Daniel DimosReinhardt University

COM 490November 2, 2017

Dimos Gold & Sterling Marketing Plan

Abstract

Dimos Gold & Sterling is looking to expand their influence on the online market space. Dimos Gold and Sterling is a online and local storefront operated on such sites as EBay and others. This strategic marketing plan will ensure the success of the business in a new ever changing media environment by implementing multime-dia projects such as interactive web videos, social media presence and applications, and informal websites with additional information and content. The story of the mar-keting plan revolves around a working class father looking to gain a little extra in-come and investment on the side. He finds a hobby in the collecting and selling of gold, silver and antique products like watches and coins etc. This hobby is fueled by the products that Dimos Gold & Sterling has to sell to him. He builds a relationship and confidence in the business that Dimos Gold & Sterling provides him.

Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................p3

Goals and Objectives........................................................................................................p4

Research............................................................................................................................p5

Strategy..............................................................................................................................p7

Evaluation..........................................................................................................................p8

Tactics, Timeline, and Budget...........................................................................................p10

References.........................................................................................................................p11

Introduction

Dimos Gold & Sterling is a small business operating in Canton, GA. This business specializes in the buying and selling of gold, silver and antique products. The businesses main source of rev-enue comes from online sales. These online sales come from such outlets as eBay. Dimos Gold & Sterling was founded in October of 2010 and has been in operation for over seven years now. The business has since growing from a tiny inventory of only 20 items on sale at any one time, to being over 500 most recently at times.

Goals and Objectives

The goals of the project would be to gain awareness of Dimos Gold & Sterling and for potential costumers to gain interest in said business.

The objectives of the project are:

To create a easily recognized brand and business image that people will know with the use of transmedia storytelling techniques

To generate content and clients for the marketing of the business

To inform the public on the brand and potential of the business

Research

The market of people that would be drawn to a business like Dimos Gold & Sterling would be customers looking for a hobby, weather that’s collecting or other activities associated, or their

looking for investment in the items that Dimos Gold & Sterling has to offer. Gold and silver, as well as coins and other antiques, have value and the rule of thumb is as chronological time pro-gresses and these things will increase in value. This is what makes these things attractive to the consumer.

Dimos Gold & Sterling has many unique marketing opportunities in the online market space. These opportunities come in the style of global commerce. Over a third of sales from Dimos Gold & Sterling comes from outside the United States of America. And nearly half of that goes to the Far East. This opens up venues not only in the United States of America but elsewhere in the globalized world. These venues will allow Dimos Gold & Sterling to advance its interest and we could use our marketing tools and content to launch the business brand and story into foreign markets.

Dimos Gold & Sterling also has a loyal customer base of over 400 individuals and companies. These stats have been provided by eBay and these costumers have put their trust in Dimos Gold & Sterling by giving reviews and by being repeat costumers. There are over 50 follows on Di-mos Gold & Sterlings eBay store, in which they receive weekly newsletters giving them the in-sights on any new products that have entered the store and are ready to buy. These customers can be used as a influencer audience to spread the brand through their own influence as individuals.

The target audience would be potential costumers looking for gold, silver and antique products as well as people looking for long term investments in precious metals and people looking for a hobby such as collecting. The influencer audience would be the local newspapers and television programs who would pick up on the business and its activities and spread them to the other audi-ences.

SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths: Ease of accessibility to our target audience through the online mediums such as Face-book, YouTube and Twitter. The general cost that comes with these mediums, generally they are free but any paid advertisement on any of these mediums will cost. The creativity and passion of the creator of the stories and media used in the marketing. And a interested and devoted team of experienced professionals that will be used in the production of these media.

Weaknesses: Budgeting, how much is willing to go into the project and the issues that may arise from unforeseen errors or calamities during the production or distribution of media products dur-ing the marketing.

Opportunities: There could be a renewed interest in antique collecting by younger audiences, anyone below the age of 30. The market could become re-interested in the acquisition of gold, silver and other precious metals bring their demand up, as well as their value. New avenues of approach via marketing could open up by the influence caused and gained by the business and its marketing

Threats: A possible lack of interest in gold, silver and antiques. Market could go into the gutters due to unstable economy or recession, this would cause potential customers to not have the funds

available to invest and buy products, or even hoarding by people, no willingness to trade or sell, or the prices of items could be to high caused by the demand and rarity of the items which might scare potential customers from entering the market, killing a majority of the free flowing collect-ing market. Older audience dying off due to age and the gap between the age of current influ-encer audience with the target younger audience, which would lead to no immediate re-interest by a younger audience in the subject matter.

Strategy

The story of this transmedia marketing plan revolves around a father named Jim, who is looking to start a hobby and maybe earn a little extra income in the process. He has a family with his wife named Jasmine and their son named Jack, whom is in high school. Jim, while researching on the internet for good hobbies to get into, finds out about the unique opportunities of collecting and trading gold, silver and antiques. He post about his journey and its successes on his social

media accounts. These accounts will be Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He will also post video blogs on his YouTube channel, talking about his new found hobby.

These videos and social media products will be the materials of the marketing strategy. And these products will help emphasize the brands values of luxury at affordable prices and the spirit of collecting and entrepreneurship. The marketing will accomplish this by portraying Jim as a average working class guy whom becomes involved in the collecting and trading of valuable items. And the entrepreneurial spirit will be highlighted by the fact that Jim is average, he doesnt have any specialized skills, he is just your average man trying to do something a little special on the side, something that anyone can get into and practice. To show this, let’s say in the story, Jim is trying to build up young Jack’s college fund and he does these through his hobby, which in this case is the collecting and trading of gold, silver and antique products.

The branding of this project will be with the under the observation and approval of the client, Di-mos Gold & Sterling, in mind. The project wouldn't want to reflect anything that the business would not approve of and we will be in contact with the owners as well as other leading figures in the business to ensure the the branding of this project is within full control of Dimos Gold & Sterling.

Evaluation

KPIs

Traffic: This relates to how many people are being driven to the business by the marketing. Traf-fic can be measured by the number of the views on the websites such as eBay and products on those websites. eBay has analytics that tells the seller how many page views each and every product gets. This can be used to calculate the average and total amount of page views. This can also help in find out the difference between the organic views, which are views that come natu-

rally without marketing, and the paid page views, which are the views caused by the marketing of the business. This helps in evaluating how successful the marketing strategy is.

Visual: This relates to how many people are seeing your marketing materials. This can be calcu-lated by the number of views a ad, lets say on Facebook or Twitter, receives or the number of views on a YouTube video. The information forum the ads allows the calculation of the “bounce rate”, which is the percentage of users that didn’t continue to view the products of the site which in this case is eBay. This helps in evaluating which marketing materials work best.

Engagement: This relates to the reception of the marketing content. This can be calculated by the number of social media shares and discussions about the content. This helps in evaluating the consumer response to the marketing materials.

Conversion: This relates to the behavior of users in which the marketing content drives. This can be calculated through the number of new users whom decide to fallow the eBay site, which in in-advertently signs them up for a email newsletter. This can also be calculated by the response to promoted or discounted listings on the eBay site.

The project will begin its first evaluation in January of 2018 after the marketing materials have been released in the holiday season of 2017. The marketing project will have a final evaluation in April of 2018 after the changes from the previous evaluation are implemented. The evaluation will be closely observed and presented in every step to the owners of Dimos Gold & Sterling, in order to ensure a successful cohesive understanding of each other's goals and objectives for this project.

The marketing evaluation will also have additional research in the forms of:

Primary Research: the secondary research will come from observations and analyses by our team. The findings will elaborate the programs effectiveness on the expansion and involvement of Dimos Gold & Sterling.

Secondary Research: Reports and studies of similar circumstances and phenomenon will be com-piled and analyzed.

Qualitative: Research will be based on focus groups and their polling of controlled selected sub-jects from the regular users of the site and the antique collecting community. Along will polling from recent customers.

Quantitative: A random selection of the population of users will be polled through the processes of telecommunications or via internet(social media, etc.)

Tactics, Timeline, and Budget

The implementation of this marketing plan will begin in the holiday season of 2017 in order to have enough time to influence the audience and to produce enough content in order to do the prior said. Facebook ads detailing the site and featuring Jim will be released in early December before Christmas 2017. Jim’s and his families Twitter accounts will go live in late November 2017. The Instagram account of Jim will go live in late November 2017. Jim’s Youtube account will go live in late November 2017 and his videos will be released on a biweekly basis and end in April of 2018, and these videos will be distributed through YouTube and shared on his and his families social media profiles. The evaluations of these materials will be conducted in two steps, first evaluation will begin in January of 2018 and the final evaluation will begin in April of 2018.

Material that includes social networks such as Twitter Facebook and Instagram will release con-

tent in a regular fashion as news or information about Jims’s family’s dealings with Dimos Gold & Sterling or any information about the prospects of owning gold, silver and other precious valu-ables provided by Jim and his family. Information will be tailored to each of the select social me-dia platforms.

The budget of the project will be divided into two major factors. Time and expenses. Time will have an opportunity cost associated with it. Expenses will cover all of the relative stuff like pay-ment for actors, renting or producing the video equipment(cameras, mics, lights, etc.). The videos will be the most costly, while the social network material will be less costly and wouldn't require any physical activity or acquisition of equipment and personnel. However Facebook ads, which run anywhere between $.16 to $1.00 a click, and promoted tweets via Twitter, which run between $.50 to $4.00 per engagement, which will be costly.

General cost for rental and acquisition of equipment would run up to $1000 over the course of the project. Plus any payment to actors and other personnel if needed, estimated at around $150 over the course of the project. All together the budget should add up to $1500 all around with the ads, videos and other materials needed for the project.

Budget

References

"How to Measure Content Marketing Success." Fractl. February 24, 2017. Accessed November

12, 2017. http://www.frac.tl/what-metrics-should-i-be-using-to-measure-content-

marketing-success/.

Zeiser, A. (2015). Transmedia marketing: from film and tv to games and digital media.

Burlington, MA: Focal Press.

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