Strategic Management Plan

Strategic Management Plan for GoDaddy

  1. Transmittal Letter

Karen Tillman

Chief Communications Officer, GoDaddy

14455 N Hayden Rd Suite 100, 

Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Dear Ms. Tillman,

It is a great pleasure to write back to you enclosing my agency’s analysis and 2020 Strategic Management Plan for GoDaddy. This report is the result of extensive research into GoDaddy’s internal and external business channels, and we are confident it will aid in your quest to improve company culture, grow talent, increase GoDaddy Social’s capabilities and presence, acquire new technological offerings, and more.

We ask that readers of this document take the time to review each segment carefully and perform their own analysis. With the aid of this plan, we believe your team will be able to take a strong course of action in this new year.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Torre

Chief Operations Officer, STORRE Communications Agency

600 Congress Avenue

Austin, TX 78701

  1. Executive Summary

GoDaddy is a rising technology company that focuses primarily on web hosting and holds the title as the world’s biggest domain registrar. The company seeks to continue to expand its website and social media capabilities, eventually becoming a worldwide name like Google. GoDaddy was founded in 1997 by Bob Parsons with the goal of helping small businesses and independent ventures. Today, the company has over 9,000 employees worldwide, over 18.5 million customers, and the company itself is worth $11.52 billion. The company is best known for its television advertisements and print advertisements. 

In order to combat the lack of knowledge of GoDaddy’s capabilities and assist in acquiring new businesses or technologies, the following strategic plan has been created. This plan is the result of an analysis on GoDaddy’s operations, and will include strategic objectives and tactics to augment growth and awareness, while identifying hindering factors, company success, a budget outline for this plan, and more.

Three main objectives have been created:

  • A plan to increase awareness of the importance of owning your own web domain and creating/maintaining a website by 30% within the year 2020 to Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z. 
  • A plan to make 75% of small businesses and customers more aware of GoDaddy’s appreciation and loyalty to service through onboarding and retention processes, as well as advertising campaigns during the second half of the year 2020.
  • A plan to increase the perception of GoDaddy as an inclusive and progressive tech company that puts customer needs first by 50% in the year 2020. 
  1. Organizational Background

History

Bob Parsons was an entrepreneur living in Baltimore, Maryland looking for a new business venture. In 1994, Intuit purchased his financial software services company, Parsons Technology, for a total of $65 million. After a quick retirement of three years, Parsons decided to start Jomax Technologies, which was renamed to GoDaddy Group Inc., and later shortened to GoDaddy. The iconic name came about after a roundtable meeting with Jomax Technologies employees, when someone jokingly recommended the name “Big Daddy” to become the official name. Parsons enjoyed the playful nature of the name and how it made everyone in the room smile, so he suggested “Go Daddy” and purchased the business name. The company later changed its name and branding from “Go Daddy” to “GoDaddy” in February of 2006.

Growth

By 2001, Newark Solutions, Dotster, and eNom were competing with GoDaddy. GoDaddy had quickly become a strong competitor in the domain registrar atmosphere. Four years later, the company was credited as the largest domain registrar on the internet. By 2018, GoDaddy was recognized as the world’s largest web host with a registrar of over 62 million purchased domains. In 2018, it was announced that the vast majority of Amazon Web Services infrastructure will be migrated to GoDaddy over a multi-year transition. 2019 was also a strong year for GoDaddy as they saw a strong impact from advertisements and celebrity partnerships.

Acquisitions

Since 2012, GoDaddy has shown an impressive track record of acquiring various tech-related companies to expand their capabilities. They have averaged two to three acquisitions per year. Some of the companies they have acquired include Sellbrite (a multi-channel ecommerce service) Mainstreet Hub (a personalized, social-media service for small businesses), and Cognate (a blockchain trademark startup) among others.

Values

  • Customer Focus – make someone’s day
  • Own Outcomes – help change the world 
  • Join Forces – teamwork
  • Work Fearlessly – in order to innovate, take risks
  • Live Passionately – find personal fulfillment 

Highlights

  • Massive, underserved global market
  • Compelling customer value proposition
  • Trusted partner and champion of our customers
  • Large, high-growth business with attractive unit economics
  • Proven growth strategy with team purpose built to execute
  1. Situational Analysis

GoDaddy’s core mission is to empower entrepreneurs everywhere. Their strategic priorities as a company include offering market-leading products, a unique and personalized customer experience, an all-encompassing market tool, high-quality and high-speed platforms, a secure interface for customer work and data, and continue to enable businesses all over the world through successful acquisitions and integrations.

STRENGTHS

  • Skilled and diverse workforce.
  • In-depth learning and training programs as a result of long-term investments.
  • Automation of activities and services. 
  • Successful track record of present and past mergers and acquisitions.
  • Streamlined operations.
  • Successful implementation of new projects and steady revenue streams.
  • Company success on entering new markets like ecommerce, social media, and blockchain.
  • Successful marketing strategies.

WEAKNESSES

  • Difficulty in market forecasting.
  • ROI is lower than competitors.
  • Organization structure isn’t flexible — only relevant to current business model.
  • Gaps in product offerings, which can give competitors a leg up in the industry.
  • Lack of presents within niche markets.
  • Difficulty integrating firms and work cultures during acquisitions.
  • Lack of in-depth knowledge about the company and its services.

OPPORTUNITIES

  • Opportunity to enter new markets in a growing technological landscape.
  • Stable market.
  • Services can be used in multiple fields and settings — not just for one demographic.
  • New acquisitions have enabled GoDaddy to possess more offerings, and therefore make them a stronger competitor.
  • Uptick in consumer spending means GoDaddy can capture new customers and increase their market share.
  • Stable cash flow allows the company to invest in new opportunities.

THREATS

  • Shortage of staff paired with fast growth presents internal issues for the company.
  • Currency fluctuations across global markets.
  • Liability laws and different governments across the globe mean that GoDaddy has to be prepared for various global scenarios and have policies or plans in place to be ready for these situations.
  • New technologies developed by competitors or market disruptors.
  1. Plan

Objective #1:  Increase awareness of the importance of owning your own web domain and creating/maintaining a website by 30% within the year 2020 to Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z.

Strategy: Utilize social media platforms to drive conversation among younger demographics regarding online presence, building an online portfolio, and more.

  1. Tactic 1: Survey current customers to see how important they think GoDaddy’s services are and how important it is to have a reputable social media presence using likert scales and qualitative feedback.
  2. Tactic 2: Create an advertising campaign utilizing boosted/sponsored posts and regular social posts to highlight the importance of maintaining a professional online presence. Examples of content posted will include live streams with execs, blog posts, Facebook and Instagram stories, employee interviews, video series on Facebook and Instagram, and infographics. 
  3. Tactic 3: Partner with colleges and universities across the US to give informative talks on campus about building your online presence, how it can help students with their career, what to post to your personal website, statistics or research on the subject, and other similar topics.
  4. Tactic 4: Formulate a public relations campaign to emphasize GoDaddy’s dedication to customers and helping to change the world. This campaign will highlight events GoDaddy will host and upcoming services the company has obtained through recent acquisitions to help customers boost their online presence further.
  5. Tactic 5: Introduce the hashtag #GoDaddyPresence to encourage people online to start a conversation about what having a strong social media presence means to each individual, and encourage audiences to start networking with one another to form lasting business relationships.

Objective #2: Make 75% of small businesses and customers more aware of GoDaddy’s appreciation and loyalty to service through onboarding and retention processes, as well as advertising campaigns during the second half of the year 2020.

Strategy: Restructure internal communication methods between employees and customers for more personalized services and customer appreciation bonuses.

  1. Tactic 1: Offer free “lead generators” for client’s to use on their own customers. Materials like this can include free, downloadable PDF/print materials for their customers to use in exchange for capturing their email or driving engagement.
  2. Tactic 2: Designate special customer-appreciation days to offer GoDaddy customers special discounts or added services.
  3. Tactic 3: Create internal feedback tool to gain insight into each internal team’s needs when it comes to serving their customers better.
  4. Tactic 4: Send onboarding package to new customers who sign up for GoDaddy’s services. Onboarding packages will include pamphlets with information, a personal note from an employee who will be working with that specific customer, a pen, a notebook, a cup, and a GoDaddy magnet. This will be a small way to thank customers for signing up and choosing to be a part of the GoDaddy family.
  5. Tactic 5: Create persuasive presentations or call scripts for the onboarding process to help customers understand the service better and feel more included in the process. These presentations and calls can also act as a knowledge tool for customers who don’t understand how to use websites or social media sites. We want these customers to still feel important and involved!

Objective #3: Increase the perception of GoDaddy as an inclusive and progressive tech company that puts customer needs first by 50% in the year 2020. 

Strategy: Use a combination of social media usage, advertisements, events, nonprofit partnerships, and paid media coverage to promote inclusive messages.

  1. Tactic 1: Offer guest-writer opportunities to students on GoDaddy’s blog (short-form blog posts only).
  2. Tactic 2: Instead of celebrity endorsements or the traditional ads GoDaddy has put out in the past, feature more wholesome ads about building up entrepreneurs, students, and minorities.
  3. Tactic 3: Practice corporate social responsibility. Partner with more nonprofits, create donation funnels within their site, host events with them, and support social causes. Own up to past controversies, and strive to be more progressive.
  4. Tactic 4: Highlight the diversity of GoDaddy employees and internal organizations on social media by doing office-location spotlights and individual employee spotlights.
  5. Tactic 5: Utilize small businesses, artists, and actors in each advertisement to showcase an entire campaign developed by the small businesses and entrepreneurs GoDaddy supports.

VI. Critical Success Factors

Objective 1

Opportunities: 

  • Easy access to stakeholders via survey or other correspondence.
  • Target new demographics, and win new business.

Barriers:

  • Lack of interest from the public or target audiences.
  • Difficulty explaining the multitude of services GoDaddy offers.

Environment:

  • External: GoDaddy has worldwide reach, making it easy to gain media coverage or form new partnerships.
  • Internal: Train employees to provide customers with a more in-depth experience, and have them participate in social media campaigns.

Resources:

  • Media outlets.
  • Survey research.
  • Partnerships.

Objective 2

Opportunities:

  • Unique customer-appreciation perks will gain the company more interest and favorability compared to competitors who don’t offer perks.
  • Offering customers a more personalized and holistic service to manage their business and online appearance.
  • Build trust with customers.

Barriers:

  • Customers might find freebies skeptical.
  • More freebies or customer perks could indicate service-price increases.

Environment:

  • External: Added resources will attract new customers and help retain current customers.
  • Internal: New customer perks could complicate the onboarding process, but it could add new job roles within the company.

Resources:

  • Internal marketing and customer-oriented teams.
  • Advertising

Objective 3

Opportunities:

  • Favorable and positive reputation.
  • Staying true to the company’s mission.
  • Growing range of clientele and internal departments.

Barriers:

  • Progressive values might deter certain people from using the service.
  • Reputation is determined by clients, partners, and individuals the company works with.

Environment:

  • External: Educate the public about GoDaddy, the company mission, and services.
  • Internal: Diverse group of workers brings unique skills and personalities to the company’s culture.

Resources:

  • Internal communication.
  • Blog and social media.
  • Advertising

VII. Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators are crucial for evaluating the success of business decisions and employee productivity. The following are a few KPIs that will measure the success of our objectives and accomplishments.

Objective 1: Increase awareness of the importance of owning your own web domain and creating/maintaining a website by 30% within the year 2020 to Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z.

Benchmark: Gather quantitative and qualitative data through surveys to produce well-targeted advertising campaigns, and form lasting partnerships.

KPI: Utilize a quarterly survey to determine the level of awareness among customers, and track social media analytics by the week, month, and year to identify trends.

Objective 2: Make 75% of small businesses and customers more aware of GoDaddy’s appreciation and loyalty to service through onboarding and retention processes, as well as advertising campaigns during the second half of the year 2020.

Benchmark: Gather customer feedback, internal feedback from employees, as well as track the number of lead-generator downloads and new registrations.

KPI: Average out the customer-satisfaction scores, ticket-volume trends, and monitor the increase of new-customer registrations.

Objective: Increase the perception of GoDaddy as an inclusive and progressive tech company that puts customer needs first by 50% in the year 2020. 

Benchmark: Survey current customers, and utilize social media polls to determine the public’s perception about GoDaddy.

KPI: Increased online or media discussions about GoDaddy’s brand, advertisements, capabilities, ethics, and culture, and measure an uptick in social media analytics.

VIII. Timeline

This plan was developed to be utilized in increments over the year of 2020. Working on one phase of the plan at a time will allow GoDaddy to focus efforts on each task to ensure meaningful results and track the success of each task. The Gantt chart below demonstrates how GoDaddy will implement this strategy over the course of 2020.

IX. Budget

GoDaddy has a multitude of internal departments that can assist in creating materials and implementing practices, which will in turn save funds and allow for more ROI. For advertisements, however, the best practice is to hire an outside firm. The following budget includes work efforts, materials, production, technology, and more.

ItemCost
Actors for advertisements$40 an hour
Videographers for live streams and ads$20 an hour
Monthly lead-generation materials and production$1500
Freebie care package and items for new customers$5000 per month
Pre-surveyFree
Post-surveyFree
Monthly boosted posts for worldwide reach$10,000
Restructuring onboarding processTBD
Permanent, internal feedback mechanism$15,000
Market researchTBD
Celebrity partnerships$5000+
Paid speaking events at universities +$4000 per event
Marketing collateral $30,000 per month
International Public Relations campaign budget$150,000
Guest bloggersUnpaid
Website and service maintenance No charge
Adobe software for content editingTBD monthly fee
Props rental for photo and video shoots$150 flat rate fee
Print materials $600

X. Evaluation

Apart from measuring the campaign’s success through KPI’s, there are other measurement tools and indicators to assess and record. The survey results, Google Analytics, social media analytics, and other internal tracking software must be used. The results of each objective will be determined by the following factors:

Objective 1:

  • Social media engagement
  • Media coverage
  • Survey results
  • Customer and employee satisfaction scores
  • Attendance numbers at events
  • ROI
  • Uses of the hashtag “#GoDaddyPresence”
  • Website traffic

Objective 2:

  • Number of sign ups
  • Customer and employee satisfaction
  • Ticket volume trends
  • Revenue per employee
  • Retention rate
  • Website traffic
  • Work productivity
  • Survey results
  • Number of people using the feedback mechanisms

Objective 3:

  • Inquiries about guest-writing opportunities
  • Online conversations (Social media listening)
  • Shares per blog post
  • Video views
  • Positive media coverage
  • Number of sign ups
  • Engagement online
  • Positive media coverage
  • Post-survey results

References:

Barron, B. (2019, February 19). 10 KPIs to monitor back office productivity. Retrieved from https://www.godaddy.com/garage/10-kpis-back-office-productivity/.

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/DADY:US.

Make your own way Play Film. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://aboutus.godaddy.net/about-us/overview/default.aspx.

Go Daddy Top Registrar, Says Study: Apr 2005. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.whtop.com/news/6359-go-daddy-top-registrar-says-study.

GoDaddy Net Worth 2013-2019: GDDY. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GDDY/godaddy/net-worth.

Acquisitions. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.crunchbase.com/search/acquisitions/field/organizations/num_acquisitions/godaddy.

Allemann, A., Menius, M., Menius, M., Wallace, Wallace, wait-for-it, M., & wait-for-it, M. (2010, August 17). Go Daddy Marches Toward $1 Billion – Domain Name Wire: Domain Name News. Retrieved from https://domainnamewire.com/2010/08/17/go-daddy-marches-toward-1-billion/.

godaddy.com Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/godaddy.com.

Department, S. M. (n.d.). GoDaddy Inc. SWOT Analysis Matrix (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats). Retrieved from http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-papers/swot/nyse/3559-godaddy-inc-.php.

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