Portfolio of Burberry's Digital Marketing Strategy

This exploration and analysis was conducted at the end of 2022.

Introduction

Once an innovator in digital marketing within the luxury fashion industry, Burberry may no longer be a leader due to the quickly changing nature of the digital space.

Omnichannel Marketing

Burberry implemented omnichannel marketing by encouraging customers to transition between the website and the app, with the app offering multiple services for customers to gain more information. However, the app is very limited by not being able to shift to another channel.

Paid and Organic Marketing

The site is at the top of search engine results pages when “Burberry” is searched, both in organic and paid marketing. However, when keywords are inputted that do not include “Burberry”, but include prominent products, the site does not appear.

Inbound and Affiliate Marketing

Through social media and blog posts citing Burberry, they keep a positive sentient online, but limited referrals are coming to the website. Burberry’s affiliate marketing campaigns with Minecraft have increased their engagement and reach online.

Data Compliance and Ethics

Burberry has adhered to data privacy and management laws by offering transparency to their customers about the use of their data, the security of the data, and the ability to reject the use of their data.

Social Media and Competitors

Burberry is trailing behind its competitors in social media presence, with its competitors having a further reach and driving more traffic to their respective sites. Burberry does not optimise its presence compared to its competitors, only producing what is necessary.

Recommendations

Three recommendations for Burberry are to start a campaign on TikTok and Instagram encouraging customers to show how their products fit into different aesthetics, link their products to Pinterest that allows customers to understand how their products can be styled to improve omnichannel marketing and invest in keywords that do not include their brand name, but well-known products of theirs.

Introduction

Burberry is a designer fashion brand founded in London by Thomas Burberry in 1856. Currently known for the Burberry check and trenchcoat, Burberry is a big-name fashion brand, earning £2,826 million in revenue in 2022 (Burberry, 2022). However, many luxury brands rely on their name to continue their success instead of investing in marketing strategy.

Due to their previous reputation of innovation in marketing in the fashion industry, Burberry managed to increase its revenue (Phan & Heine, 2011). However, it should be investigated as to whether brands can continue innovation in marketing consistently due to the ever-changing nature of the digital world, thus digital marketing in return. The summary above outlines the following portfolio evaluating Burberry’s current marketing strategy, following recommendations for improvement in Burberry’s marketing strategy.

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing has become extremely important for businesses to adopt as customers can experience an enhanced and smoother experience (Trenz, et al., 2020). Before, businesses were using multi-channel marketing that focused on pulling consumers in through several channels separately (Banerjee & Bhardwaj, 2019; Lehrer & Trenz, 2022). Nowadays, more businesses are using omnichannel marketing, where companies can use multiple platforms simultaneously, with customers transitioning from one channel to another seamlessly throughout their journey, including post-purchase support (Lehrer & Trenz, 2022).

Burberry attempted to adopt omnichannel marketing between its website and app. Through the app, the customer can find the closest store, as well as use a messaging service to ask questions about services or products. However, there is no way for the customer to switch from the app to the website. Therefore, customers are contained in one channel. Yet, the app does have a personalised experience for the customer. Through many tabs of the app, customers can look through pieces that the app believes they could be interested in, either based on trending pieces or your previous order history.

Through the website, customers can access Burberry’s social media accounts through links. Yet, the links are only to their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Considering Burberry is present on other social networks and gains much of its traffic to its website from Pinterest (Figure 1), it is hindering that only three networks are linked. For there to be a seamless transition from the website to the social network accounts, Burberry should provide all the links on their site.

Overall, Burberry is attempting an omnichannel marketing approach by having its customers gain information and support through the app. However, the seamless transition between the website and other channels, such as the app and multiple social networks, could be improved.

Figure 1. A graph detailing which social networks drive the most traffic to the site.

Organic and Paid Marketing

Businesses can optimise their Search Engine Marketing through either organic or paid marketing. Organic and paid marketing comes under Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which refers to the strategy of businesses improving their site listing on search engine results pages through either organic or paid search (Wynne, 2011). Understanding how to balance the two aspects is important for companies to succeed (Spencer, 2011). The difference between them is organic marketing involves improving your listing by including the keywords users input in your site copy, headings and having credible backlinks to your site, while paid search involves companies buying keywords for the search engine to place them higher (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2022)

Burberry implements both organic and paid marketing to improve the listing of their site. Most of their SEO is organic (Figure 2), possibly due to the reach of their website. However, this is not surprising as much of the traffic originates from search channels. When “Burberry” is inputted into search engines, it appears in both organic results and paid ad results (Figure 3), thus having many opportunities for consumers to click on their website. However, this only occurs when the brand name is searched. Other terms, such as “plaid scarf” or “designer trench coat”, do not filter Burberry to a top result (Figure 4). This hinders the company as both these products are notorious Burberry products (Padia, 2022). Therefore, not appearing in either organic or paid listings limits the traffic of potential customers.

Organic and paid marketing are implemented well by Burberry as both are encouraging many consumers to the website. However, Burberry should aim to appear higher on the search engine results page when other keywords are inputted that do not include their brand name.

Figure 2. A graphic detailing the distribution between paid and organic marketing.

Figure 3. A screenshot of the search results page when “Burberry” is searched.

Figure 4. A screenshot of the Google search engine results page when “designer trench coat womens” is searched.

Inbound and Affiliate Marketing

Inbound

Inbound marketing is a strategy that offers information to customers about their products and services through blogs and social networking. Hence, consumers will hopefully find more information by going onto the website (Loredana, 2017).

Blogs and social media that often reference Burberry create a significant amount of engagement online. Firstly, social media and blog posts tend to have a positive sentiment of Burberry (Figure 8). However, referrals and social media only generate 6% of traffic to the website (Figure 5), suggesting consumers do not want to search for the products. Therefore, the content may not be encouraging users to buy the products, but perhaps only seeing the brand in a positive light.

Affiliate

Affiliate marketing refers to brands collaborating to bring in potential consumers and is often commission-based (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2022).

Looking into Burberry’s affiliate marketing, they have an upcoming collaboration with Minecraft, where they have partnered to create a game in Minecraft. This increased awareness for Burberry with their reach growing to 2.8 million from 1.3 million two days before (Figure 7) and a total engagement of 80.2K for the Burberry article by the Roblox Corporation (Buzzsumo, 2022). Ultimately, this collaboration heightened Burberry’s engagement and reach. However, it is questionable as to why Burberry carried out this collaboration due to the opposing demographics (Figure 9), but this has not limited the discourse online as seen by the figures.

Figure 5. A graph detailing the traffic distribution channels for Burberry’s website.

Figure 7. A graph detailing the reach of Burberry’s reach when the Minecraft collaboration was announced.

Figure 8. A graph detailing the sentiments surrounding Burberry in online discourse.

Figure 9. A graph comparing Minecraft and Burberry’s gender demographics.

Data Compliance and Ethics

Due to the possibility of data being used without the user’s knowledge, guidelines and laws were implemented that Marketers should be aware of. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was brought in on 25th May 2018, before changing to the UK GDPR on 1 January 2021 (ICO, 2018). It consists of companies guaranteeing the safe use of users’ data, having full transparency to the use of their data (Council, 2016), and the right for users to reject the use of their data (Council, 2016).

Burberry has given consumers transparency on how their cookies are used. They state that they use cookies to improve their website, understand which channels individuals use to visit the site, personalise advertisements to their users, ensure their site functions to high quality, and comply with applicable laws (Burberry, 2022). Burberry has not had a data breach since the introduction of the GDPR. Furthermore, Burberry has become an ethically aware brand, ensuring they are environmentally friendly (Burberry, 2022). However, this was announced after the brand burning unsold products became public knowledge (BBC, 2018), but it has since changed that procedure (Handley, 2018), thus suggesting the change to be ethically conscious. Overall, Burberry is currently adhering to data guidelines and trying to consider their ethical impact.

Competitors and Social Media

Social media has become extremely important in recent years for marketing strategies as companies can gain advantages over competitors as well as improve their performance (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016). However, many brands are not optimizing their social media presence (Choi & Theoni, 2016), which can be detrimental as social media is a key aspect of a brand's success in the luxury market (Phan & Heine, 2011).

Burberry was once a leader in the luxury fashion industry for social media marketing (Phan & Heine, 2011), but this may no longer be the case. With Burberry competing against Gucci, Prada, and Dior, they seem to be struggling to compete as Burberry is only ahead of their competitors on Twitter (Figure 10). Both Gucci and Dior are leaders at sourcing traffic for their websites from social networks (Figure 11), possibly due to the optimisation of social media. Gucci’s Instagram account utilise Instagram stories, having multiple filters for their stories, depending on what the consumer is looking for. Burberry has not developed stories, only having five categories. Therefore, consumers may avoid their stories as there is too much content in each subdivision. Additionally, Gucci’s elevated social media presence could be affecting the stronger global reach compared to Burberry (Figure 12). However, it cannot be understood whether their social media presence is causing the increased global reach since both could be affecting each other. Burberry is trailing behind its competitors with social media presence due to the lack of optimisation and global reach.

Overall, Burberry could aim to increase its global reach through its social media presence by optimising its social media presence, especially on Instagram and TikTok. With both platforms prioritising images and video content, they would further a fashion brand as both could display upcoming collections.

Figure 10. A graph detailing how many followers each brand has on their social accounts sourced from SimilarWeb (SimilarWeb, 2022).

Figure 11. A graph detailing the traffic distribution to each brands website sourced from SimilarWeb (SimilarWeb, 2022).

Figure 12. A graph detailing the percentage of traffic shares to their site from different countries sourced from SimilarWeb (SimilarWeb, 2022).

Recommendations

Overall, Burberry has used an effective marketing strategy to gain customers. However, there are instances where Burberry does fall behind, such as with social media, omnichannel marketing, and organic marketing.

Regarding social media, Burberry could start a campaign on Instagram and TikTok where people are encouraged to show how different Burberry pieces can fit different aesthetics, which is popular with young people (Oh, 2021). With much of the traffic to Burberry coming from Pinterest (Figure 1), it seems many people enjoy the style Burberry fits into. Therefore, using the platforms of Instagram and TikTok, which focus on video and image content, individuals can be encouraged to create content showing the different aesthetics of Burberry products, such as “Plant Mum”, “Coastal Grandma” or “Cottagecore”.

Improving their omnichannel marketing, Burberry could add links on Pinterest for consumers to find their products on the website or app. Therefore, with many people enjoying the products on Pinterest, they can easily come back to the website by clicking on the product. Moreover, Burberry could show how products are styled through Pinterest Boards customers can see on the website.

Finally, their organic marketing can improve by investing in keywords that relate to trending products, such as “designer trench coat”. Therefore, when consumers do not know the brand, the site will appear on search engine results pages. This can be done through either buying keywords or coding them into their copy and headings.

Once Burberry implements these improvements, they could see an increase in engagement on social media and an increase in traffic on their site.