Assignment Template

Module Title Digital Marketing Strategy

Module Code 772003

Assessment Element Performance Marketing Plan & Pitch

Module Leader Dr Khalil Alagha

[email protected]
Teaching Team Benjamin Spence
[email protected]
Word Count 2,500 & 10 PowerPoint pitch slides
(with up to 50 words per slide in the
notes)
First Sit or Resit? Both

Reassessment by resubmission or new Resubmission

assessment?
Submission Date 12/06/2025

Assessment Submission (for student information)

eSubmission is the approved method for your programme of study. You must hand in
your assessed Assignment(s), for all modules that you are taking during the 2024/25
Academic Year using the Canvas system. Submission of a printed copy is NOT
allowed. You should submit via the Assignments menu item on the relevant module
Canvas site.

Assignments must be submitted by the date and time stipulated. Deadlines will be
strictly adhered to. Students submitting late, and who do not have additional
considerations approved by the Additional Consideration Committee, will be subject
to penalties for late submission specified by the University. Please note that Saturday
and Sunday are treated as “working days” for the purposes of the late submission
policy.

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Assignment Title

PERFORMANCE MARKETING PLAN & PITCHING

BRIEF – YOUR TASK

Acting as a Digital Marketing consultant, you have been asked to prepare a

Performance Marketing Plan and a short ‘pitch’ PowerPoint slide deck for an
organisation of your choice. The plan should be for 6 months of activity.

The Outputs:

1. Performance Marketing Plan: 2500 words (+/- 10%)

Tables, images, charts, and reference list are not included in the word
count. Table of contents and appendices are not included in the word
count, but you are expected to include the key elements in the main body
of the report.

2. Pitch presentation containing 10 PowerPoint slides. (+ up to 50 words per

slide in the notes section).

Choosing an organisation:

• Select an SME (Small and medium-sized enterprise).

• Ensure that they have a website.
• They need to have a clear goal which you will identify, this may mean
they sell something (including eCommerce, but not necessarily via their
own platform). Typical goals could include:
o Direct sales.
o Sales via other eRetailers e.g. Amazon.
o Building a database of potential customers to follow up.
o Building a brand/awareness.
o Directing traffic e.g. to a media channel like YouTube.
o Improving Customer Service/Customer Experience (CX).
o Build email subscriptions.

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Target Audience:

You are encouraged to develop a clear target audience for the plan. This may be in
one of the following broad groups depending on the Mission, Vision and Aims of the
organisation. You will need to develop full in depth ‘Personas’ in your assignment:

• Consumers
For products and services consumed by consumers
• Customers
For products and services bought for consumption by others, this may be the
case for Business to Business (B2B) based organisations
• Audiences
For social, charity and not-for-profit organisations that may be engaging in
activities which include behaviour change or wish to improve the image of
their brand, products or services e.g. health campaigns, environmental
campaigns, local government services or education

Using appropriate performance marketing channels and tactics, you need to

reach the target audience and set an overall aim for your campaign related to the
‘clear goal’ identified above. From this, you should quantify three clear objectives
for your client. Examples of objectives could be:

Examples of Objectives for Performance Marketing Plan

• Build a database of 2000 customers within 6 months through dissemination of
‘white papers’ and creating CTAs on social video posts.
• Increase sales by 10% within 6 months, through paid advertising.
• Improve customer service interactions (based on customer satisfaction scores) by
20%, through the creation of a new chatbot with direct access to human customer
service agents within 6 months.
• Improve SEO performance, by increasing the number and efficiency of backlinks
from authoritative domains. To achieve this, we will perform an email campaign
and provide at least 50 guest posts in the next 6 months.
• Improve website performance, by reducing bounce rates by 10% within 6 months.
We will improve loading times and create more relevant landing pages for all paid
media.
• Build client base by adding six additional consultancy clients in the next 6 months.
We will obtain them by polling our current clients and creating a referral
programme to reward recommendations and referrals.
• Improve sales by 20% in the next 6 months by developing an affiliate marketing
campaign.
• Develop B2B sales, adding £1m in 6 months by improving CTAs on the website and
AB testing paid keyword campaigns.
• Build online thought leadership within the X (insert) B2B marketplace. Within 6
months, create a targeted blog dealing with customers' major challenges. These
blog posts will answer questions and give readers information on how to
overcome challenges in the sector. Posts will include how other services and
products complementary to our business can also help, thus encouraging
backlinks.

You will need to show that you understand the market environment from a digital
perspective. It is also important that you can create an integrated approach, using
many of the ‘tools’ identified in this module. You will need to show how the plan will
be delivered,

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using a ‘planner’ or ‘Gantt chart’ and how you will measure the success of your plan
using digital analytics and KPIs.

Assignment Structure
It is important that your plan is integrated, fits together and flows throughout. It is
recommended that you follow the following structure for your plan:

• Executive Summary: this should be less than one page and should not be an
introduction. An executive summary should explain the key elements of the
plan to a customer.
• Digital Analysis: You should conduct a digital analysis, outlining the
current situation. Depending on your client, this could include the
following:
o Website analysis
o Keyword research - look at the site and see what keywords they are
currently targeting by looking at the onpage SEO, possibly backlink
profile (Ubersuggest) and possibly PPC (Wordstream)
o You can check Canvas for details of tools like AHrefs to see
what their current off-page profile looks like and how to improve
this
o Fresh content - Age and quality
• Strategy:
o What is the strategy you are following? Explain the main elements of
the plan and top-line details of the Performance Marketing
tools/channels you are using.
o Target Audience details/persona’s.
o Online Marketplace Map: showing how your target audience
navigates the web.
o What is your idea/message? This should be an umbrella for the plan.
o OVP: Online Value Proposition: Why should your audience engage
with your strategy?
• Tactics:
o The details of your strategy are brought to life with examples.
o This should include all of the tactics/performance marketing tools
you are using. Consider the following, which are covered in this
module:
 Website
 SEO – on-page and off-page
 Paid Search
 Display Advertising
 Email Marketing
 Affiliate Marketing
 Mobile Marketing
o They should fit together in a coherent way.
o Use images, examples and tables. Remember, this is a professional plan.
• Action Planner:
o Illustrate the tactics on a planner, which will be 6 months long.
o This can be a table or a Gantt Chart.
• Control:
o Finally, illustrate how you are going to control your plan.
o What are the digital metrics you are going to use to show if your
plan is working?
 Can you show these in relation to the objectives you have set?

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Be critical and creative in your work. Due to the nature of the assignment, you might
decide to make a number of assumptions, on which you base your recommendations.
Please make sure you explain your assumptions clearly so that the marker can
understand your suggestions and rationales.

• You are to present the assignment as a report, with a maximum length of 2500
words (+/- 10%). Tables, images, charts, and reference list are not included in
the word count.
• Use appropriate references and include a bibliography in Harvard style.
• You must acknowledge any factual sources of information and include references
to ideas, assertions or concepts used in your discussion. Failure to adequately
referencing resources is treated as plagiarism under the regulation of The
Business School, University of Hull.

Using AI/LLM in This Assignment

• New ideas, original thinking and your analysis are required for this assignment,
which will not be found through AI Generative tools/LLMs (Large Language
Models) such as ChatGPT, so it is recommended that these are avoided.
• If you do use such tools, you need to verify the accuracy and reference the
use of the LLM as a source.
• A full record of the entire discussion must be included in the Appendix, labelled
as AI discussion transcript.
• Since LLMs generate ‘original text’, then for the purposes of fair use, we will
treat ChatGPT or Bard, or any other AI as an original author. However, you are
only allowed to use only direct quotations from LLMs at this stage, present
them within direct quotation marks “….” and include the corresponding page
number from the AI discussion transcript.
• Example text: The challenges of conceptualising digital technologies are
escalating because the nature of digital assets is “dynamic, multifaceted, and
ever-evolving.. Digital assets encompass a wide range of intangible elements
that pose unique considerations and intricacies, making their
conceptualization and management a formidable task” (ChatGPT, p.4). You
will then need to find evidence to verify that with academic references.
• AI-systems are prone to hallucinations. Augment the AI-output by at least
one additional academic or industry resource, ideally more than one so that
you can approach the argument from various perspectives.
• Finally, do not over-use AI-generated text, follow the instructions above.
• Like any other source, unreferenced use of AI to create content for an
assignment is academic misconduct.

Pitch Presentation

You are also required to produce 10 PowerPoint slides in the format of a “sales pitch”
based on your plan. This should persuade your client to select you as a Digital
Marketing Consultant. You should be focused on the key selling points of your plan and
also examples/images to bring the pitch to life rather than relying on words/bullet points
alone. You are allowed to put up to 50 words per slide in the notes section if there is
something you specifically want to communicate about the content.

Whilst there are many ways you can present your pitch, you may want to think about
the following:

1. Identify the challenge(s) facing your client with an overview from your
Digital Analysis.
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Provide a solution and your ‘value proposition’ – why the client should select your ideas.
2. Strategy, including target audience and OVP (online value proposition).
3. Tactics.
4. Action Plan.
5. Key performance metrics – how you will measure the success of the campaign.

Tools

You are required to make use of the tools which you have used in the
module to show your ability to apply them critically for a real case.

Marking Grid

The marks for this assignment will be applied weighted as described in the table
below. This should be read in conjunction with the postgraduate grade descriptors in
your programme handbook.

Weighting
Clear executive summary 5%
Digital analysis of the environment and website etc 15%
Relevant Objectives (SMART) 5%
Strategy 15%
Tactics using relevant performance marketing tools integrated to 30%
meet objectives, relevant to case & audience
Planner 5%
Clear understanding of control and measurement of the performance 10%
marketing plan
Quality of Client Pitch 15%

The following Programme Competencies are assessed in this assignment (taken

from the module specification:

PC Programme Competency Statement (DM&A)

PC 2 Use creative-thinking, ideation and initiative to support digital innovation, creating
impactful and enterprising solutions.
Convey complex, engaging and instructional information, ideas and plans relevant to
PC 3
digital
marketing and advertising to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
PC 4 Take responsibility for one’s own practice, and collaboratively work with others to
deliver a shared goal in virtual, remote and physical team-working environment.
PC 5 Demonstrate future-focused digital leadership, engaging and empowering people to
build
effective and high-performing teams in professional settings.
Locate, embrace, leverage and evaluate digital mediums, technologies, tools and
PC 7
platforms ethically and responsibly to create and run high-converting digital reach out
campaigns.
Collect, critically analyse, and evaluate complex data and organise advanced and
PC 8
established
digital marketing and advertising research and enquiry techniques.
Design and develop advanced specialist digital marketing and advertising strategies,
PC 9
activities and plans, mirroring or based on real-world practice.

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POTENTIAL INFORMATION SOURCES

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You are encouraged to use academic sources, digital marketing textbooks, market
information from reputable sources and digital tools. A good starting place is
databases where you will find tools and links to the major sources you require. The
text books for this module are also available on your reading list.

Market information can be found online and include the following which can be
accessed through the databases:

• MINTEL Reports
• Euromonitor International (Passport)
• WARC Reports

Marking Criteria

Each section of the grid above will be graded as a % using the classifications
below. These marking grades are based on the Hull University Business
School Postgraduate Taught Grading Descriptors (Level 7 – See the
Postgraduate Programme Canvas Site):

• Distinction 70+
• High Merit 65-69
• Merit 60-64
• Pass 55-59
• Marginal Pass 50-54
• Fail Less than 50