Digital Channel Analysis

Executive Summary

From the findings of the Digital Marketing concept, this report aims to provide a clear understanding of the current scenario of the marketing efforts by analyzing the digital channels of the business. Websites and social media have been used as analysing tools to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of Australia Natural Care and its competitor, Nature’s Way. Scholarly justifications have been provided to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of digital channels. Throughout the report, many things have been taken into consideration; the comparison table shows how Australian Natural Care is better than Narure’s Way. In the recommendation section, SMART objectives are provided, along with one value proposition.

Introduction

This report focuses on analyzing the effectiveness and efficiency of the digital marketing channels for Australia Natural Care and its competitor, Nature’s Way. For the Websites and Social Media, analysis criteria are set out in accordance with the target market and consumer behaviour towards the companies. In section 3, the digital channels for Nature’s Way are analysed with the help of one of the key value propositions. In order to pinpoint the areas of improvement, a comparison table will show the weaknesses and strengths of Australia Natural Care. Areas of improvement are converted into recommendations in the last part of this report. Digital channels refer to companies that use social websites like Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, YouTube, and Instagram. There are other digital marketing channels as well, like search marketing and display advertising, that are used to generate traffic on social websites. They are also important for analysis, but they should be considered in a more extensive analysis.

Australian Natural Care

Australian Natural Care is one of the leading online suppliers of supplements and vitamins in Australia. All of its products are manufactured in Australia, and it has been running its operations for the last 25 years. It is not just the convenience that customers will get, but also the certainty about the vitamin products customers will have. Expert advice is provided by the company to the customers about which product will be more beneficial for their health. To ensure the delivery of the product, the company dispatches the order on the day when the order is placed so that the customer will get the order as early as possible. Australian Natural Care started out as a small store in a quiet street on Byron Bay in 1989. The founder of this company was involved in the study and research of vitamins and supplements for nearly 20 years with a clear objective to provide good quality vitamins and supplements that will fulfil the needs of the consumer and let them stay healthy. One of his beliefs was that prevention is better than cure; he observed that the diet Australians eat is not enough to keep them on top of their health peak. He always believed in keeping the range of the product simple and effective. The company currently have 30 call centres with excellent personnel like nephropathy, whose main objective is to provide better assistance and advice to the customers. The level of service Australian Natural Care provides cannot be compared to anyone. One of the key strengths of the company lies in its delivery network; the time a customer places an order on the same day, the company dispatches the order so that the customer will get the order as soon as possible so that he or she will not have to wait, ANC customers can learn anything that is related to the health care and supplements. The feedback provided by the customers shows that the company’s customers are well educated and they are more interested in providing feedback on what they want to see in the company products. The company believes that the more a customer knows about his or her health, the more his or her chances that will improve their health status.

Nature’s Way

Nature’s Way is another supplier that delivers vitamins and supplements to the Australian market. The main objective of the company is to increase sales and pose high competition to other suppliers in the same industry. They offer multiple products for different age groups, such as products for kids and other age groups. Health advice is provided by the health advisers employed in the company. The product line of Nature’s Way includes individual vitamins and nutrients as well as nutritious oils like coconut and flax. These are created using only the finest ingredients to ensure the usage will give benefits in all terms. The first major supplement company to be certified as an organic food processor, Nature’s Way was the first to bring clinically proven European phyto medicines to the market. Nature’s Way today offers more than 500 premium nutritional and natural products containing herbs, vitamins, minerals and other speciality products. Nature’s Way keeps innovating, working to bring the best health products to the market at the best prices, with top sellers including their Alive! Line of vitamins and their EFAGold Coconut Oil.

Digital Channel Analysis Criteria

In simple words, channel attribution analysis answers the most pertinent question that every digital marketer has in his mind – “What part of my marketing efforts should be credited for this specific sale?” Hence, connecting marketing spending and efforts with the sales made is marketing attribution. Working out which channels of marketing contributed to what portion of the total sales is channel attribution analysis.

Digital marketers always want to know how each marketing dollar performs and how it translates into sales. So, any technique that can help them understand this mystery so that they can spend their budgets wisely is welcomed. Earlier, they used results from various analytics platforms or some customized solutions built in-house, but today, channel attribution analysis has become a science and requires special expertise due to its high complexity. Multiple digital channels (display advertising, search advertising, affiliate advertising, website, mobile site, mobile app). Multiple media (online, offline, mix). Multiple screens (mobiles, tablets, desktops, kiosks). Multiple sales channels (online, mobile, in-store, events). The customer journey and path to purchase are highly intricate as they follow multiple channels, media, and screens to make that final purchase. It is very important for marketers to accurately give credit where it’s due. The area of channel modelling is still evolving, and analysts are utilizing various techniques to arrive at the golden numbers. Here are some of the popular techniques used.

Last-click model: This is a single touch-point model where the credit for the purchase is given to the online customer touch point from which the click-to-purchase occurred.

First-click/First touch-point model: This is also a single touch-point model where the credit for the sale is given to the first identifiable click or ad impression/view recorded for a customer.

Average allocation model: This is the multi-touch-point model where equal credit is given to all the recorded touch-points.

U-shape model: In this multi-touch-point model, higher credit is given to the touchpoints at the beginning and the end of the customer journey.

Time decay model: In this model, more credit is given to the touchpoints at the end of the customer’s path to purchase.

The Internet is one of the biggest avenues used to obtain information about consumer goods or services. It is vital for companies to effectively convey their message by using the appropriate marketing channel. For an online service provider company like Australia Natural Care, it is very important to provide a service that is according to the needs of the consumers in order to maximise consumer experience and consumer engagement. In companies like Australia Natural Care, the preparation of an effective marketing plan will help them increase their customers, and this will enable them with their current position in the market and will identify the weak spots for the company so that they can be overcome and improved upon in future. It is essential to consider the needs and wants of the consumers in order to analyse the criteria for this report and measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the digital marketing channel.

Target Market

Breaking a market into small segments and then concentrating on one or multiple segments whose demands and needs are related to the product or service the company is offering is termed a target market. It has been found that more than 60% of the population in Australia uses some sort of supplement in their daily life. Australian medicine industry reported that they generated $4.7 billion in revenue in 2016 (Bullen, 2017). In Australia, the vitamin and supplement industry is a big business. The industry is growing at an increasing rate of 12% every year, and one of the reports from the National Institute of Complementary Medicine shows that Australians spend four times more on pharmaceutical products (Rourke, 2013). Most of the supplements and vitamins are consumed by people older than 70 years.

Source (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

Target Market Behavior

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Most of the dietary supplements and vitamins consumed in Australia are used by females in order to get a good body shape, while the ratio of men using vitamins is less (40%).

Australian Burea of Statistics

Most of the vitamins and supplements used by different age groups are shown in the pie chart above. It has clearly been seen that 40% use of supplements is used by people who are over the age of 70 years, and after that, major use of vitamins is by consumers in age between 51 and 70 years (30%), 18% is the percentage of the consumers between the age of 31 to 50 (Adults) and 12% are the consumers who are in the age of between 19 to 30 years.

Social Media

Australia has been ranked as 5^th highest internet penetration in the world (Neilson, 2012). The younger generation is a higher user of the internet. The figure below depicts five main social media platforms that Australians used in 2018.

Source (Civic web media)

Android cell phones have a high impact on consumer behaviour. Now, they can access the internet at any time and in any place. The number of active users on Facebook has come down to 15 million, which was 17 million in 2017. But still, it is one of the biggest social applications used by Australians. On Facebook, the traffic is not that much on the official page of Australian Natural Care; likes are, on average, 50. However, the Instagram account seems more effective than Facebook. The number of followers is 10.7K, and the average number of likes they get is 200. Although it seems that Facebook is not that important in Australia, the use of Instagram has replaced the use of Facebook. Instagram offers more unique features than Facebook, but one aspect of Facebook that still makes it on top is voice and video calling, which has not yet been introduced in Instagram.

Website

An effective digital experience is one that is satisfactory and relevant to the audience and adds value to the brand. There are certain aspects of the website that the company should maintain, such as search engine optimization, responsiveness, content, access, research, and design (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick 2016).

Criteria

Competitor Analysis: Nature’s Way

Website Analysis

Content

The homepage of Nature’s Way shows up as a normal homepage of an online supplement company. It doesn’t show flashes and rotating pictures. In terms of key audience value, the information on the products available on the website is extensive. The images are displayed very brightly. Just to give it a catchy look, the website should have been designed differently. At the bottom of the page, every query that comes into the mind of the reader is already there. The website presentation should be different. All the information and FAQs are given at the bottom of the page. Most of the reviews about the company’s products are excellent (According to Trustpilot.com). In conclusion, the website shows efficient knowledge, effective prices, and good quality products, but the presentation of the website is not as good as it should have been. One of the interesting things that one can easily see is there is no introduction to the company given on the website, which is quite surprising. If someone ants to see the histry and introduction about the company, first thing he or she will do is to look for the introduction tab in the website, if not available this will pose as a bad image in the mid of the consumer.

Performance

Overall, the website score on website.grader.com is 64, which shows it’s an average website that needs a lot of improvements in different areas. The figure below shows the website’s visualization.

The main strength of the website lies in the use of information on different products along with the dimensions of the product images. Speed can be improved with the help of a consistent URL to minimize redirects. The page size of Nature’s Way is too large, and it has a lot of requests, too. They should lighten the size of the website by compressing heavy images. It is optimized for cell phones. One can easily access the website from his or her cell phone. The traffic sources for the website mostly come from the search engine. The bounce rate for the website is 70%, which indicates that consumers who open this website will leave the website after visiting one page. This reveals that engagement will be increased from the outset.

Usability

The usability of the website is very difficult. If you want to place your order, you have to go through different pages. Start by clicking the product portfolio, selecting the product, and then looking for how to pay. Things get difficult to do the way you proceed with placing your order.

Service

Customers who access the website have some queries that need to be solved, but there is no FAQ page to assist customers. This imposes a negative impact on the customer by the company website. Which surely is not in the best interest of the company.

Social Media Analysis

Platform

There was no Twitter account owned by the company, according to the statistics obtained from the social websites of Nature’s Way. It has clearly been seen that on Facebook, they are not highly active and do not respond as quickly as they should have. It said that they would reply to any query within a few hours. A company like this cannot afford to lose a customer who needs instant feedback from the page admin. For queries there is no FAQ page in the website, if they have any query first thing consumer will do is to look for something on the facebook page if he or she did not get any reply from the admin, a company will lose the customer which surely is not what company wanted. By looking at the Instagram account, they have been engaged in many social activities, spreading out motivational quotes and messages along with displaying their own products.

Content

The value of journey is not present in different social websites although they have been involved in different encouragement activities, food truck wa one of those activities carried out in the past. They effectively try to get in touch with the maximum audience as they can with the help of motivational quotes.

Dynamic

Company social media shares videos and images almost every second of the week, but they never go live on Instagram. Nature’s Way Instagram posts are as follows.

Interaction

Most of the customers do not give replies, but some do. This is inefficient from the company’s point of view. They should know that every customer is important to the business. This makes customers feel unvalued, which is not in the best interest of the company.

Company Analysis

Website Analysis

Content

The homepage of Australian Natural Care shows a variety of different colours, and the use of rotating screens is effective as it appeals to the customer.

On the homepage of the Australian Natural Care website, one can easily see everything regarding supplements and vitamins or any other product category they are looking for, which is available under a particular bar. The use of “Leave a message ” at the right middle side of the website creates a positive image in the mind of the consumer. The reviews on the top right side of the website enable a consumer to look for the reviews that the consumer of their products has written. We often hear that the first impression is the last impression. The first impact of the website on the mind of the customer is positive. The availability of information on the products, along with the price and free delivery service, makes a consumer visit and buy the products more and more. One can also see the blogs written on different products of Australian Natural Care.

Performance

The overall performance of the website is 92%, which is an excellent performance. The performance of the website is evaluated by (website.grader.com). The performance rate is 22/30, which clearly shows the excellent performance of the company and its image in the industry.

The page size is less than 3 Mb, but because of the high number of page requests, it affects the performance of the company. It can be reduced by combining files to minimize the number of HTTP requests that the website makes. One of the main weaknesses that slows down the website is the use of high-quality images and videos. If they compress these images and files, then the speed can be increased. The strength of the website lies in its effective use of styles and serving sources from consistent URLs. Headings, page titles and meta descriptions make the website’s SEO effective.

Most of the traffic comes from the search engine. The audience views at least two pages of the website when they open up its link. When the website was tested on Apple Safari, all the contents were working properly.

Usability

The website has a very simple way for consumers to place an order. This is one of the main differences between Nature’s Way and the other. To purchase a product user don’t have to scroll down anything, he or she has to click a product that he wants to purchase and make a payment of the product, free shipping will be provided by the company. The latest modes of payment are used. The payment mode is up to the consumer’s choice.

Service

Services have always been the company’s top priority. T pays a lot to focus on this side, which is why it retains its customers so effectively. If the consumer has any query related to the product, he can contact the company through various sources like email, in person, on-call or via personal message. There’s a particular department that has one sole purpose: to work on the consumers’ queries and resolve them as soon as possible.

Social Media Analysis

Platform

Australian Natural Care mostly uses social media, such as Instagram and Facebook, which are widely used by Australians. They have continuously stayed updated on these media sites. However, they have not yet entered the world of YouTube and Twitter. Facebook and Instagram allow direct communication with consumers.

Content

On Instagram, their official page shows a lot of valuable information regarding the advantages of their products as well as other things like why vitamin D is important for one’s life. They often share recipes to make one stay healthy and fit. One of the most interesting things that has been observed on Facebook and Instagram is they continuously tell their audience about what to do in different situations, like what to do if your sugar level is low or what are the things that are lower in sugar.

Dynamics

The Facebook page of Australian Natural Care has posted pictures mostly in the last couple of years.

The images and videos posted on the Facebook account appeal to the customers and develop their interest in the company’s products. Their page heavily features high-quality images.

Interaction

It has been seen in most of their posts that they really appreciate the feedback coming from the consumers and any suggestions that are coming from them. It does not matter that the suggestion is on a product basis or anything. They respect everyone’s views and do their best to keep everyone happy.

Comparison Table

Recommendations

Analysis from the previous section reveals that Australian Natural Care has an effective Digital marketing channel, but there are certain aspects that could be improved. The main concern for the company is to deliver high-quality supplements and vitamins to the doorstep of the consumers and retain them. The overall objective of the company is to retain these customers, provide excellent quality products, increase the preference towards their product in the market and increase sales. The 5s objective model of Australian Natural Care for the next 6 months is given below;

• Sell: From female buyers, generate more sales.
• Serve: Respond quickly on Facebook and Instagram.
• Speak: Establish meaningful conversations with customers that will lead to a dialogue.
• Save: Advertise the most important products on Instagram and Facebook without increasing the cost of distribution so that sales can be increased.
• Sizzle: Develop an online value proposition by offering customers something extra than the product. It could be free tips along with free delivery that is already provided by the company. Ask for a weekly response from the product users.

With respect to the SMART framework, three of the above objectives can be justified according to customer engagement, experience and value. The initial objective is to increase sales from females with the help of high marketing efforts. This is possible as most of the product buyers of Australian Natural Care are females. So, with proper marketing efforts, this objective can be achieved. It is always one of the main concerns of the company to increase the sales of the product and retain the customers as well. Women can be encouraged to buy a certain product if it is properly communicated towards them. Another objective is to create a value proposition that will add some value to the product, which asks about the consumer’s response to the product that he or she purchased from Australian Natural Care. This will create a strong positive impact on the company in the minds of the consumers, and “Word of Mouth” will result in increased sales, which is the ultimate objective.

Conclusion

In order to analyse Australian Natural Care and Nature’s way, a criterion was developed. The analysis of both the company’s Website and Social media platforms revealed strengths and weaknesses. From the analysis, it is concluded that Australian Natural Care has better performance in Digital marketing channels than Nature’s Way. Recommendations were described for Australian Natural Care with the help of Digital Channel analysis to increase sales and provide a value proposition by checking the health of the consumer after the use of the product that has been bought from the company.

References

Bullen, J. (2017). A closer look at Australia’s most popular supplements. ABC News. Retrieved 29 March 2018, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-02-13/a-closer-look-at-australias-most-popular-supplements/8265840.

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital Marketing Strategy, Implementation and Practice 6th ed., pp. 123 – 166. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Nielson (2012) Australian Online Landscape Report.

Rourke, A. (2013). Vitamins take Australia. The Guardian. Retrieved 29 March 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/11/vitamins-take-australia-hollywood-names.