This sample will let you know about:
- Discuss Marketing Mix Plan.
- What is marketing management?
- How to improve customer experience?
INTRODUCTION
The organisational discipline which targets on practically applying marketing methods and techniques in a business or an organisation is called marketing management. ALDI the supermarket chain has been taken into consideration while completing this report. ALDI owns over 10000 stores in around 20 countries. It was found by two brothers Theo Albrecht and Karl in 1946. They came up with the name ALDI in 1962. Following report discusses about marketing-management plan for ALDI in upcoming year (Act, 2019). It includes marketing TOWS, audit, objectives, marketing mix plan and proposal to improve customer service.
Construct a Marketing TOWS for ALDI, explaining the Marketing Audits that you have undertaken in doing so.
TOWS analysis stands for threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths. It links external factors with internal factors and helps to identify the strategies a business could follow . The strategies created from TOWS are divided into four broad categories that are maxi-maxi strategy, max-mini strategy, mini-maxi strategy and mini-mini strategy (Anwar, and El-Bassiouny, 2020). In order to draft the required marketing Campaign following is the TOWS analysis of ALDI.
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External Opportunities |
External Threats |
Internal Strengths |
SO (maxi-maxi strategy )
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ST (maxi-mini strategy)
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Internal Weaknesses |
WO (mini-maxi strategy)
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WT(mini- mini strategy)
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Marketing Audit
Marketing Audit refers to examining a firm in systematic and structured way on the basis of the marketing efforts that company has used in its business. Marketing Audits undertaken in doing TOWS or ALDI are mentioned below.
Marketing environment audit
It consists the study of external factors effecting the company (Armstrong, and et. al. , 2018). These factors include economical, political, legal , technological etc. It also takes into consideration external stakeholders of a firm such as consumer, competitors and suppliers. In case of ALDI, a maxi maxi strategy has been formed by analysing its suppliers. 'Maxi-Maxi' strategy means using strengths to maximise opportunities.
Marketing Strategy Audit
It includes the study of marketing strategies and objectives. This audit is used to find out the results of various strategies applied. In case of ALDI it has used the customer loyalty in Maxi-mini strategy. Where it uses its strength to minimise its threats. According to marketing strategy audit this strategy has proved to be beneficial for the company.
Marketing Productivity Audit
Marketing productivity audit is used to find out the profits that a firm is earning. It is used to analyse market as well as to improve cost-effectiveness. When applied on ALDI mini-maxi strategy have been developed from this audit. This strategy uses opportunities to minimise weaknesses of company. Opportunity available with ALDI is to create a hygienic environment. It can use various cost effective ways to create a clean environment which will have a positive effect on company's profit in long run.
Marketing Organization Audit
Marketing organization audit is analysing companies resources such as structure, human resources, capital etc. available with the firm. It also includes research&development, training, motivation etc. ALDI came up with a mini-mini strategy after conducting marketing organization audit. Mini-mini strategy minimises weaknesses and avoid threats. After losses in some consecutive years ALDI decides on closing some of its stores in order to make sure that all its resources are diverted towards benefit of the company. Need Assignment Samples?Talk to our Experts!
On the basis of these findings, state and justify 3 Marketing Objectives that should be set for the Express Ourselves Marketing Campaign over the 12 months period.
Marketing objectives are aforesaid targets or goals that a business wishes to achieve within a given time frame (Brandes, and Brandes, 2015). It is created by a business while promoting its products or services to potential customers. Setting up of a marketing objective is the first step in marketing. Al l the steps after this are diverted towards achieving the set targets .
The marketing objectives for 'Express Ourselves' campaign of ALDI are as mentioned below:
- To increase sales of the company by the help of 'express ourselves' campaign.
- To increase market share of the company in the respective industry with the help of brand awareness.
- To develop core competency for company in order to deal with competitors.
The ways to attain these objectives through the campaign 'Express Ourselves' are:
To increase sale by 15% by promoting globally and introducing new product ranges
The major motive behind the campaign âexpress ourselves â is using people as a medium to promote products (Chapman, 2016). In this the public is asked to share their experiences at ALDI and then the data shared by consumer itself is converted into advertisement. This is a very intelligent way to get a hold of consumers. This will develop a feeling of belongingness in the consumers and increase their loyalty towards the brand. The new range of products launched by ALDI can also be promoted through the help of this campaign. The extra cost which the company might have required earlier to promote new products will be saved. The company can create their own #(hashtag) such as #expressourselves as these are very trending on Instagram now a days. Following this steps company can easily attain its targetted sales.
Use brand awareness in order to increase market share
Brand awareness refers to the level up to which a customer is able to remember or recall your brand. It is basically the ability of a customer to recognise your brand when they are making decisions regarding purchase (Kilian, 2016). This campaign aims at creating brand awareness through various advertisements. It plans on acquiring customers from its competitors by luring them towards better offer and emotional advertisements. This will help company to grab larger market share. It is taking major steps towards hygienic stores so that customers could remember their experiences with ALDI.
Developing core competency
Core competency can be said to be that aspect of an organisation which differentiates from its competitors (Lamey, and et. Al. 2018). Core competency of a company is developed in such a manner that competitors cannot easily adopt those practices. Company already had a core competence that was the discount schemes which they provide to customers. But with time its impact has deteriorated. With the help this campaign company is trying to develop another core competency that is customer and employee loyalty. In today's market scenario any new innovation or strategy a company comes up with can be copied easily. But the manpower that a company has is impossible to copy. It includes the customers as well as the employees of the company. Through this campaign the sense of belongingness in employee as well as customers will increase, and competitors cannot copy human emotions.
Marketing Mix plan
Marketing mix is defined as a tool or techniques that is used by organisations for selling products and services to customers within market. There are several tactics and plans developed for attracting customers towards new products or service developed by this company. There are seven elements within marketing mix - price, promotion, process, place, product, people and physical evidence that are analysed while implementing the marketing campaign (Schwarzkopf, 2015). By using the marketing mix, organisations have the opportunity for building strength and weakness and develop profitable decisions for enhancing marketing of ALDI products. When all these elements are addressed in effective manner and marketing strategies are developed for reaching more number of customers while making marketing campaign -âExpress ourselvesâ. This is a marketing campaign done by ALDI for To increase sales of the company by the help of 'express ourselves' campaign, To increase market share of the company in the respective industry with the help of brand awareness and To develop core competency for company in order to deal with competitors. The 7P's of marketing mix is defined below with relation to ALDI are as follows:
Product
This is related to the offerings provided by an organisation. The main objective of developing product is to meet the needs and requirements of customers. For making success of product within marketplace, it is ensured that market trends and customer needs are evaluated effectively while making marketing campaigns (Seah, 2018). In context of ALDI, it is seen that this organisation is providing good quality products and services which are liked by a number of customers around the world. This is an organisation which is offering products and services like Choco rice, tea biscuits, fruits, wine, beer, fruits, etc. This company is involved in providing these products with good quality.
Price
This organisation i.e. Aldi is famous for providing products and services at big discounts. This company is involved in providing products and services with good quality and value. This company has a wide range of loyal and satisfied customers. This company is providing quality products and services at low rates. When compared with Tesco, Lidl and ASDA, it is seen that ALDI is providing products at comparatively low rates. There are various pricing strategies used within ALDI. Mainly the strategy used for pricing is psychological pricing. This company provides many products with great fashion at very low price.
Place
This is a term that is related to where the service or product of the company is provided to clients or customers. There are lot of shops of ALDI in approximately 20 countries. This company provides products at physical stores as well as online medium. There is no minimum spending requirement for delivering of products. The customers of ALDI can select CollectPlus as the option for delivery and collecting of order is done from selected collection point within 7 working days.
Promotion
There are various promotional strategies used by ALDI such as public relation, advertising, sales promotion, etc. this company provides commercials and TV advertisements for attracting potential customers. This company also uses PR and also it has initiated various CSR activities for helping society.
Physical evidence
The company ALDI is globally known as it is operating in more than one country. This company is having approximately 85% of the stock at home recognised brands. This organisation provides products at cheaper rates than it's competitors. This is one and only store which maintains same prices for groceries across the world.
Process
ALDI provides sheer layout and this helps in finding out products easily. Customers select products on their own and this helps in minimising number of employees that assists customers and clients (Voigt, Buliga, and Michl, 2017). ALDI is an organisation which has limited number of high quality, priced brands for preventing customers to get confuse. This is helpful in reducing their selection time.
People
This company is having lower customer service as compared to other competitors. Employees are not assisting the customers while purchasing of products. ALDI has put store layout in which each and every item is divided into paper sections which helps in reducing the number of employees. Ask for assignment help from our experts!
Provide proposals on how ALDI can improve their levels of Customer Service as part of their Express Ourselves Marketing Campaign.
Customer service means providing the customers with timely services whenever they are in need and making sure that their doubts and problems are solved which earns goodwill for the company. Customer service is supposed to ultimately end in customer satisfaction. There are some major service skills which are required by the representatives of company who attend customers. These skills are patience, good communication skill, attentiveness, bring positivity in conversation, complete knowledge about the product or service,time management skills, ability to read the mind of customers, goal oriented, persuasion skills, empathy, closing skills etc.
Some ways through which ALDI can improve its customer service are:
Train customer representatives
Customer service representatives are the face of firm. They are the only one with which end consumer would interact. Everything they talk about with a customer becomes image of entire organisation in a consumers mind. Therefore, it is very important for a business to train their representatives well. The training can be done to improve various skills in an individual. ALDI needs to take major steps along with this campaign to train its employees. The employees needs to be patience, excellent at conversational skills and have exceptional persuasion skills. Also company must hire employees who know more than one language and train them to provide ease of communication to their customers. ALDI being a supermarket have footsteps of more than thousands everyday at every store, due to this it becomes important to train your representatives because they need to deal with a lot of different people. Also the representative need to be self- sufficient so that they can handle a customer on their own. They should be trained in such a way that they only bring very important matters to their superiors.
Respond Quickly
A consumer has a variety of options to choose from. Anytime consumer feel that they are not valued at your organisation they may switch their preferences and move to your competitors. ALDI is very prone to this scenario. ALDI deals in supermarkets and there exists a number of competitors of the company. The customers prefer to finish their shopping at such stores quickly. Anytime they need to wait while shopping or billing creates a negative image of company in the eyes of consumer. There must always be someone to address any doubts and requirements of customers. ALDI needs to work on its services making sure that all its customers are always addressed and that the representatives do not sit idle.
Improve customer feedback practice
Even after putting all the efforts by a firm some or other customer is left unattended. No feedback system is full proof. Still companies come up with various ways to address all the feedbacks. ALDI has not recently came up with any new strategy to address customer feedback. The company needs to ask feedbacks from customer's time to time so that improvement could be made accordingly. They can ask for feedbacks in various ways such as on phone calls, messages, conducting surveys so that even a very small problem faced by customer can come into light and can be addressed by the company. They also need to make sure that all these feedbacks are attended else customers wont even bother to provide feedback from next time. Order Economics Essay Help Now!
Take clues from the campaign Express Ourselves
Specifically talking about ALDI the campaign will bring in a number of feedbacks in forms of audio, visuals, pictures and mails. All the positive reviews are to be used by the company for creating advertisements. But for the leftover negative reviews or experiences the company must take specific steps. It needs to make a special team who will be addressing these issues. Another profit of this to organization might be that they can show in advertisements customers point of view before and after addressing their negative feedbacks. It will be another initiative by the campaign which will help ALDI to achieve its marketing objectives.
After sales services
After sales service includes various processes which are carried on by company after the sale of goods and services is made. Theseis to make sure that customers are satisfied with their products and services. The major reason behind after sales service is to take leads for next sales. It also spreads positive word of mouth. ALDI offers a number of electronic products which necessarily require after sales services. ALDI must make sure they keep updated records of the customers who require such services and also take in feedbacks from them regarding those services.
Improvement in customer service is a continuous process. Every time a customer comes up with a negative feedback or a query the company needs to look for ways to solve their problem and bring them t optimum level of satisfaction. ALDI requires to follow all the steps mentioned above and they also need to make sure that these processes take place continuously , so that they never have to compromise with quality of customer services.
Also Read- Impact of Promotion Strategies for Business Organisations