Marketing plan for a new technology and telecommunications website www mobilereview vn

i TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ TP.HCM UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL MBMM4 HỒ TRẦN MINH QUANG MARKETING PLAN FOR A NEW TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE WWW.MOBILEREVIEW.VN MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT Tutor’s name: NGUYỄN VĂN SƠN Ho Chi Minh City (2010) ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my profound gratitude and great appreciation to my advisor Dr Nguyen Van Son for his valuable guidance, advice and encouragement throughout the research study Special thanks are extended to my colleagues at Thuy Kim Minh Joint Stock Company for taking interest and giving valuable suggestions to improve the content of this study as well as providing me the materials needed for the research Taking this opportunity, I would also like to thank all lecturers, mentors, HCMC Open University staffs and my classmates for their assistance and co-operation during my two-year’s time at the MBMM program of Solvay Brussels School I remain indebted to my family, friends for their valuable encouragement and unceasing supports in my academic pursuits iii MASTER PROJECT IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT Tutor : Dr NGUYỄN VĂN SƠN Researcher : HỒ TRẦN MINH QUANG Title of Project : Marketing Plan for a New Technology and Telecommunications Website - www.mobilereview.vn – Program of Study : MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT TUTOR’S COMMENTS The project embraces high practicality The objectives of the research are welldefined The organization is logically performed The researcher employs a suitable and appropriate research methodology The results present some new perspectives which are, to some extent, scientifically useful With suitable environment situation analyses, the author has introduced a number of solutions that are highly comprehensive and feasible Nevertheless, the project has shown some inevitable limitations: the analyses are more qualitative Little quantitative data have been demonstrated In general, the research successfully meets the requirements (of both content and form) for a project of Master in Business and Marketing Management I hereby propose candidate Ho Tran Minh Quang to defend for his dissertation in front of Board of Examiners for Master dissertation of Vietnam - Belgium Master Program HCMC, 9th of December, 2010 TUTOR DR NGUYỄN VĂN SƠN iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATIONS MEANING ICT Information and Communications Technology IT Information Technology NRI Networked Readiness Index PR Public Relations RSS Really Simple Syndication VNPT Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES Figure 2.1: Top 10 Asian Countries with high Internet user in 2009 Figure 2.2: Mobile Review Magazine - 1st Edition in January 2009 and 2nd Edition in February 2009 Figure 2.3: Mobile Review Magazine – 8th and 9th Editions in May 2009 Figure 2.4: Mobilereview.vn interface – Main page Figure 2.5: Design and IT Department structure after rearrangement Figure 2.6: Content Department structure after rearrangement Figure 2.7: Structure of Article Posting at Mobilereview.vn Figure 2.8: Average Daily Page Visits Chart of mobilereview.vn from Nov 2009 to June 2010 Figure 3.1: Average Daily Page Visits Target on mobilereview.vn in 2011 Figure 4.1: Graphic Design and IT Department structure after enhancement Figure 4.2: Content Department structure after enhancement Figure 4.3: Structure of Consultancy Section TABLES Table 2.1: Internet Users in Vietnam from May 2003 to May 2010 Table 2.2: List of web traffic rank in Vietnam vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page i Acknowledgements ii Tutor’s comments iii List of Abbreviations iv List of Figures and Tables v Table of Contents vi INTRODUCTION Executive Summary Vision Scope and Limitation Structure of Project METHODOLOGY Situation Analysis Planning SITUATION ANALYSIS 2.1 Climate Analysis 2.2 Company Analysis 2.3 Human Resources Analysis 13 2.4 Competitors Analysis 16 2.5 Visitors Analysis 18 2.6 SWOT Summary 20 MARKETING OBJECTIVES 23 vii PLANNING 24 4.1 Internal Improvement 24 4.2 E-Marketing Plans 27 4.3 Public Relations Strategies 29 CONTROL 31 CONCLUSION 32 APPENDIX 33 INTRODUCTION Executive Summary In recent years, the number of computers use as well as the number of Internet access in Vietnam has been increasing dramatically More and more businesses have their own websites to bring their products, services or information to internet users E-marketing is gradually being exploited and applied in the business environment Besides, after the trade embargo was lifted in 1994, Vietnam economy has been incredibly developing As the non-stop growth of the economy, the technology and telecommunications booming has also played an important role in our society The fact is that number of people who own telecommunications and digital gadgets has been increasing rapidly Most of the urban citizens want to approach modern technologies which help improving their living condition Nevertheless, in Vietnam high-tech market, information of products seems to be untrustworthy no matter where they come from Therefore, the needs of gadgets review and technical consultancy in Vietnam are especially higher than ever Understanding the problem of lacking trustworthy information from consumers, on November of 2009, our website www.mobilereview.vn was established The website mobilereview.vn which belongs to Thuy Kim Minh Joint Stock Company was a website that provide visitors with news, reviews, previews and other information related to Vietnam and international telecommunications and digital gadgets industry After months, mobilereview.vn did not achieve the results as its owner wishes The number of visitors was extremely limited and the daily page visits was not as high as our expectation With this bad situation, we decided to set up a precise marketing plan for www.mobilereview.vn Vision Our vision is to make mobilereview.vn become the most popular digital gadgets review and consultancy website in Vietnam, where visitors can find any information they need about telecommunications market and digital gadget products in the most convenient way Scope and Limitation To maintain the website mobilereview.vn, we organized our personnel with departments: _ Graphic Design and IT Department _ Content Department _ Sales Department _ Personnel Department After months running the website, we find out that number of daily page visits of the website is not as high as our expectation This matter was put under discussion and the final solution was that our website must be renovated and a detailed marketing plan must be set up to gain as much visitors as possible to increase our page visits For those reasons, our project is a combination of situation research and analysis, website improvement, e-marketing plans and public relations strategies Nevertheless, sales activities is out of the scope of this project Structure of Project The structure of the project is divided into six parts, focusing on six specific contents as follows: Methodology Situation Analysis Marketing Strategy Planning Control Conclusion 24 PLANNING 4.1 Internal Improvement To fulfill the project, the first thing that our company will make is internal improvement Due to the situation analysis process, we found some problems that need to be fixed immediately + Staffs recruitment: With the current human resources, we can almost handle all works from both paper-based magazine and the website mobilereview.vn However, with the reformation and expansion of our website in the near future, both Graphic Design and IT department and Content department need additional personnel for the long-term plans In the Graphic Design and IT department, one designer handling all the problems on mobilereview.vn will be too risky With the website’s interface enhancement coming soon, one more designer definitely need to be added Figure 4.1: Graphic Design and IT Department structure after enhancement In the Content Department for both Mobile Review magazine and mobilereview.vn, the number of reporters is currently enough However, due to the quantity increase of long articles and reviews in the future, two additional permanent reporters for both paper based magazine and the website will be 25 recruited to fulfill a large amount of work Moreover, this additional personnel will allow us to build a new Consultancy section which are going to be launched on March of 2011 with the lowest risk Figure 4.2: Content Department structure after enhancement + Staffs training: Training sessions would be held to improve the staffs’ competence Especially with the employees from content department, the knowledge on telecommunications and digital gadget field must be updated regularly Moreover, due to the particular characteristic of press industry, foreign language is an important element Therefore, our staffs will be supported to join some English courses to improve their language skill + Facilities enhancement: Outdated devices must be replaced New facilities such as computers, printers, scanners, internal network etc must be re-equipped + Content improvement: Based on the research and analyses on visitors’ behaviors, we realize that Vietnamese people who are interested in telecommunications and digital gadgets have very high demands on trustworthy and neutral information about the products’ performance, specifications, new technologies or even price, promotions etc… However, their needs seem to be unsatisfied 26 Understanding the situation, mobilereview.vn will improve the webpage’s content to fill in the gap of this deficiency From 2011, the number of mobile phone review article will increase as much as possible Besides, instead of making reviews for only smart phones as usual, we have to pay more attention on popular and cheap phones More review articles on popular and cheap phones will be made to satisfy consumers’ demands Moreover, instead of compiling news and information from foreign sources, we will try to bring to visitors the most updated news in domestic telecommunications and mobile phones market such as new technologies, new products, promotions and sales events etc… + Interface renovation: With negative feedbacks from visitors about the unattractive and complicated interface of mobilereview.vn, the interface renovation must be a high priority First of all, with the helps from BaoSo Software Company, the main page interface of mobilereview.vn needs to be modified At the main page, pictures, flash animations and sounds must be added to make our page become more attractive Nevertheless, too much sounds and animations can easily distract visitors’ concentration on the web’s content Next, the main page must be shortened to avoid too much scrolling up and down from visitors All four sections: Mobile Phones News, Other Digital Gadgets News, Telecommunications Market News and Mobile Phones Reviews will be all present at the main page but just as small animation flash icons Visitors can find or latest news titles and review titles in the “Latest News” and “Latest Review” board right on the main page Besides, a universal search engine will be attached to the main page It will help visitors finding old articles conveniently Moreover, from 2011, 40 percent of our mobile phones review will move from text review to video review It is the most impressive and effective way to 27 attract visitors, who always want to have true perceptions about digital gadgets in which they are interested + Consultancy section: With the supports from the IT department and our partner - BaoSo Software Company - On March 2011, a new Consultancy section will appear on mobilereview.vn An icon button of this section will be placed on the main page and people can click on this button to get into the Consultancy section In this new section, Visitors can post their questions as a topic and our reporters can answer them as soon as possible Especially, based on the peer to peer (P2P) model, even visitors can interact to each other by answering or discussing their problems right on this Consultancy section Figure 4.3: Structure of Consultancy Section 4.2 E-Marketing Plans Along with internal improvement, some precise marketing plans will be carried out to make mobilereview.vn become more popular to all people who are interested in telecommunications and digital gadgets + Additional Vietnamese Domain name: Due to the language restriction from visitors, a Vietnamese website which has an English domain name can hardly catch the visitors’ attention Especially, there is a fact that the name “mobile review” also causes some minor troubles in visitors’ spelling Therefore, after some discussions, we decided to create an additional domain name for mobilereview.vn 28 which can also link directly to our Mobilereview.vn main page Two feasible Vietnamese domain names were proposed, which are: _ www.trainghiemso.vn (Trải Nghiệm Số): The main advantage of this proposal is that this is a short name and it can make visitors easily remember However, meaning of this domain is digital review which covers a whole digital gadgets industry not just mobile phone industry Therefore, it can cause a little ambiguity for visitors _ www.trainghiemdidong.vn (Trải Nghiệm Di Động): The good thing of this proposal is that the meaning of this domain name directly focus on the mobile phone industry (mobile phone review) However, a long domain name has a particular disadvantage After carefully consideration, we decided to use www.trainghiemso.vn as a additional domain name for current mobilereview.vn This domain can create a familiar feeling in visitor’s mind and it is definitely easy to be remembered Moreover, with the meaning of digital gadgets review, it will make a particular benefit if we want to expand our website to cover the whole digital gadgets market in the future + Advertising Banners: Due to good connections with other Vietnamese websites in the telecommunications and digital gadgets industry which have very high page visits and page ranks such as www.tinhte.vn, www.5giay.vn, www.vnphoto.net … we are negotiating to add some advertising banners on these websites which link directly to our mobilereview.vn This activity can help mobilereview.vn catching the visitors’ attention and increase the page visits + Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication): “RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works - such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video - in a standardized format RSS feed includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship Web feeds 29 benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically” - Wikipedia - With the advantages of RSS, we decided to using RSS for our website to help the visitors easily updating daily news or review articles from our mobilereview.vn + Exploiting Social Networks: The incredible development of social networks in Vietnam recently gives us an opportunity to easily approach visitors In Vietnam, Facebook is the most famous social network On March 2010, there were 1.7 millions facebook users in Vietnam (according to www.checkfacebook.com) This is a huge number that we can exploit to make benefits for our both mobilereview.vn and Mobile Review Magazine Even though our facebook blog was created on May 2009 to introduce our Mobile Review Magazine and we also have more than 5000 members now, however, the marketing activities on this area were somehow limited In this project, we will try to reinforce this potential social network resource More news and review articles links from mobilereview.vn will be posted on our facebook page to attract visitors Multimedia elements such as photos, videos, sounds which related to the telecommunications and digital gadgets will be posted more frequently Besides, discussion topics about mobile phones and telecommunications market will be held right on our facebook page to attract more and more members 4.3 Public Relations Strategies Besides E-Marketing plans, we also need to proceed some public relations (PR) activities to reinforce the efficiency of our marketing plan project and create a good image for our mobile review website There are many tools and techniques that can be used in public relations In our situation, we will try to make some seminar meetings for people who have great interest on mobile phone industry and telecommunications market This is an 30 opportunity for us to understand visitors’ demands and also bring the brand of Mobile Review closer our potential visitors Besides, a Writing Contest about the telecommunications market and mobile phone industry will be held on June 2011 This contest will help us improving the image of Mobile Review Magazine and Mobile Review website In 2011, some co-operation activities will also be carried out We are going to negotiate with The Gioi Di Dong Joint-stock company to place Mobile Review advertising posters and leaflets on half of The Gioi Di Dong Mobile Phone Stores in Hochiminh City Moreover, in the third quarter of 2011, we will try to negotiate with some Mobile Phones Multinationals in Vietnam such as HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson to co-operate with them on their new product launching events Our reporters will have a chance to approach their new products for reviewing and introducing on our webpage and magazine Besides, co-operating with those famous brands also increases the reputation of Mobile Review in the industry 31 CONTROL + Monitoring Implementation Right after the marketing project for mobilereview.vn starts, we will implement the monitoring process to make sure all steps are going to be exactly the same as we had defined All the activities which we brought out will be carefully supervised to avoid mistakes and minimize risks throughout the website’s operation + Reporting All datum from the such as number of articles, number of visitors’ questions, page visits status etc will be reported every week These reports will be recorded to help us measuring how effective our plan would be These essential datum will also give us opportunities to find out the project’s errors for later corrections and alterations + Corrections, Alterations and Supplementations Backup marketing plans will always be carefully prepared throughout the operation of Mobile Review website Any results which are positively or negatively different from our specific objectives will lead to immediate corrections, alterations or supplementations These changes will help us being more adaptable with the changes from mobilereview.vn outside environment and maintaining the efficiency of 32 CONCLUSION Throughout the marketing plan process, there are many advantages and difficulties that we have to confront Nevertheless, with a very high effort, we tried our best to solve the problems which we had found at the entire operation of mobilereview.vn and improve our website to fulfill the objectives that we had defined With a specific marketing plan, we hope that mobilereview.vn can catch up the high development of telecommunications and digital gadgets industry nowadays and become one of the most popular digital gadgets review and consultancy website in Vietnam in the future 33 APPENDIX Appendix 1.1: Original Survey Questionnaire from mobilereview.vn – Page 34 Appendix 1.2: Original Survey Questionnaire from mobilereview.vn – Page 35 Appendix 1.3: Original Survey Questionnaire from mobilereview.vn – Page 36 Appendix 2.1: Translated version of the original Survey Questionnaire mobilereview.vn – Page from 37 Appendix 2.2: Translated version of the original Survey Questionnaire mobilereview.vn – Page from 38 Appendix 2.3: Translated version of the original Survey Questionnaire mobilereview.vn – Page from ... mobilereview.vn are also used to generally evaluate the website status All these analyses give us a chance to examine all the advantages and problems on which the company has occurred + Human Resources Analysis... Stock Company was a website that provide visitors with news, reviews, previews and other information related to Vietnam and international telecommunications and digital gadgets industry After months,... updated information from the telecommunications and digital gadgets market – a new online Mobile Review Magazine – For that reason, our website www.mobilereview.vn was created It was designed and developed