Maximising Return on Marketing Investment for Tourism SMEs through online analytics

The aim of this PhD is to develop a digital analytics measurement framework to enable SMEs in the tourism sector to optimise the return on investment from their online marketing. Although online marketing is growing in importance as more people use the Internet to research and purchase holidays, the lack of digital analytics knowledge is a significant weakness in tourism SME online marketing strategy because it acts as a barrier to measuring return on investment and evaluating strategic direction.
In a recently completed ESRC-funded study "Digital Destinations" led by Dr Alford, which investigated current online marketing practice among SMEs, less than 5% of the 60 SMEs that participated in the project were utilising digital analytics.

This PhD is timely in two aspects: firstly, in that it will extend Digital Destinations and conduct an in depth digital analytics study among a sub set of the Digital Destinations cohort which have expressed a strong interest in acquiring digital analytics insights. The Digital Destinations project studied the attitudes to and practice of online marketing planning and this PhD will enable a framework to be developed for the measurement and evaluation of that marketing. Secondly, the study will also be conducted with the 15 businesses that comprise the VisitWiltshire Online Marketing Group. This group was established to give a voice to the 550 businesses that comprise the VisitWiltshire membership and in his capacity as both Chair of the OMG and member of the VisitWiltshire board, Dr Alford is in a position to ensure the research influences public policy.

This PhD is innovative in the way that it will develop the digital analytics measurement framework via an iterative process taking the form of a mixed methods Action Research project, testing digital marketing in a live context. The mixed methods will generate qualitative data from interviews with the business owners, which will be analysed with Nvivo and quantitative data from sources including Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and email marketing analytics, which will be analysed through a range of methods including Structural Equation Modelling. The results will be discussed with the owner of the business in order to place the results in the wider online marketing context.

The student will undergo training in the following areas:
• Digital Analytics: this training will focus on Google Analytics including creating tailor-made dashboards, constructing advanced segments, setting conversion goals and creating Google Experiments; however in addition to Google Analytics, the student will also receive training on other software which generates analytical data including Hootsuite, MailChimp, Facebook Insights, twitrratr.com; this training will be provided by the supervisory team and through online courses (for example US-based Market Motive provides comprehensive online training for 3 months at a cost of £500);
• Statistical analysis: while a basic grasp of statistics is a pre-requisite, the student will receive extensive training on structural equation modelling;
• Nvivo: in order to capture and code the interview data, the student will enrol on the QDA Training workshops organised by the Graduate School (one of Dr Alford’s PhD students recently completed these workshops which will help to provide peer to peer support).
• Online marketing: the theory and practice of online marketing will be provided by the supervisory team as well as through attendance at academic and industry conferences and forums including the Academy of Marketing and the ENTER conference aimed at tourism academics and practitioners.