5MK510 Digital Marketing: McDonald's Audit, Strategy & Plan Report

This report presents a detailed digital marketing audit and strategy for McDonald's, a global food retail chain. It includes internal and external analysis using SWOT, competitor evaluation, and customer journey mapping. The report formulates a digital marketing strategy using TOWS analysis and provides recommendations based on the audit. It also includes a digital plan with resource considerations, presented through an excel sheet. The report aims to demonstrate the significance of digital marketing and its essential components through an in-depth investigation and analysis of McDonald's.

DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA
1

Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Digital Marketing Audit 3
Digital Marketing Strategy 10
Digital Marketing Plan 13
Conclusion 15
References 17
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Introduction
The assignment constitutes of a report providing an in a detailed analysis of the Digital
Marketing Audit of the chosen organisation that is McDonald's a food retail chain operating in
the UK and worldwide. The report includes the internal and external audit of the organisation
through the employment of the analytical tool including SWOT analysis, evaluation of the
competitors, and identification of the key customer’s presentation of the customer journey
flowchart. Further, Digital Marketing strategy of McDonald's is prepared that includes the
TOWS analysis. Based on the audit and TOWS analysis, recommendations on the digital
strategy will be provided. This is done through the employment of the chosen digital marketing
tool. A digital plan is also prepared within the report that includes the consideration of required
resources. The strategic activities are presented through an excel sheet as well. The report aims at
the understanding of the significance of the digital marketing and delivers the essentialities in
digital marketing. This is done through the deep investigation of the company McDonald's and
its analysis.
Digital Marketing Audit
A digital marketing audit is required to be done on McDonald’s owing to the decrease in the
sales of the company. Digital marketing audit is essential for the development of a company and
in the case of McDonald’s digital marketing audit can help it to analyse the services and products
that the company provides to the customers. The advantage of using digital marketing audit is
that a proper and through accessibility of the services and products is done with the help of
technology (Seth, 2015). Therefore, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of
McDonald's are presented hereafter with competitive analysis and key customer groups.
SWOT Analysis of McDonald’s
Strengths
● Strong Global Brand: Most recognizable brand all over the world with consistency in its
food products. It avails food as per the cultural diversity of the location making it world’s
largest food chain (Seth, 2015).
● Diversified Income: Operating in nearly 120 countries the total sales from different
locations offset one another making it strong. This allows McDonald’s not to rely on any
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one key source unlike its competitors like Burger king relying on it up to 98%
(Jurevicius, 2018).
● Market power over suppliers: Owing to the market power, it has power over suppliers
and the business deal with Coca-Cola makes it the lowest priced drink not made
available in other restaurant chains.
● Economies of Scale: The Company can share its fixed costs over the restaurants in
various locations that make it one of the cheapest food retail chains (Seth, 2015).
Weaknesses:
● Negative Publicity: The analysis of the nutritional value of the food items of
McDonald's is a weakness. As the food products are found to be high calorie with
high sugar content. The documentary “Super-Size Me” is a negative publicity that
focused on the deteriorated health of Morgan on consumption of McDonald’s food
items for 30 days (Jurevicius, 2018).
● High Employee Turnover: Low skilled labour is hired for low payment that leads to
the high rate of employee turnover. This incurs cost on the recruitment process,
training and other impacting the company’s bottom line.● Lack of improvement in Food Quality: Another weakness of the company is lack of
improvement in the quality of food. The company has not instigated to make changes
in the quality standards or to improve the quality of its products which can be
regarded as the major weakness of the company. As customers need quality products
and the low-quality food item could be ignored by them.
Opportunities
● Expansion Plan: The Company has always ventured for expansion. Therefore, it must
go for the expansion in North America and Europe where the market is fairly
saturated. The expansion of business in other nations will bring new prospects for
M.C. Donald's (Roy, 2018).
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● Upgraded menu: The food menu must include healthy alternatives for health consists
of customers of today that constitutes a considerable number worldwide (Publishing,
2018).
● Social media: In the modern world, social media plays an important role for the
promotion and success of a product or company. In the case of McDonald’s, the
existence of the customers in social media can help the company to maintain its
reputation and provide opportunities to promote new products in the market.
Threats:
● High competition: The food retail and restaurant industry have transformed into a very
high competitive industry. The competitors have started gaining a competitive edge in the
market. The number of competitors has increased who are also expanding from small
café to restaurants like Starbucks. The competition is multifaceted based on price, variety
in menu, service delivery, product quality among which in terms of the later one,
McDonald's is weak (Publishing, 2018).
● Increase in health-conscious consumers: People now days are moving towards healthy
food. This has imposed rejection of the calorie food items that constitutes majorly of the
menu of McDonald's (Publishing, 2018).
Evaluation of the two competitors using social media
The major competitors of McDonald’s include KFC, Burger King, Subway, Starbucks,
Identification of two key customer groups and development of personae’s, Pizza Hut, and others
among these the evolution evaluation of KFC and Burger King in using social media is done
hereafter:
KFC Using Social Media
Advantages ● Uses social media to send out
hundreds of gifts for the fans and the
followers
● It has got huge fans including 79,000
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Twitter followers, 3.9 million
Facebook followers,
● Well established online
communication and customers
relationship
● Encourages the participation of
customers through online marketing
strategies like discount offers,
launching offers for the first few
customers
● The brand image a reputation of KFC
is established (Morrisson, 2011)
● The focus of this competitor of
McDonald's id not increasing the
sakes but to engage more and more
customers through fun/
● This is an advantage for the
competitors to gain a competitive
advantage over McDonald's
Disadvantages ● No control over the feedbacks of the
customers
● To malign the brand image bad
reviews externally are given from the
competitors
● Cases of offending advertisement in
social are another
disadvantage.Forinstance, the vulgar
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advertisement of hot chicken is one
such incident that marred the
reputation of KFC in Australia
particularly. (Roy, 2018)
Table 1: Use of Social media by KFC
(Sources: Created by self)
Burger King Using Social Media
Advantages ● Its edgy strategy in terms of using
cost-effective online use (Social
Media London. 2018)
● For instance, the advertisement of the
new spicy version of chicken on
Twitter in the year 2015 appearing
like a stack of the adult magazine is
worth mentioning (Shulver, Clark, &
Johnston, 2012)
● An innovative way of handling the
negative feedbacks if not controlling.
This included the “angry tweets on to
the feedback of customer during the
absence on the social media page
(Huntmello.com. 2018).
● Charity activities in collaboration with
McDonald's
Disadvantages ● Burger King invests 5 times less than
that of McDonald's in relation to
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online advertisements
(Huntmello.com. 2018)
● Very rare posts in social media on the
contrary McDonalds posts on a regular
basis in social media.
Table 2: Use of Social Media by Burger King
(Sources: Created by self)
Competitors dig model
Porter’s five competitive forces can be used to understand the competitors of McDonald’s. The
model helps in analysing the new entrants in the market along with the substitutes. For example,
Burger King can be considered as a substitute to McDonald’s. At the same time, the threats of
the buyers and suppliers need to be mitigated so that the bargaining power does not hamper the
progress of the company.
Figure 1: Porter’s
Five Forces
(Source: Created by
author)
Two key customers
groups and
development of
personae’s:
Persona detail of
group 1: Busy balancers group
The name of the customer is Wilson, a 21-year-old college student with pocket money of $500
per month. He is a college student who loves to participate in billiards and swimming. The goal
of the person is to consume healthy food just to maintain his energy. Wilson uses online mode to
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make purchases and is a frequent use of the website of McDonald’s. The reason behind being
loyal to the company is to try out various dishes that are manufactured by the company. Burger
King is a well-established company that serve similar type of food as McDonald’s.
Personal detail of group 2: Affluent socializer
The name of the customer is Joana who is a 32-year old married women and a mother of two
children. She works in a reputed organisation and earns about $35,000 per month. She purchases
products manufactured by McDonald’s due to the demands made by the children. She visits the
stores while returning home and at time uses online method of placing orders. At the same time,
Joana considers KFC as a suitable alternative to McDonald’s so that a change in eating habit can
be implemented.
Customer journey Flowchart
A consumer flowchart is presented hereafter that depicts the stages Customer Journey in the
purchase of any product or services. Every single customer has a unique way of approaching the
outlet in order to consume food. Categorising each of them is not possible. However, the nine
stages of archetypal customer’s journey are a framework that is applicable to all types of
customer journey that are discussed hereafter:
● Need: Customer’s realisation of need that is eating out here.
● Seek the selection of the product or service provider that customers narrow down from
different options.
● Choose: Customers narrow done the option available for the particular provider of
product or services out of multiple options (Tuten and Solomon 2017).
● Give: Decided with the option, customer opts for payment or seeks information, value-
added services and other they are interested in using.
● Use: Finally, the customer consumes or uses the product of service
● Fix: Customers are helped to solve issues if any.
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● Love: Decision of the customers to further purchase from the same provider and build a
relationship
● Leave Decision of the customer not to continue with the service provider.
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Figure 2: Flowchart of Customer Journey
(Sources: created by self)
Digital Marketing Tool used
The digital marketing tool used by McDonald’s include
Model 1: RACE
Model 2: Ten C’s of marketing
Digital Marketing Strategy
Recommendations based on the analysis
As evident from the analysis, it is very important to strategize digital marketing plans by the
marketing department of McDonald's so as to minimise the impact of threats and be able to
utilise the opportunities making the strength. The recommendations include the following:
● Increase the level of food items making them healthier.
● New product development
● Strategies for retaining the employees
Focus on effective communication strategies with customers rather than advertisements only.
TOWS matrix and commentary on the analysis
Threat:
● High-value chain worldwide in various
locations. This may be a threat if
consumers think the low price will lead
to low quality.
● Availability of add-on services like free
Wi-Fi, opening the earliest hours is
threat owing to the extra costs.
● Strong competitors: There are strong
competitors contending in every aspect
Weaknesses
● Heightening quality of the products will
lead to an opportunity for increasing
sales and gain customers’ loyalty
● Low-cost pricing strategy in new
locations
● Limited food items are a weakness with
high calories and chicken products.
This is a threat as competitors identified
earlier avails more variety in menu as
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including
● High employee turnover leading to
extra costs that cannot be used for CSR
(Corporate Social Activity) in order to
achieve sustainability.
well as preparation
Strengths
● Strong Brand recognition is the strength
of McDonald's that must be used for the
purpose of expansion in North
America, Europe as well as in Asia.
● The existence of a strong customer base
can help McDonald’s gain importance
in the social media
Opportunity
● Huge range of products diverse as per
location that must be promoted in the
new locations
● Social media can provide McDonald’s
with an opportunity to continue its
business in the competitive market.
Promoting new products can be done
using social media
Table 3: TOWS analysis
(Created by author)
Digital marketing tool used
There are different types of Digital marketing model that can be used for the implementation of
the recommendations. The most appropriate in this case is the RACE framework of digital
insights. The implementation of the recommended strategies is applied to McDonald’s:
Reach: The activities in relation to McDonald’s need to consider the brand awareness through its
products and services. The new products or the heightened quality of the products developed by
McDonald’s need to be promoted both online and offline media reaching the customers (Ryan,
2016)
Act: The implementation of the promotional activities related to McDonald’s must include
engaging content and participatory activities that are more attractive to the identified customer
groups. McDonald’s may include lunching offers, direct marketing and the like. Interaction is
required here.
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