How to Conduct a Digital Marketing Analysis for Your Business Report

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Assessment type: Business report.
Word limit: 3,000 words (+/- 10%) excluding executive summary, charts, tables, graphics, and references.
Introduction
For digital marketers to engage in effective planning, we need to analyse and understand our market, competitors, customer experiences, digital marketing performance, and potential risks. Digital marketing analysis is cyclical in nature, and is conducted as part of every planning cycle, usually at the beginning of the strategic marketing process, and is used to inform the development of a digital marketing plan and guide decision-making. Without conducting detailed analysis, marketers risk developing a digital marketing plan which underperforms. This assignment is designed to build and assess your skills in conducting digital marketing analysis.
Client briefing:
Click here to view the client briefing.

*_Instructions
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1. Watch the client briefing and review materials
Before you start the assignment, please ensure you carefully review all of the materials provided by the client, and the assignment instructions.

2. Conduct a market and competitor analysis
Conduct a brief analysis of the macro level factors impact the client’s market or industry. Use an established framework to conduct this analysis (e.g. PESTLE), but make sure you keep the analysis focused on digital trends and factors.
Conduct analysis on one of the client’s closest competitors, and draw meaningful insights about their target audience, digital marketing strategies, and performance. Use publicly available information, your own observations, and free analysis software to understand how the competitor performs when it comes to digital marketing initiatives. Summarise your findings in a SWOT table.

3. Map the customer journey for your key persona
From the three audience personas you developed in assignment one, choose the one that you think is most attractive for the client to target, and briefly justify why you have selected this persona as the most viable.
For the persona you have selected, analyse how they currently experience the client’s offering, and develop a customer journey map to provide an overview of their end-to-end experience. Use one of the customer journey map templates provided to you as part of the coursework in this unit or find your own template online (lots of free templates available). As part of the analysis, focus on identifying potential pain points in the customer journey where improvements could be made using digital initiatives.

4. Audit digital marketing performance
For each of the digital touchpoints you have identified in your customer journey map, conduct a digital marketing audit to understand how the client is performing, and identify potential improvements that could be made in the future. Use data provided by the client, your own analysis, and free analysis software (e.g., Google PageSpeed Insights, SimplyWeb, UberSuggest, SocialBlade, SEMRush, among many others) to analyse performance and provide evidence and support for your conclusions. As an example, depending on the client, you could audit their website, app, search engine optimisation, content strategy, social media marketing, direct marketing (email and mobile), digital advertising, or any other aspects you feel are relevant and insightful.
At the end of this section, you should have identified a number of problems or areas for improvement in the client’s digital marketing efforts. If you get to the end of your audit, and you have not identified any problems at all, then you need to be more critical in your analysis. Even the best organisations only improve by identifying areas where they can improve.
While it is OK to use your judgement about whether the client is performing or underperforming, it is always best to find a benchmark or point of reference. For example, if you say that the engagement rate for the client’s website is low, you might also need to look up Google’s global benchmarks and state how the client website compares or analyse the client against their key competitor(s).

5. Analyse the client’s impact
Think critically and reflect on the client’s industry, competitors, audience, and digital marketing tactics. Identify and briefly describe three integrity, ethical, or legal issues that could pose a risk to the client, their audience, or society more broadly. Briefly suggest how each issue could be mitigated by the client to reduce risk and negative impact.

6. Make recommendations to inform your digital marketing plan
Provide a brief summary of the most important insights from your digital marketing analysis. For each one, briefly recommend how this insight could be used to guide decision making and inform the development of a digital marketing plan in assignment three.

Recommended structure:
Your assignment should be presented in business report format and include numbered headings, such as the following:
Executive summary (1 page max)
Table of contents
Introduction
Market and competitor analysis
Customer journey mapping
Digital marketing audit
Impact analysis
Recommendations
References
Appendix (if applicable)
Important notes:
The report, references and appendices to be assembled in one document and uploaded as one electronic file to Canvas.
The key to successfully completing each step in the assignment is to integrate theory and demonstrate learning from this unit to structure your research and analysis (insight). Integration means using relevant marketing and digital marketing theory, concepts and frameworks to structure your research into insights that are comprehendible by a practicing marketer. It is not cut and paste of theory, but rather the use of theory to build and frame the logic of your arguments and insights. You are integrating theory to demonstrate your understanding and learn how to use these tools to solve business problems.
You may not know everything you would like to know about the client’s target audience or brand when completing this assignment. When you do not have enough information, make some reasonable assumptions or use logic to develop the answer, based on the evidence you have available to you.
Your work should be supported by evidence from a range of sources and the more relevant evidence you provide, the better. A minimum of 5 references is expected, including at least 1 academic journal article.
To fit within the word limit you should focus only on crucial information, write succinctly, and use charts, tables and graphics to present your analysis and evidence.

 

Struggling with where to start this assignment? Follow this guide to tackle your assignment easily!


Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Business Report

1. Watch the Client Briefing and Review Materials
Before diving into the assignment, make sure you’ve watched the client briefing video and reviewed all materials carefully. This will give you an understanding of the client’s needs and provide clarity on the direction of your report. Pay close attention to any details regarding the industry, target audience, and the client’s current digital marketing efforts.

2. Conduct a Market and Competitor Analysis

  • Macro-Level Analysis (PESTLE Framework):
    Start with analyzing macro-level factors impacting the industry or market. A great way to do this is by using the PESTLE framework—looking at Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors. Make sure you focus on digital trends that are relevant to the client’s market. For example, look at how social media algorithms or mobile app usage are shaping customer behavior in their industry.
  • Competitor Analysis:
    Choose one of the client’s main competitors. Use publicly available data to assess their target audience, digital marketing strategies, and performance. You could look at things like their social media presence, website performance, and digital ads. Then, organize your findings in a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) table. This will help you identify key insights about how the competitor is performing and what gaps you can address in the client’s strategy.

3. Map the Customer Journey for Your Key Persona

  • Choose Your Persona:
    From the three audience personas you created in assignment one, select the one that seems most viable for the client. Justify why this persona is the best fit for targeting.
  • Customer Journey Mapping:
    For the selected persona, analyze how they experience the client’s offering. Develop a customer journey map (use templates provided or find your own) that shows the persona’s journey from awareness to conversion. Identify any pain points in this journey where improvements could be made. These could be delays in response time, poor website navigation, or irrelevant content.

4. Audit Digital Marketing Performance

  • Audit Each Digital Touchpoint:
    Analyze each of the client’s digital touchpoints that appear in your customer journey map. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, SimplyWeb, SEMrush, or SocialBlade to gather data on the performance of the website, social media, app, etc.
  • Identify Issues:
    Look for areas where the client’s performance can improve. For instance, if you find that the client’s website is loading too slowly, provide evidence using the tools above. If you don’t find any issues, you might not be digging deep enough. Try to benchmark the client against competitors or global standards for a clearer picture of their performance.

5. Analyse the Client’s Impact
Consider how the client’s digital marketing efforts and business operations could be impacted by integrity, ethical, or legal issues. Identify three potential issues that could pose a risk to the client, their audience, or society. For example:

  • Data privacy concerns (e.g., GDPR compliance)
  • Misleading advertising practices
  • Environmental sustainability issues
    For each, briefly suggest how the client could mitigate these risks, such as updating privacy policies or ensuring transparency in advertising.

6. Make Recommendations
Based on your analysis, provide recommendations to inform the client’s digital marketing plan. This could include improving their social media strategy, enhancing their website’s UX, or adopting new digital tools. Keep these recommendations actionable and aligned with your earlier findings.


Structuring Your Report

  • Executive Summary: (1-page max)
    Summarize the entire report briefly, highlighting the key findings, issues, and recommendations.

  • Table of Contents:
    List out all the major sections of your report, like Market Analysis, Customer Journey, Digital Marketing Audit, etc.

  • Introduction:
    Introduce the client, their industry, and the purpose of your report. Set the context for your analysis.

  • Market and Competitor Analysis:
    Present your macro-level analysis using PESTLE, then dive into your competitor analysis with the SWOT table.

  • Customer Journey Mapping:
    Provide a brief overview of your selected persona and the customer journey map. Discuss any potential pain points in detail.

  • Digital Marketing Audit:
    Present a detailed audit of the client’s digital marketing performance using your research and tools.

  • Impact Analysis:
    Outline the three key ethical or legal issues you identified and suggest mitigation strategies.

  • Recommendations:
    Provide your key recommendations based on your analysis of the client’s digital marketing performance.

  • References:
    Include at least five references, with at least one academic journal article. Ensure your references are credible and directly support your analysis.

  • Appendix (if applicable):
    Include any additional information such as detailed charts, tables, or raw data.


Final Tips

  • Be Critical:
    Make sure you critically assess the client’s performance and don’t just gloss over their strengths. Identify areas for improvement and back up your claims with data.

  • Use Relevant Theories:
    Apply marketing and digital marketing theories to structure your analysis. This helps frame your insights in a way that’s useful for a practitioner in the field.

  • Be Concise:
    Stick to the crucial information. Use charts, tables, and graphics to condense information and present data effectively.

  • Proofread:
    Before submitting, ensure your report is well-organized, free of grammatical errors, and aligned with the assignment guidelines.

Good luck with your assignment! Follow this guide, and you’ll be able to create a solid, well-researched business report.

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