International Marketing Planning for H&M: Strategies and Tactics

This report covers the marketing mix, objectives, strategies, and tactics of H&M, a Swedish multinational clothing company. It includes situational analysis, SWOT analysis, and PESTEL analysis. The report also discusses the target customers, demographics, and marketing tactics such as digital marketing, marketing automation, gamification, and use of analytical tools.

International
Marketing Planning

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Marketing mix of H&M...............................................................................................................3
Objectives of H&M.....................................................................................................................4
Strategies......................................................................................................................................4
Operational Strategy....................................................................................................................5
Capabilities to be created.............................................................................................................5
Processes to be opted...................................................................................................................5
Target customers and Demographics of H&M............................................................................6
Marketing tactics.........................................................................................................................6
Digital marketing.........................................................................................................................6
Marketing Automation.................................................................................................................7
Use of marketing automation in H&M........................................................................................7
Use of Gamification.....................................................................................................................7
Use of analytical tools.................................................................................................................8
Action..........................................................................................................................................8
Control.........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Profit maximisation is the core aim for any business enterprise and marketing plan plays an
important role in defining success. Marketing plan may be defined as a document which layout
marketing efforts of a business in future period (Baines, Fill and Rosengren, 2017). It
encompasses objectives, mission and vision statement of company. This project report is based
on H&M, a Swedish multinational clothing company, headquartered in Stockholm. It majorly
focuses on fast fashion for men, women, children and teenagers. It operates in more than 74
countries with over 5000 stores. This report will cover situational analysis along with SWOT
analysis and PESTEl. It will also cover objectives, strategies and tactics along with action.
TASK
Every company wants to earn more profit and for that they uses various tools and tactics in order
to make company kore efficient by satisfying customer’s need by delivering quality products and
services. Marketing helps companies to build their brands and made customers aware about their
offerings (Ferrell, Hartline and Hochstein, 2021). It facilitates in making product into a brand.
There are various marketing tools tat helps company in making aware to their products> H&M
offers customers quality products at reasonable price. It is customer tendency to buy good quality
of products but by paying minimum price. So H&M provides better quality clothes and
accessories to their customers. The marketing strategy of H&M aligns with marketing mix which
helps in making products that is cost effective along with good quality in order to fulfil customer
needs. It helps company in brand succeed.
Marketing mix of H&M
Product – As company provides trending and latest fashion clothes for men, women, teenagers
and children. It have a wide variety of clothes such as for men, it have large option for shirts,
trouser and leather belts. It also provides everything from designer to yoga wear. It has
collection of denims and this brand is popular for music and hip-hop culture. This brands have
inspired with art and technology across the world and make clothes on that theme. It has on trend
lifestyle for young women.
Price – It is one of the most important factor in influencing customer. It opt price differentiation
strategy and offers quality clothing with reasonable price compare to its competitors. Price
influences customer to buy products. It provides discounts too on Christmas and new year eve. It

has a loyalty scheme in which it offers extra discounts to existing customers. This makes
customer to be loyal towards company. It focuses on minimising the overall price of clothes by
lowering down manufacturing and transportation cost. As compare to Zara, it offers quality
products and average price is 425 and in case of Zara, it has $45. This attracts youth and thus
company can able to boost its sales volume.
Place – H&M sells its products through its exclusive stores which are located across cities. In
some countries, it sells its products through franchising partners due to regulatory norms. It also
offers its products from online stores and it becomes easier for customer to choose from a variety
of list of products and can order online along with making payment. The products are
manufactured in those countries in which cheap labour is available. The clothes are
manufactured according to specific segmen6 that they are targeting. It has a strong supply chain
over the year.
Promotion –It is important for company to advertise their products and offerings in order to
make customer aware about product. H&M is having a wide range of products portfolio based on
different segments. It uses multi-channel marketing strategy to promote its products. It coeme up
with creative advertisement commercials on TV which helps in attracting customers to buy their
products and how it is unique from its competitors. These ads are advertised on regular basis and
mainly these channels are watch by youth and becomes easy to influence young generation.
Objectives of H&M
The main objective of H&M is to consider needs of present and future generational and to
provide better quality of products at an affordable price. Along with profit making, it wants to be
number one company in clothing and apparels across the world. The other objective of company
is to conduct it operations in such a manner that it yields economic, social and environment
sustainable. This is the main reason company sets clear and ambition goals in order to make
aware employees about company and its objectives so that their efforts contribute towards
fulfilling objectives.
Strategies
It is important to formulate effective strategies which provides positive impact on company’s
performance. Formulation of strategy is an essential step in making company more productive

and success. It helps in defining company ’s value and gives it a purpose for commencement. It
helps in company in knowing destination as well as provide with a roadmap which takes
resources to destination. The company should opt following strategy in order to fulfil objective
and to remain competitive in market.
Operational Strategy
This strategy helps company in making it more productive and efficient as is a guiding principle
which can be used to plan, analyse and execute company’s operations (Deepak and Jeyakumar,
2019). By opting this strategy company can lower down its overall cost such as transportation
and other operational cost. By lowering down operational cost, it can earn more profit and can
set effective pricing strategy which can attract large number of audience. This strategy will help
H&M in boosting its sales volume and profit. It majorly focus on translating customer centric
business strategy into am actionable implementation plan. Following are benefits of company
which can take by opting this business strategy.
Capabilities to be created
By opting this strategy company can enhance its overall capabilities in terms of profit and
revenue. It is needed to have better control over all operations of company so that it can enhance
its overall efficiency and increased capabilities. Increased capabilities lead to higher profit and
company can take advantage of low cost strategy.
Processes to be opted
It is important for company to operate its business in such a manner that do not adverse impact
on environment. It is needed to identify the process that company is currently opting and to
analyse the need of improvement in order to make it more cost effective along with sustainable.
As company have opted solar panels on their stores which generates electricity and helps in
becoming more sustainable in market. In today’s world, people focus on process rather than
product. Company needs to comply with all rules and regulations formulated by government so
that it can keep its business more sustainable by opting eco-friendly process (Stead and Hastings,
2018) . This will impact on company’s performance and leads to increased sales. The supply

chain of company is strong which makes it more profitable. As company have opted solar panels
which reduced the dependency on power grid. It is one the finest step taken by company in order
to be more sustainable. It has been analysed that sustainable companies have ability to capture
larger market as people prefer process rather than product.
Target customers and Demographics of H&M
The company majorly focus on people who follow fashion trends whether a man, women or
teenagers. It mostly attracts to people of working class, students and middle class. There are
many companies who provide trending clothes but at higher price but in case of H&M, it offers
premium clothes at an affordable price. This makes company more succeed and fulfils customers
desire to wear premium clothes but by paying low price. The exclusive outlets of company is
located in every cities and that makes convenient for people to buy latest trending clothes and
focus on hip-hop clothes. It has a wide range of clothes and replenish stock levels with new
clothes. Most of the customers are young people and with that it also offers women clothing. It
has an extensive products portfolio with wide range of clothes which are currently trending in
market. Their main customers lie between age of 20 to 34, who have keen interest in fashionable
clothes along with price conscious. It is better option that H&M is providing and also offers
discounts on various occasions.\
Marketing tactics
These are the strategic actions that directs the promotion od product in order to make influence
specific marketing goals (Richardson, 2019).
Digital marketing
It is one of the most effective and cheaper method to engage customers. In today’s world, most
of the audience is active on social media and it becomes easy for company to attract customers.
Digital marketing provides with various digital tools that can be sued in attracting and retaining
customer by interpreting customer data. H&M collects data from various sources in border to
better and deeply understand the marketing trends so that it can provide with exact product tgta
fits in customer budget and trend. It creates flashy and eye catching ads on social media by

which it influences people to buy their product. It provides offers on new arrivals which creates a
sense of buying clothes. It helps in boosting company’s sales and attracts potential customer.
Marketing Automation
Company can use marketing automation which helps in identifying potential customers
(Kannan, 2017). It is a technology that helps in managing marketing processes of company
multifunctional campaigns on various channels automatically. By opting this technology,
company can target customers with automated messages via email or text. The software tracks
and analyse visitor behaviour and based on that it creates one to one channel journey which helps
in unified experience of customers. It also facilitate sin increasing efficiency of sales funnel and
makes customers satisfied by using combination of tactics.
Use of marketing automation in H&M
 Free up time to focus on strategy – The marketers are under pressure of creating an
efficient strategy which will positively affect company’s performance. By opting this
technology, company can save its time and cost and thus focus on making other
marketing strategies (Malhotra, Nunan and Birks, 2017).
 Gets detailed picture of potential customer – It helps in providing detailed picture of
potential customers and it becomes easy to target in order to convert them into permanent
customer. By sending texts and emails, H&M can get clarity in targeting potential
customer.
 Prioritise leads- Along with providing automation process to company it also offers
establishing clear objectives, measures right progress by better understanding customer
lifecycle. It helps in prioritising sales staff time, effectiveness of touchpoints in order to
make campaign successful.
Use of Gamification
Company can opt this technique to engage more and more customers by conducting
games in order to make customer more satisfied. H&M should opt this marketing tactic
which helps in attracting potential customers on specific occasion. It can also be used for

employees so that they can be made satisfied and thus leads in higher sales and higher
profit.
Use of analytical tools
It is important for every company to opt latest technology which helps in better and fast
working. It improves overall performance of company. It is needed to evaluate
performance of company in order to take corrective measures in case of negative results.
The company should analytical tools which helps in assessing performance of company
so that it can alter or modify current strategy. It plays an important role in making
company more productive and efficient. It provides with insights where company is
lacking and how these gaps can be filled to make company proficient.
Action
Implementation of strategy is the complex process in marketing strategy. At first
company have to make social media presence and have to attract customers by making
flashy campaigns. For this, it is needed to opt a better business consultant who guides in
every step as one wrong mistake can collapse whole strategy. Company should Opt a
better occasion on which it can conduct game. Company can choose Christmas or new
year eve for this. It should engage more young talents as they are fonder of trendy clothes
and becomes easier to target. Company needs to identify required resources and make
necessary arrangements in order to successfully implement strategy into action. After
having all resources, company should allocate resources to employees along with
responsibility. At last, it is needed to control process and ensures that all actions are taken
according to pre-determined plan or not. This will assure company and makes company
more efficient and productive (Mintz and et.al., 2021).
Control
Every set of task have benchmark in order to define success criteria and after successfully
implementation, company will compare actual performance with expected performance.
The difference reflects that company have not implemented plan properly and corrective

measures are needed to be taken. If the outcome indicates positive sign then it means
strategy have achieved its criteria. Or company should opt KPI to measure effectiveness
of strategy’s effectiveness. It defines actual performance and compare with target in order
to get effectiveness.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report it was concluded that marketing plays an imporotant role in
making company more productive and efficient. It helps in making aware customers about
company’s offerings and products along with how it is unique to competitor’s product. H&M
uses various tools and tactics so that it can generate more profit along with remain sustainable in
market. It helps in elevating company’s reputation as people become more conscious about
process rather than product. Marketing plans facilitates in defining objectives, mission and vision
statement so that it can aware employees and customers about purpose of establishment. It drives
the company’s resources towards attainment of goals. It is needed to formulate effective strategy
and must implement in a structured order to get maximum benefit. Digital marketing helps
company in spreading company’s offering to large customer base and provides with insights of
customer based on buying patterns and searched items in order to deeply understand needs and
wants.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Rosengren, S., 2017. Marketing. Oxford University Press.
Ferrell, O.C., Hartline, M. and Hochstein, B.W., 2021. Marketing strategy. Cengage Learning.
Malhotra, N., Nunan, D. and Birks, D., 2017. Marketing research: An applied approach.
Pearson.
Deepak, R.K.A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Mintz, O., Gilbride, T.J., Lenk, P. and Currim, I.S., 2021. The right metrics for marketing-mix
decisions. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 38(1), pp.32-49.
Stead, M. and Hastings, G., 2018. Advertising in the social marketing mix: getting the balance
right. In Social Marketing (pp. 29-43). Psychology Press.
Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International
Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.22-45.
Hanlon, A., 2021. Digital marketing: strategic planning & integration. Sage.
Stevens, R.E., Loudon, D.L., Wrenn, B. and Warren, W.E., 2021. Marketing planning guide.
CRC Press.
Richardson, N., 2019. Sustainable marketing planning. Routledge.

Appendix
SWOT analysis of H&M
PESTLE analysis of H&M