a business is known as social media marketing. Social media marketing is developing constantly, with new features and platforms appearing each year. Remarkably, it has also become one of the most successful online marketing tools in recent years, with more businesses than ever before recognizing the value of social media (HubSpot 2022). According to Statista (2020), the advertising spending for social media marketing worldwide was 132 billion U.S dollars and is projected to surpass over 200 billion dollars by the years 2024.
According to Patel (2016b), when doing social media marketing it is important to stay innovative and try to find new ways to reach potential customers. He references the popularity of the video sharing platform Tiktok as an example of keeping up with change in the digital world. Other popular social media channels are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. When planning social media strategy, it is crucial to research and find out which channels are being most used by target customer groups and would therefore bring the most benefit to the company.
Patel (2016b) also points out the importance of having a good strategy when building the social media presence of a brand. He elaborates that a good strategy has exact goals, precise plans to reach the goals and it must be measurable. It is also crucial to keep the content aligned with the brand values and be consistent with publishing content on social media channels.
When doing social media marketing, one of the main benefits is being able to engage with the target audience. Listening customer feedback and responding to it accordingly is going to improve the customer experience in general. By engaging, business can also pick up new trends, achieve new insight on the industry they are working in and find influencers in their target audience who can market their products. (Patel 2016b.)
Best ways to enhance lead generation, sales and increase traffic is to promote and share the company’s products on social media. With a social media profile, a business can for example create competitions for followers to participate in, put links to their products and website, do live videos for followers and sell products directly through social media. Both Instagram and Facebook have a shopping feature to enable easy purchasing for customers.
(HubSpot 2022.)
The case company has business pages in Facebook and Instagram at the moment and this thesis is going to focus on increasing traffic and engagement on those platforms because they are already familiar and therefore convenient to start with.
2.4 Facebook Marketing
Facebook is a social networking service that was established by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.
With more than 2.74 billion users worldwide each month, Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world (Business Insider 2021). There are multiple marketing options to engage with new customers and extend a company's reach (Patel 2019a).
Facebook offers different marketing services to companies such as paid ads, business pages and the marketplace. A company can create a business page where they enter company information such as name, address, location and opening hours. Business page can be also used to communicate with followers by posting on the page and stories.
Followers see posts of the company on their home page and can like, comment, and share them. This enhances the visibility of the company and helps to build customer relationships.
(Facebook 2022.)
Patel (2019a) mentions that about 1.88 billion people access Facebook each day and at least 17 percent of those join to find and engage with different brands and services.
Therefore, it makes sense to start building a social media presence in Facebook. To start marketing on Facebook with ads, a company must choose which types of ads they want to use and create an ad manager. Ad manager is a place to create and manage ad campaigns.
It is also useful in this stage to name the campaign, set schedule and budget, select ad placements, and choose the right target audience for company’s ads.
With Facebook marketing, it’s important to be on track of Facebook’s algorithms. According to HubSpot (2021) the algorithm on Facebook prioritizes different videos over pictures and articles. Both longer normal videos and live videos are thus important to implement into the marketing strategy when thinking about what kind of content to post on a business page.
According to Patel (2019a), it’s crucial to notice why building a strong Facebook marketing strategy with paid ads is highly beneficial. With Facebook and other social media channels too, organic reach of customers is getting difficult. Organic reach means reaching an audience on a social channel without putting any money towards it. Because this has happened, businesses have had to invest more in ad spend. To put it simply, in order to get customers from Facebook, company has to put a lot of money towards ads in their page.
However, like Patel (2019c) says, the investment is often worth it because with Facebook, a company can still reach audiences they otherwise could not.
To conclude, to best way for businesses to engage with its target customer groups in Facebook is to use paid advertising. To reach a larger audience, a company might boost its posts or develop personalized advertisements. Facebook gathers detailed information about its users, such as interests, location and demographics that can be used by marketers to design targeted ads to reach the desired audiences of a company. (Facebook 2017.) 2.5 Instagram Marketing
Instagram is a social networking service where users can share photos and videos. It was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, who then sold the company to Facebook in 2012. Along with Facebook, Instagram is the one of the most popular social networks in the world, making it a very attractive platform for marketers. Instagram has approximately billion users every month, of which 3 million are in Finland (Social Media Today, 2019; Imsomeco, 2022).
The app makes it possible to download and create different kinds of media and then like, comment, and share other users’ content. Public material is organized by hashtags and geographical location. Users can find new content based on the hashtags and tagged locations in photos or videos. Instagram can also be used privately by only showing content to approved followers. Users can see the content of the accounts they follow on their home page, and if they want to find new things, they can go to the ‘’explore’’ page. (Social Media Today, 2019.)
According to Patel (2019b), to do successful Instagram Marketing, it’s important to post relevant and interesting content to current followers and at the same time bring in new followers. This way the company becomes more influential which increases brand awareness and customer loyalty. He mentions that when starting to do Instagram marketing, it’s useful to get to know all the free functions Instagram has so that marketer can effectively utilize them to increase the amount of potential customers. Instagram Stories is a function which allows user to share a photo or a video for 24 hours and it goes on the top of the home page where it is easily accessible. Stories are a perfect opportunity to create fun videos and photos of company’s products or daily processes and therefore an easy way to generate leads.
Another smart thing to utilize in Instagram is influencers. Influencers are individuals who are popular in Instagram and thus they can influence potential customers by advertising through posts and stories. Nowadays plenty of people are buying products based on what appears on their feed from influencers they are following. Influencers can help reach a wide audience for company’s products or services and increase brand awareness even long-term. The key
is to identify the potential influencers that have good amount of followers for maximum benefits and similar values and interests that align with the brand of the company (Patel 2019b).
To monitor and track on the business profile, Instagram has a free business analytics tool that gives a good view of the statistics. By using these tools, business owner can look for example at the demographics of their followers including active hours spent on the page, location, age, and gender. It’s important to use these analytics tools because that way a company can know how their marketing efforts are paying off and how users are interacting with the posts, so they can then know what improvements or changes to make to their content to increase engagement (Patel 2019b).
Sponsored ads are also a great way to reach target customer groups who are not yet followers. Company can control how much they want to spend by setting up a budget, which makes designing ad campaigns easier. Ads should have content that engages and intrigues with the desired audience (Patel 2019b).
In conclusion, Instagram is as of now the best place to go for image and video sharing because it’s the one of the most popular digital platforms with over one billion users monthly.
This also makes it extremely attractive for marketers because it’s a good place to start increasing brand awareness, drive traffic to website and increase engagement with a target audience. A company should create a business profile and start producing content that aligns with the message of their brand (Patel 2019b).
2.6 Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO means enhancing a website’s certain functions to increase its visibility when it shows in a search engine such as Google. The higher a webpage’s rank is in search results, the more likely it is to draw more attention and getpotential and existing customers to the website. Paid ads usually display at the top of the results page in Google, followed by other results, that what growth marketers refer to as "organic search results." The activity that appears with SEO is commonly referred to as
"organic search traffic" to distinguish it from traffic that appears by paid search. Paid search is usually called search engine marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC). (Search Engine Land 2017; Optimizely 2022.)
People conduct over 2 trillion searches every year when they are searching information about services or product, therefore utilizing SEO is an incredibly important part of marketing. Search is usually the first source of digital activity for companies and supports other marketing channels. Better accessibility and ranking higher in results of search than
business’s competition can potentially have a great impact on the bottom line. (Search Engine Land 2017.)
Search engines like Google use algorithms to figure which websites to show for a search.
While these algorithms can be very complex because they take into consideration hundreds of different factors to identify the ranking places of SERPs. Yet there are mainly three metrics Google evaluates when defining how a website should rank. These metrics are links, content, and webpage structure. (Opimizely 2022.)
Links, also called ‘’backlinks’’ have a large role in determining website’s ranking in search engine because a company that has links to other popular webpages in its site is considered good quality. This is because companies would not likely link other pages if they were not good quality, therefore links can be taken as a vouch for quality of the page (Optimizely 2022).
Search engines also analyze the content to see if it’s a good fit for the query, which is why it’s important to focus on creating the right content for the right customer group utilizing keywords they might use when searching. Patel (2019c) also mentions that comprehending what a user wants to achieve by going to a webpage is crucial in designing content. Material should also be easy to read, clear and thorough so a user gets all the right information for themselves (Optimizely 2022; Patel 2019c).
Finally, website structures are crucial as well, because they are written in HTML code, which search engines use to evaluate the page. Therefore, making sure the code is well structured and includes the right keywords, titles and URL is important in order to improve the SEO of a site. Keywords are essentially words that potential customer uses to find content online like products and services. For keywords, it is wise to choose words that are short like ‘’Dog’’
and have high search rates with low competition. (Optimizely 2022; Digital Marketing Institute 2018).
Patel (2019e) mentions that SEO is not useful if it’s just set up once in the beginning and then forgotten after that. It is a process that takes time and effort to stay on top of competitors and appear higher in search results. Content has to updated regularly, new links built, and previous content continuously updated to generate good results.
2.7 Marketing Analytics and KPI’s
The analysis of data to assess the fulfilment of a marketing efforts is familiar as marketing analytics. Businesses can comprehend what guides customers actions, amplify their
marketing strategies and optimize their ROI (Return on Investment) by applying technology and systematic operations to marketing-related data (SAS 2022).
Marketing analytics can provide profound insights into customer preferences and trends, in addition to the evident sales and lead generation applications. Regardless of these significant benefits, most businesses never truly comprehend the potential of marketing analytics due to the difficulties in measuring ROI. The figure below represents the top challenges of proving return of investment in marketing. (Wordstream 2022.)
Figure 3. Top Challenges for Proving Marketing ROI. Source: TrackMaven
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that a company uses to evaluate how it is on track to achieve its operative and tactic aims. Depending on the execution of the criteria, different companies have specific KPIs. The evidence usually cohere to organization wide standards. (The Balance Smb 2019.)
KPIs are a crucial element of the analytics needed to estimate and describe how a business will accomplish its business and advertising targets. KPIs assist companies in deciding if they are on the correct path and whether they are not yet, where they ought to instead focus their efforts. A key performance indicator’s purpose, regardless of what it evaluates, is to develop the health of the company. Anyone working in marketing should have a good understanding of what a KPI is (The Balance Smb, 2019). In the next chapters, marketing analytics and KPI’s suitable for this theoretical framework will be introduced and researched further.
2.7.1 Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an analytics tool made by Google that can be used to analyze traffic on a website. It integrates with advertising products and platforms of Google, including Google Ads, Data Studio and Search Console, making it a good choice for anyone using Google’s marketing tools. (Medium 2017.)
Many marketers perceive Google Analytics as the main source for website traffic, engagement, and conversion statistics due to its functionality and extensive acceptance in the market. Google Analytics can track a user's journey, bringing specific information about the platforms locations, and devices that are being used. These paths can then be tracked to engagement on a website, accomplished goals as well as visitors who return, which demonstrates customer loyalty. (Digital Marketing Institute 2020.)
The free version of Google Analytics has lots of benefits for small and medium sized businesses. Even business owners who are starting out with GA can easily learn how to utilize it effectively because it is easy to use and install and also has customizable reports, data collection and dasboards. GA also offers extensive views into visitors web behavior that is clearly arranged and readable (Digital Marketing Institute, 2020). The figure below shows what Google Analytics home page looks like.
Figure 4. Google Analytics home page. Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-analytics/
2.7.2 Implementation of Google Analytics
To implement Google Analytics into a business, a marketer should comprehend the differences between dimensions and metrics. Data is described by dimensions. These are for example country, channel, location, age, gender, and device used. Data is measured
through metrics. Metrics are for example visitors, income, and target completions. Metrics are then segmented by using dimensions to get a complete view and therefore total user metrics can be seen for a website segmented by the device category. Those are for example is, desktop, tablet, or mobile users. This gives to better understanding of the scale and effectiveness of devices in driving user’s visits and conversions to a webpage (Digital Marketing Institute 2019.)
In addition to dimensions and metrics, there are also conversion metrics. The term
"conversion metrics" refers to that portion of typical visitor metrics. They concentrate on providing the story behind the important activities that visitors might perform on your website. These are acts that have a commercial impact, such as overall revenue and conversion rates. In Google Analytics, conversion metrics can be managed in Traffic reports, therefore value of every one of the channels is generating. Other conversion measurements include targets, conversion rate, transactions, and revenue. By looking at the amount of targets and transactions from every channel, the conversion rates along with the cost per conversion, business owner can begin to assess the worth of the campaigns from the various digital marketing channels. (Digital Marketing Institute 2019.)
When dimensions and metrics have been comprehended, business owner or marketer can move onto learning how GA functions. Google Analytics works by inserting multiple lines of tracking code into the code of a website. The code records different activities of users of the website when they visit it, along with the attributes such as gender, interest, and age of those visitors. A website then sends all the information to the Google Analytics server once the visitor exits the company webpage. (Medium 2017.)
After GA has collected data and sent it to Google servers, it can then generate different kinds of reports to track and analyze data for example the amount of users, website session durations, bounce rates, views of website and completion of achievements. The site retrieves information from visitorsby acting as a web bug. Regardless, the system cannot retreive data from visitors who do not have accepted cookies because it depends on the use of cookies. (Tech Target 2021.)
Before starting to use Google Analytics for a business, its key settings should be checked to ensure all the data is accurate. GA has three categories of settings: Property, Account and View. The account is the highest level for in settings and is the place to access analytics. The properties to track are included inside the account level, and within a single account, there might be several properties. A website or app usually has its own property, therefore a company with many websites could have one account with multiple properties.
The data can then be segmented into views inside the property. A property might have
multiple views; typically, a raw view with unfiltered data, as well as a filtered view for key reports should be available. (Digital Marketing Institute 2020.)
Google Analytics consists of tools to help users discover motifs and trends in how visitors interact with websites. These tools enable analyzing, monitoring, visualization, collection of data, reporting and easy integration with other applications. Users can save profiles for several webpages in the dashboard in Google Analytics and view particular categories or choose specific measurements to highlight for each page. Possible categories for tracking consist of keywords, overview of content, site referring, overview of visitors, map overlay and overview of traffic sources. (Tech Target 2021.)
2.7.3 Key Performance Indicators
Along with proper analytics tools, it’s important for a company to track and measure how their digital marketing campaigns are achieving the set business objectives. Here is where KPI’s are a crucial component. The good thing about KPIs is that they can be customized to fit a company's and specific teams' wants and needs. Business owner can figure out which techniques are working, and which are not by inspecting these evidence and adjusting their efforts accordingly. (McGuire, 2018.)
One of the important KPI’s to implement is Cost per Lead, or CPL. CPL is a measurement for determining how cost-effective marketing campaigns are at producing new sales prospects. It designates a monetary value to each lead produced by a campaign. This is particularly convenient for establishing the success of online marketing options like Google AdWords and social ads. People with a large number of practical leads will have a successful CPL. (McGuire 2018.)
Next, business should also draw focus towards Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). A marketing qualified lead is prospect which is ready to be forwarded through to a sales department for follow-up. Stages may be tracked lead to a contact's availability for sales by establishing what a qualified prospect appears like for a company—whether through configuration submissions, website activities, or other actions—and extract the effective points in the marketing and sales pipeline. (McGuire 2018).
Perhaps the most most important metric to monitor, return on investment, or ROI, allows business to determine how much profits marketing campaign produces in comparison to the costs of carrying out the campaign. ROI is calculated by dividing the number of prospects produced by the median value-per-win divided by a median lead-to-win ratio.
Even though ROI is a significant KPI for marketing, it can be difficult to calculate in some
cases, such as when a prospect sees an advertisement without clicking it, then goes on the website again later to make a purchase. (McGuire 2018.)
Finally, sales revenue is a fundamental KPI that allows to track the progress of producing revenue. Company's growth trends and estimates can be figured out using a variety of data factors. It is functional from a top-down perspective, as tracking the overall progress of a company, as well as on a more individual level, can be used to establish customized targets for a marketing team. This is a great method to keep a company's development and by extension, profit growing. (McGuire 2018.)
Business owner may get a better sense of the status of a company by tracking the accurate KPIs. The ROI issued by these two teams can be observed when establishing KPIs that correspond with sales and marketing strategies. (McGuire 2018.)
2.8 SOSTAC Planning Model
The SOSTAC planning model is a framework for marketing plan that was created in 1990s by PR Smith. The model consists of six steps that are: Situation analysis, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Actions and Control. The figure below presents the model.
Figure 5. SOSTAC model diagram (Antevenio 2021).
SOSTAC model presents a straightforward, process-based foundation for designing any type of marketing strategy that can be easily shared with others. It has been widely used as a method of structuring marketing and other plans in organizations of all sizes due to its simplicity and efficacy for planning. (Chaffey 2022.)
The first step, Situation analysis should answer the question "where are we now?" by providing a full overview of a company’s customers, competitors, partners, competencies, performance, and market trends. Surveying the people of the case company and evaluating its online channels can be used to conduct a situation analysis. Additionally, a competitor analysis can be carried out by benchmarking competitors' existing digital marketing activity.
(Smith 2017, 20-21; Chaffey 2016.)
After determining the existing situation of the company, the digital marketing objectives should be evaluated. RACE is one way to approach the objectives, according to Smith (2017, 122). RACE stands for "Reach", "Act", "Convert", and "Engage" in the RACE planning approach. The targets section, according to Chaffey (2016), should address the question "where do we want to be?".
The intention is to establish aims for each of the RACE stage. Setting a target to improve brand recognition that turns into visitors to a website of t a company or social media channels is what this means in the context of ‘’Reach’’. ‘’Act’’ seeks to generate leads through the creation of engaging content on platforms like as Facebook, Instagram, and a blog. A potential customer who engages with the business is referred to as a lead (Smith 2017, 122).
Higher conversion rates can be achieved offline and online, according to Chaffey (2016) and Smith (2017, 122). For example, remarketing to page prospects who added anything to their virtual shopping cart or those who have already followed the business's Facebook page. The purpose here may be to increase the conversion rate of internet sales by 10%, from 3% to 3.3 percent. Finally, engagement is defined as "post-sales engagement," with the purpose of getting e.g. shares and reviews. (Smith 2017, 122.)
The question "how do we get there?" is answered by strategy, which refers to the objectives stated before. ‘’STOP’’ model is a recommended way for developing the plan. ‘’STOP’’
letters are short form of "Segments," "Target Markets," "Objectives," and "Positioning."
(2016, Chaffey). In essence, strategy provides an overview of how to proceed. (Smith 2017, 161.)
The term "tactics" refers to the "specific steps of the approach." Tactics should specify the tools that will be utilized to achieve the goals and carry out the plan (Smith 2017, 161).
While the plans are considered in a long term, the tactics are commonly thought short term and can be altered on the move, according to Chaffey and Smith (2013, 559). A company's channels and the kind of content its audience are interested in can be defined by knowing its customers.
The tactics are defined by the actions. This means ensuring that the methods suggested are implemented as effectively as possible. Budgeting, responsibilities, and return estimates should all be investigated. It should also specify the systems, procedures, and policies to be followed. To keep track of what needs to be done and what has already been done, checklists should be used. It is essential to communicate the plans to the personnel since it is important that everyone supports them. (Smith 2017, 199-224.)
The last step, the control part looks at how, when, and what to measure to see whether company is on track to fulfil its objectives. Companies should collect data from their clients and develop KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for various types of digital marketing operations to effectively monitor marketing performance. Different timeframes can be used to measure the KPIs; some can be looked at daily, while others can be reviewed at quarterly.
If something doesn't look right, the methods can be changed based on the information received. (Smith 2017 229-230.)
The next chapters introduce digital marketing plan and the various channels and approaches that it covers. SOSTAC provides a solid foundation for a digital marketing strategy by advising on what to focus on when creating one. It does not, however, specify the channels or techniques to be utilized, as these must be specified separately for each plan.
3 Digital Marketing plan
In this part of the thesis, a digital marketing plan will be created using the mentioned SOSTAC marketing model. This plan will begin by doing a situation analysis on the company’s current digital activities and then rest of the SOSTAC parts accordingly. The information which was gathered in the theoretical framework created earlier will give guidance to the creation of this part.
3.1 Situation Analysis
Situation analysis is the first part of the SOSTAC planning model and should answer the question mentioned earlier, which is: ‘’Where we are now?’’ (Chaffey 2016). The case company’s current digital activities will be reviewed, along with a SWOT analysis.
Additionally, a competitor analysis will be performed where the biggest competitors of the case company will be evaluated. For this part, the CEO of the case company was interviewed about the company’s goals for sales and marketing, online channels, and other related information.
3.1.1 Current Digital Marketing Activities
The case company, Bulba, currently has an online presence in Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. In addition, they also have their own website which is the main source of information, contacts, and their products. They don’t have any specific schedule planned about posting content at the moment. The content available in the online channels can be found the organic way and by paid marketing efforts. The company uses paid marketing for Google AdWords, Instagram and Facebook. In addition, they do collaboration with influencers that market their products in blogs, Facebook, and Instagram.
The current digital customers are people who are interested in wellbeing and health. They care about air quality and smell and can also need a diffuser because of an allergy or other health related condition. The customers are both male and female and are usually between the ages of 25-60.
As of now, the case company has reserved a monthly marketing budget of about 500 euros.
The owner plans and posts all the content. The company could benefit from more information and directions on how and where the advertising money should be spent so that it can be more useful and generate revenue.
The case company can be contacted through their website, Facebook or Instagram. They can be reached on their website by email or telephone. The business owners are
responsible for answering contact requests from all sources. Contact requests are answered usually during office hours.
The company receives analytics from Facebook as well as Instagram, however the data from them can only be analyzed in the the platforms themselves. Still, the company can use the data to see how their marketing efforts are performing and see how many people are able to engage in the online platforms.
Next, a SWOT- analysis will be conducted on the case company. SWOT analysis is a frequently used tool for measuring a company’s environment as part of the marketing planning. A SWOT analysis assists strategizing and making decisions by presenting opportunities to the business and acting as a dynamic gateway to producing strategic alternatives. SWOT is an abbreviation for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (CFI Education, 2021).
Strengths
- Excellent knowledge and expertise on products
- Beautiful and high-quality products - Ability to engage and interact with
customers often
- Lots of reseller stores that carry the products
- Established company
Weaknesses - Weaker presence on digital
channels than other similar companies
- No platforms to analyse marketing effort successions
- Online posting activities are not scheduled or planned
Opportunities
- Getting more customers through social media channels
- More returning customers through increased brand awareness and loyalty
- More revenue and resellers
Threats
- Competitors have stronger marketing activities as of now - Similar companies have abilities to
get larger product selection - Marketing is not handled by
specialists Table 2. SWOT Analysis on the case company
3.1.2 Competitor Analysis
In SOSTAC planning model, competitive analysis is an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of potential and current competitor companies. It is important especially because by doing an analysis on competitors, a company can be on track about current marketing trends and offerings of products. A competitor analysis can also reveal what kind of image target customers have of the company compared to its competitors. In addition, it can tell what products or services are in need of improvement and this way how a company could increase their profits as well as also give a view of new possible strategic opportunities. (Entrepreneur 2020; Schooley 2021.)
By analyzing the aroma diffuser market in Finland, two main competitors are stand out clearly. Puhdas plus and Volantaroma both have manufactured their own diffusers and also sell other related aromatherapy equipment such as essential oils. Puhdas plus is a bigger company than Bulba and Volantaroma, and they sell also other health related products such as vitamins. Volantaroma was originally established in Norway and therefore is a little newer to the Finnish aroma diffuser market.
Puhdas plus however, also distributes their products to resellers. Two main resellers for Puhdas plus are Ruohonjuuri and Hyvinvoinnin stores. For prices, of these three manufacturers, Volantaroma has the highest prices, while Bulba and Puhdas have similar prices. Volantaroma’s diffusers are advertised as handmade, while Bulba and Puhdas plus use manufacturers. However, Volantaroma has about 40-50% higher prices than competitors, therefore is at somewhat disadvantage against other competitors.
Online presence
Channel Bulba Volantaroma Puhdas+
Website X X X
Digital store X X X
Facebook X X X
Instagram X X X
YouTube X X X
Blog X X
Table 3 Online presence of competitors
As can be seen from the online presence table, both competitors have good presence in all relevant online platforms. One thing Bulba is missing currently is a blog, which the competitors have established. Of these companies, Volantaroma is the most active in its online channels, followed by Puhdas plus and then Bulba.
In Facebook, Puhdas plus is in the lead with 11,706 likes of its page, followed by Volantaroma with 2,193 likes and Bulba with 667 likes. Competitors post on Facebook almost everyday, which indicates to the likes and activity on their pages as well. However, Bulba does not post nearly as frequently. The frequency of posting and carefully planned paid ads are the key points in getting more likes and making online presence wider.
In Instagram, Bulba definitely has more activity with 1137 followers and several posts every month. Volantaroma has the lead in Instagram with 15,1 thousand followers, although the company it’s not exactly in the same place as the other two as it’s also functioning in other northern European countries. Puhdas plus has 9148 followers and post as frequently as Volantaroma, almost every week. Bulba has usually posted between 1-6 times per month on average.
The website of Bulba is satisfactory, but could also be updated at some point because it seems somewhat simple and unorganized compared to its competitors. Puhdas plus and Volantaroma both have more visually attractive websites, which also makes them seem more professional. Bulba’s website could be made more aesthetic and modern with new layout for the site and more pictures and/or videos of the products. However, this is not the first objective to complete, but it can be something to consider improving in the future.
There can be seen definite room for improvement for Bulba with posting frequency in both Facebook and Instagram. What might also generate more leads is starting a blog and sharing more interesting information about aroma diffusers and the company through Instagram stories, reels, and highlights.
3.2 Objectives
The objectives of this digital marketing plan are defined by addressing the question "where do we want to be?", as Chaffey (2016) wrote. For this, Smith (2017, 122) suggests using the RACE model which is an acronym for "Reach", "Act", "Convert", and "Engage".
The main objective for the case company is to increase brand awareness, generate leads and traffic to the website by utilizing digital channels. By focusing on achieving these objectives, the company strives to be stronger, more popular and established.
The objectives can be achieved by focusing on improving activity on social media and focusing more on paid advertising as well as influencer marketing. The company has a lot of potential opportunities by focusing on creating quality content on their social media channels and through that generating more engagement and traffic. The aim is to get more followers, likes and shares from the people in the target customer groups so that they are already interested in the product category and therefore are followers of good quality.
Objectives are measured by the utilization of different analytics tools. Instagram and Facebook both have their own analytics functions which gives insight to how marketing efforts are succeeding, therefore the company should monitor their objectives through those. Other analytics data can be measured by for example Google Analytics, as mentioned earlier in chapter 2.7.1.
There is no specific time period set for the objectives, however the case company should start implementing the digital marketing plan as soon as possible for maximum improvement. Company should have a first check on their marketing efforts 4 months after implementing new strategies and again 4 months after. When they have more established marketing plan and have have noticed improvement through increased engagement and sales, they can monitor less often. However, in the beginning it’s important to see that new efforts are paying off and generating results after a few months, so measuring analytics is therefore more crucial now as well.
3.3 Strategy
The Strategy part in SOSTAC refers to how a business intends to achieve the objectives they have set. In the strategy section, it should also specify which market segments company wants to target with their plan. Chaffey (2016) puts the explanation simply as a question of ‘’How do we get there?’’. Smith (2017, 161) recommends using ‘’STOP’’ model to develop the plan that provides a comprehensive overview of how to continue. ‘’STOP’’ is short for the words; "Segments," "Target Markets," "Objectives," and "Positioning".
3.3.1 Segments and Target Markets
In this chapter, segments and target markets are defined based on the information collected from the case company. There are two main segments in aroma diffuser market that are home use and spa/wellness centres. Home use can be divided into additional subcategories that are; people who have allergy or other medical related reasons to need a diffuser, people who like earth toned home décor and good smelling air and people who want to relax and
do yoga/mediation at home with an aromatherapy machine. Altogether these are four market segments that are elaborated below.
1. Spa/wellness centers that buy aromatherapy machines for clients to use. They usually want to find beautiful, good quality products that last a long time and provide excellent delivery and customer service. These places can also be yoga and meditation centers who want to buy multiple machines at the same time. Bulba is considered an excellent choice for these companies because of the quality and aesthetic of the products as well as the fact that the company is Finnish.
2. People who have a medical related need for a diffuser. These people are usually 20-60 years old and might have a seasonal allergy or other reason such as having too dry air at home which means that the air has too little oxygen. These people want a quality product that lasts a long time and can be easily cleaned and taken care of. This group of people might also want good smell to the air because of their medical reason, which makes an aroma diffuser a perfect option.
3. People who like earth toned home décor and good smelling air. They might be usually 25-45 years old. This group of people might be interested about furniture and relaxing home environment. They also appreciate beautiful outlook in products and the quality of the materials. They usually like using essential oils to make the air smell good at home.
4. People who practise yoga and meditation regularly. These people might be 22-35 years old. This group usually has knowledge of aromatherapy and relaxing methods and is looking for products which have good price-quality ratio. They value excellent customer service and comprehensive information provided about the products.
3.3.2 Short-Term Objectives
This part of the strategy is to define short-term objectives for the company. As researched in the theoretical framework chapter of this thesis, content and social media strategy are incredibly important for building a better online presence. To achieve these objectives, the case company must first construct better social media connections while creating and posting planned quality content to increase followers and likes, as well as generate leads.
By doing this the company will get more potential customers to engage with in social media channels and drive more activity to their website too.
The main social media channels to focus on as mentioned are Facebook and Instagram.
Company can encounter new potential customers by focusing more on scheduled posting, posting more frequently and creating interesting content along with using more paid advertising. While brand awareness does not directly equal more revenue, it is a factor that can help tremendously in getting traffic to the website especially considering that the majority of the target customer groups are generation Z and millennials, who use a lot of social media platforms to find information about products. These short-term objectives can be measured for example using analytics tools on Facebook and Instagram that give insight on how the new efforts are performing.
3.3.3 Positioning
Last part of ‘’STOP’’ model in the strategy section of SOSTAC is Positioning, suggested by Smith (2017, 161). The case company has a very good position compared to its competitors because of the quality of the products and the business owners’ international knowledge about the aromatherapy industry. The company’s size is also an advantage in the market because the business owners do all the communicating and engaging with customers themselves, therefore they provide very thorough and honest information about their products. They can also handle customer inquiries and order processing quickly. Overall, the service and engagement with Bulba is more personalized because they are a small company.
The other advantage against competitors is the quality and beautiful outlook of the products.
The business owners said that they established the company because they thought the aromatherapy machines available in Finland were not aesthetically pleasing and thought they looked mostly dull. As mentioned before, aesthetic outlook of this product category is important to customers therefore Bulba has a definite advantage in the market because of their unique product design and comprehensive knowledge about the industry behind the company.
3.4 Tactics
Tactcs part of SOSTAC means defining the tools that will be used to achieve the objectives and execute the marketing plan. Even though the marketing plans are designed for long- term, the tactics part can be usually short-term and can be changed spontaneously. The tools used for the tactics can for example be marketing- communications and the channel mix. (Chaffey and Smith 2013, 538-559; Smith 2017, 161.)
In this marketing plan, the digital channels to be focused on are Facebook, Instagram and a possible blog. The company also has a YouTube channel which contains good quality videos that can be utilized in marketing as well. To better plan and schedule marketing activity of digital channels, it is suggested to use a Gantt chart. Gantt charts are a plan management tool that allows businesses to see project schedules, performance, and deliverables in a visual format. Visual lines or bars display which tasks have been fulfilled and which are still pending, enabling business owners to divide time and duties effectively.
There can be fours types of elements in a Gantt chart which usually are resources, milestones, tasks and dependencies. (HubSpot 2022.)
Below can be seen an example of a Gantt chart for this marketing plan. The chart displays the online channels that are used and explains to which channels to post and what days of the week. The main idea is that there is a consistent plan for creating and posting content.
Additionally, posts should also be shared on other platforms to drive traffic. For example, if a blog post is created, it should be shared on Instagram and Facebook. Also, when a company has a competition or an Instagram live coming up, it can be shared on Facebook and the company website.
Figure 6. Example Gantt Chart for the case company
This plan uses a mix of marketing communications and focuses on consistent posting and content creation on all digital channels. It also points out the benefits of posting on different platforms on the same day. By doing this, it maximises the opportunity for potential customers to see the company’s posts and get interested about the products and the company itself.
By having a plan such as the Gantt Chart, it makes it more convenient to manage time on marketing and prepare each post. The suggested blog posts and YouTube videos take longer to produce and also need more time for planning; therefore they have been marked only maximum of twice per month.
This marketing plan on the Gantt Chart is designed to increase activity and brand awareness on digital channels rather quickly if implemented the right way. Furthermore, it can be adjusted to fit the business’s schedule better and even more after the company has developed knowledge on what works for them. Later on, the contents of the chart should be reviewed monthly to make changes according to current activity, engagement and overall progress.
3.5 Actions
The tactics in the SOSTAC planning model should be defined by the actions. It means that there should be a plan to implement and study budgets, responsibilities and return estimates for the project. It is important that company’s employees comprehend the plan of action and agrees to communicate to each other to keep track of what needs to be done as well as what has been done. (Smith 2017, 199-224.)
Currently, the case company has a marketing budget of about 500 euros per month for all digital marketing channels. However, most of the set objectives can be achieved without using money at all. After reaching short-term objectives, paid advertising is going to help maximise marketing efforts by reaching more potential customers and increasing brand awareness even further. While the company has a new marketing plan, the set budget of 500 euros is estimated to be a good monthly budget for paid ads in Facebook and Instagram as well as possible influencer collaborations.
As mentioned, it is useful for the company to utilize tools for example checklists for keeping track of the tasks of the plan. The Gantt Chart created earlier can also be used as a checklist for planning content. However, it is beneficial to create another list for other marketing and company related actions to be completed. For the case company, the suggested activities to plan would be to establish a blog on the website, implement Google Analytics on the website and e-commerce along with planning new content and YouTube/Instagram videos according to the established marketing plan. The company can establish detailed deadlines for each objective, however short-term objectives should be started as soon as possible to see results.
3.5.1 Website
In this part, the website of the case company is going to be analyzed for actions. The website’s design, interaction, content, and usability will be reviewed to assess what could be changed or improved to bring more potential customers to the website and increase sales.
When designing a website for a company, it is important to keep the target customer group in mind while also making sure the audience gets a good user experience. A Webpage is one of the most important parts of online presence of a company, thus it should be designed according to the brand so that it represents the company the right way. Key elements in website design are brand image, colour, layout, fonts, accessibility and site navigation. All of these components play a crucial part in what kind of an impression of the brand potential customers get when visiting the website. (Smartinsights, 2020.)
Figure 7. The main page of Bulba’s website
The website’s layout on the main page looks somewhat cluttered. As this is the main page, it would better represent the brand to have a large picture or something specific for the prospect to focus on when entering the site. The layout could overall be more modern and cleaner to give a more professional image of the company. Additionally, the products should not be shown on the main page, because it makes the page look unorganized. The main page could only include maybe a few large pictures, links to social media channels and essential information about the company along with drop-down menus for products.
The logo and fonts of the company look appealing but could be more utilized for example by adding some earth-tone colours that represent the brand. A certain colour theme helps a potential customer remember the brand better, like for example Coca Cola. It has a red and white colour theme which it uses boldly in its marketing and therefore people associate the colours with the brand (Smartinsights, 2020). The fonts and other texts in website of the case company seem otherwise easy-to-read. For an even better visibility, some of the fonts could be a little larger.
The accessibility of the website is good, however, after making some possible changes to the main page, it would be a lot better. Moreover, the site’s navigation could be clearer, for example by listing all the product categories under ‘’Osastot’’ and deleting all other products from the main page.
3.5.2 SEO
When searching the case company on Google with relevant keywords, Bulba appeared as the first search result. However, it was a paid Google advertisement. As mentioned earlier on the theoretical framework, most people prefer organic search results instead of paid ads.
In the organic search results, the company ranked on the first page with different keywords.
To better find out what could be improved in terms of search engine optimization for the website, a SEO site analysis was performed on a page called ‘’SEO Site Checkup’’. It is a free check that anyone can do to determine how well a website is optimized.
Figure 8. Search Engine Optimization website check-up of Bulba.fi
The SEO checker site performed an extensive analysis on the webpage, which included common SEO issues, speed optimizations, server and security, mobile usability, and advanced tests (SEO Site Checkup, 2022). Overall, the result was satisfying however there are some things the website could improve even more.
