Essay Example on London's Digital Marketing Strategy: A Critical Analysis

Introduction

Most cities in the digital era promote themselves using digital platforms, primarily digital websites. London is an international destination for many tourists, students, and visitors who come for different purposes. Being an international destination, it serves as a perfect city to analyze for its website marketing strategy. In this paper, the focus is to recognize how London, a world-class city, has managed to use its official website for marketing.

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Critically evaluate how the City place promotes itself

London, as a city, takes pride in welcoming twenty-five million visitors annually. Firstly, they promote their institutions that offer different services to foreigners who expect to visit London. Learning institutions within the City are advertised on the website so that students can admire and visit the City. The total population of students that report to London every year is about one hundred and ten thousand. In terms of business, the City promotes its enterprises. The promotion has led to London being considered and being consistently rated as the best place to conduct business in Europe. The global city competition has made it almost compulsory for the City to promote itself.

The mayor of London has labeled himself a champion in promoting the City. The mayor of London has invested in an agency that promotes the City through its website and others. London and Partners agency is the official promotion agency used to market London as a city. The mission of the agency is to reach the international audience as much as they can. Through achieving the global audience, they should ensure they tell the story of London brilliantly to the international audience. The mayor's priorities are represented by the agency. The agency is expected to align itself with the expectations that London is the Best City to invest, study, work, and visit. The agency operates as a non-profit organization. The agency is not for public-private partnerships. The finances that run it are from the mayor's kitty and other commercial partners of the mayor. In terms of results evaluation, the agency has worked excellently well in promoting London as a city. The City has continued to score great numbers in categories like availability of important staff, access to markets and access to transport links. The three mentioned areas are proof that the agency is doing a commendable duty in promoting London as a city.

What is empathized and what is missing from the Official Website?

The official website of London focuses on a lot of issues. The site addresses the beauty of London through pictorials of essential places in London which are attractive. The website has six sections, each playing a role to communicate about London. The first section mainly focuses on general information regarding London. Information that emphasizes on ways that people can invest in London. It expresses ideas in which London remains the best city in the world. The second section focuses on different burrows in London. Each burrow is exploited as evaluated as a place for business opportunity, living, and visit. The third section of the website is focused on feedback. It is named to get involved. This section of the site requires a user to visit the website, register and comment about London as a city. The explanation is then collected for feedback to the administrative department of London (Talk London, 2020). The fourth section of the website named about us focuses on the administrative and management style of London as a city. The section put to light the structure of leadership from the mayor to the London assembly. It also analyses the governance and financial structure of the town. Each of the administrators and their duties has also been explained in completion. The next part described in the website as talk London is also about feedback. However, the feedback on this part focuses on what the public would like to do for London. The site allows the user to register and propose their impact on the future of London as a city. Ideas that are analyzed as perfect are considered for implementation.

The last of the website consists of a media center. The media center plays a role in displaying the different press that offers official communication regarding the City of London. It contains the mayor's official press release and the London assembly official press release. It is the section of the website which also offers official digital handles of the London administrators. The article contains the official Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and all the digital platforms of the administrators of London. All the mentioned sections are essential for marketing the city, except the website has not focused on describing the population distribution of London as a city (Talk London, 2020). The city demographic arrangement acts as a tool for marketing for visitors. It informs visitors of places they are likely to stay when they visit London. Demographics inform the visitors of where they are likely to find communities of their own when they visit so that they can stay. The most important information missing from the website is the London City demographics and population distribution.

How does the website affect the city's image?

The website affects the image of the city to a large extent in the positive. The website addresses all the concerns that any visitor regarding the town. It details information regarding business, communities, economies, environment, and health. In terms of marketing, the website does a commendable duty by exposing only the positives about London. For people who wish to pursuit education-related issues, the site provides a list of their best schools. It also emphasizes the curriculum that the school uses. The site is loaded with relevant information regarding London, which promotes the positive image of London. The image of London is affected positively by the website. Through accessing the site, any visitors would love to access London. The website is keen on protecting the international status of London and downplaying any possibilities that might arise to crimes, terrorism and other city vices which is good for the city's image

A comparison between Cities is encouraged

The website markets London as a city but does not fail to recognize the competition that exists between London and other world cities that are rising rapidly. London has always been a world leader and attractive to business. As noted on the website, the London top city position is threatened by other cities. The city of Singapore has moved to regulate international financial markets. This move by Singapore has made it more attractive in business than in London (Han, 2017). The regulation of the global financial market threatens London's attractiveness to the financial sector. The example of Singapore is just but one example of the city threatening to oust its dominance.

In the case of technology and research, Shanghai, through its website, has always remained a threat to London. Although London takes pride in innovation and technology through its world-class academic institutions, Shanghai poses a risk by creating new inventions day after day. Shanghai's latest design is a marketing threat to London, especially on international students seeking to further their academic journeys (Chan, & Li, 2017). Rapid technology within London has placed it in an advanced position than Shanghai. The development of biomedical research cities puts it at an advanced level than Shanghai.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from the analysis above, it is clear that part of London's success as a city is based on its advancement in using digital platforms where the website is proof. The information on the website provides just what an international city should look like and how best it should be used as a marketing tool.

References

"Talk London". Talk London, 2020, https://www.london.gov.uk/talk-london/.

Chan, R. C., & Li, L. (2017). Entrepreneurial city and the restructuring of urban space in the Shanghai Expo. Urban Geography, 38(5), 666-686. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02723638.2016.1139909

Han, H. (2017). Singapore, a garden city: Authoritarian environmentalism in a developmental state. The Journal of Environment & Development, 26(1), 3-24. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1070496516677365.