About a month ago I got a call from Barcelona. It was a head hunter and he was interested in me for Value Retail's Roca Village. It was for the Digital Marketer position taking charge of Value Retail's digital marketing for the spanish market. I was thrilled and got to work right away investigating its current situation, risks, limitations and more importantly, where I could get to work. So, eventhough I dont work for Value Retail, I made a short online marketing plan with ideas to increase Value Retail's online presence in the Spanish market.
This plan has 3 iniciatives:1. Search Engine Optimization Upgrade
At the time of this study, Value Retail's SEO for the spanish market webs is poorly developed. This is a good start to driving online traffic.
2. Online Media Room Launch
Again, poorly developed social media. Well, better said, the Roca Village has NO social media strategy. I'm going to jump-start Roca's social media and implement an online media room with social networks and a BLOG!
3. Leverage Email to become Outlet Knowledge Leader
I am not a part of Value Retail's email lists, but I got to speak with a email reciever and she gave me the downlow on Value Retail's email communication. I'm sorry but communicating discounts and special prices just doesn't cut it. Besides, its an outlet shopping center, the discount is implied.
SEO Upgrade
-Keywords
It seems that the current SEO strategy is focused around few keywords. One of those keywords is "chic". Part of the phrase "chic outlet shopping". As I said before, I dont work for Value Retail, but it seems that the online marketing team or agency (they use View {UK} as its web agency) didn't do a keyword analysis and develop prime keywords that would drive traffic to the website and into the sales process. So, the first task at hand for this business is keyword analysis and implementation. For example, they can start by changing the title of the webpage which currently does not reflect any keyword besides "Roca Village". Developing keywords start by asking questions like "What is important to the business?" "What will attract customers?" After developing a good hundred keywords or more, Roca can start to develop content and implement keywords into the website and blog content. Once keywords in place, it is important to measure the traffic keyworks attract and compare keywords. It is also important to monitor competitive keywords and where they rank in comparison.
-Link Building
Link building is also very important for SEO. Where can this company start? First, register with directories online. They drive great, relevant traffic. Second, identify good online partners. Do they have a good blog/Website with lots of traffic? If so, trade links from good, relevant content. Third and most important in today's Web 2.0, become a blogger with a mission. Start commenting on outlet shopping influencial blogs. For example, there are a ton of people out there blogging about the next cool shirt at Hugo Boss and they even have pictures of the item, price, size, etc. These influencials are your WOM drivers through the internet. That's where you need to build conversations and get to know your influencials and what they talk about. Now, this leads me to blogging and social media which is part of the link building process.
Online Media Room
The online media room is for buyers and publishers (bloggers, newpaper, etc). The online media room should be a very visible, attractive part of the website home page. A place where a buyer or publisher can find the most current information on the company, products, and all the content the company publishes. This online media room should be like a live feed - always updating - from social media, blogs, and PR people and it should have fixed information related to the company and products. So, how does this company create the online media room? First, have a meeting. Meet up with Value Retail's marketing department, PR people, web designers/agency and let them know whats up. Share ideas and become excited. Then...create a blog.
-Blog
A blog is the first step in the online media room in my opinion because its the easiest way to start developing content and feeding it to the online media room. However, you might ask what does Roca write about? Hmmm....store changes, parking issues, shopping tips, fashion shows, inside info....do I need to go on??...product updates at lacoste, the hot waitress at the italian restaurant, the video of the shoplifter...get creative! Make sure all your blog content is sharable through share links. It will drive traffic and breed loyal bloggers who will in turn become loyal customers, tweeters, diggers, facebookers, tuenties, etc. This leads me to....
-Social Networking
Social network marketing is a hot topic right now and when things are hot, you don't want to touch it too much. So, a good objective for Roca's social media would be to drive traffic to the website and then lead that traffic to the sales process. I think the best way to do this would be to build social groups in Facebook and Tuenti with a link to a sign up for email. However, limit your direct messages in Facebook and Tuenti and develop the groups from a REAL person's profile - effectively the Digital Manager. Then feed your new, relevant, keyword rich content to the group home page, not to all the group members.
Also promote content in twitter (also from a real person's account), digg, and other communities. Feed your tweets and diggs to the online media room. Same with Youtube or more segmented video communities.
What is important about social media is this:
1. Go where your customers are. If you recieve more traffic from Facebook, use it more. If not, stay away. You don't want to waste time where no one listens.
2. Be real. Dont sell.
Leverage Email Communication
In this online marketing plan, the email function is where Roca convinces customers to go shopping. Like I said before, communicating discounts and special pricing doesn't make the cut. Roca's communication must be different from that of other retailers. So how do we do this? First, buy a good third party emailing software. I would suggest ExactTarget. They probably provide the best software for retailers. By using ExactTarget we can communicate with our customers on a more personal level and measure the effectiveness of the email campaign closely. Second, start developing content plans for email campaigns. This is where Roca needs to set itself apart from the rest by becoming sort of a knowledge leader - making it obvious that Roca does it better. Roca can start by asking, "What interests my customers?". Once they have a few good answers, start developing content or incentives for customers to leave the house and drive to the outlet center.
There are still many things left out of this plan like the development of buyer profiles, integrating traditional media, video content, and much, much more. If you take a look at Value Retail's online presence you can see that this simple and short plan will go a LONG way to turning its lacking presence into cash flow.
Well there, thats my short online marketing plan for Value Retail's Roca & Roza Village in Spain. Like I said, I don't work for Value Retail, obviously I didn't get the job but I didn't want my time to go to waste. So I have shared it with you. Please don't hesitate to add on to my plan by commenting below.
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