By Joël Mayo & Andreea Merlan

Zouked has been inspired by our love for Earth. We know that online marketplaces have grown over the years, with companies like Amazon, Ebay and Etsy taking on the monopoly.

However, there is a need for a more sustainable marketplace where brands can come together under one roof. And, that is why we exist; to democratise sustainability by bringing it straight into the mainstream and delivering it right to your doorstep. Building a marketplace driven by sustainability and powered by technology. We put rockets on your business and fly you to the MOON!

What Service?

An E-commerce marketplace driven by sustainability and powered by cutting edge technology to support and accelerate the growth of small local brands. We will actively promote and support local vendors and highlight the importance to the consumer of purchasing locally. We will also support environmental initiatives by making donations or taking actions that assist a local environmental cause.

Customers can also support the cause by offering environmental incentives for sales – such as planting trees or donating a portion of a sale to a sustainable organisation.  In addition, we will openly communicate green marketing actions to our customers to reinforce our eco-friendly business practices.

The marketing strategy

The marketing strategy for Zouked is multifold. Both focusing on initial clients and the end user consumer of the marketplace.

Points to note:

• It’s important to be honest and open in all of our marketing and sales copy (this will foster and encourage trust in our brand) 
• Messaging must be consistent across all campaigns and the sites
• All questions and objectives must be addressed in the copy

Goals and Objectives

In the near future

• Select a charity to begin sponsoring
• Hire three new marketing employees over the next 6 months
• Increase traffic to our site by at least 50% by the end of the end of the year
• Gain a solid base of followers (5 to 10k) in the first year

What we hope to achieve after 12 months

• Increase the total income of the company by 10% over the next two years
• Increase the total income of the company from 25-35% over the next 6 years
• Increase overall brand awareness
• Expand into a new national market in the next 5 years
• Give back to charities on Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays 

Strategic Objectives

• Increase our advertising budget each month for the next three months
• Increase Social media posting
• Contacting 20 potential clients per week
• Monthly giveaways for customers on social media
• Create our own hashtag

Value Proposition 

What prompts our customers to join and buy from Zouked?

• The businesses/producers we target, in many cases, do not have the scale or know-how to position themselves globally on a digital level. Zouked, as a marketplace, aims to level the field in a responsible and reciprocal way.

Many of these businesses really do need a leg-up to gain a global presence and reach out to a growing audience as the consumer is becoming rapidly educated about the huge number of benefits that entails when shopping ethically and sustainably.

• The Flat Rate business model is for customers that hate surprises. We would hate to scare away our customers, especially in the initial stages of the project. So, it acts as a way to alleviate their fears by charging a fixed fee.

Value Proposition for Vendors

Benefit Creators

• Fast website transactions
• Captivating Brand design and graphics
• Marketing campaigns (Online & Offline) with data analytics
• Very rigorous selection process
• Partner with events 
• Helpline with real people by helping with supporting videos and tutorials 
• Creating relevant content about sustainability initiatives through blogs, podcasts and content marketing.

Products and Services 

• Fast and easy to use Sustainable Marketplace
• Small donations
• Help with their Marketing
• Helpline with customer service 

Limitation Reductions

• Simple and easy onboarding
• Grow your audience  – Unlimited Customers 
• Tutorials and videos on onboarding and taking pictures
• Marketing strategy: to guide our audience towards the conscious consumer
• Instant  money from the sale of the product
• Marketing made simple – you bring the product we bring the marketing (social campaigns, google adds, SEO)
• Trusted payment partners (PayPal)
• Reviews 
• Partner with shipping companies that may help with fulfilment
• Offer alternative shipping companies that may have a reduced cost compared to their current option
• Easy to use tools on the website. Shop Manager Dashboard to track their logistics/sales and more

Advantages

• Required: technology – platform that sells products
• Expected: aesthetic and performance of the platform 
• Gain online presence, grow their business, reach out to new customers, effortless onboarding process. Trusted payment process, online marketing. The marketplace selects/curates all the products. Belong to a growing sustainable community. 
• Desired: amazing customer service: live chat, video tutorials,  onboard assistance, access to customer helpline. Informative newsletters, trustworthy blog posts, to encourage and grow  sustainability initiatives and customer reviews
• Brand recognition
• Unexpected: Featured brands in blog posts and social media .
• Investing in charities and/or organisations. Featured video interviews with brands.
• Rewards to encourage brand loyalty 

Customer

• Functional:  sell products online, grow their business
• Reach out to new audiences
• Social: sustainable status 
• Emotional: Feel good factor- doing a good deed (planet/people)
• Encourage people to normalise sustainability
• They trust our product and feel safe when using our service

Disadvantages

• Functional: Onboarding products
• Taking quality pictures of their products, displaying their products and editing them.
• Paying for the service
• Social: mainstream marketplace
• Emotional: We are new to the market (lack of trust). Concerned that they will be wasting their time uploading information for little outcome.
• Don’t trust the payment process 
• No Fulfilment 
• Delivery and shipping costs

Value Proposition for Customers

Benefit Creators

• Seamless shopping experience across all channels 
• Easy interface – filter depending on values or categories
• Large selection of products
• Keep on top of current shopping trends to capture customer attention  
• Specify availability of the product (running low, high stock etc)
• We offer reliable trustworthy payment partners
• Instant feedback
• Customer service: instant chat, email supported helpline 
• Provide specific promotions, email, social media
• Adding discount codes ( when launching the site-for example first 50 customers)
• Sample giveaways
• By purchasing  sustainable you are doing good to the planet and people-Donations and keeping the customer up to date these

Product and Services

• Easy Online Sustainable Marketplace
• Numerous sellers and different product range: fashion to food
• Great UE/UI
• Donations 
• Wide range of selected products
• Providing information on new sustainable initiatives 
• Gift cards 

Limitation Reductions

• To be able to track shipping and delivery 
• Encourage certified products, however we trust small local production that may not yet hold a certification 
• Transparency of payment process 
• Sellers to disclose all information relevant to the production of the products (explain why the extra is worth the cost)
• Offer alternate shipping partners 

Benefits

• Functional: technology (fast), easy to navigate  great UX, OMNI channel
• Expected:  Convenience-saving time, effortless shopping experience (UI)
• Fantastic product selection all under one roof, Product awareness (new brands or sustainable trends)
• Product availability
• Reliable payment partners
• Product review
• Positive contribution to society 
• Desired: Customer Centric/access to helpline/live chat
• Sustainable lifestyle factor: happy, healthier living 
• Discounts and offers
• Unexpected: Adding a discount code, free samples, promotions on specific brands
• Marketplace donations for every sale, and an option for the buyer to donate
• Environment, People (KIVA)

Customer

• Functional: Buy products just  one  click away
• Large selection of products under one roof
• Easy shopping experience UI
• Social: Gain a  good reputation by purchasing sustainably 
• Curated high quality products
• Emotional: Feeling good about purchasing sustainable and doing good to the planet and people

Limitations

• Functional: Sellers’s logistics
• Lack of trust/brand credibility  – products that don’t have a pre-existing reputation on the market
• Lack of marketplace credibility due to the novelty
• Lack of trust in payment partners 
• Extra cost that may come from choosing sustainable and ethical brands 
• Delivery and shipping costs higher than larger competitors 

Before we start any campaign, we also need to create and target detailed buyer personas. This is the most critical stage and is often missed by many companies. Without these we will not be able to target efficiently.

Phase 1: Engaging and Pulling in Clients Who Want to Sell on the Marketplace

The initial phase and object is to engage our clients. Without clients, there is no marketplace. For this phase, the following actions will need to be completed:

Target Market: The first stage is to identify our target market. Which niche areas will we be focusing on initially. بوكر اونلاين This will be done by utilising google search analysis to pull data on what consumers are currently looking for in the sustainable market. العاب روليت This is to ensure that when we launch with the MVP that we have a solid set of products that we can go to market with and target effectively. 

Once we know who we are going to engage, then we need to harness the power of social media through various forms of advertisement, such as forums, and blogs to get the message across and attract vendors to the site. 

Business persona: Our business affiliates will provide products made sustainably (Organic, fair-trade, renewable, preloved etc) within Beauty, Apparel, lifestyle, Home Decor… These will be small sustainable brands who are struggling to gain visibility with their e-commerce and do not have a massive online presence and need to increase their revenue.  

• To start off: local brands/businesses
• Eventually: Other businesses with more presence

In the initial stages of the project, financial resources will be tight. We need to focus on low cost marketing strategies such as:

• Social Media 1:- Facebook: Engaging brands via sustainable and relevant groups on facebook. Interaction in these groups is key, we need to be warmed-up before we start pitching our services to the brands. There are hundreds of groups on facebook that can be utilised for this
• Social Media 2:– Instagram: This platform can be utilised with relevant posts about sustainability. In addition searching for brands who are on Instagram and engaging with their posts. The key to Instagram along with most other platforms is engagement. Brands need to be engaged with and not just cold messaged. We need to establish trust and build reputation
• Etsy: Etsy hosts a vast amount of sustainable small businesses who will also be looking at other methods to sell their product. Currently many brands are unhappy with the platform and can be cold targeted. To do this we need to compose a template that we can customise and send out to brands that we want to include on our marketplace.
• Ebay: The same strategy can be used for ebay. Many brands are using this as a channel for sales, but costs are high and they will also often be looking for an alternative marketplace to sell.
• SEO: Good SEO in the site will enable us to rank on google. This is crucial for driving our organic traffic

Once we are turning a profit we can then look into paid advertising for our brands. Examples of this are:

• Google adwords
• Facebook/Instagram Advertising
• Gmail Ad

At the point where we are able to invest financially in our marketing we should also ensure we are including the following in our campaigns:

• Sense of urgency: Why should they sign up, and why should they do it now
• Customer testimonials and Trust signals – Feedback from our existing clients is one of the best ways to engage more

Phase 2: Engaging and Attracting the End User Consumer

Buyer persona: It is all about attracting the right customer. For us this would be the inspired innovator, the enthusiastic expert, the considerate conventionalist and the reserved rationalist. 

• Women 18 to 55
• Men aged 18 to 55

Once the marketplace is stocked to the level where we are able to launch the focus will shift to a combination of Phase 1 and 2 running in parallel.

Initial strategy will be low cost until revenue stream is coming in, so similar to our brand engagement the initial phase will be low cost and include a combination of free and low cost marketing:

Free Marketing

• Facebook: Creating engaging posts about sustainable products, new brands joining us and sustainable affairs. Ensuring that we use content rich hashtags to get the message out to the interested parties. Hashtags are critical and we should not use the most used/common ones and this will have the opposite effect of what we need to do.
• Instagram: Creating engaging posts about sustainable products, new brands joining us and sustainable affairs. Ensuring that we use content rich hashtags to get the message out to the interested parties. Hashtags are critical and we should not use the most used/common ones and this will have the opposite effect of what we need to do.
• Online forums: Writing engaging posts and interacting with other people’s posts is a great way to generate free traffic to the site
• SEO: Good SEO in the site will enable us to rank on google. This is crucial for driving our organic traffic
• Content (blogs): Ensuring site content is relevant and up to date will increase google visibility and engage customers. This means focusing on updating old content in addition to creating new – This is ongoing and will continue to be so.
• SMS Chat: great effective tool for direct communication/marketing
• Guest Bloggers: A great way to drive more traffic is to engage guest bloggers on the site. This generates traffic from an existing clientbase (theirs) and is great for SEO/Ranking
• Non Traditional Social Media: There is so much more to Social Media than what we see. Community based sites such as Quora and Reddit can be used to engage clients. These sites also tend to be more niched which actually makes it easier to target campaigns and drive additional traffic to the sites.

Paid Marketing:

Paid marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Initially we can start off with some small campaigns (€10 a campaign etc) until we have the revenue to drive more.

• Facebook adverts – These need to be niched down to certain products based on data from google search analysis
• Insta Ads: Same as facebook, niched down.
• Google Ads: Google ads are the most powerful we will have access to but also the most costly. It’s important to ensure these are based on data and we are using low cost but high traffic keywords. These will vary depending on what is hot in the search analysis at the time. Search analysis should be done on a monthly basis to ensure we are always targeting relevant products to generate traffic.

Turning Consumers into Customers

In a way, customer relationships are similar to romantic relationships. Imagine that you won over a potential love interest with flowers, fancy meals, and exciting dates. But then, once you’re in a committed relationship, you stop trying to please them. فيلم اجنبى قطار 777 كامل مترجم You start phoning it in and acting neglectful. 

The odds that the relationship survives are slim to none. Well, the same thing is true with your customers; the more you communicate with them and show them you appreciate them, the more likely you are to keep them engaged. To keep the love alive, we have to be like the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”. That’s why we put a lot of emphasis in our Media. 

Earned Media

• Public Relations: partner with local organisations that are sustainable to position ourselves and create awareness of our Brand.
• Bloggers:  interview bloggers and encourage for them to share the content  
• Partner with Influencers and bloggers to generate awareness 
• Encourage Reviews (provide a discount  for the customer for the next purchase when leaving a review)
• Word of mouth 

Owned Media

• Website
• Landing Pages
• Facebook shop and Instagram shop
• Blog (Zouked blog)
• Newsletter
• Channels: posting on social media relevant content in order to Rank on Google
• And other search engines.
• Develop SEO  aware content 
• Mobile Apps (incoming)
• need to create content that’ll please our audience and search engine robots, at the same time. This way, it can appear high on the search engine results pages and drive your free organic traffic long-term

Paid Media

• Currently, due to financial constraints, we will start small and grow . However, in the future we will definitely be implemented
• Google AdWords/Facebook Ads
• Partner with Affiliates/Bloggers in return of content/commission 
• Sponsoring events (in future) 

Shared Media

• Social Media: sharing discounts on certain products
• Sharing relevant content and articles on our Blog and social media
• YouTube- Video tutorials for sellers on how to use the platform. Tips on how to get noticed and sell more 
• Videos on how to take the best photos 
• Podcasts
• Word of mouth via reviews through Instagram channels and Bloggers 
• Be part of different sustainable digital communities to grow our brand and product  awareness 

Auditing

Audits, give you a better insight into your brand, product or service’s digital presence and how your digital marketing campaign is making an impact on the future and sustainability of your business.

This is where data tools come into play. These software solutions offer reporting and cross-reference analysis in a unique and intuitive dashboard. What will be audited?

1. Reach
2. Architecture
3. Content
4. Interaction
5. Conversions
6. Multi-Platform Integration
7. Training Programs

Key Performance Indicators:

1. Return of Marketing Investment (ROMI): To evaluate if marketing expenses contribute to profits. 
2. Measuring ROMI:
   Short-term ROMI: The short-term ROMI to compare profits against marketing investment. 
   Long-term ROMI: Long-term ROMI can be used to determine other less tangible aspects of marketing effectiveness such as increased mentions in social media, brand awareness.

3. Lead Conversion Rate: To represent the percentage of individuals or businesses that were converted into opportunities after expressing interest in a product or service. 
   Conversion Rate by channel to identify which marketing channels generate the most qualified leads.

4. Organic traffic vs SEA
5. Social Media Reach with CTR 
6. Website traffic to Marketing Leads: To identify pages that generate high traffic, but aren’t converting visitors into leads.