Enhancement of online marketing at TDG M2M/IoT by means of an online touchpoint analysis

Abstract

Telekom Deutschland Geschäftskunden GmbH (TDG) is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG which is one of the leading telecommunication providers world-wide, headquartered in Germany. Its M2M/IoT department is an end-to-end IoT provider operating in the German IoT market which will note a total volume of around 50 billion euros by 2020 which represents a 50% growth rate within two years. Besides connectivity, TDG M2M/IoT offers IoT-solutions, -products and -services to corporate customers in Germany. Its mission is to help businesses in the digital age to transform current assets into IoT components and build new business models. The Commercial Management of TDG M2M/IoT encourages portfolio management, product launches and go-to-market strategies and activities, including all marketing activities. The performance of current marketing activities fails to comply with the growing market conditions, as leads are barely generated. Hence, the overall project aim of this project thesis is to lay the foundation for efficient, effective and customer-centric online marketing by means of an online touchpoint analysis. Focal point are three research questions that identify the most relevant customer touchpoints, the needed content as well as additional critical success factors that need to be considered. Desk- as well as field research will ensure valid data and qualitative results. Conclusions are drawn, determining the most relevant customer touchpoints online, per customer journey phase. Namely, press releases and word-of-mouth in the awareness phase, portals, blogs, forums, webinars and YouTube in the consideration phase and all along the journey search engines, social media and the corporate website are most relevant for customers. The closer a customer comes to a buying decision, the more important personal contact becomes. Within the deployment phase personal contact and personalized newsletter are the most effective communication ways. This project thesis recommends to use these customer insights for further marketing activities and align the content according to the suggestions in this project thesis. Furthermore, it is advised to launch an always-on campaign with the aim of raising brand awareness and IoT education in addition to selective marketing campaigns that are purely aiming on generating leads. SEM needs to be set up and additionally, the individual touchpoints should be improved to increase performance. Last but not least, controlling- and measurement activities should be implemented by making use of online data tracking, reporting and analyzing to continuously ensure customer-centric marketing.