JULY 30, 2018
FLY LONDON
A FOOTWEAR COMPANY IN THE
DIGITAL MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS AGE
TÂNIA FILIPA VARGAS SANTOS
Index
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2
2. Short background of industry and company ...................................................................... 3
3. Critical review of literature ................................................................................................. 4
4. Findings/Results ............................................................................................................... 8
5. Conclusions/recommendations ....................................................................................... 14
6. References ..................................................................................................................... 16
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1. Introduction
Nowadays, (almost) everything is digital. If not, it tends to be forgotten, sent into oblivion.
Traditionally, marketing communications were done mostly on an offline basis - such as
printed ads, placards, flyers, in-store promotions, among others - or on a non-targeted way such as TV and radio ads (Higuera, n.d.).
This had a major problem since companies were not truly able to check how well they were
performing or even if they were reaching the right audience, causing them to spend money
with limited return on investment.
With the advent of digital communications, the way that business did marketing had to change.
Companies had to adapt to this shift, but not all of them were able to successfully do it and
still need to improve their marketing communications.
Fly London is one of these companies. The aim of this report is to critically evaluate fly
London’s digital marketing strategy and present the company with recommendations for a new
one. This new, improved strategy should be able to help the company increase their overall
sales, including online sales and international sales.
Keywords: Fly London, footwear, online sales, digital marketing communications, social
media, eCRM, website, digital dashboard, SOSTAC.
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2. Short background of industry and company
Fly London is a footwear company created in 1994 in the United Kingdom by a Portuguese
citizen but has its headquarters and production in Portugal - operating mostly in this market or
online. It has stores in Portugal, UK, Denmark and USA. Although their main focus is footwear,
the company also produces bags and sunglasses. Fly London defines itself as “Ever changing,
ever developing” (Fly London, n.d.) which is right type of mind-set one needs to implement a
robust and successful digital marketing strategy. Their motto is “Don’t walk, Fly”.
As mentioned previously, Fly London operates in the footwear industry. This industry is very
competitive, and in Portugal it is known for its quality products and traditional companies.
There are several footwear brands, so when it comes to choosing, consumers (either
Portuguese or located elsewhere) tend to search online for reviews and opinions (Cardoso,
2018). In 2018, the retail sales of the global apparel and footwear market is expected to reach
around 1780 billion dollars and 2090 billion dollars by 2020 (Statistica, 2018), which is a
massive amount for such a specialised industry. Therefore, making sure that the company is
at the front of the industry or, at least, in a prominent place, is mandatory.
Consumers in the footwear market tend to search for want they want online or, at least, they
look for feedback on a product or store they’ve seen offline. Also, as consumers are
increasingly more digital savvy than previous generations, it is only natural to use digital
channels to make a purchase. As this is becoming the norm for the industry, Fly London needs
to improve their digital marketing communications in order to reach their clients and
prospective clients. Also, moving to a digital marketing strategy enables the company to
develop new ways of reaching their audience, e.g. by using the analysis of big data to predict
their purchase pattern (Petro, 2018), thus anticipating their needs or using an eCRM thus
integrating all of their channels in order to provide their clients with a smooth and pleasant
interaction with Fly London and even creating opportunities for cross-selling (Gądek, 2018).
The transition to a more robust, consumer-centric digital marketing communications strategy
is a key point to an increase in overall sales. Not only it brings more offline visibility to a
company, therefore increasing Fly London’s brand value but it also allows the company to
increase online interaction and purchases.
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3. Critical review of literature
In order to develop and implement a robust strategy, we first need to understand the dichotomy
between digital marketing communications and traditional marketing communications.
There are several theories that address the aforementioned dichotomy. One of those is the
push and pull marketing theory. This theory analyses traditional marketing VS digital
marketing. As Powell (n.d.) explains, push marketing “is also known as outbound marketing.
Many of the typical marketing channels fit into this category: television, radio, newspaper,
direct mail, catalogues, public relations and direct sales. The commonality across all of these
channels is that the buyer being targeted may not be aware of the product or service until the
information about it is pushed at them through the marketing channel.” Also called marketing
of interruption, traditional marketing pushes the product on the client. It is a great way to build
awareness when there is none, but it tends to be expensive, untargeted and it usually doesn’t
drive sales in a meaningful way.
Pull marketing, as described by Powell (n.d.) “is also known as inbound marketing. Many of
the newer marketing channels fit into this category: company and marketing websites, search
engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), blogging, pay-per-click (PPC)
and email nurturing. The commonality across these channels is that the buyer being targeted
is aware of at least the type of product or service that they are interested in, though they may
not be aware of your specific product or brand.” Also known as marketing of attraction, digital
marketing pulls the client to the product. It targets a specific audience (meaningful leads), it
makes an impact, it’s cost effective and provides value to clients but it requires continuous
production of content.
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Figure 1. Push and Pull Marketing Theory (Safabakhsh, n.d.).
As seen on figure 1, while traditional marketing (push) has a broad audience (untargeted), the
message is about selling, consumers tend to filter what is being said to them (no or limited
interest), the cost is higher, the return on investment (ROI) is narrow and the results tend to
be ephemeral, digital marketing communications (pull) has a concentrated audience
(targeted), provides a solution for the client’s problem instead of trying to sell a product, the
client tends to get interested in the company’s communications, the cost is lower as it is more
targeted, the ROI can be measured more effectively and results are lasting.
Figure 2. Five Step Buying Process (Hum, 2014).
When applying this theory to John Dewey’s 5 step buying process (Hum, 2014) presented
in the figure 2 above, it is clear that digital marketing is the most suited strategy to answer a
consumer’s problem. Instead of providing the consumer with a product ad (push marketing
strategy), digital marketing gives the client - in our specific case, in the footwear industry - a
solution for their problem that can range from explaining how to clean a pair of shoes to how
to choose the best type of shoes for them and then giving an option to go find the companies
social media or website. Fly London’s target audience, as an audience that searches for
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solutions mostly online, can be more easily and effectively reached by using digital means not only if fits in their buying process but also the company is giving value to consumers.
Figure 3. Traditional Marketing VS Digital Marketing (Shethna, 2016).
As seen on figure 3, there are a lot of differences between traditional media vs digital media,
each having different characteristics. As explained before, traditional marketing or
marketing of interruption focuses on pushing the product to the client in an untargeted way,
mostly by using mass broadcast. It uses channels like TV and radio, banners, billboards, cold
calling, cold emailing, among others. In the footwear industry, where Fly London’s clients are,
it doesn’t work. Not only traditional marketing is mostly slow and inflexible to change - a major
no in an industry that is all about fashion and innovation - it is also reactive, not proactive,
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meaning that it only gives what the client wants after the client has stated his needs (Merchant,
2016). Digital marketing, on the other hand, anticipates the clients’ needs before they express
them. Traditional marketing also doesn’t take into account the input of the targeted audience
within the footwear industry, jeopardising the ROI of Fly London.
On the other hand, digital marketing or marketing of attraction is much more consumeroriented, which in the footwear industry, where clients want to be surprised, is a must (Dwilson,
n.d.). Digital marketing communications are characterised by the use of digital channels such
as social media, blog, community building, websites and the use of SEO/SEM, opt-in email,
pay per click, influencer outreach (Shethna, 2016), among others. In an industry where word
of mouth still pays a big part, such as with reviews or feedbacks, the use of digital media has
been successful in order to draw clients’ attention and purchases. Not only digital marketing
communications tend to perform much better when comparing with traditional marketing
communications channels, but digital tools tend to be much more client-oriented, such as
social media, where a company can have a dialogue with their clients.
By using an integrative approach, such as a eCRM and analysis of big data or predictive
analytics (Shroyer, 2018) in order to predict clients’ wants and needs, footwear companies
can be one step ahead of the competition, thus making digital marketing communications the
best approach for Fly London.
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4. Findings/Results
In order to successfully analyse and develop a new digital marketing communications plan we
have to apply the SOSTAC model to Fly London’s marketing strategy. The SOSTAC model
consists in six steps, as devised by Smith (2004):
●
Situation – Fly London’s present situation
●
Objectives – Fly London’s marketing goals
●
Strategy – How to achieve the goals mentioned previously
●
Tactics – Which channels or tools to be used in order to achieve the goals mentioned
previously
●
Action – The overall plan to be performed and by whom
●
Control – Monitoring of performance
Figure 4. SOSTAC Planning Framework (Binary, 2017)
Situation - At the moment, Fly London does both traditional and digital marketing. The
company advertises via outdoors and printed flyers, as well as magazine placements. Their
major focus is, however digital, which delivers the most leads and has measurable results.
The company has social media channels (facebook, twitter, and instagram), website and optin newsletter. They also sell their shoes online. They publish news and videos about their
footwear collections. However, these channels are not being used at the fullest of their
potential.
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Facebook is the only channel linked in the company’s website. Instagram and twitter are not.
They’re also not consistent - one channel links to the online store and the other two to the
main website. The content on the social media channels is broadcast as a one way
conversation. Although they reply to consumers when they ask a question, Fly London only
posts about its products - they don’t publish tips, how tos, contests, among others, which make
the social media channels seem cold and uninviting (Detweiler, 2018). This is proven by the
amount of engagement the channels get - e.g. instagram, while having 12000 followers only
gets likes from around 100-200 people at a time and close to no comments. There’s also a
lack of call to action, and there isn’t a tentative engagement with clients.
In addition, the company’s website is very confusing. The appearance is of an old website dark colours, the letter type is very austere, menus scattered along the website and not very
user friendly overall as it takes a long time for an experienced user to find what he is looking
for. Moreover, when trying to register for the newsletter, it takes the user to a “non-found”
page, so even if a client wants to receive news from Fly London, it can’t. Overall, the website
is very unappealing, especially for the industry where the company is inserted (very edgy and
fashionable).
Finally, Fly London sells online, which is a great way to increase sales as clients like to shop
on the web (Hayes, 2018). However, when clicking on the shop link, it gives us 4 different
options (one for each country the company has stores) and only one is branded under Fly
London (UK store), the others are third-party websites. This is a risk - not only the client may
find better solutions on the third party website, if something goes wrong Fly London will lose
face without actually being guilty.
The company is not using Google Adwords (including Google store and shopping ads),
effective content marketing or blogging.
These findings should be included in a SWOT analysis, as seen in figure 5, in order to identify
quicker strengths and weaknesses of the company.
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Figure 5. SWOT Analysis (Shewan, 2017)
Objectives - The company’s goals are the increase of overall sales, including internet sales
and international sales helped by a robust digital marketing communications strategy.
Strategy - In order to achieve the goals previously mentioned, Fly London will have to improve
their marketing strategy by correcting all the issues presented on point 1 (situation). They will
also have to acquire new clients and retain existing ones, by adding value and engaging the
target audience
Tactics - Fly London needs to start with his online “greeting card”, which is the company’s
website. A new, more user friendly website needs to be developed and used. This website
should have content that explains the brand to the client, such as the about us section as well
as content that gives a sense of trust, such as the company’s history and quality materials’
sources. The menu should all be in one place, so the user doesn’t have to search much for
what he wants. Colours should either be harmonious or diverse, but either way, they should
fit within the company’s mission and industry. Also, the subscription of the newsletter and
email marketing should be made much easier than it is now. Finally, creating a blog page
integrated on the website with articles about different subjects within the footwear and fashion
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industry is also a great way to drive attention from clients and prospective clients, as the
company is providing them with added value.
When it comes to its social media channels, Fly London needs to change the way it is trying
to reach their followers. It should shift from posting only about their products to additionally
post blog articles (linking to the company’s new website), how tos, tips, giveaways, calls to
action, questions, among other type of engaging content. In addition, social media ads can be
beneficial to increase awareness of the brand, thus leading to more online sales. All of the
company’s channels should be linked in and to Fly London’s website. The company’s should
also directly ask its clients for their opinions, giving them the feeling that their opinions are
being taken into account.
The company should also improve their online shop. First, the shop branded under Fly London
should be for all countries, not only the UK. The company should drop the third party website
and focus only on developing a shop managed by the company itself. Not only the clients
would then only see the Fly London’s brand but also it gives the company full control over any
issues that may arise.
Fly London needs to focus on Google Adwords. Search & display and shopping ads could
come in handy for the company. Not only it would meet the client while they are going through
their 5 step shopping process, making them more likely to buy the brand, but also it would
raise more awareness internationally (Rampton, 2014). It is cost-effective as well, as the
budget can be adapted to a specific audience and it only spends what is needed.
Another tool to be considered is the use of an eCRM. According to Farooqi and Dhusia (2017),
“e-CRM is essentially the adaptation of CRM in e-commerce environment and helps build and
sustain customer relationship using the net. It is a net based business strategy that requires
development of a set of integrated software application to deal with all aspects of customer
interaction like sales, marketing field support and customer service”. A web-based CRM can
help Fly London understand their clients in a different light by collecting information on what
they like (e.g. a style of shoe or colour) making the company able to anticipate their clients’
needs, always being one step ahead (e.g. by showing want a page on a specific pair of shoes
that the client want). Products shown would the clients’ desires, based on past shopping
activity and search history within the website and social media. That way, the company would
also be able to create marketing and remarketing campaigns, always taking into consideration
the GDPR (Chaffey, 2017).
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Finally, the company should consider building a branded shopping app. No only a great
amount of consumers prefer shopping via an app (Rundle, 2017) which would be bring new
customers but it also shows that Fly London is at the vanguard of innovation.
Action - This plan should be carried out by a marketing team, including marketing manager,
marketers and marketing assistants. It should be carried out in 3 phases: first the website with
the blog page and online shop (to be concluded and launched in 3 months) with social media
and eCRM at the same time, after 3 months integration with Google ads and development of
a shopping app and after another 3 months the remaining tactics already mentioned. After 12
months of the beginning of the plan, it would be evaluated.
Control - Finally, we need to monitor how the strategy is doing, in order to improve it. Using
an integrative approach should be the way to go. As mentioned previously, having an eCRM
would allow the company to draw data from various sources such as social media, google
adwords, website, online shop, email marketing, among others (Farooqi and Dhusia, 2017) as
well as monitor in real time what is going on in several channels. The return on investment
would be more easily measurable.
A digital dashboard would be a good addition. Defined by Zhu (2017) as “an easy to read,
often single page, real-time user interface, showing a graphical presentation of the current
status (snapshot) and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators to
enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance”, a digital dashboard
allows the company to check market trends and devise new strategies and goals.
Also, information can be acquired via an eCRM in order to create predictive analytics.
According to Edwards (2018), it “...is a category of data analytics aimed at making predictions
about future outcomes based on historical data and analytics techniques such as statistical
modelling and machine learning. The science of predictive analytics can generate future
insights with a significant degree of precision.” This could help Fly London be one step ahead
of the competition, by providing their clients with solutions even before the need arises (e.g.
offering a discount to a new type of shoe that the client has bought in the past or showing a
page with a shoe style that the client likes). It could be beneficial to get consumer
insights/reviews in order to more accurately check if the company is doing well.
Monitoring of channels should be done in real time in order to tackle any issues that clients
might complain about. In terms of analytics, a small report each week, followed by a deeper
report every month to check how the marketing strategy is performing should be implemented.
This report should include analysis of key performance indicators, user experience, conversion
rate and web analytics (Chaffey, 2016).
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After the gathering and analysis of data, conclusions and recommendations should be drawn
and implemented.
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5. Conclusions/recommendations
Considering the issues identified in the previous chapters, a few conclusions and
recommendations can be drawn.
In an edgy, innovative industry, it isn’t easy to stand out. However, it is very easy to be
forgotten or not liked. At the moment, Fly London is heading dangerously to the later one. Its
website is not user-friendly, its social media channels are being used as a broadcast type of
media, it is not possible to sign up for the newsletter, the online shop is not branded (except
UK) and they’re not using Google Adwords. Not only all of this hurts the company’s SEO which seems to not be taken into account - but, consequently, it can hurt the way the company
is perceived by the client and prospective clients (lack of awareness).
The failure to use other tools such as an eCRM or digital dashboard also compromise Fly
London’s ability to measure how the brand is performing.
Although the company uses traditional marketing communications in an - apparently, as we
don’t have reliable measurable data to know - successful way, the focus should be on digital
marketing communications, especially taking into account the three main objectives: increase
sales, including international and online sales. The website (and newsletter signup) should be
redone in order to appeal more to the audience and the social media channels should go
through a revamp and becoming more human (two-way conversation).
The online shop websites, all merged under the brand Fly London for all international sales
would be a major point in order to increase sales all over the world since clients wouldn’t be
seeing a third party website and are more likely to buy from a brand they already know and
trust. By using Google Adwords (including Google shopping ads), the brand would be raising
awareness, which in turn would increase brand value. Also, clients are more likely to buy if
they’re being advertised from these sources (Leithwood, 2017), which would increase online
sales and, as a result, overall sales.
The shift from outbound marketing to inbound marketing also needs to happen. Fly London
has to let the client come to the brand, not the other way around. The company needs to be a
solution provider - whatever the (footwear) problem the client has or will have, Fly London
needs to predict it (again, by using predictive analysis and digital dashboard) and provide an
answer to it.
In conclusion, in a fast changed, edgy and fashionable industry such as the footwear market,
Fly London needs to be always one step ahead, at the vanguard of the market. It needs to
thrive to be the brand that everyone knows just from their colours and logo. A constant use of
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eCRM, digital dashboard, predictive analytics and web analytics under the SOSTAC
framework is mandatory in order to have a better performance and achieve overall sales,
including international and online. It is recommended that the strategy and tactics explained
in the previous chapter should be put into action as soon as possible, with a light review every
week, a deeper review every month and an overall review after 12 months.
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