Reasons why the brand was unsuccessful

Discuss about the Digital Marketing Plays Critical Role In Success Of Organization.

Digital marketing plays a critical role in the success of any organization. With the advent of technology and increasing use of social media across different platforms, there is enhanced communication between business and its customers (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). This creates a perfect opportunity for organizations to reach out to their customers and set the right positioning of their products. It is imperative that organizations leverage this opportunity and effectively use digital media to communicate with customers. Quiznos’s digital presence has been ineffective in terms of their SEO, SEM or social media marketing.

Ineffective SEO and SEM makes it difficult for customers to search for the brand on the internet leading to reduced presence (Wilde et. al., 2012). Lack of SEM strategies make it difficult for businesses to reach out to their customers via search engine tools which results in condensed reach of the brand. This is the exact problem that was faced by Quiznos.

The brand’s social media platforms have not been active. Social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter allow these brands to communicate with their customers, gain honest feedback and address their grievances (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). However, Quiznos could not effectively utilize these platforms to reach out to their customers and establish their presence.

Target customers of a particular business refers to those customers whose needs the business aims to fulfill (Kotler, 2015). Quiznos targets youngsters between the ages of 18 and 34. The primary target market of Quiznos includes white collar employees. Besides this, Quiznos introduced healthier snacks in their menu and have been targeting health conscious customers who are looking for diet, gluten free or vegan snacks. The toasted sandwiches offered by Quiznos can serve the purpose of a quick snack and hence the brand also targets office goers and college students who need a ready to eat filling meal for their breakfast or evening snack.

Facebook has been used effectively as a marketing tool by organizations in order to address their customers. Unlike traditional forms of media, social media allows a two way communication between organizations and their customers.

The brand has merely 1.3 million followers on Facebook at the moment. Facebook can be used as an effective tool by Quiznos by adopting the following strategies:

1. Frequency of posts play a significant role in the effectiveness of digital marketing strategy of the firm. Therefore Quiznos must ensure that their social media marketing team posts at least four to five times a day.
2. The relevancy and creativity of content is the biggest factor that grabs customer attention (Kilgour et. al., 2015). Hence, in order to enhance chances of customers noticing the posts, it is essential that the posts on Facebook depict content which is creative and relevant to their target audience.
3. Using features like Facebook stories and Facebook live for the launch of a new sandwich or to market any event organized by the brand can effectively enhance awareness among customers.
4. Customer engagement is highly essential to ensure the success of any marketing strategy (Dessart et. al., 2015). Quiznos could create weekly quizzes and other such activities which would engage customers. The winners could be offered discount coupons and other promotional benefits.
5. Responsiveness is also significant in ensuring customer engagement. Therefore, Quiznos must ensure that it responds to customers’ comments and share posts written by customers which hold positive reviews.

Instagram has recently become a tool for effective marketing of an organization. Instagram is ideally used as a means by brand to provide a visual of the information that needs to be conveyed. As it can be seen that Quiznos has only been able to garner 13.6k followers. There is a gap of 3 to 4 days between every post. In order to promote the brand, Quiznos must adhere to the following ground rules and apply these strategies for effective marketing:

1. It is essential to engage audience with Instagram posts. Therefore Quiznos must try to engage its customers through its Instagram posts. This could include introducing offers, attracting influencers or creating contests in which customers can participate.
2. The frequency of the Instagram post will also make a huge difference in becoming noticeable and gaining attention. Quiznos must attempt to post over three or four times in a day. They must also frequently post stories which are visible to followers for 24 hours only.
3. The relevancy and the appeal of Instagram posts will also largely help the brand in gaining attention from customers. The pictures posted must be relevant, interesting, creative, high resolution and real. The brand must post pictures of people enjoying Quiznos subs and the brand’s outlets. When people see other people having fun while enjoying Quiznos, they will also tend to be attracted towards the brand.
4. Instagram largely revolves around hashtags. Quiznos must use interesting and creative hashtags in order to attract customers. These hashtags will make it easier for users on Instagram to search for and follow Quiznos. For example using hashtags like #Instafood #Foodieforlife or #Foodgasm which are frequently followed by people will make it easier for these users to reach out to the brand.
5. Influencer marketing can also help Quiznos in reaching out to a large number of customers. They must reach out to celebrity influencers by offering them free goodies and tying up with them so that they can promote Quiznos on their own pages.
6. Lastly, Quiznos must ensure that they are responsive to people’s comments or tags. This would help in keeping followers engaged. Customer engagement eventually leads to positive positioning of the brand.

Target customers

Twitter has been effectively used as a marketing tool to communicate with customers and enhance brand awareness as well as set the right positioning for the organization. Currently Quiznos has 130k followers on Twitter.

It can often be seen that despite 130k followers, user engagement is so limited that hardly 20-30 people are liking, sharing or retweeting the posts by Quiznos. Therefore, the brand must adopt the following strategies in order to enhance their engagement with users and enhance brand awareness:

1. The total number of posts by Quiznos must increase and the frequency of posts must also be enhanced.
2. Quiznos must also put efforts in engaging customers by introducing contests, offering discounts, asking interactive questions and curating creative content.
3. The use of hashtags is also not entirely effective by Quiznos. The brand is hardly using two or three hashtags per post. Quiznos should increase the use of hashtags and also create innovative hashtags in order to gain customer attention.
4. Quiznos must also refer to influencers and celebrities in order to reach out to more customers.
5. Quiznos must also make sure that as a brand it is responsive and retweets posts by fellow users, comment on twitter mentions and respond to comments. This will make sure that customers are engaged and it establishes a two way communication between Quiznos and its customers.

Conclusion

Digital marketing plays a critical role in the success of any business especially with the increasing usage and advent of technology in everyday lives of people (Armstrong et. al., 2015). This specifically enhances the need for brands to resort to social media marketing. Social media marketing refers to the process of marketing a product or service with the help of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter etc. (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). This report has highlighted upon various strategies that can be used by Quiznos fast food chain in order to effectively reach out to its customers and enhance brand awareness. Social media marketing can also be used by the brand in order to set the right positioning in the minds of customers. Positioning is the image of the product that exists in the minds of its consumers.

Social media marketing relies heavily upon customer engagement strategies adopted by the brand and the relevancy of the content shared on these platforms. Therefore it is recommended to Quiznos that the brand will not only enhance the frequency of their posts and become more active on these platforms but also the brand will ensure that the content shared by the social media team is aimed at engaging customers. Influencer marketing strategies can also be used via social media marketing. The recommended strategies will help the brand in gaining awareness among customers and also lead to improved positioning of the brand.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. India.

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2016. Digital marketing. Prentice Hall.

Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A., 2015. Consumer engagement in online brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 24(1), pp.28-42.

Hoffman, D.L. and Fodor, M., 2010. Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), p.41.

Kilgour, M., Sasser, S.L. and Larke, R., 2015. The social media transformation process: curating content into strategy. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 20(3), pp.326-343.

Kotler, P., 2015. Framework for marketing management. Pearson Education India.

Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage. United States.

Wilde, T., Morton, K.D., Lobacheva, Y., Zinovieva, N. and Meteer, M., Ramp Holdings Inc, 2012. Search engine optimization. U.S. Patent 8,312,022.