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Amazon Digital Strategy
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- 2. Target Market •Middle toupper class •Currently employed or retired •Age: 18+ •Students •Busy parents
- 3. Mobile App andWebsite •Very user friendly •Works well on laptops, computers, iPad’s, phones •Mobile app for convenience •Website and mobile app are similar in style, usability, titles and menus
- 4. Social Media- Facebook •MainFacebook Page • 29.2 billion likes • Posts new products • Offers deals • Shorts videos •Amazon Books •Amazon Kindle •Amazon Handmade
- 5. Social Media- Twitter •Manydifferent verified accounts •Amazon.com Twitter account is the considered the main account •Amazon News •Amazon Echo •Amazon Fire TV •Amazon Music •Amazon Help •Responses to customers via Twitter •#AmazonCart or #AmazonWishList
- 6. Amazon Day OneBlog •Blogs about different things within the company •Clean format, similar to the main website •Uplifting and positive • A lot of people aren’t aware this exists
- 7. Digital Strategy •Reason forthis digital strategy: • Consistency posting is a downfall • Lack of blogging •#AmazonAmazesMe •Hashtag will be posted and tweeted out •Target social media users •Amazon gift card reward
- 8. #AmazonAmazesMe •Benefits • Get customersinvolved • Increase awareness to different products • Increase awareness to of Amazon’s social media accounts • It will also target non-Amazon social media users
- 9. More details… •Advertising thehashtag on different sites • Target, Meijer, Walmart, ect. •Tracking the campaign •Budgeting • Social media is cheaper than other forms of advertising •Timeline • One year
- 10. Conclusion •Something for everyoneat Amazon •Increase traffic to the Amazon Day One Blog •Increase awareness of the company’s social media accounts •Form relationships between members •Social media is the way of the future, we may as well start now.
Editor's Notes
- #2 Hi, my name is Olivia Ferrantino and I am a junior here at Michigan State. My major is advertising management and I am planning to graduate in May 2020. Throughout this semester I have been studying and analyzing Amazon. Although I am sure all of you know what Amazon is, I am going to give a quick background and overview. The company started in 1994 and is quickly growing into the biggest online retail store out there. First I am going to start by talking about the company’s large target market. Then I am going to tell you a little bit about what I have learned about Amazon’s website and mobile app. Moving on, I am going to explain some of my key findings in how the company chooses to use social media, including their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Following that I am going to introduce Amazon’s blogging website called Amazon Day One Blog which I have found a lot of people have never heard of. Lastly, I am going to present you with my idea for a new digital strategy for the company which involves using a hashtag on social media in order to improve the company’s consistency in posting and promote different products and services Amazon sells. My idea will also help bring awareness and increase traffic to the Amazon Day One Blog. I am going to be touching all of these topics and explain to you all the interesting things I have learned about this retail giant over the past four months.
- #3 Overall, the target market for Amazon is huge. There is so much Amazon has to offer that it is hard to limit the target market. I listed some bullet points as a general gist of who Amazon’s target market is. Generally speaking, Amazon’s target market is anyone in the middle to upper class or currently employed or retired. This is important because without a source of income there is no way people would be ordering all this stuff off of Amazon. In addition to that, customers need a laptop or smartphone to place an order off of the company’s website or mobile app. I put the age of 18+ because the company has specials for students and this is about the time kids start going off to college, many without cars like freshman year here on campus at Michigan State. This allows students to get packages delivered straight to their door when the convince of having a car is missing. Anyone under the age of 18 years old more than likely still lives at home where they don’t need to purchase a lot of items on their own. Lastly, a major part of their target market are busy parents because they are always on the go and have a lot of household items and groceries to get for their family it is quick and easy for them to order these items online instead of finding time to run to the store and/or getting a babysitter they would rather get products delivered right to their door with the free two- day shipping. Especially parents who work all day then come home and have to make dinner and take care of their children.
- #4 The website Amazon has created is very user friendly, because this is their main source of sales it is necessary for the website to be very usable. Especially because older generations are not as tech-savvy it is crucial to have an easy to use website so everyone can understand how to navigate around it and find what they are looking for. The website has a very neat home page with a distinctive search bar so people can quickly find what they are looking for. Not only does Amazon have a user-friendly website that works well on laptops, iPad’s and phones it also has a mobile app making it more convenient and easy for customers to use on the go. After doing some extensive research on the mobile app I have found so many amazing features the app offers. The app itself is appealing in looks and easy to use, perfect for the wide range of users. The icon picture is simple with only a few colors and the word “amazon” written out making it easy for people to find this app on their home screen. The mobile app and the website resemble each other with very similar style, usability, titles and menus making it look and fit very nice on a smaller screen. Amazon makes customers mobile experience more engaging by having certain features offered in the mobile app like getting notifications when your Watchlist deal starts, voice and image search options and tracking packages that aren’t as easy to do on the website.
- #5 To begin, Amazon already has an advantage with social media advertising because their customers are shopping online, meaning they are familiar with surfing the web and most likely already on some sort of social media. Amazon’s main Facebook page has over 29.2 million likes and is being using to market new products, offer deals and post short 1-3 minute video clips covering all different things happening within the company, especially highlighting the importance of entrepreneurs within the company. In addition to the main Facebook page, Amazon also has smaller Facebook pages for different products and services they offer. Like I listed on the slide, there is a Facebook page for Amazon Books that posts lots of reading options with links to take the customer straight to the book on the Amazon website. It also posts about different authors and posts suggestions for each season. Along with that one there is a page for Amazon Kindle with 3.7 million likes that works similar to the Amazon Books page. Each of these pages also post different deals and sales. Amazon Handmade is another Facebook account that posts different handmade items and there is a spot to click “shop now” that takes you straight to the handmade section on the Amazon website. Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for a business to be on and overall, I think Amazon is doing a great job at being present on Facebook. It does a great job of following national events and holidays. For instance, when Valentines Days is right around the corner, Amazon posts plenty of gift guides and options when the two-day shipping becomes a necessity.
- #6 The trillion-dollar company has different verified Twitter accounts for different departments within Amazon. I have some examples listed above. The Amazon.com Twitter account is the company’s main Twitter account with almost three million followers, this is where they post more generic tweets that have to do with the most people. This account also retweets a lot of the smaller Twitter accounts the company has in order for them to gain more followers and awareness for each department. Moving on to some of the smaller accounts, Amazon News posts a lot more updates about things happening within the company and things the company is doing to improve. Then there are different accounts for products like the Amazon Echo, Amazon Fire TV, and Amazon Music. These accounts post more directly about that certain product. This is important to do for such a large company because there are so many sections that make up Amazon as a whole having one account of all of them would be overwhelming and post too much. The Amazon Help Twitter account is very beneficial to customer service because this account responds to tweets that tag Amazon needing help with a product or service they purchased. A cool thing I learned while researching Amazon’s Twitter presence is how Amazon and Twitter collaborated making it possible for users to add things to their cart or wish list just by responding to the tweet with #AmazonCart or #AmazonWishList making it appear in their cart or wish list the next time they are on their Amazon account.
- #7 One thing I wasn’t aware of about Amazon at the beginning of this semester is how Amazon has a website called the Amazon Blog Day One that is dedicated to blogging about all different stuff within the company. The site has a clean format, similar to the main website, and talks about working at Amazon, company news, the community, small businesses and so on. It posts blogs about products it sells, different volunteer work and donations the company has done, different small business that make up Amazon and many other topics. On this site it makes it very easy for readers to click on something of interest and it takes you right to the Amazon website where you can purchase the product or service. One thing I really liked about this blog is how it always seems to be uplifting and promote a positive image of the company. At the end of each post there is a spot to rate the blog you just read and see how many ratings it already has. Another feature this site has is how you can get interesting, thoughtful stories sent right to your email making it convenient for people to read these blog posts. After doing some research on this blogging website I thought Amazon hasn’t been promoting it as much as it should. What I mean by that is, not a lot of people know about this website or talk about it. This is why I really wanted to incorporate it in my digital strategy campaign that I will tell you about shortly.
- #8 Week after week of digging deeper into the social media of the company, I have noticed consistency being one downfall on their accounts as well as the lack of blogging. Therefore, I have come up with a plan for the social media accounts to post regularly to help increase the volume of users and boost the presence of the Amazon Day One Blog. My big idea is to use the hashtag “#AmazonAmazesMe”. This hashtag will be posted and tweeted out on all of Amazon’s social media platforms. The website and mobile app will also have an ad for the campaign with the #AmazonAmazesMe explaining to viewers how it works and what to do. The objective of this hashtag would be for the customers to catch on and post a creative picture or video using their favorite product or service that Amazon offers on their personal social media account. On the last day of every month Amazon Day One Blog employees will pick the most creative posts and write a blog about them and post/tweet it out on the Amazon social media accounts. Using social media is much cheaper than other forms of advertising and marketing strategies, therefore, it will allow for the top three posts of each month to receive a $200 gift card to Amazon. This will generate more business to the website and encourage customers to use the hashtag, #AmazonAmazesMe, given that it’s free to post on social media and there is a chance of winning a $200 gift card to Amazon.
- #9 Not only will this increase awareness on all social media platforms it will also get customers involved. This will target all of those Amazon users who are on any social media platform and all non-amazon users who are on social media and see the hashtags and posts from their friends and people they follow. When non- Amazon users see these products and services it will hopefully motivate them to sign up for an Amazon account. Moving on, it will help to form relationships between Amazon members when they can compare and talk about the products or services they are posting. As we all know, Amazon sells so many products that aren’t are popular as others, therefore, this will help online advertise many “hidden gems” that customers have found. There are also a lot of obvious things people can order from Amazon that others would never think to order. For example, when someone posts about their favorite carpet cleaner that gets stains from their dogs and kids out of white carpet very easily with the hashtag showing that they got it from Amazon all their followers will see it. If any of their followers have the same problem with their carpet they can ask about it or look it up on the Amazon website to potentially buy it for themselves. That is just one example but there are so many products you can purchase on Amazon that a lot of people do know about so this is a perfect to way to expand awareness to all of the random, favorite products. It will also boost the presence of the Amazon Day One Blog which a lot of people didn’t know about, including myself prior to doing taking this class.
- #10 Now that I have given you the general gist of my big idea for the digital strategy I want to tell you guys more about the details. To begin, I will advertise this campaign on on multiple different online websites like Target, Meijer, Walmart, Kroger, Gmail, Yahoo and Facebook websites that way the hashtag can reach more people. Chances are if people are already looking on Target’s website they are shopping for things that you can most likely buy on Amazon and the $200 gift card can be an incentive to them. As for the email websites that I will be marketing it on, these are website that people check pretty much every day, therefore, it will get a lot of viewers to see the advertisement with the hashtag. Next, I have a plan to track the campaign by searching the hashtag and seeing the number of people who have posted using it on each social media platform. I will also use search engine optimization and see how many different products are searched and purchased. And I will also follow the clicks on the advertisements on the other websites and see how many view the website after seeing the advertisement. Budgeting for this idea is hard without exact numbers because the retail giant has such a large budget for marketing. In regards to the millions the company spends on digital marketing, this campaign will be cheaper than most because it is using social media platforms. Along with that, the three $200 giveaway gift cards each month will cost $7,200 for the year and will be added into the budget. Lastly, the timeline for this campaign will be exactly one year and if it is very successful it will be continued and gift cards may increase to be worth more money to keep people posting with the hashtag.
- #11 As you can see there is something for everyone at Amazon. This digital strategy idea that I have come up with using the hashtag will increase awareness on all social media accounts and it will get the customers involved. One of the major discussions about everything being done online these days is the lack of human interaction and with this hashtag people will still be able to communicate and connect on different products they post and it will help to form relationships between Amazon members. Aside from that, this campaign will advertise many various products because there are so many different products that can be purchased using Amazon that the customers might not know about. This is a perfect to way to expand awareness to all of the random, but worthwhile products. It will also bring in new traffic to the Amazon Day One blog in hopes that this website will continue to grow. With the target market starting at 20 years old it is a perfect market to use social media, especially for young college students who would greatly benefit from the $200 gift card reward. The company should take advantage of the fact that all their customers are familiar with a computer or smartphone considering that is how to make a purchase from the company. Amazon already does a great job at being present on social media but I strongly believe this will help grow the brand over all social media as I learned in this class, social media is the new way of marketing.