HSBC Holdings plc, established in 1865 as “The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank”, is the 7th largest banking and financial organization of the world in terms of the net annual revenue that it generates (Hsbc.lk 2018). The organization is known for the various kinds of banking and financial services that it offers to the customers from the different countries of the world. The organization is currently operational in more than 67 different nations of the world and has more than 3.900 business centers in different nations (Hsbc.lk 2018). The organization established its first business in the nation of Sri Lanka in 1892 and since then it has formed an integral part of the financial network of the concerned nation (Hsbc.lk 2018). The organization offers various kinds of financial services in the concerned nation like different kinds of loans, credit cards, debit cards, savings accounts and others (Hsbc.lk 2018). The organization has currently more than 1700 employees within the nation and in the past century has emerged as one of the largest private banks of the concerned nation (Hsbc.lk 2018).
The organization currently in the nation of Sri Lanka is facing various kinds of issues which are adversely affecting the business fortunes of the concerned nation. The majority of these issues are related to the online financial services that the concerned organization offers to the customers. Thus, in order to overcome these issues or problems the organization has decided to come up with marketing objectives with the help of which it intends to overcome these issues and also to earn a higher amount of revenue as well.
The organization for the achievement of this digital marketing objective can take the help of the RACE digital marketing tool which comprises of five stages. The five stages which the organizations are required to take into effective consideration for the use of this tool are
The organization at the very beginning would have to identify the business opportunities that the use of this digital marketing objective is likely to offer to the organization. The likely benefits that the use of this tool is going to offer to the organization are the enhancement of the customer base of the concerned organization, increase in the revenue earned by the organization and others. The second stage would be the review of different options that is available to the organization. On the basis of this analysis the organization has identified two digital marketing objectives that are likely to improve the prospects of the organization under discussion here. The third stage would be the stage of planning in which the concerned organization would be required to plan for the effective utilization of these digital marketing objectives. The next stage would be the stage of implementation wherein the concerned organization would be required to implement the digital marketing objectives that it has formulated. The final stage would be the stage of review wherein the organization would be required to review the progress that the organization has made through the use of the concerned digital marketing objectives.
As opined by Tiago and Veríssimo (2014), one of the most important trends, which is noticed within the framework of the contemporary business is the fact that the buying behavior of the customers has changed in a substantial manner in comparison to the customers of the earlier times. For example, the present day customers tend to get influenced by the reviews or the comments offered by the other existing customers of the same organizations (Baltes 2015).
Järvinen and Karjaluoto (2015) are of the viewpoint that these reviews offered by the customers regarding the products or the services and their experience influence the decision of the potential customers in a substantial manner. The net result of this is the fact that rather than analyzing the quality of the products or the services offered by an organization the modern customers opt for the products or services on the basis of their online reviews (Kingsnorth 2016). However, when the business services as well as the operations of the organization under discussion here is analyzed it becomes clear that the organization does not have an online space wherein the customers can leave their comments or reviews regarding the financial services offered by them. Thus, it is likely that the organization would be able to improve its business prospects in the nation of Sri Lanka in an effective manner through the development of this marketing objective. This would require the organization to create a section within their online website wherein the customers would be able to write reviews or comments (Patrutiu-Baltes 2016). Furthermore, this objective would not only help in the effective marketing as well as promotion of financial services offered by the concerned organization but would at the same time help in the enhancement of the net revenue earned by it as well.
As stated by Ryan (2016), the contemporary customers unlike the customers of the earlier times like to stay updated regarding the services or products offered by the organizations whose services they are opting for. More importantly, the effective use of this strategy not only helps the organizations to promote as well as market the services that it is already offering to the customers but also the ones that it would be launching in the future times (Kannan 2017). In this regard, the tool of promotional or content emails is an important one through which the organizations can send relevant information to the customers regarding the services or products that they are currently offering to the customers but also the ones which would be launched by them in future times (Kaufman and Horton 2014). The organization, thus, taking the help of this objective would be able to enhance their existing customer base and thereby their revenue as well since through the use of this method the concerned organization would be able to enhance its customer conversion rate. For the attainment of this objective, the concerned organization would have to create a section on their website wherein the customers would be able to provide their email address so as to receive promotional emails regarding the financial services offered by the organization (Royle and Laing 2014).
Holliman and Rowley (2014) are of the viewpoint that the different kinds of digital marketing strategies are increasing become important within the framework of the contemporary business because of the advantages that they offer over the traditional marketing theories. As opined by Baker and Saren (2016), one of the major advantages of the digital marketing strategies is the fact that they help the organization to reach out to a much larger customer base and that too in a very cost effective manner. The organization, HSBC Sri Lanka, for the effective achievement of the two above mentioned marketing objectives can take the help of digital marketing strategies.
The organization under discussion here can take the help of the digital marketing strategies of content marketing and email marketing for the effective achievement of the digital marketing objectives that they have formulated. For example, the strategy of content marketing will enable the concerned organization to optimize the content that had been written regarding it over the online platforms (Baker 2014). This is especially important for the attainment of the first marketing objective which the concerned organization has formulated. It is likely that through the effective use of this digital marketing strategy the concerned organization would be able to mitigate the threats posed by the negative comments or reviews which has been posted related to them and only keep the positive ones (Taiminen and Karjaluoto 2015). However, for the effective utilization of this strategy, the concerned organization would have to take the help of the process of SEO and insert positive reviews related to the organization in the directory of their official website (Saura, Palos-Sánchez and Cerdá Suárez 2017). More importantly, they would at the same time on a proactive basis need to not only address the negative comments which had been posed regarding them but have to remove them not only from their official website but also from other online sources as well (Zerr, Albert and Forster 2017). This is likely to help the concerned organization to improve its conversion rate related to the customers since the customers are likely to get influenced by the positive reviews as well as comments that they had read regarding the organization.
The organization under discussion here for the effective usage of the content marketing objective that it has devised can take the help of the content or editorial calendars. Effective usage of this tool enables the organizations to place the kind of contents that they want the customers to views like the nature of services offered by them, their current business activities and others over the different online channels. Furthermore, the effective use of this tool would at the same time help the organization to plan the daily work activities of the employees in a much better manner.
HSBC for the process of effective use of email promotional method would have to use the digital marketing strategy of email marketing. As opined by Spiller and Tuten (2015), the construct of emails have become important within the framework of the contemporary digital world and different organizations are resorting to the use of this construct for the promotion of services or products offered by them. The best aspect regarding the use of emails for promotional means is the fact that they are not only cost effective but at the same time faster as well (Stone and Woodcock 2014). As a matter of fact that the organization just needs to develop the promotional content and the same email can be forwarded to all the customers by just changing the email address of the receivers (Lamberton and Stephen 2016). Thus, it is likely that the effective use of this strategy is likely to help the concerned organization to achieve the second digital marketing objective which it has formulated. For example, effective utilization of this strategy will help the concerned organization to send effective promotional emails to the potential customers regarding the existing financial services that they are offering currently and also the ones that would be launched in future (Confos and Davis 2016). The customers who would be approaching the organization to avail their financial services have already been influenced by the emails sent by the concerned organization and thus it would be easier for the organization to convert these individuals into customers.
The usage of these two strategies by the organization under discussion here are in synchronicity with the network theory of digital marketing. According to this theory, the digital prospects of an organization depend to a great extent on the effective online network that the digital strategy is able to create with the users (Killian and McManus 2015). The two strategies are likely to help the concerned organization to connect in an effective manner with the different potential customers for whom the online content has been created. Furthermore, the use of these two strategies would eliminate the not-interested customers and the organization is likely to get only the king of customers who have an interest in the services offered by the organization. This is likely to enable the concerned organization to not only create effective networks with the potential customers but also enhance its customer conversion rate as well.
The primary audience for these strategies and also the content and emails developed by the organization would be the tech-savvy working class people who normally opt for the financial services offered by organizations like HSBC. Leeflang et al. (2014) are of the viewpoint that these individuals are more likely to get influenced by these kinds of online content and email marketing and thus the primary focus of the organization should be on this demographic of the population. The organization in order to enhance its customer base by means of digital marketing needs to position itself as one of the safe and most secure financial organization of the nation. In addition to this, the organization is also likely to gain in a significant manner by positioning itself as the financial organization which offers the highest interest rates on investments. The organization needs to ensure the fact these marketing strategies should be centered round the theme of financial security and earning that the organization is likely to offer to the customers. For example, the organization needs to focus on the financial benefits that the customers are likely to get by investing or opting for the financial services offered by the concerned organization.
As opined by Kasemsap (2018), the effectiveness of a digital marketing strategy depends to a great extent on the communication mix which is being used by the organization to deliver the concerned strategy. Donnelly et al. (2015) are of the viewpoint that the organizations for the formulation of such communication mix need to take into effective consideration various factors like market research, the promotional as well as marketing tools, media channels that needs to be used and others.
The financial services that the organization offers includes various kinds of personal loans, commercial loans, personal as well as corporate accounts and similar kinds of activities. These services are primarily designed to secure the financial assets of the customers and also to help them to earn significant amount of investment returns on the same. Furthermore, for the effective attainment of the digital marketing objective that the concerned organization has formulated would require it to take the help of an effective promotional mix (Hunsberger 2017). More importantly, this promotional mix needs to contain various entities like sales promotion, advertising, salesforce, public relations and digital marketing (Charlesworth 2014). The organization taking the help of the digital marketing strategies which it has formulated for the enhancement of current customer base and also to earn a higher amount of revenue needs promote the financial services offered by it through the emails and also the reviews of the customers. This is likely to require the organization to optimize the reviews as well as contents which has been posted by the customers over its website and other similar kind of online platforms. The concerned organization can also send the customers their sales pitch to the customers through emails so as to convert these not interested customers into potential customers.
The organization would also have to take the help of different kind of advertisements for the promotion of the financial services offered by it. The effective use of various kinds of digital advertisements and similar kinds of marketing campaigns is likely to help the concerned organization to promote the services offered by them to the customers in Sri Lanka (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017). In addition to this, the concerned organization would also have to develop an effective salesforce which would be able to enhance the customer conversion rate of the organization by converting the query calls of the customers in sales. More importantly, the organization can also take the help of construct of public relations for the process of the enhancement of their brand image and thereby the enhancement of their customer base. As opined by Karjaluoto, Mustonen and Ulkuniemi (2015), the customers of the present times tend to get influenced by the brand image of organizations and only opt for the services offered by the organizations which boast of a positive brand image. Thus, it can be said that the use of this strategy is likely to help the concerned organization in a substantial manner. Lastly, effective use of the digital marketing is another measure that the concerned organization needs to use for the services that are offering to the customers. Through the use of digital marketing, the concerned organization would be able to market the financial services offered by them over the various social networking websites and thereby promote their services before a much wider customer base (Vásquez and Escamilla 2014). Recent researches have shown that the organizations which take the help of the process of digital marketing have a far greater chance of attaining success than the ones which do not (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017).
The organization can also base the digital marketing communication mix that they are likely to use on the 5C framework of digital marketing. The five components of the concerned framework.
In addition to the above given model, the organization can also take the help of 4C framework for the effective formulation of the communication mix.
The organization for the effective use of this model would have to focus on its four major attributes, namely, communication, company, convenience and customers. Thus, the organization needs to ensure the fact that services offered by the organization should try to enhance the convenience of the customers who are opting for the services offered by them. The customer, company and communication aspects have already been discussed in the earlier section.
The organization can also take the help of different kinds of media channels like web advertisements, social media websites and others to promote as well as market the financial services offered by them to the customers (Armstrong et al. 2014). Lastly, as already mentioned the organization needs to select the working class tech-savvy individuals for the financial services that they are offering to the customers.
The organization HSBC would need to take the help of different kinds of resources for the effective implementation of the digital marketing activities that it has formulated. As opined by Donnelly et al. (2015), the organization needs to take into effective consideration the key resources or competencies of their own organization in an effective manner before the formulation of a marketing plan or strategy. More importantly, these strategies or plan also need to be in synchronicity with the marketing objectives which has been formulated by the organization and also with the key competencies of the concerned organization as well (Charlesworth 2014).
The organization under discussion here for the effective implementation of the digital marketing communication mix would require the help of various resources like digital marketing managers, content developers, trainers for offering training to the individuals to sale the financial services offered by the organization and others (Killian and McManus 2015). In addition to this, the organization would also need advertisement experts, PR experts and others. For example, the digital marketing managers would be entrusted with the work of developing online content which would help the concerned organization to promote the financial services that they offer to the customers in an effective manner (Holliman and Rowley 2014). This would also take the help of different IT experts who would be required to integrate the content developed by digital marketing managers into the official website of the organization. In addition to this, for the purpose of SEO optimization the organization at the same time would need the help of different SEO who would develop the required content and also IT professionals who would update these contents into the directory of the concerned website (Baker 2014). The organization would also be required to offer effective training to the employees so that they are being able to sale the services offered by them to the customers who are likely call them after going through the content posted by the organization.
The organization can also take the help of the 3M of resources for the effective utilization of the resources that would be needed for the achievement of these marketing objectives and also the implementation of the digital marketing communication mix. For the effective utilization of this model the management team of the organization would not only have to collaborate in an effective manner with the HRM team of the organization but also its leaders as well.
The PR professionals and the advertising department of the organization would also play a pivotal role in the process since they would be entrusted with the responsibility of developing various kinds of attractive as well as appealing advertisements on behalf of the customers (Kaufman and Horton 2014). The role of the PR experts is especially important in this regard since they would have to ensure the fact that a positive image of the organization is being portrayed to the public and also an effective relationship is being maintained with the different stakeholders of the organization (Kingsnorth 2016). More importantly, these two individuals would also have to decide the kind of media channels that would be used for the process of communicating the services offered by the concerned organization to the customers. Furthermore, the data analysts of the organization would have to conduct regular market audits to understand the customer base or the target customers on which the concerned organization needs to focus its attention on. For this the organization would need various kinds of statistical as well as data analysis tools so that it is being able to interpret the collected data in an effective manner.
As opined by Ryan (2016), the effectiveness as well as the efficiency of a strategy depends to a great extent on the extent to which they help an organization to achieve the objective with which that particular strategy is being used. To analyze the effectiveness of the content marketing and also the email marketing digital strategies that the organization has formulated the organization HSBC needs to take the help of different kinds of metrics for the measurement of their success rate. For example, the primary focus of this metrics should be on the factor of the number of individuals who have shown a positive inclination towards the financial services offered by the organization and the number of these individuals the concerned organization have been able to convert into customers (Järvinen and Karjaluoto 2015). This is important from the perspective that this was one of the primary objectives with which the concerned organization has formulated the digital marketing strategies under discussion here.
Measuring the tariff rate of the official website of the organization and also of the websites on which the organization has placed its online advertisements is another way through which the success of the strategies can be measures (Royle and Laing 2014). The internet protocol address of the individuals who have accessed these websites more than once would also offer relevant information to the organization regarding the number of people who are showing interest towards the services offered by the organization (Zerr, Albert and Forster 2017). In addition to this, the number of people who are responding to the promotional emails of the organization and among them the number of people who have been converted into customers is another way to measure the effectiveness of the concerned strategy (Saura, Palos-Sánchez and Cerdá Suárez 2017). Google analytics is option which the concerned organization can use for measuring the effectiveness of its digital marketing strategies and also to check the number of people who have responded in a positive manner towards the contents placed by the organization (Lamberton and Stephen 2016).
The organization for the measurement of the salesforce can take the help of performance review system wherein the performance of these individuals who be based on the basis of the monthly targets that have been given to them (Stone and Woodcock 2014). This measurement would also entail an analysis of the number of customers that these sales individuals have been able to bring within the fold of the concerned organization. These in short are some of the metrics or parameters on the basis of which the effectiveness as well as efficiency of the digital marketing strategies which are being used by the organization under discussion can be analyzed.
Kaufman and Horton (2014) are of the viewpoint that the effectiveness of a strategy depends to a great extent on the process which has been used by the organization for its implementation and also for the purpose of monitoring of the concerned strategy. In this regard, it needs to be said that for the effective implementation as well as monitoring of the strategies as well as the communication mix that the organization has formulated, different kinds of measures needs to be adopted by the organization HSBC.
The organization for the process of the implementation of these strategies can take the help of different kinds of models like Lewin’s model, Kotter’s model and others (Spiller and Tuten 2015). It is pertinent to note that for the effective use of these models the concerned organization would have to convey the required information regarding the new strategies that it is going to use and also the reasons for the use of the same (Baker and Saren 2016). In addition to this, the organization at the same time would have to offer the necessary training to the employees so that they are being able to use these strategies and its related aspects in an effective manner (Royle and Laing 2014). Furthermore, the organization in order to test the effectiveness as well as the efficiency of these models can conduct trial runs wherein these strategies would be implemented for shorter time span and on the basis of this result further amendments or modifications can be made to the actual strategy.
The organization for the process of gathering information which is needed for the formulation of the concerned strategies and also to test its effectiveness needs to take the help of different kinds of market researches. The focus of these market surveys or researches should be to understand the perception of the customers regarding the services offered by the organization and also to understand their expectations from the organization (Stone and Woodcock 2014). The next step would be to analyze these data in an effective manner so as to understand the areas in which the concerned organization is lagging behind and also needs improvement (Baker 2014). More importantly, these data at the same time can be used to analyze the improvement in the customer conversion rate of the organization through the use of the digital marketing strategies that the concerned organization has formulated. In addition to this, the concerned organization for the purpose of finding out the effectiveness of the concerned strategies can take the help of regular audits and analysis to check whether there are any improvements in the customer conversion rate of the customer post the implementation of these strategies.
The task of monitoring and control can be allocated to the operations manager and also the sales managers since they are the ones who would be having concrete data regarding the customer conversion rate of the organization. The data which has been gathered through these monitoring processes can be disseminated to the higher authorities through the emails, official reports and also through various conference meetings of the organization (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). For this process the organization would need various kinds of statistical or analytical tool, the help of IT professionals, customer conversion data and others (Holliman and Rowley 2014). The statistical or analytical tools are important since they would be needed to analyze the data that has received from the market researches and also from the sales department of the organization to understand whether progress has been through the use of these strategies or not.
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