SUBMIT
THE SOSTAC® PLAN ( 2500 words)
PRESENTATION FILE (.ppt) no more than 8 slides.
You are required, to develop a digital marketing project (plan) for Dunkin Donuts. The project should follow the structure of the SOSTAC® plan as described below and should be related . Access to the company/organization is very important as discussing your project with people from the company/organization and seeking their help with the collection of information will be helpful.
Project title should be something simple which includes the name of the selected brand/organization â i.e. âSOSTAC® Project for Brand Xâ.
The project should follow the sections of the SOSTAC® plan. There is no need for a separate introduction, conclusion, or implications section.
You should provide theoretical and practical clarity providing functional links to academic literature and can make use of business/media/personal correspondence sources for this information. All those sources need to be cited properly and put in the bibliography.
Situational Analysis (20% of the plan)
Where are we now? The Situational Analysis section works as the introduction to the chosen brandâs current online situation. You should consider Customer Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Company Analysis and the external uncontrollable variables analysis (PEST Factors). You can blend this with a SWOT analysis when you compare your company analysis to competitor analysis you can identify strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, when you explore PEST you are covering Opportunities and Threats (NB you can also refer to competitors here also alongside the PEST factors.The situational analysis must examine the online presence of immediate competitors.
Objectives (10% of the plan)
Where do we want to be?Objectives must be concrete (measurable) and indicate a time component (i.e. 50% increase in online transactions by when?). Objectives must provide clear links to the digital marketing strategies that will be utilized in the following section.
Strategies (20% of the plan)
How are we going to get there? Strategies must consider target markets and positioning at the bare minimum. You should also consider the other 7 strategic components in PR Smithâs SOSTAC® Guide.
Tactics (20% of the plan)
Tactics, the details of strategy must include your marketing mix. This can be included using a selection of digital tools (social media, website, microsite, VR etc)to explore your communications mix (promotional mix) and also distribution channels (place)Value Propositions can be included here. Gantt charts showing what happens when can also be included
Actions (15% of the plan)
How do you ensure excellent execution of your tactics? Make sure you include internal marketing (training, motivation and communication) required to get the companyâs team passionate about excellent execution of the tactics. Actions can include the basic skills and related personnel that your proposed campaign will need.
Controls (15% of the plan)
How do you know you are getting there? Controls should discuss what exactly will be measured (and how this will be measured), how often, by whom and how much do these metrics cost (some are free others are not) to determine whether objectives are being met.
HINT
Objectives section should not be particularly long â the focus in the project should be the strategies and tactics section.
MODEL ANSWER
Students need to acknowledge the challenges associated with designing an e-marketing project. This is important and must be addressed into context â taking into consideration the brand personality and characteristics of the organization under scrutiny. It is important to focus on the digital marketing elements to avoid creating a corporate-level plan.
Complete answers should include but are not limited to the following:
A comprehensive situational analysis providing an up-to-date analysis of the brand and understanding of immediate competitors. Use of comparative information is expected.
Objectives must be measurable, appropriately discussed and provide functional links to strategies and tactics. If there is no access to financial information to base financial objectives you should find other elements that can be measured in relation to digital marketing â buzz, loyalty, brand awareness and so on.
Strategies must provide an explanation of the value proposition/online value proposition. Good answers are expected to provide an outline of word-of-mouth, viral, buzz marketing.
Tactics must provide a list of digital marketing tools that will be utilised.
Actions must broadly cover skills and related personnel needed from the proposed campaign.
Controls must provide the necessary metrics and KPIs for measuring the effectiveness of the campaign. Good answers are expected to make use of digital marketing metrics such as total site visits, new sessions, channel-specific traffic, referrals, bounce rates, conversion rates, total conversions, lead to close ratio, customer retention rate to name a few, depending on the nature of the proposed campaign.
Bibliography
Appendices
So, for example, for an objective of âincrease online buzz by 50%â, a corresponding strategy may be âprovide online users with interesting, constantly changing news about how to use my brand that they will want to share with othersâ, and one corresponding tactic might be âinvite a guest blogger (give the name) to write a series of weekly how-to blogs on the website site that we also re-post on Facebook and announce on Twitterâ.
Here you should include all the sources you have used for the project e.g. books, industry reports or material from databases such as Euromonitor, STATISTA and so on, articles from academic or practitioner journals, internet based sources.
Use the Harvard Style as below:
Hoque, M.T., Ahammad, M.F., Tzokas, N., Tarba, S. and Nath, P., 2022. Eyes open and hands on: market knowledge and marketing capabilities in export markets. International Marketing Review. 39(3), pp.431-462.
This part does not count in the overall world limit but it can provide a significant boost to the overall assessment (i.e. mark) of your work. Here you may consider including, among other things, the following (only as an example as the final list will be your choice):
7.1. a good description of the company you have chosen to apply the SOSTAC®
7.2. an explanation of the procedures you used to perform the project (i.e. possible interviews in the company, checking some of the figures with the company, ways you have worked as a team and so on).
7.3. a brief explanation of the challenges you faced as a team for this project and suggestions for other teams in the future.
7.4. a brief reflection of what is that you have learned from this project as a team.
Useful resources to begin with.
https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-st…
In addition to these resources check the examples of SOSTAC plans posted.