Mitchell Branson N9449361

AMB330 Digital Portfolio Digital Audit and Planning Portfolio

Mitchell Branson, N9449361

QUT Business School – Semester 2, 2016

Tutor: Ben Rogers

Client: Cover-More Insurance

Word Count: 1553

Mitchell Branson N9449361

Table of Contents

1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 3

2.0 DIGITAL AUDIT ................................................................................................................. 3

3.0 TARGET AUDIENCE AND PRODUCT AND COMPETITOR ANALYSIS ....................................... 6 3.1 TARGET AUDIENCE .......................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 PRODUCT AND COMPETITOR ANALYSIS ................................................................................................ 6

4.0 RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................................... 7

5.0 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................... 8

Mitchell Branson N9449361

1.0 Introduction Cover-More Insurance is an Australian based travel insurance agency helping Australian’s travel domestically and internationally for the last 30 years (Covermore.com.au, 2016). This audit will analyse Cover-More’s current digital presence and marketing, as well as make suggestions and recommendations to improve future digital media output. Cover-More have decided to specifically target young travelers in the age group of 18-25, therefore recommendations and current digital media analysis will be critical of the effectiveness of reaching this age bracket.

2.0 Digital Audit

Criteria Examples or observations Rating 1-10*

Broad vision of how digital media can transform the company

Cover-More’s digital portfolio endeavors to complete three in-market objectives, simplified these objectives are: drive direct sales, drive brand awareness and demonstrate the need for insurance. Theoretically, the company excels at driving direct sales through digital media content, for example; the website is responsive, easy to use and gives a great amount of detail regarding the company, support lines and quote for travel insurance. Response time for a website is paramount, during a 2009 study, it was found that;

40% of consumers abandon a website after three seconds of load time.

Retail and travel sites that underperform lead to lost sales, with 79% of users who experience a bad dissatisfactory visit are very unlikely to buy from that site again (Akamai Technologies, 2009).

However, there is room for improvement, the website was difficult to find through Google without specific keywords such as “Cover-More”. For a broad search such as “travel insurance Australia”, Cover-More is not found within the first five pages of Google. During a 2009 study, it was found that 91% of participants did not go past page one (van Deursen & van Dijk, 2009). It was also found that 80% of consumers use search engines to find information about a company during pre-purchase (Consumer Barometer, 2015).

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Mitchell Branson N9449361

Cover-More created an excellent campaign/competition which lead to extensive amounts of brand awareness. The ‘Ultimate Traveller’ campaign showed great potential of creating hundreds if not thousands of user generated content. User generated content rings true with millennials, 60% of whom reviewed products/services and uploaded original content as of 2012 (Barton, Fromm, & Egan, 2012). Value of travel insurance was not shown greatly via digital media by Cover-More. The campaign “Moving Mountains” is the only embodiment of this objective. The campaign consisted of a short video of approximately two minutes which did very well in regards to views on YouTube, amassing over 100,000 views. However, the longer documentary style video of 40+ minutes only received approximately 700 views.

Integration of marketing, IMC and digital strategy

As noted in Cover-More’s brief, traditional media usage is very limited, therefore it is difficult to assess whether IMC strategies are being implemented throughout digital and traditional platforms.

N/A

Digital Strategy Cover-More’s digital media focuses on creating brand awareness rather than driving direct sales. This is seen through Facebook and YouTube, Cover-More produces lots of interesting and good travel related content however this content lacks a ‘call to action’ or an incentive for the viewer of the content to then go on to purchase.

6

Strategically consistent, company-created brand messages

Cover-More show a succinct brand message throughout all digital media platforms, all content shows Cover-More’s love for travel. It has been found that sincerity has a large role to play on trust of a company, with sincere actions and good quality service, consumers will be much more likely to trust a company and therefore continue to return (Perepelkin & Di Zhang, 2014).

8

Degree of company involvement in digital and social media

Cover-More shows high levels of company involvement regarding social media. The best of this media being their YouTube account, with some videos receiving over 100,000 views. The worst piece of media used by Cover-More is Twitter, with three posts a day receiving 0-5 retweets or likes. Facebook receives constant updates with good quality content, however this can be hit and miss in terms of likes/shares.

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Mitchell Branson N9449361

Digital tools and social used by the company

Cover-More Insurance utilize the following digital tools/social media:

Facebook

YouTube

Instagram

Website/Blog

Twitter

Google Plus For the target audience 18-25 year olds, Twitter has shown to be ineffective. With only 32% of internet users aged 18-29 using the site, it is suggested that this media is not appropriate in comparison to Facebook, which is used by 82% of internet users aged 18-29 (Maeve, 2015).

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Frequency of use of digital and social media tools

Cover-More constantly produces good content through their social media. YouTube content is the slowest of all media but the video quality and content is very good. Twitter is the most active with 3+ posts a day, however these posts have little to no reach whatsoever and therefore it is recommended to stray away from this platform.

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Example of content shared

Cover-More specifically shares travel related content which is perfect for its niche. Such as “Top 5 things to do in X” or “A traveller’s guide to X”. This type of content is engaging, however it is very easily brushed over whilst scrolling along a newsfeed.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/CoverMore/?fref=ts

8

Strategic user engagement

Content does not seem to have a specific target audience outside of “people who travel”. Instagram is currently sharing the most appropriate content for 18-25 year olds with 90% of Instagram users being under the age of 35. (Pennsylvania State University, 2015).

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Mitchell Branson N9449361

Measurement of digital performance

The company does not have Google user analytics active on their website, therefore it can be assumed they are not tracking how much traffic they are receiving. However, through the quote process they receive a person’s age and where they are travelling to, if tracked this would provide a great estimate of what demographics they should focus.

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*Where 0 indicates lack of achievement and 10 represents optimum achievement.

3.0 Target Audience and Product and Competitor Analysis 3.1 Target Audience Cover-More identified one key target audience in their brief, 18-25 year olds. This audience are quite prone to taking risks with 60% of respondents within the age bracket identifying that they believe in taking risks (Roy Morgan, 2016). Therefore marketing should be directed at young risk takers. By allowing these risk takers to understand the severity of their actions if something were to go wrong whilst traveling, it could be assumed they would be more likely to purchase travel insurance. The young risk takers are very prone to digital media when it comes to reaching the target audience, with 70% of 18-25 year olds going straight for the internet when it comes to searching for useful information regarding insurance (Roy Morgan, 2016). This is very proactive for Cover-More as the company highly focuses on marketing through digital media. Roy Morgan data (2016) also shows interesting statistics regarding use of the internet within 18-25 year olds. Data shows that between Monday and Friday, after dinner is the most active time for internet usage with 60% of 18-25 year olds coming online. Furthermore, during weekends the afternoon is the most popular time to be active on the internet with 53.4% of 18-25 year olds browsing at this time. This information is critical to Cover-More as it provides valuable insight into ensuring maximum reach of digital marketing.

3.2 Product and Competitor Analysis Travel insurance is a very competitive industry when it comes to SEO. With search engines being the place that 80% of people get their information when looking for a product or service it is clear why these companies must be competitive (Consumer Barometer, 2016). During Cover-More’s brief, these companies were listed as competitors: TID, 1cover, Worldcare, SCTI and Allianz. These companies can be found on the first two pages of Google, but Cover-More is not present. These competitors are a threat to Cover-More, and being able to acquire consumers before they even know Cover-More exists is quite a hindrance. The product can be a high involvement product if the consumer needs it to be. However, Cover-More does an excellent job with their website and easy quote process in making the process as low involvement as possible whilst still making their support line number easily findable to ensure customers can inquire if need be.

Mitchell Branson N9449361

4.0 Recommendations Through careful analysis of Cover-More’s digital offerings, target audience, product and competitors, three recommendations come to mind to ensure Cover-More reaches their marketing objectives. The first recommendation is improving Cover-More’s SEO. It’s been shown that search engines are the go-to platform for finding information (Consumer Barometer, 2016) and therefore it is only logical for Cover-More to attempt to fight for a good ranking in searches on Google. According to Cover-More’s brief cost-per-click prices for broad search terms such as “travel insurance” can be approximately $100 per click, and with a monthly budget of only $10,000 this could be unreasonable. However, to remain competitive with competitors who already have good SEO and appear in the first and second pages of Google, it is recommended that a large sum of this budget be spent here. Secondly, through analysis of Cover-More’s chosen target audience it was shown that they tend to favour particular times of day to come online. 18-25 year olds are most likely to be on the web after dinner on weekdays and in the afternoon on weekends (Roy Morgan, 2016). This information allows Cover-More to post content when it is most likely to reach their target audience. Lastly, it is recommended for Cover-More to tweak their regular content within their digital platforms. Currently, content throughout all digital platforms is not working to drive sales, instead it showcases a love for travel. By implementing a call to action on content this will create more opportunity for sales. To specifically target 18-24 year olds, it is recommended to remind them that they are not invincible. Roy Morgan data stated that 60% of respondents claimed to be risk takers, if these risk takers are carefully reminded that disaster can happen at any time then this will create a need for travel insurance within the target audience.

Mitchell Branson N9449361

5.0 References Akamai Technologies. (2009). Akamai Reveals 2 Seconds as the New Threshold of Acceptability for ECommerce Web Page Response Times. Akamai.com. Retrieved 13 August 2016, from https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2009- press/akamai-reveals-2-seconds-as-the-new-threshold-of-acceptability-for- ecommerce-web-page-response-times.jsp Barton, C., Fromm, J., & Egan, C. (2012). The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes (1st ed.). Boston Consulting Group. Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/documents/file103894.pdf Consumer Barometer from Google. (2016). Consumerbarometer.com. Retrieved 14 August 2016, from https://www.consumerbarometer.com/en/ Covermore.com.au. (2016). Cover-More Australia. Retrieved 14 August 2016, from

https://www.covermore.com.au/ Marvel, Matthew R. (2012). Encyclopedia of New Venture Management. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com Maeve, D. (2015). The Demographics of Social Media Users. Mobile Messaging And Social Media, 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/the- demographics-of-social-media-users/ Morgan, R. (2016). Blackboard. Retrieved from Queensland University of Technology: https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course _id=_124946_1&content_id=_6385936_1 Pennsylvania State University, College of Information Sciences and Technology. (2015). Instagram behavior for teens different than adults. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 18, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150616155028.htm Perepelkin, J. & Di Zhang, D. (2014). Quality alone is not enough to be trustworthy. Intl J Of Pharm & Health Mrkt, 8(2), 226-242. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijphm-02-2013-0006 van Deursen, A. & van Dijk, J. (2009). Interacting with Computers (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www.utwente.nl/bms/mco/bestanden/Using%20the%20Internet- %20Skill%20related%20problems.pdf