2. Brief Overview:
Goals and Objectives
Market Overview
Due to IBM’s ‘Business-to-Business’ nature, the
marketing efforts will be geared toward
CEOs, CIOs, and IT Managers of small, mid-
market, and
major companies.
In an effort to market to this audience, and achieve a
substantial presence above and beyond its
competitors, IBM’s new campaign will involve the idea
of ‘Creating Conversation’ with current and
prospective clients.
3. Brief Overview:
Goals and Objectives, cont.
Creating a Conversation
At the heart of the campaign, the main objective will be to connect with
the target audience by creating meaningful and useful content,
communicating with, and responding to clients, with the ultimate goal of
maintaining relationships, creating new ones, and increasing sales. To
achieve this, the following actions and media will be emphasized:
Expand Social Media efforts
Produce and distribute meaningful content to involve clientele through
articles, blogs, and press releases
Create a more substantial online presence, through online advertising,
i.e. banners, videos
Increase SEO efforts – both paid and organic
These efforts will lead to an increase in brand and product awareness,
brand loyalty, and overall sales, with the a goal of 25% increase in annual
net profit.
4. Putting Objectives into Action
Because IBM is often looked at as too big or too expensive
to meet a company’s needs, the main objective of
expanding Social Media presence will be to combat this
accusation. To achieve this, we will:
Maintain and expand upon major Social Media efforts;
Facebook, Twitter
Facilitate interactive research to see what the target audience
is ‘talking about’ online. What are the target audience’s major
problems, what do they need, why do they need it?
Use research results to create content. Content will be geared
toward creating conversation about IBM’s products and
services, engaging in these conversations, and offering IT
solutions to company’s problems.
5. Putting Objectives into Action
Creating this type of ‘conversation’ online will equate to a
less intimidating perception of IBM.
Content produced based upon research results will be
mainly in the form of blog posts. The main objective of
these posts will be to engage clientele and provide
solutions to their problems. These posts will be featured on
IBM’s website, along with high traffic IT websites deemed
pertinent from research results. These posts may include
videos pertaining to the subject at hand, and will also
provide links to IBM’s landing page and other IBM specific
pages to drive clientele into the purchase process.
The overbearing purpose of these blogs will be to
maintain, and create more of a substantial online presence.
6. Putting Objectives into Action
Continuing the effort of expanding online presence, web-
based advertising efforts will be increased. Animated and
static banners, along with videos, will be placed on websites
that are frequented by the target audience. Websites to be
used will include but are not limited to:
News websites: USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington
Post as well as other substantial news platforms.
IT blog websites: Technorati, Computer
Weekly, Forbes, MarketWatch, ZDNet, as well as others.
The objective for this will be to maintain and increase brand
awareness.
7. Putting Objectives into Action
Increase SEO efforts: Organic
Initially, efforts will be focused on optimizing the
current IBM website, while also ensuring the
appropriate optimization of all newly produced
content, including articles and blog posts.
Focusing on this will help to ensure IBM’s presence
on search engine results pages.
Ongoing online research results will indicate
keywords to be included in content to leverage a more
substantial presence, as these keywords have the
potential to change as the industry evolves.
8. Putting Objectives into Action
Increase SEO efforts: Paid Search
IBM will take advantage of opportunities to increase
its presence on Google search by:
Facilitating a Google AdWords campaign.
Monitor and evaluate campaign through Google
provided tools including Google Analytics.
The main objective of this effort will be to appear as close
to the top of Google’s results pages as possible when
internet users search IBM’s pertinent keywords with the
sole objective to drive users into the purchase process.
9. Campaign Overview & Costs
Timeline for ‘Create a Conversation’ campaign: 1 year
Advertising/marketing budget to be allocated: $1,000,000
Overall budget amount to include:
Ongoing online research – 10%
Creation of consistently released content on a weekly basis
through blogs, articles, and press releases – 25%
Internet advertising placements: banners, videos – 35%
SEO efforts, paid: Google AdWords campaign – 30%
Google Analytics, along with research listed above will
contribute to the ongoing monitoring of marketing efforts.
10. Campaign Wrap Up
Overall Objectives:
Increase online presence through distribution of
relative content
Substantiate social media presence
Increase brand awareness, through actions listed
above, as well as through advertising placements
End Result:
25% increase in net profit
