Reflection: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

A digital marketing plan is an important tool that helps businesses operating in cyberspace achieve their marketing goals. It provides a comprehensive framework and clear guidelines for businesses to follow to reach their set objectives, thus streamlining the budget and helping to make informed decisions on production and operations.

Simma’s Bakery is the center of focus for the digital marketing plan. The marketing plan first looked at the history of Simma’s Bakery, from its commencement to its current state. The course, Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, provided a platform for critical thinking and analysis of businesses in the digital space by revealing that every business no matter the size and form has the potential to operate successfully in the digital world. The course took us through the SWOT analysis of the business, thus, the internal business environment that contributed to its strengths and weaknesses, and the external environment that provides opportunities and threatens its sustainability were evaluated and recommendations suggested.

Again, the course showed essential factors that have a substantial impact on the existence of business. The acronym of the factors is PESTEL, which denotes Political, Economy, Social, Technology, Ecology (Environment), and Legal. An analysis of PESTEL provided a framework as to how Simma’s Bakery should operate taking into account the impact each element of PESTEL (which are external variables) has on the business. Simma’s Bakery did not only focus on its internal operations but external stakeholders that drive its actions to achieve the set goals and objectives.

Another external factor that the course helped to achieve is the understanding and analysis of competition from businesses within the industry. The comprehensive analysis of the competitive scorecard helped Simma’s Bakery to ascertain its status in the industry, whether it falls under the category of a cash cow or a star. An understanding of competition and an analysis thereof helped Simma to re-structure itself to achieve a positive return on investment