One of the things I’d have found incredibly useful when I first started University would have been to see examples of previous student’s work. As my cohort is the first to commence a Digital Marketing BA (Hons)at Robert Gordon University, there are no illustrations of submissions for us to investigate. So, I thought it may be useful to provide some of my work in this blog as a guide to what to expect.
This particular coursework required us to create six blog posts based on a company of our choice, I selected Louis Vuitton. The question was; Identify and explain each component of the RACE framework. Examine how your chosen business raises awareness of its brand, give consideration to search engine optimisation and social media. Based on your findings draw a conclusion as to the success of your chosen brands’ reach and propose two ways to enhance reach. Justify your answer.
Here is my second submission of six blog posts. I’ll populate this blog with the other entries in the next few weeks:
RACE Framework & Reach
Digital marketing reconstructs how companies communicate with their audiences, while engaging customers in enhanced brand experiences (Chaffey and Smith 2013). To build successful digital marketing plans this article demonstrates that Chaffey’s RACE framework may be applied. The success with which Louis Vuitton reaches customers through digital activity will be discussed, and suggestion will be made for two aspects that the company could improve upon.
High-end fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton have been reluctant to join the digital trend because of their desire to keep their brands inaccessible to the masses, to maintain exclusivity and allow their audience the continued exceptional feeling when purchasing (Ortved 2011). That said, it is clear that effective digital strategy in luxury fashion marketing is essential to innovate communication and sales (Romo et al. 2017). As described by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2019) The RACE framework is a practical tool breaking digital marketing activity into four steps that maximise commercial return in a measured and accountable function, illustrated in figure 1. These steps assist with building prospect awareness (Reach), audience action or interaction with the brand (Act), sales conversion (Convert) and maintaining customer relationships (Engage). Each element has its own key performance indictors and a further initial stage could be applied, that of planning.
The first element of the RACE framework to be discussed is that of Reach. Reach is concerned with creating brand awareness through both on and offline activity with the aim of directing the audience to the company’s owned online media such as its website and social presences (Chaffey 2018). This can be achieved by utilising several tactics and platforms as illustrated in figure 2. Specifically, brands wish to direct traffic to their owned online media because ultimately that is where sales transact. Although all aspects highlighted in figure 2 should be utilised, for the purpose of this blog, the success of Louis Vuitton’s search engine optimisation and social media will be considered.
Louis Vuitton innovatively applies reach elements including a regularly updated blog called LV Now and an online partnership with the e-sports phenomenon, League of Legends (Louis Vuitton 2019). When considering Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), it’s meaning must first be understood. SEO is the management of search engine behaviour to increase a brand’s visibility in unpaid or organic search results (Dibb et al. 2019). In October 2019, Louis Vuitton’s website gained 70% of its visitors from search engine traffic, 80% of which were through organic keyword search. This is significant compared to their competitor, Hermes who only reached 68% organic search in the same period (Similarweb 2019a). Louis Vuitton is also the highest-ranking luxury fashion brand within its category (Similarweb 2019a), these figures indicate that Louis Vuitton have a successful SEO programme and that their website is accurately optimised for appropriate search terms.
When examining how Louis Vuitton raises brand awareness through Social Media it is important to consider that compared to its main competitors the company achieves the highest website traffic from its social media channels, particularly YouTube (Similarweb 2019b). LV has a presence across all main platforms posting relevant content daily. The submissions mostly take the form of video, the images reflecting the brand’s luxurious identity in a current and on-trend manner. An example of video content employed can be found below:
As highlighted by Harris (2017) visual, and especially video content is a crucial tool for attracting visitors, especially for fashion brands due to its ability to show colour, texture and motion.
In 2018, Louis Vuitton allocated only 4% of their advertising budget to digital channels compared to Prada who spent 77.3% (Mintel 2019). It could be argued that an increased digital media budget allocation would enhance Louis Vuitton’s reach. A second proposal to have a more interactive social media presence could be effective. No evidence can be found that Louis Vuitton respond to user comments through their social media platforms. When a customer initiates contact, it is recommended that brands communicate back to establish loyalty as this encourages positive engagement and leads to commercial value (Chaffey and Smith 2013).
In conclusion, the RACE framework is a useful tool assisting brands in building all-encompassing, well planned digital marketing strategies. Louis Vuitton employs reach by utilising social media and traditional search engine optimisation tools to its advantage. It could be said that reach may be enhanced by increasing the digital advertising budget and a more interactive approach could be taken to social media marketing.
References
CHAFFEY, D., 2018. Digital marketing planning template. RACE planning: your companion to creating or updating your online marketing strategy. [online]. Leeds: Smart Insights Ltd. Available from:
https://www.smartinsights.com/guides/digital-marketing-plan-template [Accessed 10 December 2019].
CHAFFEY, D. and ELLIS-CHADWICK, F., 2019. Digital Marketing. 7th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
CHAFFEY, D. and SMITH, P.R., 2013. Emarketing Excellence. Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
DIBB, S. et al., 2019. Marketing concepts and strategies. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage.
HARRIS, C., 2017. The Fundamentals of Digital Fashion Marketing. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
LOUIS VUITTON, 2019. Louis Vuitton announces League of Legends partnership. [online]. Paris, France: Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS. Available from: https://uk.louisvuitton.com/eng-gb/articles/louis-vuitton-announces-league-of-legends-partnership [Accessed 20 October 2019].
LOUIS VUITTON, 2019. Louis Vuitton LV Now. [online]. Paris, France: Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS. Available from: https://uk.louisvuitton.com/eng-gb/lv-now [Accessed 10 December 2019].
MINTEL, 2019. Handbags UK. London: Mintel Group Ltd.
Ortved, J., 2011. Is Digital Killing Luxury Brand? Adweek, 53 (31), pp. 54-57.
ROMO, Z., GARCIA-MEDINA, I. and ROMERO, N., 2017. Storytelling and Social Networking as Tools for Digital and Mobile Marketing of Luxury Fashion Brands. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 11(6), pp. 136-149.
DIBB, S. et al., 2019. Marketing concepts and strategies. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage.
SIMILARWEB, 2019a. Hermes. [online]. London: SimilarWeb Ltd. Available from:
https://www.similarweb.com/website/hermes.com#search [Accessed 2 November 2019].
SIMILARWEB, 2019b. Louis Vuitton. [online]. London: SimilarWeb Ltd. Available from:
https://www.similarweb.com/website/louisvuitton.com#search [Accessed 11 November 2019].
SIMILARWEB, 2019c. Top websites, category lifestyle/fashion and apparel. [online]. London: SimilarWeb Ltd. Available from:
https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/category/lifestyle/fashion-and-apparel [Accessed 9 December 2019].
I hope you found this useful, please send any questions to jen@maturestudentsurvival.com or enter a comment below.
Thanks for reading.
Jen
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