DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY IMPROVEMENT FOR COMPANY USING DIGITAL CUSTOMER JOURNEY APPROACH (STUDY CASE: PT BARCA TRIOS CHEMINDO)

• Main Author: Afaf, Naufal
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/80882
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

With the advance of internet, many B2B firms start to establish their online channel especially with E-Commerce channel to capture new customer, retain existing customer, capture new market area, getting better customer’s relationship and information, and upgrading their customer journey better. Including raw material supplier, PT Barca Trios Chemindo as distributor-agent of PT Kao Indonesia Chemicals selling principle’s raw material to manufactures and home industries who produce detergent and toiletries products. PT BTC mainly operates in Jabodetabek area (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi) and it doesn’t have branch or representative office in another region. PT BTC rely on conventional marketing strategy with using sales force, also own-vehicle and third-party logistic on operation needs. PT BTC on their digital customer journey, started in 2022 with launching of marketplace account channel to gain the advantage of situation. Company set objectives to acquire new customer, capture new market area, increase sales of revenue, increase customer satisfaction, acceptance of transaction, increase competitiveness of the company. On its implementation, company’s marketplace channel strategy gave increasing revenue and numbers of new buyers, but other side, there is low number of repeating order due to lack of knowledge and understanding of PT BTC to identify the current situation. They only buying once (didn’t repeat order) and mainly still coming from inside of Jabodetabek area showing that market penetration of the company still low. The purpose of this research is to study critical touch point of digital customer journey, collect its feedback, then determine the suitable digital marketing strategy and its supporting structural strategy to overcome the problems. The primary data collection is done by semi-structured interview with interviewing from company’s perspective and customer’s perspective during certain date range. Based on interview, director of company gave internal and external analysis key points including: current challenging and future plan, 9 core elements of marketing (Strategy, Tactical, Value) analysis, SWOT (Strenght, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis, Porter’s Five Force analysis, and PEST (Political, Economy, Social, Technology) analysis. Meanwhile, two customer group who consist of customer group A (buy more than once) and customer group B (buy just once) gave feedback of current digital customer journey by 5A’s framework (Awareness, Appeal, Ask, Act, Advocate). The secondary data collection is done by collecting information from published journals, articles ii and industrial reports, book, literature, also from company financial reports and the marketplace review. The conclusion of current digital customer journey with marketplace channel is effective enough to catch new buyer but less effective to retain their consistency to buy via online transaction. Most of them prefer to buy offline transaction due to several factors and its phenomena makes market place channel becomes less effective because it can easily substitute with other online strategy. The recommendation on this research is complementing and upgrading company’s online channel with establishing website channel strategy without eliminating marketplace channel. Establishing website channel consist of 3 stages, such as: developing website and its system with clear sitemap, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) mechanism, and installing website enabled to e-commerce facilities. Also, company needs to adjust its marketing company’s structure to support and perform their marketing strategy better especially on digital marketing. These steps of strategy will be implemented in range of certain time and specific unit in charge.