The document provides an overview and analysis of The Home Depot's digital marketing strategies. It discusses the company's history and operations, as well as an analysis of its current primary website and opportunities to expand its marketing efforts through other digital channels. A team developed a digital marketing plan that includes defining target markets and goals, analyzing various social media and digital marketing channels, and proposing a strategy and key performance indicators to maximize online efforts.

1. Digital & Social Media Strategies Presentation
1
Agenda
Introduction and overview
Review and assessment of marketing channel options
Review and analysis of digital marketing campaign elements
Analysis of key performance indicators
The Home Depot
Founded in 1978
Revolutionary “Hardware Store”
More than 2,200 stores in North America
Known for being employee-oriented (400,000 associates)
World’s largest home improvement retailer
Primary online presence: www.homedepot.com
Other Social Media Opportunities?
Image Credit: www.homedepot.com

2. In 1978, The Home Depot changed the way American’s looked
at the typical hardware store. Consumers needs evolved from
minor fix it projects into wanting to do bigger home repairs and
remodeling (Home Depot, 2021). Large projects used to require
hiring contractors. Thanks to platforms such as Pinterest and
YouTube, consumers often attempt to save money by doing their
own home projects and repairs.
The Home Depot has evolved into a socially conscious
organization by focusing primarily on customers, then
employees (Home Depot, 2021). Corporate staff and the CEO
put themselves last in the chain of priority; banking on the fact
that taking care of customer and employees first will lend itself
to supporting them (Home Depot, 2021). The Home Depot has
an extensive customer-oriented website, that displays over 1
million products for sale (Home Depot, 2021). It is organized
well and intuitive to most consumers. This website utilizes
various features to catch the user’s eye, promote new items and
sales promotions, encourage financing opportunities,
demonstrate vast options for any given item, and recognize a
user’s location for product availability (Home Depot).
The Home Depot’s marketing staff has done well in utilizing
their primary website to market their brand and products. Team
4 wanted to investigate how the Home Depot could expand its
marketing efforts in other successful ways. Given that so many
people are working from home and having to stay home more
often during the Covid pandemic, The Home Depot has
experienced an increase in sales (Repko, 2020). How can Home
Depot take advantage of this to attract customers from
competition stores, and how can they encourage new projects
and ideas that customers might not otherwise think of?
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3. Digital Marketing Channels
Digital and social media marketing channels
Digital Marketing Channels
Display Ads
Advantages:
Versatile
Drives brand awareness
Data analytics
Targeted marketing
Disadvantages:
Low conversions
Lesser competition
Spam activities
Email
Advantages:
Cost-effective and high ROI
Massive reach
Promote brand equity
Marketing automation and analytics
Disadvantages:
Failure to reach target audience

4. Creativity limitations
Spam activities
Fig 1: Static banner example. Reprinted from Creatopy, 2018.
Retrieved from https://blog.creatopy.com/display-advertising-
guide/
Fig 2: Email marketing example. Reprinted from Blue Corona,
2017. Retrieved from https://www.bluecorona.com/blog/best-
email-marketing-strategy-examples/
Display ads are proven to offer versatility in its creation and
execution. Digital display ads are referred to as banner ads,
which embeds and ad on a web page. The advantages include
the versatility it offers- formats, colors, size, and copy (Iacob,
2018). Banner ad formats include static images (as displayed),
GIF’s, and animated HTML (Iacob, 2018). Digital ads drive
brand awareness, make available digital analytics, and can be
targeted at select target groups or through retargeting efforts to
customers (Iacob, 2018). The disadvantages include low
conversion rates, as ads may reach groups outside of the target
group who aren’t actively looking for the product/service; they
aren’t a competitive format to promote a product/service; and
finally, the potential for spamming users to get them to click on
the ad, with many users associating banner ads with spam
(LearnAdOps, 2019).
Email marketing is a simple communication mechanism. It
proffers many advantages, which include a relative cost-
effective marketing method relative to SEO and direct mail, and
relatedly yields a high ROI. A study by the DMA found that for
every $1 spent, email has an average $38 ROI (MailChimp,
2021). The obvious benefit is the massive reach of email.
Further, it enables companies to promote brand equity by
highlighting important product/service information. Lastly, it
offers many automation and analytic options, from opens and

5. clicks to website traffic and e-commerce data (MailChimp,
2021).
Disadvantages include the potential to not reach the target
audience and potentially get marked as spam by current or
prospective customers. Additionally, creativity may be stifled
based on email format limitations which pale in comparison to
the dynamic content available in other campaign formats
(BigFootDigital, 2021).
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Analyze at least 10 digital and social media channels and
describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of these as a
marketing tool for this company.
This will likely take up 2-4 slides depending on how we lay it
out.
Ayinde wants to work on this slide
Design an online strategy that maximizes the use of some or all
of the digital and social media channels, as appropriate, based
on your team’s analysis.
Perhaps a couple of us can develop the strategy based on the 10
previously mentioned?
This will likely take up 2-4 slides depending on how we lay it
out.
Digital Marketing Plan
Primary marketing plan elements: overview of target market,
campaign goals, promotion mix, messaging, budget parameters,
and key performance indicators

6. Home Depot’s Target Market & Customer Profile
Generation: baby boomers and millennials
Gender: male (55%) and female (45%)
Age: average of 50-years-old
Income: average of $60,000
Do-it-yourself customers
Do-it-for-me customers
Professional customers
Target Market:
Home Depot’s target market are customers who have a penchant
for rolling up their sleeves and getting immersed into the task
or project at hand. The core customer group include those that
are interested in DIY home projects; customers seeking
consultation and installation services; and the professional suite
of contractors, builders, interior designers, and renovators
(Soni, 2015).
The customer profile includes primarily baby boomers, who
account for approx. 50% of the company’s revenue (Bowman,

7. 2018). There is a focus, however, on the millennial generation
who are increasingly purchasing their first homes. The gender
demographic is close to evenly split, with 55% male customers
and 45% female customers; with the male population generating
higher revenues, with spending habits average 30% more than
female customers (Bowman, 2018). Lastly, the average
customer income is $60k (Bowman, 2018).
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Marketing Campaign Goals
Increase brand awareness
Retargeting and promotion of customer loyalty
Generate leads and sales
Increase digital engagement
Enhance customer experience in digital ecosystem
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The goals related to our digital marketing campaign lead with a
priority of driving our footprint and raising brand awareness
with prospective customers. The digital marketing campaign
will include omni-channel efforts and seek to expand our digital
reach and drive digital engagement. We will also aim to
promote brand equity and customer loyalty with our current
customer base through retargeting efforts. This reinforces our
commitment to CRM initiatives and providing an opportunity to
nurture the customer relationship.
Equally important is our focus on lead and sales generation.
Digital marketing efforts will drive increased site traffic and
increased sales. Digital analytics will provide insight into

8. campaign efficacy and analysis of site visits, click through’s,
site navigation, and conversion rates.
This campaign will also enrich and enhance the customer’s
digital experience with the company. There will be multi-
channel options and the ability to switch from one personal
device to another to continue with the shopping journey.
Promotional Mix
Advertising – Paid Communication to Identify the Company
Promote Discounts to Seniors & Veterans
Advertise Specials & Sales
Public Relations – Positive Image
Promote Diversity
Promotes Brand Awareness
Promote Current Social Issues
Personal Selling – Customer Providing Feedback
Word of Mouth is Inexpensive
Promotes Brand Value & Loyalty
Sales Promotion – Promotes Value by Creating Immediate Sales
Sales Attract Customers & Increase Revenue
Also Used to Reduce Inventory and Seasonal Stock
Image retrieved from: https://www.google.com/search
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A promotion mix is what an organization uses to combine
various marketing efforts to better promote products or services,
to a broader reaching audience (Marshall & Johnston, 2019). In
the case of Home Depot, it appears as though the organization
could benefit from all four areas of the Promotion Mix. As an
example, advertising can be done in a multitude of ways, such

9. as direct mailers, emails, the company website, or by social
media. The Home Depot has a healthy website for reviewing
products and making purchases. It is very user-friendly, but
their social media presence could be stronger to promote
themselves. Pinterest and YouTube are two ways that Home
Depot can gain access to Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-For-Me
customers. With Facebook’s algorithms, Home Depot can tap
into targets of customers that are searching for materials and
products. Public relations is another part of the marketing mix
that the Home Depot can use to appeal to the masses, especially
during this Covid phenomena of people staying home and
longing to do home projects. While it is an opportunity to make
sales, the Home Depot can also use public relations to
demonstrate their Brand Awareness and commitment to public
safety. Given that The Home Depot now has competitors such
as Lowes and Menards, they do have the luxury of being the
first in the industry to promote in this platform. Public
Relations can go a long way to demonstrate commitment and
viability. Personal selling is another platform that the Home
Depot take advantage of and can continue to do so with an
expanded social media presence. When customer have a good
or bad experience, the first thing they do is post on the internet.
Customer feedback can be dangerous, but it can be just as
beneficial to provide customers with a platform to provide
reviews and comments. By promoting their sales and outdated
stock on social media, the Home Depot can gain new customers
by bringing them in the door for sales pricing. This will get the
customer walking around to see what else they have.
Key performance indicators (KPI)
Sales-Measures the number of sales by the hour, day, week,
quarter or year. Monitoring sales will indicate growth and
seasonal trends.
Average Order Value (AOV)- How much a customer spends on a
single order. This helps decide how to price your products and
where to cross and up sell.

10. Traffic (New vs. Returning)- The number of people that visit
your website. How many of these visitors are new vs. returning
users. This means new traffic is a sign your marketing is
reaching new people (Estay,2021).
Bounce Rate- The percentage of users who leave your website
after viewing only one page. High bounce rate means your
content is not resonating with your target audience.
Traffic source-Where your visitors come from and how they got
to your site. This KPI can help pinpoint which marketing
strategies are working. If its direct, you may have great content
marketing and a very loyal customer base.
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12
Conclusion
I’d be happy to tie this all up into a conclusion slide at the end
before we submit.
Lory will do a cohesive conclusion slide to tie everyone’s work
together at the end.
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References

11. Please add your references below.
Lory will organize, verify and finalize the reference slide in the
final days.
Deeter-Schmelz, D. (2014).Personal Selling and Sales
Management Abstracts.Journal of Personal Selling & Sales
Management, 34(4), pp.318-330.
Repko, M. (2020). Pandemic induced nesting fuels Home Depot
and Lowe’s sales - why it’s likely to continue. Retrieved from:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/20/home-depot-and-lowes-
earnings-boosted-by-pandemic-induced-nesting.html
The Home Depot. (2021). About us. Retrieved from:
https://corporate.homedepot.com/about/sponsorships-paid-media
The Home Depot. (2021). History. Retrieved from:
https://corporate.homedepot.com/about/history
The Home Depot. (2021). The social pulse. Retrieved from:
https://corporate.homedepot.com/newsroom
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