Bahrain Polytechnic Bachelor of Web Media

Marketing Analysis Report

WM7007 Web Marketing

Ahmed Hazeem 201701716

1 Table of Contents

1 Introduction ...... 3

2 Customer Value Proposition ...... 4

3 SMART Objective ...... 6

4 PPC Advertising ...... 9

5 Email Marketing ...... 11

6 Digital SWOT Analysis ...... 14

7 Website Analysis ...... 17

8 Video Marketing Campaign ...... 20

9 References ...... 22

2 1 Introduction

It’s of no surprise that online platforms have seen a stealth growth in their popularity and adoption rates in the past decade alone, transforming the already-prevailing global food industry as millions of customers continue to prove their susceptibility for the convenience of having meals delivered to one’s doorstep in the tap of a button. With that comes the propensity for vigorous competition, especially in the GCC market, where the emergence of Talabat in 2004 has since propelled a multitude of online marketplace and ordering platforms competing to dominate the industry.

Founded in and expanding to the rest of the Gulf countries and , Talabat is an online ordering application that primarily provides a plethora of delivery services for food, groceries and fowers. Its platform caters for both businesses to list their restaurants on, as well as customers that are seeking the convenience of ordering online. Their aim is to bridge the communication gap that comes with traditional modes of food delivery, as well as providing a prestigious customer experience and be the region’s leader in delivery services for existing small or large businesses, with the advantage of serving the community by giving the opportunity to expand their reach through Talabat’s applications and website.

3 2 Customer Value Proposition

Figure 2.1. Talabat ’s official website (landing page).

Diving into the homepage of the company’s website, it features pertinent, easily digestible information that refects the brand and its values along with multiple calls to action right from the start of the page—still being above the fold. Talabat runs on a unique Business-To-Many (B2M) business model that many modern firms are fast adopting, which essentially allows them to focus their marketing efforts not only towards businesses or consumers at once, but to both concurrently, hence their ‘Become a partner’ link. This makes their customer value proposition (CVP) even more unique, as they have to prove their value to both segments of their target.

Talabat explicitly outlines their CVP centrally on their homepage, with the heading reading “Your everyday, right away.” Communicating directly to the user, the brand aims to build a relationship with their customer and be a complement to their daily life. For a customer, this implies that they strive to be their first and only choice—their ‘one-stop shop’—when it comes to ordering

4 their essentials online. For a business, they propose a life-long partnership that helps in growing their business by providing an accessible platform to list their business on to, enabling them to reach a larger audience. Loyalty is an integral part of this proposition, as Talabat seeks to maintain its customer base by the provision of its memorable service, as opposed to just being a one-time service that their customer would eventually forget about. ‘Right away’ also signifies the speed and reliability of their service, not only promising quick turnarounds every time, but also assuring their customer of a convenient and perpetually unfading experience. Being a multi-platform application, two download buttons are provided for their iOS and Android apps respectively right below the hero section as the call to action, communicating with the user; bringing about the impression of the platform being readily available everywhere, not having to worry about compatibility, ultimately for the convenience of the consumer.

5 3 SMART Objective

Through the close inspection of the website and Talabat’s customer value proposition, it is evident that Talabat seeks to grow its customer base and maintain the loyalty of its existing ones. An appropriate SMART objective for Talabat would be to carry out a digital marketing campaign that is able to successfully attract and reach 5,000 daily users by the end of the ongoing year. SMART objectives is an acronym consisting of 5 main subdivisions: being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Specific Being specific denotes that the objective is able to answer the 5 ‘W’s: • Who, focuses on who has to be engaged in attaining the objective so that the responsibilities and tasks are clearly divided, to show who is in charge of the aspects that are responsible for the objective being carried out. In Talabat’s case, it is the Digital marketing team that is the main involved functional group in attaining said objective. • What, which refers to the exact endgame that is being sought from pursuing this objective. Talabat is attempting to increase its customer base in Bahrain as well as increase the amount of transactions held on its platform in order to gain a larger portion of the market share in online food delivery services. This is the case due mainly to the fierce competition that is present in the Bahraini market, as well as the great returns market domination holds for the delivery service that is able to achieve that. • When, refers to being bound by a time frame as it is essential for evaluating the success or failure of any tactic or strategy. Knowing the time factor of the objective allows for expectations and measurements to be realistic as to when the results will actually begin to be refected, with the expectation of time delays being common especially when it comes to marketing and advertisement.

6 This will be elaborated further on under the Time-bound subsection. In this case, the time frame could be six months since the start of the campaign. • Where, which is not always an essential part of SMART objectives especially because of the fact that digital marketing does not take place in any specific location, though the targeted market could also count as a specific location. This means that, in the case of Talabat’s customer base expansion goal, the ‘where’ is defined as the current target market being deliberated i.e. Bahrain. • Why, stands for the reason for why the objective is formulated and what is being pursued form the results of said objective. For Talabat, the objective of customer base expansion was set in place in order to achieve a higher long-term goal of being the universal food and groceries online delivery service in Bahrain and the region. This stems from the idea that market domination and having the largest reach would allow the company a higher bargaining power, and a more sustainable future in the market.

Measurable Ensuring the objective is measurable includes the case wherein results can be turned into values or categories that can further relay more information. Simply put; the more quantifiable the results, the more useful an objective is. Many ways exist to measure an objective's outcomes depending on each objective and the function it relates to. Key performance indicators are essential in the process of measuring the objective's success. In this case, the objective formulated can be best measured through employing the ‘client retention rate’ as the major key performance indicator for this digital marketing campaign.

Achievable The constructed goal should be achievable in the sense that it is realistic and grounded in the circumstances and factors that the company exists in. It is important to note and plan for all the steps that the organisation has to take in order to make their objective within reach, as some objectives can be made

7 attainable whilst not directly being achievable when the necessary contingency plans are put into place. In order to achieve these objectives, it may be necessary to cultivate new skills and changing mindsets. For Talabat, the total population of possible users in Bahrain is a factor to be taken into consideration in addition to cultural norms in terms of grocery shopping and food.

Relevant Relevance simply implies that the goal should be in line with the organisation’s broader goals and more importantly its mission and vision. An objective that does not take advantage of or aims to build on the companies’ competencies would not be relevant to the path the company is taking.

Time-bound Being time-bound refers to being limited by a time frame, as well as having a set timeline for sub-objectives that work to achieve the main goal. The success or failure of an objective is directly related to a realistic deadline for the subtasks to be carried out as well as the whole objective. For the formulated objective of Talabat's customer base expansion, it is important to have a time frame that takes into consideration that advertising is a long term process rather than a short term task, thus the results of the strenuous efforts that are put into the digital advertising campaigns and their success are going to experience a lag when reaping the gains of the campaign. This indicates that the increase in customer base and market share is not going to be instantaneous and might last till after the campaign is over to show its full results. (Dhalla, 1978). The time frame for the SMART objective that was formulated for Talabat was set to six months after the kick-off of the campaign, being the end of December 2020, and encompasses enough time so that the complete results of the ads are perceived.

8 4 PPC Advertising

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a variable cost method of digital advertising that allows advertisers to pay in accordance with the success of the ad, thus the more an ad gets clicked, the more it would cost. This method is highly cost effective as, not only is it taking less risks in terms of financials, the advertising is almost guaranteed to steer more business to the company than it costs.

Talabat can utilise this mode of digital advertising so that it can achieve its SMART objective. With accordance to how Google Ads rank their PPC advertising, a well-devised digital marketing campaign that focuses on high quality and effective targeting, through which the business can achieve an extremely inexpensive and widely reaching campaign that would boost the number of new customers joining the platform. When formulating PPC ads, it is imperative to utilise key words and key phrases that relate to the company’s customer value proposition. Key phrases that are most relevant for Talabat’s CVP of a fast and reliable food delivery experience are identified to be ‘restaurants near me’, ‘food near me’, and ‘groceries nearby,’ according to a word search volume tool on WordStream. These wordings and phrases should be integrated into the overall marketing campaign, with the choice of these specific key words and phrases going back to the search volume they achieve on search engines worldwide. Combined they add up to more than 16,200,000 in search volume thus would be successful in directing a large sum of web page visits when pursued in a PPC ads campaign. In another more specific research done on Google Trends about Google searches in Bahrain that are related to food, it appears that ‘Bahrain food festival’, ‘food delivery’ (+70%) and ‘food near me’ (+60%) are the most popular and relevant for Talabat’s case.

The importance of these key phrase research tools and analytics lies in achieving high relevance when the ads pop up in common searches or on other sites. This is especially to be taken into consideration when factoring in the

9 amount of clicks that do not result in a sale taking place, or in other words, merely a visitor that has not been converted into a customer. The use of specific keywords as well as negative keywords makes sure that when the ads show up, they are intended for the targeted audience that is searching for the services that are offered by the business.

Figure 4.1. Example of a visual PPC advertisement by yours truly.

The PPC ad above is devised to be part of a larger PPC ads campaign for Talabat, which primarily aims at attracting and directing traffic to the mobile application. The digital marketing campaign should include the search engine PPC ads with the suggested keywords and phrases, in addition to similar visual posters that get presented on websites. This example specifically increases brand recognition with the use of common brand elements, as well as awareness of the utility of Talabat and what its main proposal as a service is. This is conveyed in a very precise and concise manner, with the emphasis on the availability of the service ‘anytime’ which refects the convenience, ease and instinctive user experience that Talabat provides throughout its service. The use of key performance indicators (KPIs) is eminent to determine and measure the success or failure of a campaign. They entail the metrics that allow marketers to effectively identify the effect their campaign has. The KPI most relevant for the case of Talabat's customer base expansion objective is the customer retention rate, which designates the percentage of customers that the business has been able to garner and preserve over a given time period.

10 5 Email Marketing

Email marketing is a known marketing strategy that involves the company sending a commercial message—typically to a group of people—but can also be made to address a specific person, using email. An optimised email newsletter could be considered beneficial to Talabat due to being a great tool for building relationships, both with existing and potential customers. Email marketing has been considered a good tool to use for mass marketing because of it being relatively cost effective, measurable, and highly customisable thus curating personalised experiences for their customers. The main strength of email marketing is that it takes advantage of the fact that a customer is most likely able to access their email at all-times.

To start, Talabat would need to set an email strategy in place. The first step Talabat needs to take would be to plan for the primary goals it aims to achieve from this marketing strategy, whilst ensuring that the email marketing strategy they choose to adopt is inline with the company’s overall brand, its other marketing strategies, as well as its digital strategies. Newsletters tend to be focused on creating and retaining a long-term relationship with the reader in an attempt to get loyal customers. Newsletters that are sent through emails are opened or accessed using a mobile phone 53% of the time as of 2015, that number would have increased more by now considering its increasing adoption rates within online businesses. An optimised newsletter should be considered by Talabat as a marketing tactic as it is one of the few marketing strategies that are able to be shared to the masses at once, allowing them to effectively segment their audience as well as nurture their relationships and partnerships. They can act as direct means of communication and engagement with their customers and clients, establishing a sense of connection which can thus fuel loyalty and the retainment of their base.

11 A form of email newsletters that Talabat has chosen to use as a tactic is the direct newsletter emails, in which they send existing customers who have registered on the app emails with promotional messages about sales, discount codes, special offers, etc. This has worked for them as they have chosen to display these promotional messages using images and colourful designs making it intriguing for the customer to open the email. Talabat also uses transactional emails to email the customers electronic copies of their receipts once their purchase has been completed (George, 2015).

Figure 5.1. Talabat’s existing email marketing campaign.

One of many examples is Talabat taking advantage of an opportunity to regain back the loyalty of a customer who has not ordered for a while. The email comprises detailed, localised imagery of food to entice customers to return and conduct an order through the app. But that’s not the most alluring factor yet; the email contains a custom generated discount code, further driving the customer to get back into using their platform. This curated experience is

12 essentially what drives out competitors, and how Talabat themselves employ tactics to maintain their customer base. With its modern design that fits the brand, the email also addresses the customer by their first name. The company further establishes their friendly and humanist voice as the first thing one sees when opening their email is the sender’s name, in this case being “Sara from Talabat.” The subject of the email itself is also made clear by the catchy line, claiming “You are discount worthy,” making the customer feel special as though they were being addressed directly by a fellow human, providing them with the VIP experience that most competitors lack.

The proposed newsletter should have the clear and straight-to-the-point language that Talabat is renowned for, making it easy to understand to avoid clients from clicking away or possibly unsubscribing. The design is to be consistent with the brand, effectively carrying its elements and style whilst ensuring for the email to be readable and accessible regardless of the device that is being used. Imagery on mobile should be compressed to avoid taking as much screen real estate as it would on a full-size computer, avoiding important elements from being cut off. The layout should stay consistent, with font sizes optimised for smaller devices such as older generation smartphones, and columns to be reduced as much as possible and be turned into vertically scrollable sections instead. Ideally, text should also be reduced, though ensuring not to disturb the integrity of the intended message of the email. The content should remain relevant to what customers and businesses expect from Talabat, addressing their different needs and wants and curating the special experience that is consistent with and a refection of the brand’s values. The benefits of this are endless, as these newsletters are commonly permission- based: customers who do not wish to receive them can simply opt-out at any time. Newsletters are also environmentally-friendly, which is a great point for Talabat to take advantage of as consumers are increasingly aware of their environmental footprint, thereby the choice of going with an environmentally- friendly marketing tactic would attract more people than if they chose to do it thought traditional modes of advertisement. (NIBI, 2018)

13 6 Digital SWOT Analysis

Strengths Any firm could have specific knowledge, skillsets or advantages which allows it to have leverage over its competitors. Talabat is one of the few organisations in Bahrain with exceptional brand recognition; residents all around the country and the GCC are able to easily distinguish and identify Talabat merely through catching sight of their signature orange. This puts them at an advantage as they do not have to spend as much time, money and resources on marketing and advertisement as people are able to identify the brand. Talabat as a brand has a substantial digital footprint with its extensive reach via social media and other online platforms. Having social media accounts with strong presence on the highest adopted platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, the reach is rather large, and this does not include the paid advertisements that come up when a person is simply scrolling through their feed. Talabat has a user friendly, contemporary brand and a minimal approach in the design of its platform, and with its ease of use, it is also highly accessible to people of different age groups and with different abilities and expertise levels. Catering to an Arab majority audience, the business caters to all segments of its audience by providing its app and website in both English and versions. With customers generally complaining about lengthy, detailed forms to fill out, Talabat’s easy sign up and checkout forms are highly favourable amongst its target market, giving them an advantage over other similar services, which necessitate strenuous effort to go through the elaborate sign up process, which usually ends up increasing their bounce rates. Talabat on the other hand offers its customers the fastest sign up process by just entering their email, address and phone number.

Weaknesses Like any other business, Talabat has its own weaknesses that may put them as risk if not resolved. Identifying these weaknesses aids in maximising efforts and combining them with their digital marketing campaigns, as well as strengthening their weak points in order to maintain their position in the

14 market. Despite Talabat having a considerable digital footprint in social media, it has low activity on any of those platforms. All of Talabat’s Instagram accounts, which are separated for each of the different countries they operate in, do not post as regularly as other companies do—thus not being taken advantage of enough. Increasing this activity would definitely result in a higher following, with more impressions and engagement as the posts garner attention and have a much wider reach. Although Talabat’s performance in the digital world is outstanding, they could work on rectifying their common customer service issues, specifically in relation to food delivery orders. This comes down to their delivery tracking service, where it is only selectively available for a limited portion of the restaurants that are listed, whilst competitors provide their customers with tracked delivery for all of the restaurants. Maintaining communication is peril when dealing with customers, though Talabat’s customer service is almost always full, with customers often complaining about being left waiting ‘in line’ to get a chance to speak to a customer service agent, which can eventually affect consumer’s trust and the brand’s integrity.

Opportunities The opportunities for an online food delivery vendor in the digital realm are endless. Talabat is amongst the first in the industry to, and does not fall short in, developing and utilising the latest marketing tactics that have recently risen to the surface in the past year. With infuencer marketing at the forefront of the digital industry, they collaborated with numerous public figures in promotional campaigns such as with Bahraini rapper Abdulla Confait, which produced a catchy rap track that has garnered the attention of many. There are many other types of infuencer marketing which could be employed, such as affiliate marketing, which is proven to achieve an abundance of marketing objectives. Another opportunity Talabat has taken advantage of is the online transactions option, integrating the the continuously growing service BenefitPay in Bahrain since its launch. With contactless payments showing no sign of halt anytime soon, this establishes a sense of convenience and relatability which can definitely increase the customer reach.

15 Threats With the continuous digitalisation of platforms and development of technologies, Talabat faces cyber security issues relating to data and financial theft. There exists a possibility of being hacked as this has happened once in the past where malicious users were able to circumvent the security precautions that are in place and hack into the Talabat's database, stealing some of the customers’ credit card information. Another threat is posed by the fierce competition that is present in the market of online delivery in Bahrain. This threat is mainly represented by Careem NOW, a similar online delivery vendor, as well Hunger Station and other smaller delivery companies that are present. Each of these companies provides a slightly differentiated approach as to what they deliver and their method, as well as price variations, thus instigating a culture of high competition.

16 7 Website Analysis

Use of web conventions Simplicity and modernity is prevalent on Talabat’s entire website; the pages adhere to the latest conventions and trends in web design, whilst staying true to the company’s branding and voice. On the home page, information on the company and what they specialise in is presented, as it becomes more evident that in order to reach both portions of their audience, B2M businesses maintain the use of specific web design tools as a means to distinguish between catering to consumers and businesses (Lu, 2019). This is done through the clear distinction they have created by separating the sections of information that address the different segments of their customer base—aka consumers and businesses.

Figure 3.1. Distinguishing between the messages intended for their segments.

The centrally placed search bar in the hero section of the landing page in combination with the hierarchy of the large heading text and bold imagery immediately brings the user to the main task that they have been set up for,

17 which is to input the area they are currently residing in and begin searching for the available listings and offers. This ease of use is common practice to reduce the disparity that comes with using websites, as the target audience is broad and users have varying experience levels, thus this simplification makes it less intimidating for a first-time visitor to dive into their website—which leads us to the next point.

Simplicity Talabat’s website eminently places the user at the forefront of their strategies and excels at doing so through their minimalist approach in design. Pages are coherently structured with sufficient white space and virtually no distractions, with the occasional sprinkle of pleasing and saturated visual elements, establishing a striking balance that minimises clutter whilst maintaining the users’ enticement and interest. This can be seen with their use of vibrant, fat- style illustrations in their branding throughout the website that have continuously been proven to increase engagement. The navigation, placed prominently on the top of the page and highlighted with the brand’s signature shade of orange, contains relevant links that they wish to bring attention to, such as current available deals and offers which are localised to their Gulf- centric target audience. This, in combination with the use of strong and detectable buttons that highlight important calls to action, makes it the easiest to browse and reduces the cognitive effort needed for the user, as they are able to instinctively find the information they are looking for, thereby enhancing their user experience and can ultimately lead to retaining their customers as they return to the website to order again—one of Talabat’s main objectives.

Figure 3.2. Use of minimal, trendy brand elements.

18 Credibility Information is clearly and accurately presented in the website with concise, easy to grasp yet professional language whilst constantly maintaining their friendly tone of voice that works well with their target audience, turning visitors into customers. This proficient organisation of content in combination with the well-designed pages that comply with industry standards and conventions invoke a sense of trust and cogency to the customer, increasing their confidence. In their business-catered pages, Talabat provides valuable testimonials from current customers and businesses that they serve to prove their outstanding performance and service, which acts as a medium of objective authenticity that both improves and promotes the image of their brand.

Figure 3.3. Testimonials from partners.

19 8 Video Marketing Campaign

Videos unlike written advertisements are more engaging and offer a stimulating and immersive experience for the viewers that a written advertisement simply could not do. The possibilities for optimising these videos are endless. In Talabat’s case, this can include giving the campaign an interesting video title that is enticing, which can attract more users and clicks, thereby increasing the chances of it being successful. This could be achieved by adding specific words and phrases that are relevant and trendy at the moment, so that they could be easily discoverable. Talabat could also encourage its viewers to like and share the videos they have uploaded, as the higher engagement enables algorithms to automatically recommend it to more users, appearing on their feeds. Using local celebrities in videos is also an optimal way to further accumulate attention to their video campaigns as it would require the celebrity to talk about it as well as upload it onto their personal social media platforms.

Using a video campaign as an advertisement is one of the leading marketing strategies as it aids in reaching a wide range of Talabat’s audience, be it businesses or consumers. If they were to upload a video or add an advertisement to an already uploaded video, it could possibly be exposed to and viewed by more than 1.3 billion users, and visited over 30 million times (VDC, 2013). Video advertisements are a powerful way to inspire customers, as they effect customers in different ways and attitudes and create emotional bonds depending on what the video is addressing. Ensuring consistency across the brand is also one of the key factors to take into consideration, which is through the use of common and recognisable brand elements that Talabat is known for.

It is relatively difficult for a video campaign to go viral, as there is no true recipe to achieve that. However, regardless of that being the goal or not, Talabat could include a trendy topic—say, the opening of a worldwide restaurant chain in Bahrain which offers its meals through Talabat. This, in turn, would definitely

20 prompt the possibility of people clicking on it to watch to increase, leading to higher conversion rates as customers are able to conveniently order from their favourite restaurant, right from their fingertips. One important note is to have a short and unique video and maintain customers’ attention; this could be a humorous video or an inspirational, relatable video that addresses relevant issues that is shareable. Complementing its friendly tone of voice that the brand is known for, Talabat could include a catchy tune or jingle to its brand name or slogan, the same way McDonald’s has for its well known “I’m lovin’ it,” which adds a unique, recognisable touch to the videos it plans to publish as well as works on establishing a sense of ubiquity if used across its social media channels and other promotional campaigns. The optimisation of a video campaign could be a tricky process, as it could always go south quickly, resulting in either a successful campaign or a possibly failed one—which should not be a deterrent factor at all. It is to be kept in mind that, what works for another company in the same field and caters for a similar market to Talabat, may not work for them and vice versa.

21 9 References

Lu, L. (2019). B2M Web Design Trends You’ll See Next Year. Retrieved from https://www.brandignity.com/2019/12/b2m-web-design-trends/

George, S. (2015, June). Effectiveness of Digital Marketing for Promoting Online Food Delivery Websites in U.A.E. Retrieved from https:// www.academia.edu/13760340/ EFFECTIVENESS_OF_DIGITAL_MARKETING_FOR_PROMOTING_ONLINE_F OOD_DELIVERY_WEBSITES_IN_U.A.E

NIBI. (2018, June 27). Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing. Retrieved from https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and- disadvantages-email-marketing

Dhalla, N. (1978, January). Assessing the Long-Term Value of Advertising. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1978/01/assessing-the-long-term-value-of- advertising

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