Digital Marketing Strategy

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

Deadline: Sept 10, 2017 EOD

Student Name: Mathews Babu        

Student Roll No: 160201084

Section A

PART ONE: Brand analysis
1. Introduction

Start writing here:  Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) is one of the leading public sector bank in India. The bank founded in the year 1943 in Lahore, Pakistan, by Rai Bahadur Lala Sohan Lal has witnessed many ups and downs in its trajectory.

Website: https://www.obcindia.co.in/obcnew/site/index.aspx

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OBC-BANK-143301215769438/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/obcindofficial?lang=en

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq9iqvOkgDnPkj5sCcw1u9g/featured

The service portfolio in its marketing mix is broadly divided into 4 segments that are Deposit Schemes, Loan Schemes, Services, Customer care and services. The deposit schemes have a lot of variety of offerings which are various types of salary accounts catering to different income groups, accounts for pensioners, youth accounts, current accounts, merchant accounts and other saving accounts. Oriental Bank of Commerce also has various types deposit schemes such as tax saving deposit schemes, term deposits, flexi deposits, progressive deposit schemes and other types of fixed and recurring deposit accounts. The loan schemes of OBC are further divided into 4 segments that are retail schemes, minority loans, SME loans, and other loans catering to agriculture and small enterprises and individuals. The services of OBC consists of mediclaim, NRI services, financial inclusion, online services such as tax payment, NEFT, RTGS, internet banking and other services such as DEMAT services, payment gateway, cash management services, foreign remittances and ASBA. 

The vision of the bank is ‘To be a customer friendly premier bank committed to enhancing stakeholder value’. The bank tries to achieve this by providing quality, innovative services with state-of-the-art technology in line with customer expectations. Being a public-sector bank, customer perceive OBC as a trustworthy brand. The National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), rated OBC Bank as "Customer Friendly “Bank. The light green colour of the brand that’s depicted everywhere indicates the money aspect that is associated with banking and provides a soothing feel to the viewer’s eyes. The bank has portrayed itself as a customer oriented financial institute through its advertisements.

Marker’s comments:

/8

2. Target market

Start writing here: Being a financial institution with presence pan India, the target market involves all those who are looking for a banking facility to handle their finances. The OBC branches can be found in rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan areas. This approach helps the bank to cater to different segments of the population. But since the digital reach does not extend to the whole of the target group, the major focus will be more areas above semi-urban. The digital marketing campaign will be more focused on people above the age of 18, starting from students to working professionals to retirees. Based on the need of different segment (education loan for students, personal loans and investment options for professionals), marketing campaigns are to be designed. Coming to the psychographic segments, the bank will try to target people who are looking for various deposit schemes to attain financial stability, who aim to enter trading, who are looking for an all in one bank that provides customer centric services. The explorers should be provided with services that are new in the market as they like to discover various financial solutions available. Products like investment options, high return deposits and business loans should be marketed towards the ‘Succeder’. The regular savings and deposit schemes and short loans should be targeted at the ‘mainstream and the ‘struggler’.

Marker’s comments:

/8

3. SMART objectives

Start writing here: The digital marketing campaign is aimed at the following three main objectives.

1. Increase the traffic volume from current figures(451.16K) by 25% by July 2018.

• In order to achieve, organic traffic the website should be optimised using google keyword planners.
• The website content should align to the most searched keywords (online banking, savings account, deposit rates etc.) in the sector.
• To analyse the various keywords that gives the best google page rank, keyword planners from google, or other third party tools like keywordtool.io and wordstream.com can be used.
• Tie ups with various e-commerce websites to act as a promoted bank for online transactions.
• Affiliate with various blogs and websites to promote differentiated products offered by the bank.
• Track the amount of referral traffic to the website and the websites that provide the highest referrals.

• To regularly check the progress of the campaign which will be the number of organic traffic, websites like alexa.com and similarweb.com can be used.
• Tools like semrush.co and similarweb.com can be used to keep track of the referrals and backlinks.

1. Reduce the bounce rate from 50.08% to 40 % by July 2018.

• The website should be redesigned from the current cluttered format to a more contemporary design.
• The new design should take into consideration the customer’s point of view to have a more customer centric approach.
• The bounce rate and the time spend in the website should be tracked based on the changes made in the duration.
• In order to track the performance of this initiative, tools like similarweb.com and alexa.com can be used.

1. Increase the mobile app usage base among existing users by 20% coverage by July 2018.

• Promote app in mobile based searches.
• Redesign app to provide more services and improve the aesthetics of the same.
• Collect data to improve customer experience.
• The number of app downloads and app usages are to be measured.
• App downloads in stores and app usage data from app performance trackers like similarweb.com can be used.

It should be noted that these three are not the end result expected from the campaign. Like any other marketing campaign, this campaign aims to bring business and generate revenue for the bank.

Marker’s comments:

/24

PART TWO: Strategic considerations
1. Competitor analysis

Start writing here: State Bank is the leading public sector bank in India.

1. The SBI website is designed in a simple and contemporary way which is easy on the eyes and easy to navigate through. Exihibit.1. The result of this simplified yet productive website can be seen in terms of the total number of visits (7.75M)
2. SBI uses its social media handles to promote various offers and its mobile application. Exihibit.2.
3. The website is SEO optimised as it ranks high in google page ranks in keywords related to online banking, loans and deposit schemes.

SBI has succeeded in creating a huge digital presence for itself. The use of video and offer promotions regarding various products are done effectively. But the major drawback of SBI is that they use multiple domain names for various services, which complicates customer interactions online. Instead of doing so, OBC should integrate all their services under a single domain and provide differentiated products from this domain.