Dunelms digital marketing strategy
Introduction[edit]
Dunelm is a multi channel homeware and furniture retailer based in the UK, operating in 170 plus stores accross the UK and Northern Ireland. Founded by Bill and Jean Adderly as a market stall in 1979 [1], Dunelm has since grown to have over 9000 colleagues and turned over a gross profit of 92.4 million (before tax) in 2017. [2]. In 2017 they also acquired The WS Group, which owns the Kiddicare, Worldstores and Achica brands, greatly improving their product range[3]. They strive to be renowned for their style, value, quality and ease of shopping [4]and have been awarded by the House Beautiful Awards for two years a row, winning Favourite Homeware Retailer in 2016 [5]and the Home retailer of the year and online home retailer of the year in 2017[6]
Dunelm Strategic Approach[edit]
Dunelm’s digital marketing component has largely contributed to the growth that they are experiencing. Their recent acquisition of WS Group has also played a huge role in this growth, improving their online digital marketing strategy and online technology as well as increasing their product range and market share [7].
The aim of a multichannel marketing strategy is to facilitate more multi-channel consumer behaviour for the retailer[8]. Dunelm offers consistent prices across its multichannel platform, both online and in stores[7]. This is important as this consistency eradicates confusion in the minds of customers. Their multichannel approach is also important as it creates convenience for the customers, which Dunelm have identified as necessary based on their observation of the growing trend that their customers are busy and always on the go. Dunelm is encouraging customers to order online but also facilitate direct contact for the customers who like to touch and feel their products in store, which is most common with furniture and bedding.
With regards to the physical availability of the brand, their website is focused on delivering the best customer experience as well as products. Dunelm’s website prioritises its home page as the most important in the customers searchandising process; Dunelm place all their promotions and price discount on this page to facilitate greater sales because this is where the customers attention is the highest. Dunelm have also taken the rise of phone usage into account in its digital marketing strategy as mobile usage accounts for 20% of their overall traffic[9]. Most customers use their mobile phones to browse for information and as a result, consumer use of mobile shopping is rapidly increasing, with purchases via mobile phones reaching 31 billion in 2016 [10]. Realising this growing change, Dunelm has encouraged more mobile phone use in its store by having "point-of-sale posters and shelf ticket labels explaining the benefit of using mobile" as stated by Sajjad Bhojani, Dunelm's Head of Multi Channel Marketing and Developments [9]. Not only does the use of mobile devices produce benefits for retailers by advertising their products and brand to the consumer, it also creates a sense of interaction when consumers are shopping, forming a pathway to a relationship reference [10] between Dunelm and its consumers, which promotes brand loyalty.
Their online platform helps them in collecting data on their customers, also known as business intelligence. A consumer's buying history is used to determine their preferences, which is then used to personalise their online shopping experience to cater to their perceived needs [11].
Social Media[edit]
Dunelm actively use social media platforms as a part of their digital marketing strategy. They actively use Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, YouTube, Linkedin and have a Blog. All of the links to their social platforms can be found on their website.
Dunelm's Instagram has the largest following of all of their social Media platforms. They use this platform to engage with customers whilst showcasing new additions to their home-ware ranges. They also engage with their audience by posting material relevant to cultural celebrations, using photos, videos and GIFs. For example, they advertised one of their elegant crockery sets on valentines day. Its also common practice for potential customers to tag a friend or family member they think will be interested in the items in a post - further enhancing engagement. They also use hashtags so they can be found by people who do not follow their page and make a habit of asking their audience questions to elicit a response, referring to the link in the bio to encourage customers to browse their website.[12] The link is a 'feedshop.it' link that directs the customer to a separate page with the same pictures that are on their Instagram feed. The customer then has the ability to click any picture and be directed to the range or items that is advertised in that picture. This activity is stored as in app engagement analytics and offered as an analytics report to [13]
Brand Budgeting Strategy[edit]
Dunelm’s marketing is very result oriented, with a great emphasis on the return on investment (ROI) of each spend. Investment into the brand is to increase the brand salience, this involves investing into display advertising and google adwords as a means of paid search. The search budget is based on their search objective which is divided into two categories: brand search behaviour and non-brand search behaviour.
Brand search is when consumers make their choices using existing information in their memories about the brands they are already aware of [14]. A loyal customer who conducts the brand search will have strong brand salience because of the mental availability [15] that brands like Dunelm have built over time with their advertising. The investment into brand search would be to help the customers find the products they are looking for easily. Non-search behaviour is targeted at attracting light buyers who are browsing for what Dunelm offers but are unaware of Dunelm or any other brand. Dunelm’s search engine optimisation strategy is geared towards being accessible, visible and favourable to the potential buyer when they search online for products that they offer. Onsite search engine optimisation (SEO) includes factors such as domain name, rich media files, alternative texts for these files and page speed. Offsite SEO includes mentions and shares across social media, press releases and any other website that refers to or links to the Dunelm website [9].
Dunelm reviews how effective the amount they have spent on the brand, non-brand and email sales is and then compares the results from one year to the next. Using this method, they can better refine the marketing spend across their multichannel and make the integrated digital marketing strategy more efficient [9].
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- ↑ "Dunelm - History". Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ "Dunelm - About Us". Dunelm.
- ↑ Dyer, Renae (13 September 2017). "Dunelm shares jump as UK retailer sees sales growth on Worldstores acquisition". Proactive Investors. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ "Annual Report and Accounts" (PDF).
- ↑ Heath, Olivia. "House Beautiful Awards 2016: full winners list". House Beautiful. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ Taylor, Alice. "House Beautiful Awards 2017: full winners list". House Beautiful. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Rigby, Chloe. "Dunelm and DFS: four multichannel themes from homewares retailers". Internet Retailing. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ Nicholson, Michael; Clarke, Ian; Blakemore, Michael (April 2011). "'One brand, three ways to shop':Situational variables and multichannel consumer behaviour". The international Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. 12 (2): 131–148.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Chaffey, Dave; Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona (2016). Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice (6 ed.). Pearson Education Limited. pp. 182–185.
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- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Ström, Roger; Vendel, Martin; Bredican, John (7 February 2014). "Mobile Marketing: A literature review on its value for consumers and retailers". Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (21): 1001–1012.
|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ↑ Shmueli, Galit; Bruce, Peter C.; Yahav, Inbal; Patel, Nitin R.; Lichtendal Jr, Kenneth C. (2017). Data Mining for Business Analytics. John Wiley & SOns. Search this book on
- ↑ "Dunelm's Instagram". Instagram. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- ↑ "Feed Shop". Feed Shop. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ↑ Degeratu, Alexandru .M.; Rangaswam, Arvind; Wu, Jianan (2000). "Consumer Choice Behaviour in online and traditional supermarkets: The effects of brand name, price, and other search attributes". International Journal of Research in Marketing. 17: 55–78.
- ↑ Sharp, Byron (March 2010). How Brands Grow (1 ed.). Oxford Press. ISBN 9781483534701.
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