Digital Marketing Strategy Plan

Cheryl Ang
Kristin Barnes
Zachary Babbe
DIGITAL MARKETING
STRATEGY PLAN
Fall 2012

1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In partnership with Aileron Corporation, our team was asked to develop a Digital
Marketing Strategy Plan for Environmental Doctor to enhance its online engagement.
Looking to establish its brand presence in the digital space, Environmental Doctor needs
to begin with defining its digital marketing objective. In order to ensure that this definition
is aligned with the overall corporate mission of Environmental Doctor, we have
conducted a brief analysis of the company as well as its corresponding target audience.
Having developed a clear strategic vision, the next step is for Environmental Doctor to
initiate its digital marketing efforts on the most relevant online platforms. Understanding
that this will be Environmental Doctor’s first attempt in implementing and maintaining a
holistic digital marketing strategy, we have narrowed our recommendations down to
three tactics with the highest potential to help the firm generate buzz in the short run.
These tactics include website optimization, search engine marketing, and social media
optimization. Acknowledging that social media optimization plays the most significant
role in online community engagement, we have further elaborated on three social
networks that Environmental Doctor should leverage to enhance its digital brand
presence – they are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Each tactic will comprise of a
detailed analysis of the firm’s current marketing efforts, which will be followed by our
recommendations on how to improve these efforts based on industry best practices and
our team expertise.
To facilitate in the process of implementation, we will summarize our analyses into an
actionable manual for Environmental Doctor to put our recommendations into practice
straightforwardly and easily. This manual will provide an assessment of the maintenance
efforts and pay-offs for all of our recommended tactics, thereby assisting Environmental
Doctor in determining the commitment it can invest in these digital marketing activities.

2
CLIENT BACKGROUND
Founded in 1989, Environmental Doctor specializes in building a healthy, comfortable,
and energy-efficient indoor environment for both residential and commercial clients in
the greater Dayton area. Proclaimed as “your prescription for a healthier environment”,
Environmental Doctor taps on the expertise of its longstanding and multifaceted team of
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified technicians to provide personalized
services and equipment that solve air quality, water quality, comfort and energy cost
issues for its clients.1 Unlike his local competitors that focus on niche services, the President
of Environmental Doctor, Brenden Gitzinger, prides his company in being a “diversified
indoor specialist with its all-rounded performance and capabilities”.2 Drawing on Total
Home Performance as its central business concept, Environmental Doctor aims to brand
itself as the one-stop service provider for all indoor environmental concerns, offering
holistic solutions from mold remediation to heating and cooling technologies.
Currently, Environmental Doctor is certified as a woman-owned and family-owned
business with 12 full-time employees and a small variable number of temporary workers.
Owing to its small staff size, Environmental Doctor has been outsourcing its marketing
activities to a third-party New York based marketing agency called EB&L Marketing.
Nevertheless, President Gitzinger has also been assuming responsibility internally for
smaller scale marketing and sales operations.
To date, Environmental Doctor has been largely focused on traditional marketing,
including print advertisements, sponsorships for local exhibitions and realtor events, and
even a five-weeks billboard advertising campaign near the Dayton Mall. While these
traditional promotional efforts have been aiding in the growth of Environmental Doctor,
they have nonetheless failed to meet the company’s goal of 30% business growth.
However, after observing how early adopters in the industry, such as SERVPRO, are
successfully increasing their brand awareness online, Environmental Doctor realizes that
digital marketing may be the stepping-stone to help it enhance its brand growth.
1 http://www.envirodoc.com/about.html
2 Interview with President Brenden Gitzinger. September 19th 2012.

3
STRATEGIC PLANNING
OBJECTIVE OF DIGITAL MARKETING
In order to develop a holistic digital marketing strategy, Environmental Doctor needs to
begin with defining its objective. Based on our kickoff meeting with President Gitzinger,
it is estimated that word-of-mouth marketing contributes to 35% of Environmental
Doctor’s current customer base. Additionally, up to 40% of the company’s current
customers are repeat customers. Not only do these statistics imply that Environmental
Doctor has established a strong loyal following, but also prove that its current
customers are presently the most effective marketing medium for the company.3
Aligned with the above statistics, we recommend Environmental Doctor to establish
building loyal customer relationships as the objective for its digital marketing strategy.
Owing to their repeat purchases and brand loyalty, the current customers of
Environmental Doctor are the most reliable source for the company to achieve long-
term brand growth, as well as the most accessible audience to engage with in the
short run. As such, Environmental Doctor needs to continue amplifying its word-of-
mouth marketing among its current customers – and the digital space is the most ideal
platform for this viral marketing tactic.
Attributable to the trend of social networking and real-time information, people have
become increasingly technologically oriented by communicating and searching for
information online. In fact, 76.7% of the Ohio population uses the Internet, in addition to
a 48.9% penetration rate for Facebook users.4 More importantly, digital marketing is
reputed for its user-friendly social sharing mechanisms (such as Facebook “likes” and
Twitter “re-tweets”), which will be extremely useful for Environmental Doctor to amplify
its word-of-mouth marketing. Therefore, Environmental Doctor needs to leverage
digital platforms to build loyal relationships with its current customers in order to retain
their brand loyalty and motivate them to reach out to more prospective customers.
4 http://www.internetworldstats.com/unitedstates.htm

4
TARGET MARKET IN DIGITAL SPACE
Having defined what Environmental Doctor aims to accomplish through digital
marketing, the next step is to determine whom it is targeting in the digital space.
Branding itself as a diversified indoor specialist, Environmental Doctor has a rather
ambiguous target market as it serves both residential and commercial property owners
located within a 25 – 50 mile radius of its Dayton office. To be more precise, the
company has defined 50+ years old homeowners, with median household incomes
over $150,000, and houses older than 10 years to be its target residential clients. On the
other hand, realtors, facility managers, and property managers are expected to
occupy the largest market share of its commercial clientele base.5
Additionally, recognizing that heating and cooling technologies are among
Environmental Doctor’s core service offerings, we have referenced the United States
Heating and Air Conditioning industry as a benchmark to further reduce the ambiguity
of the company’s target audience. Figure 1 below shows the segmentation of major
end-user markets in the US Heating and Air Conditioning industry.6
6 http://clients1.ibisworld.com/reports/us/industry/productsandmarkets.aspx?indid=1945
Figure 1: Market Segmentation of the US Heating and Air Conditioning Industry

5
While the above market segmentation is representative of the overall target market for
Environmental Doctor, it nevertheless does not reflect the online audience that the
company should aim to reach. In fact, it is important to realize that the targeted 50-
years old decision makers are unlikely to find and immediately engage the services of
Environmental Doctor through a simple Google search. Rather, Environmental Doctor
needs to identify who are the online audience that can help it to spread the word to
these decision makers, who are either offline or unaware of the company’s expertise.
In order to humanize Environmental Doctor’s communication with its customers, we
reckon that it is necessary to put a name and face behind the market findings that we
have identified above. As such, we have created two personas to represent the
company’s online audience – the evangelist that influences residential clients, and the
industry thought leader that commercial clients look to for advice.
Evangelist for Residential Clients
Mrs. Amy Jones is a 45-year old private high school teacher and has been residing in
the suburbs of Springboro, Ohio, with her family of five for close to 15 years. Ever since
her neighbor introduced Environmental Doctor to her when they first moved in, Mrs.
Jones has been faithfully engaging the company to take care of all her indoor
environmental concerns, from air quality evaluation to her household’s utilities bills. She
conducts an annual Total Home Performance before every Thanksgiving family
reunion to make sure that the house is functional and spotless. In fact, this is the only
time of the year when she will take pictures of her family at her house to share it with
her distant relatives via email, Facebook, and even Pinterest. She never fails to credit
Environmental Doctor for its all-rounded capabilities whenever her friends ask her
about her household maintenance. As a very satisfied customer of Environmental
Doctor, Mrs. Jones is more than willing to recommend the company to her neighbors
and colleagues – only if there is a simple and effortless means of doing so.
Industry Thought Leader for Commercial Clients
Sarah Bianchi has been the Executive Director of University of Dayton’s Facility Planning

6
Department for close to 20 years. Her primary responsibility lies in overseeing all stages
of design and planning throughout the building commissioning process, which requires
her team to verify that the HVAC, electrical, and other building subsystems of University
of Dayton are operating smoothly. Aligned with this objective, Sarah contracts with
local established partners to aid her in her effort to maintain an aesthetically pleasing
and healthy campus environment. Environmental Doctor is among the many
specialists that Sarah has contracted with. Having been in partnership for the past 12
years (and counting), Sarah has been very impressed with Environmental Doctor’s
meticulousness in its services. As a member of the Dayton’s International Facility
Management Association (IFMA) LinkedIn group, Sarah occasionally shares industry
tips as well as her positive experiences working with contractors like Environmental
Doctor with other members. In fact, with up to 350 connections on LinkedIn, Sarah’s
posts have always garnered many “likes” because of her credibility in the industry.
While Sarah does not have the time to post regularly, she loves reading environmental-
related articles online and share the most interesting ones with her following. With
complete trust in Environmental Doctor’s expertise, Sarah will be thrilled to share the
company’s articles with her network – only if she has easy access to them.

7
STRATEGY ONE: WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
In view of the strategic objective and target audience that we have defined above,
we have generated three marketing recommendations that Environmental Doctor
can draw on to appeal to its audience in the digital space. Beginning with the
platform with the highest potential to aid the company in building loyal customer
relationships, website optimization is the first recommendation that we have identified.
Registered under the domain name www.envirodoc.com, Environmental Doctor has
recently revamped its 16-year old website on 5th July 2012.7 As a company-owned
platform, the website allows Environmental Doctor to have complete control over its
published content and visitor metrics, giving the company more opportunities to
personalize engagement with its online audience. Consequently, in order to align this
platform with Environmental Doctor’s overall objective to build brand loyalty, we have
applied the following frameworks and tools to analyze how the company’s new
website has been and should be optimized for customer engagement.
GOOGLE PAGERANK
Google PageRank is a mathematical link-analysis algorithm applied by Google to
determine a web page’s importance and trustworthiness for search engine users.
Measured on a scale of 0 – 10, a higher PageRank score indicates that the page has
more high quality backlinks (i.e. credible incoming links to a web page), and is thus
more likely to be positioned at the top of search engine results. Currently receiving a
relatively low PageRank score of 3/10, Environmental Doctor can improve the
credibility of its website by focusing on the following five key attributes of a web page:8
• Comprehensiveness: The content published on the website is very informative
and demonstrates the company’s knowledge in its areas of expertise.
Nonetheless, it lacks breadth in key components such as customer testimonials,
causing the company to lose a valuable opportunity to establish its credibility.
7 http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=envirodoc.com&prog_id=GoDaddy
8 http://www.checkpagerank.net

8
• Relevance: While the website content is educational, it contains many industrial
terms that end users may not necessarily comprehend. However, the website
contains pertinent information and call-to-actions that direct visitors to set up a
consultation with the company, thereby raising its content relevance.
• Freshness: Following its major website revamp in July 2012, Environmental Doctor
needs to continue updating and publishing new information regularly. This can
be accomplished through the website, social media, and even a corporate
blog to boast the company’s credibility and customer engagement. Currently,
the company is not updating any of these platforms on a regular basis.
• Links: Environmental Doctor has done an outstanding job in attracting quality
inbound links. Out of its 23 inbound links, a few of them are from trustworthy and
authoritative sites, including Better Business Bureau and DaytonLocal.com.9
• Speed: The website functions at a high speed, with a load time of 39 seconds.
HUBSPOT MARKETING GRADER
HubSpot Marketing Grader is a website analytical tool that measures the entire digital
marketing funnel of a company to generate actionable recommendations on how to
enhance three key dimensions: drive traffic through top-of-the-funnel marketing (such
as blogging and social media), generate lead conversions through middle-of-the-
funnel marketing (such as email and marketing automation), and measure analytics to
close the loop.10 Having received a significantly low marketing grader score of 38/100,
we strongly recommend Environmental Doctor to work on refining its current digital
marketing strategy by paying attention to the following key findings.11
General Findings
On average, Environmental Doctor attracts 169 unique visitors per month to its website.
Figure 2 is a graphical representation of the unique visitors that the company is
projected to have received across the past 12 months (as of October 2012). Based on
9 http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/envirodoc.com
10 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33670/Lessons-From-the-Best-Marketers-of-
the-2012-Inc-5000.aspx
11 http://marketing.grader.com/site/envirodoc.com. Conducted on 26 November 2012.

9
this trend line, it is conclusive that the website received an exceptionally high traffic
during the summer of 2012, with April peaking at 865 unique visitors.12
Blogging
Currently, Environmental Doctor does not have a blog associated with its website. With
HubSpot statistics revealing that companies that blog enjoy 55% more website traffic
and 70% more leads than those that do not, this implies that Environmental Doctor is
missing out on the opportunity to increase its online audience reach. Furthermore, with
companies that blog receiving 97% more inbound links than those that do not,
Environmental Doctor is forsaking an already proven marketing tactic to establish its
website’s credibility and consequently improve its search engine results ranking.
Mobile
On the contrary, Environmental Doctor has kicked off to a good start by creating a
mobile version of its website. With 87% of smartphone owners accessing the Internet on
their mobile devices, the company cannot afford to miss out on this emerging online
audience. Nonetheless, the mobile website does not have a meta viewport tag. This
tag signals to a mobile device how to orient a page when it is loaded, and is the key
for Environmental Doctor to offer a user-friendly mobile site that can entice customers
to leave their details for a consultation request even while they are on the go.
12 http://siteanalytics.compete.com/envirodoc.com
Figure 2: Estimated Unique Website Visitors to Envirodoc.com (October 2011–2012)

10
Search Engine Optimization
The current website appears to be missing a 301 redirect. This function is intended to
direct users to the correct URL if a wrong one has been inputted. For example, if a
prospective customer types in “envirodoc.com”, a 301 redirect will transfer the user to
“www.envirodoc.com”. Therefore, by implementing a 301 redirect, Environmental
Doctor can assure it still gets full credit regardless of how its customers organically
access its website. While HubSpot has gathered more findings on how Environmental
Doctor can better optimize its website to increase its organic traffic, we will specifically
elaborate on these recommendations in the next strategy, i.e. Strategy Two – Search
Engine Optimization (page 14).
SEO MOZBAR
The SEO MozBar is a toolbar that grants marketers and business owners quick access to
many important search engine optimization and link metrics. With its home page
(which is also its main landing page) scoring only 3/10, Environmental Doctor needs to
pay attention to the following criteria that this analytical tool has used to assess it:13
• Page Title: Untitled Document
• Meta Description: None
• Meta Keywords: None
• Page Load Time: 39 seconds (good!)
• Internal Followed Links: 32
• External Followed Links: 3
Excluding its quick page load duration, the website is currently lacking in all of the
criteria identified above. Fundamentally, Environmental Doctor needs to recognize
that each of its landing pages necessitates a compelling page title, meta description,
and meta keyword list that must complement with its unique content. While these
three assets are just the bare minimum of a relevant web page, having them in place
will mark a good start for Environment Doctor as it progresses towards the
achievement of a higher organic search results ranking position.
13 http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

11
INTERNET TOOLKIT: 7C AND 1U
The Internet toolkit is a marketing framework aimed at evaluating the overall customer
experience offered by a website. Applying this framework in the context on
Environmental Doctor, we will be analyzing as well as recommending how the website
can further optimize its visitors’ experiences based on the 7Cs as follow:
Criteria Analysis Recommendation
Content • Informative and educational
• Hard to comprehend due to
excessive industry terms
• Dull due to lack of visually
appealing content
• Lack in breadth
• Re-word content to make it
more relatable and easy to
comprehend by end users
• Incorporate multimedia
(demo videos and graphics)
to user interface more
visually appealing
Connectivity • Quality inbound links, some
of which are from trustworthy
and authoritative sites
• Links to company’s email
and social media accounts
• Further increase number of
quality inbound links from
government websites
(e.g. www.epa.gov)
Commerce • Provides a contact page
where prospective
customers can request for a
consultation appointment
• Integrate e-commerce into
its consulting services
(e.g. e-payments when
making online appointments)
Communication • Layout is not cluttered
• User-friendly and easy to
navigate throughout site
• Consistently includes clear
call-to-action with contact
information on every page
• Embed interactive elements
on website to encourage
more customer engagement
(e.g. forum, social widget
that shows a live feed of
Facebook updates)
Community • Have Facebook and Twitter
accounts, but few followers
• Focused too much on sales,
too little on community
engagement
• Implement a blog which
updates community about
local environmental issues
• Encourage customers to
submit their own home
maintenance tips – can even
make this a simple contest

12
Cost-savings • Low cost as current layout
and website features do not
require high maintenance
• Maintain multiple social
networks using cross-platform
management tools such as
Hootsuite14
Computing • Currently does not utilize any
software to measure website
return on investments (ROI)
• Define key performance
indicators (KPI): click-through
rate, impressions, stickiness
• Register for Google Analytics
to monitor visitor activities15
• Use HubSpot and WebTrends
to track multiple platforms16
Usability Testing
Similar to the 7Cs, the objective of usability testing is to optimize the customer
experience on a website through the design of a clear, simple, and feasible navigation
system. This can be achieved by answering the following three key prompts arising
from a typical customer journey through the website:
• Where am I?
All search engine results and inbound links direct customers to only one landing
page of the website – the home page. While the home page does have the
company’s logo, it does not have a page title. This is extremely unfavorable for
Environmental Doctor; especially if the customer has multiple tabs open on his
browser and cannot find any title that he would have assumed to contain the
company’s name or related words. Nevertheless, Environmental Doctor has
done an outstanding job in maintaining the consistency of the whole website
layout, with all pages carrying the same header – which comprises of the brand
logo, tagline, contact information, and social media links.
14 http://hootsuite.com
15 http://www.google.com/analytics
16 http://webtrends.com

13
• Where can I go?
Attributable to its clear call-to-actions and uncluttered layout, the website is
easy to navigate and locate information. While Environmental Doctor can
exhibit its expertise by introducing its services with industry terms, it needs to take
into account that these terms may be incomprehensible to residential clients
who are unfamiliar with the industry. In fact, by translating these industry terms
into laymen terms, Environmental Doctor can demonstrate its professionalism by
showing its capability to understand and relate to its customers. Additionally,
recognizing that household concerns are not the most interesting topics to
research on, Environmental Doctor can consider including multimedia content
(such as demo videos and graphics) in the description of its services to excite
customers with a more lively reading experience.
• Where have I been?
While it is easy to navigate and find information, the website does not provide
any indication on which pages the customer has visited before (e.g. formerly
visited hyperlinks do not change color). This may cause visitors to get easily
confused between the different service offerings listed since they are given such
a wide selection to browse from – and this is particularly true for customers who
are unfamiliar with the industry terms. Nonetheless, it does help that the content
of each page is formatted in its own unique style, thus making it easier to recall
which page has been viewed. In order to further reduce this confusion without
compromising the consistency of the whole website layout, Environmental
Doctor can consider adding a bookmarking toolbar at the right corner of the
website. This will allow customers to mark and track which pages they are keen
to return to without having to continuously press the “backspace” button.

14
STRATEGY TWO: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
In addition to using owned media like website, Environmental Doctor can expand its
digital presence on established third-party platforms that have easy access to the
company’s target market. One of the most accessible digital platforms to leverage is
search engine. Fundamentally, search engines offer two tactics for companies to
promote their businesses to online customers – they are search engine optimization
and search engine marketing. While the two tactics differ in terms of cost and control,
they complement each other well, and contribute to a synergistic digital marketing
strategy that can help brands maximize their return on investments when integrated
together. The following sections explain how Environmental Doctor can adopt both
tactics to generate brand awareness, and consequently expand its loyal following.
KEYWORDS
To begin with, it is important to highlight that both search engine optimization and
search engine marketing share a common goal – to make the content of a website
more accessible and relevant to search engine users. Aligned with this goal, search
engines apply mathematical algorithms to find website content that is compatible with
the likely intent of keywords inputted by search engine users. As such, companies need
to identify keywords that not only accurately describe the business, but also relate to
the needs of its end customers. Therefore, the first step Environmental Doctor should
undertake is to translate the keywords currently used on its website from scientific
jargons into customer language. To facilitate this translation process, our team has
recommended a word cloud (as seen in Figure 3.1) for Environmental Doctor, which is
essentially a visual depiction of easy-to-understand keywords that can be used to
describe the company.

15
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of examining a website to identify
ways to increase its visibility on the organic (or unpaid) search results of search engines.
Since only organic search results are affected, this marketing tactic does not incur any
advertising expenses for the company. Furthermore, as corrections are made to the
corporate-owned website (not the search engine), the company will have full control
over the implementation of this tactic. In an effort to help Environmental Doctor get
started with this implementation, HubSpot Marketing Grader has identified the
following key components that the company should work on to improve its ranking on
search engine results page in the short run.
Currently, Environmental Doctor only has 31 pages indexed by search engines. In other
words, there are only 31 pages of the website that can be displayed in search engine
results should a user be searching for content that is related to Environmental Doctor.
With 46% of daily Internet searches aimed at researching products and services, it is
necessary for Environmental Doctor to not compact all its content in a few pages.
Rather, the company needs to create more pages to be indexed by search engines in
order to increase its chance of ranking higher on the search engine results page.
Figure 3.1: Word Cloud for Environmental Doctor

16
Additionally, each page of the website is currently either untitled or generically labeled
as “Environmental Doctor – Dayton, Ohio”. Likewise, each page currently has no meta
description of its own. Since each page is intended to have its own unique content in
order to promote its respective service or product, it is crucial that each page should
have a corresponding title to match its content. For instance, the page
www.envirodoc.com/totalhomeperformance.html should be titled as “Total Home
Performance” instead of its current title “Environmental Doctor – Dayton, Ohio”.
Moreover, this page should contain a complementing meta description that reveals its
content, such as “Are you worried about the high utilities bills, old systems, and poor
ventilation in your house? Check out our Total Home Performance demo to see how
Environmental Doctor can help you solve these issues!” With 75% of users never going
further than the first page of search results, it is crucial for Environmental Doctor to use
compelling page titles and descriptions in order to help it stand out and earn a higher
search engine results ranking.
Besides page titles and descriptions, images also play a vital role in helping search
engines locate the content of a website. Currently, there appears to be only one JPEG
image on Environmental Doctor’s homepage, which has an alt tag attached to it.
Since images cannot display words, an alt tag allows search engines to grasp what the
image is conveying. For instance, the image of the heating and cooling system
currently on the home page should have an alt tag labeled “heating_cooling.jpeg”.
Environmental Doctor needs to realize that alt tag is becoming increasingly important,
particularly as more users choose to surf the Internet with the image function turned off
in order to expedite downloading time.
Finally, Environmental Doctor needs to actively pursue and build links with authoritative
sites. Authority is defined as the credibility and trustworthiness of the content of a
website. Search engines tend to favor authoritative websites as they provide their
readers with more valuable and relevant information. Currently, Environmental Doctor
only has 23 inbound links, very few of which are from authoritative domains, including
Dayton’s Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org/dayton) and Montgomery County’s

17
Dayton Regional Green 3 government initiative (www.drg3.org).17 While this marks a
good start, Environmental Doctor needs to further expand its database of authoritative
inbound links in order to achieve a higher search engine results ranking for its own site.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
Search engine marketing, or SEM, relates to the purchase of online marketing media to
increase the visibility of a website on the paid search results of search engines. While
most SEM platforms such as Google AdWords allow companies to adjust their ad
budget and content, companies do not get to enjoy full control and are still obliged to
adhere to the policies and legal issues of these third-party platforms. Additionally, in
contrast to SEO, SEM charges companies a fee for advertising on search engines. More
commonly known as cost-per-click, this fee is subjected to the popularity (i.e. search
frequency) of the keywords that the company chooses to promote. The more popular
the keyword is, the higher its price. As such, it is necessary for Environmental Doctor to
select the most relevant keywords to ensure cost-efficiency of its SEM tactic.
Aligned with this objective, we have gathered several insights from professional web
analytics tool, Alexa, on the keywords that are currently driving traffic to Environmental
Doctor from search engines. Figure 3.2 below lists the top search queries of
envirodoc.com, backed by the percentage of traffic they are driving to the website.18
17 http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/envirodoc.com
18 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/envirodoc.com
Top Search Queries Percentage of Search Traffic
Mold certification dayton oh 29.72%
Mold remediation certification dayton 27.88%
Hepa filtration 5.52%
Hepa filters air con 3.45%
Pureair600 3.30%
What’s a heap filter 3.11%
Purified water leech minerals 2.91%
Figure 3.2: Alexa Analysis of Top Search Queries for Environmental Doctor

18
As observed from the list, “mold certification dayton oh” is deemed as the top search
query directing traffic to envirodoc.com. However, what is more impressive is that
Environmental Doctor dominates 81.73% of all searches for “mold certification dayton
oh”, placing the company far ahead of its competitors, including mincogroup.com
that came in second with a mere 5.69%, and indoorrestore.com with only 3.68%.19
Nonetheless, it is crucial to highlight that most of the top search queries listed above
are not representative of the core services (such as Total Home Performance, HVAC
systems, and duct cleaning) that are offered by Environmental Doctor. This implies that
the content and keywords currently driving traffic to the website are not compatible
with Environmental Doctor’s key business offerings. To rectify this incompatibility, we
have recommended the following list of keywords (as seen in Figure 3.3 below) that
Environmental Doctor can purchase in order to increase the relevance of its website
content, and consequently achieve a higher search engine ranking through SEM.20
19 http://bit.ly/11DKVFa
20 https://adwords.google.com/o/TrafficEstimator
Keyword Approximate cost per click (CPC) Competition
Indoor mold removal $9.83 High
Mold control $5.28 High
Heating and cooling systems $4.89 High
HVAC system $4.74 High
Home air check $2.98 High
Indoor ventilation $1.14 High
Indoor air quality $3.65 Medium
Energy savings $3.01 Medium
Air quality system $2.36 Medium
Figure 3.3: Google AdWords Estimates for Recommended Keywords

19
STRATEGY THREE: SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION
ANALYSIS OF CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS
With capabilities ranging from customization to real-time interaction, social media has
expanded to be more than just another passing fad – it has gone mainstream and is
here to stay! As such, our team conducted a preliminary analysis for Environmental
Doctor to determine the state of the company’s current social media accounts. Upon
initial investigation, Facebook and Twitter were assumed to be the only social media
channels used by the company based on the fact that these were the only two social
widgets on the website’s home page. However, through further analysis, we realized
that Environmental Doctor also employs YouTube as well as a blog. The results of our
analysis are as follow:
Facebook
Quick Statistics: 39 “likes” – Last activity on April 16th 2010
An analysis of Environmental Doctor’s Facebook business page revealed a severe lack
of content. The last post recorded was back in April 26th 2010, implying over two years
of page inactivity. During this time, customers had posted several times on the page –
with one even commenting that “your customer service is extraordinary!!” (June 21st,
2011).21 Unfortunately, the company never acknowledged this positive review, missing
out on an opportunity to amplify its customer-oriented culture. The company has also
failed to optimize the basic features of its Facebook page, offering very minimal
corporate information in its description and neglecting the inclusion of a cover photo.
Twitter
Quick Statistics: 93 followers, 86 following, 65 tweets – Last activity on Nov 30th 2012
A review of the Environmental Doctor’s Twitter account revealed that the company
has a relatively small following. This may be attributable to the fact that tweets have
21 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Environmental-Doctor/108571182493944?fref=ts

20
been automated as most of them only comprised of the company’s blog URL
accompanied by the title of the new blog post. While tweets occur every 18 days on
average, there are very few personal tweets being posted. Overall, followers have
tweeted the company’s home page 18 times, which is a fairly good statistic. Finally, it is
important to note that despite majority of the tweets linking back to a blog post, none
of them have been successful in directing a follower to a landing page on the website.
YouTube
Quick Statistics: 1 subscriber, 161 video views – Last activity on April 13th 2011
The Environmental Doctor’s YouTube page has three video uploads, which comprise of
two commercials and one video of a crew “Ice Blasting” the basement of a home. The
Ice Blasting video has 87 views – over 50% of the channels views. None of the videos
have comments. Last but not least, the link on the YouTube page directs potential
leads to the company’s blog, rather than to its website.
Blog
Quick Stats: Average 2 posts per month, 3 client reviews – Last activity on 30th Nov 2012
The Environmental Doctor’s blog is updated twice a month on average. The posts are
usually around a paragraph long, and contain information about a relevant story in
the news or a quick pitch on one of the services the company has offered. Almost all
of the posts have 0 comments, and they have never been re-tweeted. Despite these
unfavorable statistics, blog appears to be the most informative and updated out of
the four social media channels the company owns. Finally, it is useful that the blog
does contain information on the company’s products and services, in addition to
several client reviews.
Through this analysis, it is evident that Environmental Doctor’s social media channels
have both strengths and areas for improvements. While the company has a relatively
interactive blog, its biggest weakness is lacking meaningful and inspiring content
distributed across all of its social networks.

21
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
Typically, content strategy comprises of four main sections. These different sections
combine marketing, content development, and analytics to create a full-circle
approach that is aimed at helping companies to develop a strong brand presence on
social networks. These four sections are as follow: identifying the customers, creating
meaningful content, creating and executing a content publishing plan, and finally
tracking the results. Each section plays an essential role in supporting Environmental
Doctor to develop meaningful content and engagement with its customers – thereby
aligning with the company’s overall objective to build loyal customer relationships.
Identify Your Customers
As mentioned earlier in the proposal, based on Environmental Doctor’s target markets,
two personas have been proposed to personify its online audience. They are the
evangelist (for residential clients) and the industry thought leader (for commercial
clients). Moving forward, these personas should be the focus of all efforts to create a
meaningful content strategy. The following key insights have been identified for each
of the listed personas:
• Evangelist
1. Cares deeply about the health of those residing in or visiting his home
2. Values warm customer service and a job well done
3. Enjoys sharing his experience and opinions, whether positive or negative,
with his friends and families
• Industry Thought Leaders
1. Values, promotes, and only partners with companies that follow ethical
and fair business practices
2. Takes pride in basing his decisions off what is best for his business, his
employees, his customers, as well as the environment at large
3. Is open to, and actively searches for cutting-edge solutions to problems

22
Create Meaningful Content
All social media content published by Environmental Doctor should be meaningful
to either one, or preferably both, of the previously defined personas. Meaningful
can be defined as providing some sort of benefit to the customer, and if truly
meaningful, will pass the following test:
1) It is content that people choose to engage with.
2) It is content that improves people’s lives.
If these two conditions are met, the content is considered to be meaningful. Once
the content passes this test, it can be broken down into one of three functional
areas, depending on the value it provides to the consumer. The three functional
areas are Solution Benefits, Connection Benefits, and Achievement Benefits.
Together, they constitute the Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing, as presented
below in Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1: Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing

23
Beginning with the base of the hierarchy, Solution Benefits cover basic household
needs and benefits – for instance, a YouTube video which teaches the Evangelist
how to perform a simple inspection of his or her furnace. Connection Benefits build a
bonding relationship between customers and brands – an example is a fun and
entertaining short story. Finally, Achievement Benefits allow customers to significantly
improve their lives, realize a dream, or positively change their community and their
world at large. An Achievement Benefit can include the promotion of a charity,
which allows customers to donate and improve the quality of the world they live in.
It is important to categorize content to ensure that a wide variety is being provided
in the overall strategy. The following lists a few content examples for each category:
• Solution Benefits Content
Provide how-to instructional information, offer promotional discounts, provide
customer support, encourage customer reviews, utilize energy savings
calculator, stress company expertise
• Connection Benefits Content
Offer a behind-the-scenes view for customers, demonstrate what the company
does, share employee stories and experiences, reward customer loyalty
• Achievement Benefits Content
Create or promote a relevant charity, let customers help each other out,
encourage customers to contribute, engage with an industry leader
Finally, it is important to note that the company should first and foremost be focused
on creating meaningful content. Social media channels will then be addressed in
the next step, only after meaningful content has been developed.
Create and Execute a Content Publishing Plan
The next step is to take the meaningful content ideas and create a plan in which
the content will be published. Usually, this is a month long plan, and thus has to be
updated every month. The goal of creating this plan is to ensure that the published

24
content will be consistent and relevant. It also ensures adequate time to plan for the
development of that content, and that content is pushed to the relevant social
media channels frequently and consistently. When developing this plan, it is
necessary to consider each of the social media channels that will be leveraged to
publish the content. Recognizing that each channel is unique, we have noted the
pros and cons specific to each platform as follow:
• Facebook is currently the largest and most popular social network where
people can create profiles, exchange messages, and report status updates.
§ Pros: Great for brand exposure and customer relations
§ Cons: Not SEO-friendly
§ Ideal for: Posting pictures, creating events, and engaging with customers
• Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables users to publish text-based posts
of up to 140 characters.
§ Pros: Ability to respond to customers quickly, ability to easily share
content through re-tweets
§ Cons: Promotion must find a delicate balance between content and
spam, large follower drop-off rate once brand is perceived to be inactive
§ Ideal for: Recycling content through re-tweets, engaging with customers,
publishing tweets which direct customers to another landing page
• YouTube is a video-sharing website that is popular for user-generated content,
video clips, and video blogging.
§ Pros: One of the best venues to build a brand through video tutorials
§ Cons: Traffic is often limited to site and difficult to redirect viewers to an
external landing page
§ Ideal for: Tutorials, how-to videos, customer reviews, and employee-
generated video content

25
• Blog is a social network in which content is constantly updated and shared,
usually in the form of articles.
§ Pros: Excellent information source for customers, frequent updates are
ideal for SEO, easy to share
§ Cons: Requires more time to develop content
§ Ideal for: More lengthy self-published content, ideally reinforcing
expertise or knowledge in a certain area
• LinkedIn is a professional social network used to connect users with other
industry individuals, companies, and groups.
§ Pros: Excellent for B2B use, reinforces a professional image, easy
membership into professional groups
§ Cons: Not a lot of personal engagement, limited content published
§ Ideal for: Establishing relationships with commercial clients
As a result of the unique pros and cons of each social media platform, the content
publishing plan will contain content specific to each channel. More commonly
known as the Master Content Publishing Plan, this plan provides the publisher with
an overview of the content for each social media channel, allowing him or her to
plan and execute the strategy more accurately. Utilize a template that is similar to
one provided below in Figure 4.2 when creating the Master Content Publishing Plan.
Figure 4.2: Master Content Publishing Plan Template

26
Owing to the unique purposes of each social media platform, we highly
recommend the use of specific channel publishing plans as well. These plans allow
for more detailed records and more space to plan ahead. Along with a description
of the content to be published, other relevant information can also be included,
such as the post date, author, tentative title, keywords, photo tags, hashtags, and
links. A channel-specific content publishing plan for Environmental Doctor’s
Facebook account resembles the template shown below in Figure 4.3.
Finally, when executing this publishing plan, we recommend Environmental Doctor
to utilize the free online social media management tool – HootSuite. HootSuite allows
the company to schedule content to be published in advance. For instance,
assuming that Environmental Doctor wants to tweet “Merry Christmas! Enjoy your
holidays from your friends at Environmental Doctor #hohoho”, but no one wants to
work on the actual day of Christmas. Hootsuite allows a staff personnel to prepare
the tweet in advance on December 22nd, and schedule for it to be published
automatically on the actual Christmas day. This is just one of the many ways that
HootSuite can help Environmental Doctor to better manage and execute its
content strategy. Figure 4.4, on the next page, presents a sample of the
AutoSchedule function mentioned earlier.
Figure 4.3: Channel-Specific Content Publishing Plan Template

27
Track Your Results
Measuring the results of optimization efforts is extremely important. Existing online
analytics software are automated to track not only the growth (or decline) in a
company’s likes and followers, but also the amount of influence the company has
on its social media communities, the amount of traffic driven to its website stemming
from social media, and even demographics of the customers interacting with the
company’s social media. There are four free analytics tools that can aid
Environmental Doctor in assessing the impact that its content strategy has on its
online audience in real time. These tools include Wildfire Social Media Tracker, Klout,
Google Social Analytics, and Facebook Insights.
• WildFire Social Media Tracker is reputed to be the most user-friendly analytics
tool. It tracks how many “likes” a company has on Facebook or followers on
Twitter. Furthermore, it keeps track of these statistics on a daily basis. Through this
Figure 4.4: HootSuite AutoSchedule Function Example

28
information, Environmental Doctor can determine whether its content strategy
for the day has contributed to an increase in likes/followers, or a decrease. From
there, changes can be made to specific content strategy components. Figure
4.5 shows a sample Twitter statistic that is being monitored by WildFire.
• Klout generates a score based on the influence that an individual or company
has on others in the world of social media. As the amount of influence that
individual or company has increases, so does its score. The score is calculated
based on measurements including re-tweets, comments, and mentions.
Environmental Doctor can track the growth of its influence in the social media
sphere by monitoring its Klout Score. Details as to how the score is calculated
can be found in Figure 4.6 on the next page.
Figure 4.5: WildFire Social Media Tracker Example

29
• Google Analytics can calculate how much website traffic a company is
receiving from each of its social media channels. Again, this is an important tool
that can inform a company whether or not its content strategy is effective.
Figure 4.7 shows a sample statistic being tracked by Google Analytics.
Figure 4.6: Klout Scoring System
Figure 4.7: Google Analytics Example

30
• Facebook Insights is an analytics tool that is solely committed to track the
insights of a Facebook page or application. It monitors a number of statistics,
which primarily includes the visitors to a company’s Facebook business page
and their on-page social interactions. This provides the company with an
overview of the demographics, likes, visits, and number of people talking about
its page. When cross-referenced with the content publishing plan, a company
can then determine what content has caused the sudden peaks or plunges in
the visitor behavioral patterns. Figure 4.8 presents a few of the visitor
demographic metrics that Facebook Insights tracks for a business page.
Figure 4.8: Facebook Insights Example

31
SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION: LISTEN & ENGAGE
While it is important to publish meaningful content as a means of social media
optimization, companies should also not neglect the significance of listening and
engaging with customers in a meaningful and positive way as well. Too often, brands are
initially keen to create social media business pages, only to leave them unintended after
they realize the high time commitment required in maintaining these channels. This
aggravates customers who make the effort to engage with a company on its social
network, yet failed to receive any response for their sincerity. This is no different from
answering the phone, listening to a customer’s inquiry, and immediately hanging up on
them when they have completed their comment. As listed in the heading, there are two
main parts to this section of social media optimization – listen and engage.
Listen
Regardless of companies being aware or not, someone is talking about their brands in
social media. Not only do current customers talk about their experiences with
Environmental Doctor, potential clients may also be tweeting prompts such as “does
anyone know someone who can replace my water heater?” Fortunately, there are tools
that can help the company to identify these potential clients. We have identified three
tools that can help Environmental Doctor to enhance its listening capability on social
media – they are Google Alerts, Social Mention, and HootSuite.
• Google Alerts is an extremely user-friendly tool for both marketing and non-
marketing personnel. By completing a simple query and supplying a verified
email address, Google Alerts will automatically send email updates regarding
any recently published information that is relevant to the specified query. Alerts
extracts it updates from a wide variety of sources, ranging from blog posts to
new aggregators. By utilizing this tool, Environmental Doctor will be in position to
respond immediately should an article or comment pertaining to the company
or industry be published on the Internet.

32
• Social Mention is very similar to Google Alerts. The only significant difference is
that Social Mention monitors activities only within the social media sphere.
Nonetheless, its function remains the same as Google Alerts as Social Mention
tracks anything that is being asked or said on social media sites. That being said,
Environmental Doctor can use that information to its advantage when trying to
manage its brand reputation or create new leads.
• HootSuite has multiple functionalities that Environmental Doctor can leverage; in
addition to social media scheduling that has been identified earlier. This cross-
platform tool allows for the monitoring of all social media channels in one
central location. In the context of Environmental Doctor, the company can
monitor its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube accounts using this single
tool. Additionally, HootSuite provides live feed updates so that Environmental
Doctor can track any real-time posts that have mentioned the company or
industry-related topics. Figure 4.9 offers an overview of the tool’s functionalities.
Engage
By virtue of being a communication tool, social media also has the capability to
interact and build relationships with customers. In order to establish new relationships
as well as increase the strength of its current relationships, Environmental Doctor must
Figure 4.9: HootSuite Example

33
take the initiative to engage with its consumers in an open, transparent, and honest
manner. When pondering the best way to engage with customers, it is helpful to
consider the following five tips for successful engagement:
• People Do It For Themselves
Environmental Doctor must recognize that it cannot control, let alone exploit,
online communities. There must be legal and professional constraints, but even if
the company hosts a community, is has no privileges to cannot censor or delete
comments and content that it does not like.
• Be Open and Honest
It is inevitable that there may be a minority number of customers who will
criticize the company, its products, and services. Therefore, how Environmental
Doctor responds is vitally important. The company should not trivialize or argue;
but rather, be polite and reasonable in correcting the error if the criticism is
deemed to be wrong.
• Be Responsive
To participate in the community and ignore the feedback is worse than not
participating at all. Worst still, is a promise of action and then a failure to deliver.
• Give Something Back
At minimal, Environmental Doctor should be proactive in engaging with its
community, making sure that all news about the company, products, and
services are posted in a timely fashion. Advance notice of a new service
offering, exclusive offer, or even a competition can create and reinforce
feelings of exclusivity among the company’s current customers.
• Measure
While online communities are inexpensive compared with other forms of
marketing, they carry costs in terms of staff time and other IT resources.
Environmental Doctor needs to ensure that its investment is worthwhile.

34
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS
In view of the detailed analyses that we have conducted above, we have generated
recommendations that Environmental Doctor can draw on to appeal to both its
residential and commercial target markets simultaneously. To present these
recommendations in a clear and concise manner, we have developed how-to
manuals that will guide Environmental Doctor in its implementation of our proposed
digital marketing strategy. More significantly, understanding that Environmental Doctor
has to explore a wide variation of recommendations with limited budget and
resources, we have evaluated and prioritized each of our recommendations based on
the following two dimensions:
• Effort: Cost of implementation and time commitment for maintenance
• Pay-off: Effectiveness of driving visitors to the next phase of the customer journey
(in the following order: Awareness à Buy-In à Retention à Advocacy)
Acknowledging that this is Environmental Doctor’s first attempt in digital marketing, we
strongly advise the company to kick off with recommendations that require low or
moderate efforts yet offer a high pay-off. In that way, Environmental Doctor will be
able to enjoy a gradual but steady transition into the new realm of digital marketing.

35
MANUAL 1: WEBSITE & SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Effort Payoff
AWARENESS
How to direct
customers
to the website?
§ Develop a mobile site that is compatible with both
iOS and Android platforms
High High
§ Incorporate QR code (that drives mobile traffic to
website) on print advertisements
High High
§ Purchase keywords listed in Figure 3.3 (above) for
search engine marketing on Google AdWords
High High
§ Apply search engine optimization (i.e. relevant
keywords in page titles, descriptions, and alt tags) to
increase search engine results page ranking
Moderate High
§ Attract more authoritative inbound links Moderate High
§ Direct traffic from social media sites to website Low Moderate
§ Develop a 301 redirect Low Low
BUY-IN
How to click with
customers and
invite them to
access the site?
§ Use unique page titles and meta descriptions that
match the content of the landing page
Example: www.envirodoc.com/about
• <title> About Environmental Doctor </title>
• <description> With 23 years of experience,
Environmental Doctor specializes in offering
healthier, more comfortable, and energy-
efficient indoor environments </description>
Moderate High
RETENTION
How to engage
with customers
on the website?
§ Embed a blog within the company’s website Low Moderate
§ Publish company-related articles, such as how-to
tutorials and demo videos of services
High High
§ Publish industry-related articles, such as infographics
and interesting case studies
High High
§ Add more pages to be indexed on search engines
(e.g. page dedicated for Household services)
Moderate Moderate
§ Develop an interactive chat bot named “ED” to
assist customers with concerns they may have
High High
§ Register for HubSpot or other website analytics
software to automate tracking of visitor metrics, and
use these insights for further website optimization
Moderate High
ADVOCACY
How to motivate
customers to
spread the word
about the site?
§ Regularly update content (twice per month) to
excite customers with refreshing information
High High
§ Embed social bookmarking & sharing widgets on
site so that customers can share or save the page
Low Moderate

36
MANUAL 2: SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION
Category Recommendation Notes Effort Payoff
Overall
Set a social media budget $1000/Month
Hire a marketing intern 10 Hours/Week
Define your voice President – Brendan
Content
Strategy
Create a Master Publishing Plan
Utilize Wildfire Social Media Tracker
Create a Klout account
Create a Google Analytics account
Utilize Facebook Insights
Facebook
Create a Facebook Publishing Plan New plan per month
Post photos of at least 1 job per week Before or after
customer interaction
Add a cover photo
Twitter
Create a Twitter Publishing Plan
Follow at least 15 new people Every Week
Re-tweet at least two industry (non-
company) articles per week
YouTube
Create a YouTube Publishing Plan
Create one how-to video per month
Add at least one customer review per
month
Blog
Create a Blog Publishing Plan
Minimum one blog post per week
LinkedIn
Create a LinkedIn Profile
Create a LinkedIn Publishing Plan
Create a LinkedIn Group
Invite 10 people to group per week
Join one relevant group per week
Listen &
Engage
Sign Up on HootSuite
Sign Up for Google Alerts
Sign Up for Social Mention

Digital Marketing Strategy Plan

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Digital Marketing Strategy Plan

Recently uploaded

Digital Marketing Strategy Plan