DIRECT AND DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR TEXTILE RECYCLING PROGRAM INSPIRED BY COTTON’S BLUE JEANS GO GREEN.

This paper gives a detailed marketing communication plan for the new cotton textile recycling company that will be launched in the U.k. The brand is inspired by cotton Blue Jeans Go Green, which is a cotton recycling company. The marketing strategies are designed to fit the U.K. market and culture to ensure that the brand gains a  considerable market share, and the desired sphere of influence

digital marketing strategy is a full detailed strategy that will help to propel the companies brand in all digital platforms and insuring increase in the general customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is only achieved through ensuring that there is a constant interaction between the company with its customers in an effort to ensure feedback and market analysis abilities.

 Overall Marketing Objectives

• To increase brand awareness- this objective aims to have a solid and trusted brand among beginners and future customers.
• To shorten the product sales cycle.
• To increase customer satisfaction in the cotton textile market.

Analysis of the United Kingdom Market

U.K’s vote to leave the E.U. in 2016 ushered a new period of both economic and political uncertainty in the region ( Breinlich et al. 2017, p.3). Despite the challenges caused by the continuing Brexit process, the U.K. remains a critical market for both local and international brands in that in 2018 proved to be an international trading power by producing a 2.6 trillion dollars gross domestic product (GDP) this shows how active the market is and promises success to companies willing to employ the best marketing strategies. While the United Kingdom is geographically small it has a market entailing more than 65 million people who are highly developed sophisticated and diversified. The characteristics of the U.K. market opens it to a huge variety of marketing strategies that can be employed to ensure the success of the new textile recycling company.

Getting an insight into the U.K. demographics is plays a primary role in the creation of market segmentation criteria that will help propel the brand to the potential clients of all economic classes and age groups. The United Kingdom population has gone through a massive transition from a pre-industrial population with high birth and mortality rates and slow population growth to a fast-growing population with falling mortality rate this gives a clear picture of the potential market of the U.K. and its ability to consume a variety of products packaged according to the customer’s needs.

Digital marketing relies mostly on the literacy of the population in that it helps the product and service provision companies communicate efficiently through digital platforms, which depend mostly on reading and writing. The United Kingdom has a 99% literacy level, which can be attributed to the Universal public system introduced for the primary level 1872. The high literacy levels provide a legitimate reason for the initiation of digital marketing strategies since a high percentage of the population can be accessed through digital marketing(Castaneda et al. 2019, pp.1-15).

Market segmentation

U.K. market is wide with a variety of tastes and preferences for the digital marketing strategy to function its essential to segment the market according to the desired characteristics that will help have better contact with the customers for easier recycling of the cotton products. Segmentation of the market, in this case, is aimed at gaining information about the potential customer segments and how they can be used to benefit the recycling program. Segmentation will also offer guidance about the different digital marketing strategies that will be used to access the different customer section for continuous recycling of cotton and textile products.

Textile recycling program needs constant supply, and market interaction, which will not only ensure that the available textile is fully recycled but also the final products are consumed as intended. Market segmentation, therefore, aims to identify common interests, characteristics such as tastes and preferences, shared needs, and similarities in lifestyle and similarities in their demographic profiles.

Through market segmentation, this digital marketing strategy and communication plan will be able to identify potential high yield segments i.e., market segments that a vigorously active and in need of our products and can be most profitable when marketing is done the right way. The promising market segments are selected and given special attention.

Behavioral segmentation will be highly implemented in the U.K. market due to the fact that it is diversified, and other demographic features cannot be used to fully divide the market into the desirable segment. In the U.K., the level of education is high, and diversity in tastes and preferences can take a long time to establish; hence behavioral segmentation will use the customer’s decision making and buying processes to understand what the consumers really like. Customers’ behavior data can be collected from search websites and annual sales data; this can give the marketing team a picture of the commodities which are in demand and the position of our textiles and cotton recycling program in the market.

Marketing Strategies

All the marketing strategies that will be used in this plan are aimed to achieve the following;

1. Educate the consumer that cotton is a natural fiber that is able to be recycled
2. Keep cotton textiles out of landfills
3. Recycle the contributed product into a new second life product.
4. Giveback to the community

The above goals will be implemented through the following marketing strategies;

A    Digital Marketing Strategies

B   direct Marketing Strategies

Digital Marketing Strategies

            These are strategies that will utilize the internet and online-based digital technologies such as computers, mobile phones, and digital media platforms. Through digital media marketing, the recycling program will be able to receive the required publicity and attract potential customers and suppliers that will be found in these digital platforms. The following digital marketing strategies will be implemented to create awareness on the need for recycling and the existence of the program

1. Search engine optimization(SEO).

The new brand will increase its visibility through the creation of a website page and a brand logo that the customers will identify with and understand the aim of the program.  The search engine strategy will target different searches, which will include image search and news search. Several images will be fed into the web that shows information of recycled textile, attractive cotton products, and news will also be feed into the search engines on the launching of the program which aims to touch the United Kingdom community through a well-organized recycling program that is willing to involve anyone interested. Search engine results page (SERP) will be used to monitor the data that comes from this strategy to e able to convert the visitors of this page into customers.  The section will be implemented through a computer programed algorithm analysis that gives detailed information about the visitors of the website page.

2. Video marketing on YouTube

YouTube is also a great digital platform that will help create awareness about this program. Through the establishment of the brands, youtube charnel content marketing will be implemented in this platform. To fully utilize this platform, it’s critical to ensure that the content being created is positioned in a way that gains access to our potential market in the fastest way possible. Pop-ups advertisements will be put on trending activities that are happening in the U.K. on a daily bases. Some of the trending activities that can offer potential advertising platforms in You Tube include trending music videos, sporting activities, and daily news. Through partnering with artists who upload music content on YouTube, the platform can serve as a way to redirect the content viewers to our channel where detailed information about our program is provided.  Monitoring and analysis of progress in this platform will be through analyzing the subscriptions to the programs YouTube channel and the response given to all the videos that our advertising is being done on Youtube in terms of Your tube view.

The content being propelled in this platform aims to attract the attention required about the recycling program in the region and expand our potential customer base. Through YouTube, the results like increased online participation in recycling and purchase of our new second life products and also the brand awareness will also increase due to the fact that all those who will view our strategically positioned content will be aware of the existence of this brand and will be turned to potential.

3. Social media Marketing

the U.K. population involves highly diversified people who can easily be accessed through social media when the correct marketing strategies are employed. This plan aims to also access the potentials that will be found in social media platforms, which in this case will be mostly focused on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Concurrently running pages will be launched on Instagram that will be having a team set aside to attend to consumer questions and any equerries that will come from these platforms. The program pages will be updated on a daily bases with content involving videos and images showcasing products and services and initiating all the page visitors into communicating their views about the brand. Since our pages in the social media platform will not have the desired number of visitors when they are starting a plan has to be put in place to ensure that the pages have more visitors and followers.

The social media marketing plan will entail the use of influencers or rather an influencer marketing. Through the influencer marketing aspects such as testimonial advertising, where customers and influential people will be used to extoll the virtues of the products in that videos will be displayed on our pages that will give testimonial advertising. Social media platforms, especially in Facebook and Instagram, brings together individuals with huge influence in the society some of who include professional sportsmen, musicians, and influential bloggers by partnering with these individuals the influential individuals can be used to propel our brand in the social media platforms through involving them in our promotional videos and by involving them in photography that showcases our products to our potential customers.

Direct Marketing strategies

This strategy is aimed to establish a direct connection between the brand and the public in that the strategies involved in this marketing strategy  will enable the identification of a direct communication channel that will offer the company with potential feedback from customers on a one on one basis  some of the direct marketing strategies that will be used include;

1. Direct Email Campaigns

This is a strategy that will utilize the companies email account in that potential customers will be availed with emails containing information about the recycling program and the aims of the company. Through subscriptions, the potential customers will be offered with options to accept constant emails and updates about the program. Through these platforms, feedback from the public will be addressed by the digital marketing team with all the questions arising from email replies being worked on to improve the experience of the customers on this platform.

2. Billboards

The positioning of billboards on strategic locations in the U.K. will be a better way to address all the potentials that will not be found on online strategic marketing. The billboards will be filled with brief information that fully gives the details of the program and sample images of our new life products. Sections, where these billboards will be located, include Highways with huge traffic and places with massive public attendances such as stadiums. The billboards will entail imagery that portrays attractive details that will increase the attention given to this new program.

Implementation Plan

The above stated digital marketing strategies will have a procedural implementation plan that will follow a set protocol to avoid any misplacement of priorities. The marketing team will include a lead marketing person who will be identified through scrutinization and qualification as set by the brand’s management. All digital platforms mentioned above will have a group of delegates that will be answerable to the overall digital marketing manager. The selected teams will be handed with specific handbooks that will contain the guidelines on what will be portrayed in these specific platforms and the ways to collect the necessary data. All the data that will be collected from this platforms will be brought to the data analysis team after a set period of time specified on monthly bases this plan will enable the management to keep track of the companies progress in terms of digital dominance and the possibilities of achieving the set goals within the set timing.

All strategies named above will be critically analyzed on the basis of the level of interaction that a specific platform is creating and the setbacks that are being brought forward by the platform’s implementation team. Through the analysis of monthly data, the top marketing management team will initiate flexible decisions that will deal with challenges popping up to ensure that the digital marketing plan turns out successfully.

Methods of Tracking and measurement

 The measurement of the success of these strategies will be performance-based in that the data coming from all the platforms named above will be used as the only way to determine the success of these strategies. Trough inquiries from customers and supplies that want information from these platforms can be used to measure the success of these specific digital marketing platforms. The data will be measured in the form of the numbers of inquiries, Purchases, YouTube views, and the level of brand awareness that will be seen from social media page visits and email replies.

Bibliography

Breinlich, H., Leromain, E., Novy, D., and Sampson, T., 2017. The Brexit vote, inflation, and U.K. living            standards. CEP Brexit Analysis, 11, pp.2-15.

Castañeda, J.A., Frías-Jamilena, D.M., Rodríguez-Molina, M.A., and Jones, A., 2019. Online Marketing             Effectiveness-the influence of information load and digital literacy, a cross-country comparison.             Electronic Markets, pp.1-15.