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In a new technology driven world, studies have shown that more than 51% or an estimate of
3.2 billion of the world’s population is using the internet every day (ITU, 2015). Toys’R’Us,
Inc merchandise is sold in over 1660 stores world-wide in 37 countries and jurisdictions.
The purpose of this audit is to identify the current digital marketing strategy of the company
and propose ways to improve its strategy (Ladaque J, 2014). The company has its fair share
of owned, paid and earned media, however this audit will be carried out to identify the
strengths and weakness in its strategy and its threats and opportunities with relation to its
competitors (Tustin, D.H.; Strydom, J.W.Southern, 2006). Strategies that will be discussed
are the market development and penetration strategies, as well as the customer
engagement strategy with its social media influence (Bocken, Nancy M.P.; Fil, Alison;
Prabhu, Jaideep, 2016). To formulate the strategies of the company, SMART and RACE
objectives will be implemented to ensure them success in a long run (Bjerke, May B; Renger,
R, 2017). Marketing metrics used to measure a Return on Investment (ROI ) and compare
data in areas which require improvement are also discussed. Various tools such as SEO,
social media, email, affiliate programs should be mixed with traditional marketing
Maro, 2018). KPIs are being discussed as they are also a key factor in evaluating the
Toys “R” Us, Inc was founded in 1948 by its founder Charles P. Lazarus. It is an American
There are three (3) different types of media emphasized in digital marketing which are
Earned, Owned and Paid media (Harrison. F, 2013). Owned and Paid media are directly
linked to the online environment. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, etc., which belongs directly to the company is known as Owned Media. Paid
Media refers to companies spending its capital on paid searches (PPC), displaying of ads and
affiliate marketing. Earned media which is not in the online environment is the most
on Earned media more than anything else (Su, Yi-Liang; Lin, Tom M.Y.; Chang, Sue-Ting,
by step analysis on the goals to be achieved (Moiseieva, Mariia, 2013). It begins with us
understanding the SITUATION the company is in with regards to what it has done so far
in its digital marketing activities, from this we can set a benchmark on what we would
like to accomplish (Lock, Dennis, 2001). OBJECTIVES are being laid out to direct
accomplishments over a long or short term basis (Mardle, Simon; Pascoe, Sean, 2002).
Following the objectives for the company, we will then have to use a STRATEGY, these
strategies require us to engage the targeted audience before conducting our planning
and research on other competitors, identifying their weakness and using it against them
to gain a competitive edge in the market (Gorman, Michael F, 2011). TACTICS are based
on defining “ how exactly do we get there” by implementing the chosen strategy, what
are the tools needed to make it a success? , these tactics have to exclusive and discrete
so that it will not be easily copied or duplicated by other competitors and they are our
key battle “weapons” for an organisation (Sandberg, William R. ; Hofer, Charles W,
1987). The ACTIONS stage requires the organisation to put its strategies and tactics into
play, constant feedback and innovation is required to constantly improve the process,
ACTIONS also include the organisation monitoring the competitor’s reaction towards
them stepping forward in a different directions and it allows the organisation to come
back with a counter strategy should it be needed (Hemphill, Thomas,2004). Finally there
is the CONTROL stage, this stage monitors the overall digital marketing performance
based on data and analytics , key performance indicators ( KPI )s , have to be set in order
to showcase how well an individual or department is performing and how tactical are
they in keeping and sustaining the competitive edge as well as identifying areas for
analyse the current digital marketing activities and to have a clearer understanding on
the situation and lay out objectives, a piece of data is extracted from Similarweb to give
us an overview on its current situation. SWOT analysis and porter’s five ( 5 ) forces are
also included to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Toys “R” Us for us to apply our
strategies and tactics (Zhao, Weilin ; Watanabe, Chihiro ; Griffy-Brown, Charla, 2009).
Analyse the factors using the Porter's five (5) forces model to gain the competitive edge
( E.Dobbs M, 2014 ) .
wide range of products for the customers and also shows the establishment of the
company and a good selling point about Toys “R” Us, Inc is that it has many suppliers
from the toy manufacturers , thus there is less bargaining power of suppliers, we can
maintain the price that we want to pay for the goods (Brown, David T. ; Fee, C. Edward ;
Bargaining power of buyers- If the buyers knew exactly what they want to pay and what
they should be paying for in a product , then the company will not have a lot of
bargaining power towards these buyers, so the buyers can choose to buy their product
somewhere else if the price is not right. But if the product is really exclusive or special,
then the buyers will not have a lot of power, thus Toys “R” Us should retail more
exclusive products that can keep the bargaining power low at that period of time
Threats of new entrants- The threat of new entrants in any business is inevitable, in the
toy industry today it is a very competitive market, we have to make sure that quality
products are produced and campaigns are done regularly to keep the parents engaged
as they get to watch their child innovate and have fun using our products. We need
them to believe in the WHY (Sinek, S., 2011) we are in this business, thus companies
from China or online markets cannot gain the competitive edge by making the exact toys
at a cheaper price.
in our phones and our computers, however it has also greatly affected our toy industry,
kids these days are very exposed to technology, and there are many companies which
have invested the capital in producing toys with the latest technology (Przybylski,
Andrew K ; Weinstein, Netta, 2013 ), it is important to also note that this trend has to be
kept up to gain the competitive edge. Traditional toys don’t sell as well as technology
Rivalry among competitors- There are major competitors in the toy market now, both in
retail stores and online, ranging between the technology, price, creativity and brand .
Since Toys”R”Us,Inc is a niche in the toy industry for many years ,they must keep up with
all these changing trends and use its experience in the market to trigger the “BUY”
button of its customers (Mukherjee, Jaydeep, 2012 ) ,do a market research of customers
to find out what does the majority prefer, like or dislike about the company, and make
Bargaining power of suppliers Low Average For now there are adequate
amount of stores , thus there will
be a good number of suppliers to
all outlets , ensure the stores do
not cease operations.
Threats of new entrants High Strong More and more promotions and
constant engagement with
customers is very important as
this builds the relationship
between the business and its
customers , once a relationship is
built, new entrants will find it a
challenge to enter the market.
Threat of substitute product High Strong Pick up the latest trends and
of services products for toys, invest more
capital in toys with technology.
Rivalry among competitors High Strong The toy industry is very
competitive , keep doing SWOT
analysis from time to time to
understand the position of the
company , find out what
customers likes and dislikes.
- Walmart
- Target.com
- Disney store
- Fao.com
- Etoys.com
- Toywiz.com
- Toystogrowon.com
- Sillyasstoys.com
- Amazon.com
- Bestbuy.com
Specific- To create more awareness of the brand over its social media platforms and
To develop a digital marketing strategy and cover the marketing funnel, we have used the
consists of using tools such as SEO , paid Ads , pay-per-clicks and the type of content to
interest users. Act is the stage where it is crucial to gather as much information of users as
possible , by conducting surveys , gathering feedback, collecting customer interests on
customers are and generate new leads, they can even give us information on the specific
interests of customers. Convert is the stage when amounts of data about leads have been
collected and how it can be used as an advantage, competitive edge and return on
investment when we convert them into our customers. Sales calls and constant remarketing
to these potential customers will not be a challenge as we will be able to market products of
interest to them (Pitt, Leyland F. ; Berthon, Pierre ; Watson, Richard T. ; Ewing, Michael,
2001). The convert stage can also allow us to look at what have we not been doing right and
how do we improve on our process , more better ideas and brainstorming can be performed
at this stage and then re-evaluated back to the ACT stage again to run a trial and error.
Engage is the final stage where we can provide customization of products to meet the
needs and satisfy certain customers , loyalty programs and discounts can be issued to them ,
constant communication with these customers is crucial as they will be our biggest Word-
Of-Mouth marketers ( Ahrens, Jan ; Coyle, James R ; Strahilevitz, Michal Ann, 2013) , lastly
we can analyse on our objectives to see if they have been met , we can measure our
achievements and our goals and analyse the best strategies through the whole process by
Google Analytics and our social media responses , based on the data collected, we will then
monitor our KPI (key performance indicators) to ensure that specific targets are me. Based
Strategy
Reach :
● To create more awareness of the brand over its social Display ads TOFU ( Top of
media platforms and increase sales revenue by 10%. SEOs and PPCs Funnel )
Email Marketing
Content
marketing
Mobile
marketing
Engage :
● To convert at least 20 % of the leads into Personalised
customers to increase revenue. Loyalty program
● To complete the task in a eight ( 8 ) month period Offer discounts ,
before review. invites to all
campaigns
Re-marketing and
re-engagement
Sales calls
BOFU ( Bottom of
Funnel )
Tactics
Strategy Implementation
Targeting and segmentation Targeting the parents is the key , use content that will engage
both the parent and child , display all products on website for
children to see and choose
Positioning Position the products based on the different interest level of
children from different countries , if there are specific toys
which children from another country will play , position these
toys as a selling point from country to country.
Proposition and the marketing mix Product – Offer a wide range of products.
Place- If there is a lack of reach, reach out to find partnerships
on websites like Amazon and Lazada.
Price- Compare pricing with other large retail outlets and
compete.
Promotion- Invite visitors to like a page or ad and leave
valuable comments to receive special promotions.
People – Provide a live chat service and ensure that the FAQ
page is updated.
Processes- Provide a systematic process.
Physical evidence- Display accounts of true incidents about
how toys help the growth of children, display awards and
testimonials.
Partners- Partnership with movie toy makers, make product
exclusive, examples are selling the latest star wars action
figures.
Brand strategy Use Content Marketing, know the audience, develop books for
children, DVDs, clothes, use after sales support, generate value
to customers.
Online representation and Identify and prioritise long term customers or customers who
presence have given us a good return on investment.
Content and engagement strategy Support buying process and stickiness to promote return visits,
collect reviews , customer feedbacks and ratings.
Digital channel acquisition Ensure adequate communications via
communications strategy SEOs ( Paid and Natural )
Email marketing to leads
Affiliate marketing program
Advertising
Digital channel conversion strategy Ensure page design and layout is user friendly and easy to use,
messaging and performance which makes the visitors engage
and convert.
Digital channel retention To ensure customers keep coming back , focus on the tactics of
communications strategy marketing them offline as well like conducting events, through
these events, create the awareness of website online
presence.
Data strategy Apply the 4 W and 1 H concept , What, Where, When , Why
and How to improve quality of customer data across channels
and increase the relevant awareness.
Multichannel integration strategy Understand the customer journey cycle and which digital
marketing strategy should be used in different parts of the
cycle.
Social media marketing strategy Start promoting on all social media websites , create ways to
“force” the ad to be seen , can be done while a user is
watching a 5 min long video on his/her social media account,
ensure that an ad of about 20 seconds about the brand will be
played in the middle of video.
Digital marketing governance Use the fish-bone diagram to manage internal and external
strategy resources.
Measuring your digital marketing metrics can be done with websites such as Google
Analytics or SimilarWeb , the data presented can give us a better understanding on how to
constantly make improvements (Nylén, Daniel ; Holmström, Jonny, 2015). Data which can
be useful to us are activity time on the website by overall users, how frequent do they visit
the website, bounce rates and contents which users spend the most time looking at . We
can even monitor which social media sites to improve more marketing activities and which
social media sites are the easiest to reach out to users (Britt Bischoff,2015). After looking at
all the data and drafting up of strategies, we can now set KPIs and measure them , KPIs
have to regularly monitored to know how effective are they and what are the types of KPIs
are needed to ensure that results are achieved (José Ramón Saura ; Pedro Palos-Sánchez ;
Luis Manuel Cerdá Suárez,2017). After all marketing activities are done, the next question is
to know if there is a Return On Investment ( ROI ) ? For this audit , we will be analysing data
Channel-Specific Traffic
KEY PERFORMACE INDICATORS ( KPI ) ARE RESULTS BEING MET ?
● Reach out to individual social media platforms and invest YES NO
more capital in the paid ads , ensure that the ads are being
displayed more than 5 times per day to users.
● More marketing to be done via E-mail when sending out YES NO
newsletters.
● Increase reach on YouTube by video marketing and increase YES NO
more tweets about promotions on twitter , both sites are
big platforms.
Recommendations :
User Demographics
Search Trends
being converted into clients, customers , subscribers and leads. However the website
content should be based only on data and metrics (Hu, Nan ; Liu, Ling ; Bose, Indranil ; Shen,
Jialie, 2010 ). Building a website that generates revenue requires careful management ,
setting goals and monitoring them (Mithas, Sunil ; Ramasubbu, Narayan ; Krishnan, M. S. ;
Fornell, Claes, 2006 ). In monitoring our conversion rate , we can use a Clickstream Analysis
to find out how many clicks stands between the visitors and the desired outcomes , or a
drop off point where the visitors leave the page (Heim, E. ; Seitel, A. ; Isensee, F. ; Andrulis, J.
; Stock, C. ; Ross, T. ; Maier-Hein, L., 2017 ). For some cases , removing a page , editing
contents and generating a more easier way to make a purchase can lead to an increase in
the conversion rate. Conversion metrics is about finding out what works best for your
website and making the necessary investments and changes to track progress overtime. A
Return On Investment is completed when money invested into managing a website, hosting
a campaign or driving traffic through PPCs converts a visitor into a customer or client
(Wildner Raimund ; Modenbach Guido, 2015 ). All companies want to have a ROI on their
digital marketing activities, in doing so they have to constantly monitor and measure the
campaigns from start to finish, do an evaluation from time to time , understanding the latest
trends and updating their site to ensure they keep up with competitors and lastly do the
measurement again to see if objectives are met (Mogollon, Manuel ; Raisinghani, Mahesh,
2003 ).
- What were the specific actions that the visitor completed before converting.
- Take note of certain details of what your “regular visitors” looks like.
Recommendations
The basic definition of digital marketing is to promote a brand’s product and service through
various forms of digital channels to consumers. However one must bear in the mind that
sales and marketing rely on the performance of a company and how well it does to keep its
Management, which focuses on improving work flow and standards from a bottom-up
have to work with operational departments hand in hand to understand its constraints as
well as top management profit and loss concerns before designing a marketing tactic. The
similar theory applies for Toys “R” Us as well, they should start by employing floor staff with
the right attitude as they are the first point of contact to customers, employees who go
beyond the call the duty to satisfy customer’s needs, a good backend operation team who
can support the products arriving on time to the stores and creating a simple yet elegant
layout of the toys in the stores and management committed to providing the best customer
experience. All these factors contribute to marketing. Developing a good strategy would be
to infiltrate the social media platforms to make its promotions and brand as viral as possible
(Wuebben, Daniel, 2016 ) , going viral is best Word-Of-Mouth ( WOM ) marketing tactic,
ways to do this can be promoting new exclusive or unique products which can be difficult to
Understanding the customer journey cycle, techniques to perfect the strategy is very
customers as quoted by Edgar Mitchell , “ if We don’t take of our customers, someone else
will “ , slashing prices during festive periods and providing free deliveries after purchase are
examples of “taking care” of customers (Gupta, Sunil ; Lehmann, Donald R. ; Stuart, Jennifer
Ames, 2004 ).
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