Strategic Marketing Across Boundaries: Techniques and Application

This report provides an analysis of marketing across boundaries, focusing on strategic methods and techniques. It covers various aspects of marketing planning, including target marketing strategies like segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The report discusses the components of the marketing mix and their relationship to the chosen target marketing approach, using Marks and Spencer as a case study. It explores the use of social media, search engine optimization, email marketing, and customer relationship management as key marketing tools. The report also delves into consumer markets, emphasizing the role of segmentation in understanding consumer behavior and tailoring products to meet specific needs. Additionally, it examines marketing theories such as the marketing mix, highlighting the importance of product quality, pricing strategies, promotion, and employee engagement in achieving marketing objectives.

Marketing Across
Boundaries

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Strategic marketing methods and techniques.........................................................................3
Consumer markets..................................................................................................................5
Marketing theory....................................................................................................................6
Importance of planning and the use marketing activities.......................................................7
Critical evaluation of how organisation could use marketing techniques..............................9
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Marketing across boundaries helps in understanding the different tools which will be
executed and access the distinct marketing strategies and decisions for the organisation for both
national as well as international levels. Marketing could be done by using different tools such as
social media. This would only promote the goods and services of the organisation but also makes
sure to achieve its marketing objective. Marks and Spencer is taken as base company. Marks and
Spencer is retailer organization which was established by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in
the United Kingdom, 1884. This organisation is specialised in selling of cloths, food products
and home products. Also, they have generated revenue of £10,181.9 million in year 2020. In this
report, it covers the elements of marketing planning. Along with this, it also includes the target
marketing that are segmentation, targeting and positioning. Furthermore, the components of
marketing mix and relation to the approach to the target marketing identified will be mentioned.
Strategic marketing methods and techniques
Marketing strategy defines as a whole business plan which helps in reaching the
prospective consumers and then converting them into loyal customers (Penney, 2017). This
comprises the value proposition, consumer demographics, message given by the brand and other
components of the organisation. Social media is considered to be the most powerful marketing
tool for the organisation for reaching to their customers as well as prospects. This type of
marketing tool uses different types of social media platforms such as Instagram. Facebook,
Twitter and many more. The selected organisation could utilise these tool by posting different
types of contents such as in the form of pictures, videos, stories and so on. The organisation
would also able to track and monitor the number of people who saw the post, the people who
visited their social media profile and so on. For promoting the products and services, many
organisation can also using social media influencers (Zhu, Li andAndrews, 2017). These
influencers are those people who have large number of followers and the firm hire them to
promote. This would assists the firm in reaching and communicating to a large number of
people. Search engine optimization is procedure which aids in improving the website of the
selected organisation by increasing the products and service's visibility whenever user searches
for it on different search engines such as Google, Bing or other engines. This visibility will
assists the firm in capturing the customers and prospects. This marketing strategy is the key

fundamental of online marketing as it is considered as the major ways that user searches in the
web. The tasks which is to be carried with the help of SEO including the creation of high quality
content, optimizing the content with the utilization keywords and also building of the backlinks
(Parkinson, Russell-Bennett and Previte, 2018). This strategy contributes in gaining of the traffic
to the website of the organisation. Email marketing is considered as the marketing of the
products and services with the help of email sending to the customers as well as prospects. This
assists in informing the customers, driving the sales as well as creating a community for the
organisation brand. The selected firm can utilise many sorts of email marketing such as
promotional emails in which in involves promotional messages which various special offers
about the products launch, webinars and so on. Another type which the organisation could can be
informational email where the firm can send various information in the form of newsletters or
announcements mails. Email marketing will assists the organisation in creating brand awareness
about their various commodities and services and also it could be send to a large number of
people at a time with a very minimised costing (Santoro, Ferraris and Winteler, 2019).
Furthermore, it also leads in driving customers loyalty and also it is accessible to sorts of age
groups. Customer relationship management is marketing which is defined as the strategies as
well as tactics in which the organisation utilises for the handling and managing the relationship
with the customers during the customer life cycle. In context Marks and Spencer, this assists in
enhancing the relationship with the customers in addition to drive the loyalty of the consumers,
keeping the customers, earnings and also the consumer lifetime value. This strategy will aids in
storing of the data of all their customers and prospects, accessing the sale chances, tracking of all
concerns related to the services and so on. It also enables the firm to oversee the different
information such as their likes and preferences which could understandable by the firm (Pedada
and et. al., 2021). The organisation can divide the relationship marketing into four stages such as
establishing the initial relationship where this involves the communicating to the customers and
analyses whether the organisation is able to fulfil the need and demands of the customers. Then
the organisation will tries to prove that they are able to satisfy their need and demands. In
addition to this, the organisation will establish the deeper relations by collaborating more with
the consumers. Furthermore, at this stage, the relationship between the firm and consumers are
considered to be hard to break where the customer is loyal towards the firm. This will assists
Marks and Spencer is establishing a strong relation with the customers. Press release in the

marketing strategy which could be utilized by Marks and Spencer is releasing a summarised
announcement of product or services which they are attempting to promote (Srivetbodee, Igel
and Kraisornsuthasinee, 2017). These are generally written in the form of quotes or official
statements. These press releases are done by journalists and reporters by researching, quoting
and then finalising the whole scenario. This strategy is easy to bring in eyes of the customers as
well as convenience in sending to many other journalists.
Consumer markets
Consumer markets are those markets that involve people make purchases of products and
services for consumption purpose. These markets are highly praised as these are the goods which
are sell on regular basis. Marketing plays a key role in the buying choice of the customers as it
depicts the type of commodities to choose with providing information about them.
The segmentation, targeting and positioning could assists the organisation in ensuring
that they are able to divide a large audience and target them by proving commodities.
Segmentation is diving of large audience into small sub divisional groups on the basis of
common characteristics and traits. Marketers would be more effective in terms of time, money,
and other capabilities by using segmentation. Market segmentation enables businesses to
understand more about their consumers. They get a greater knowledge of their customers'
requirements and desires, allowing them to customise ads to the consumer groups most inclined
to purchase items and also provides a clear target market insight. As different people have
distinct tastes and preference, they can be segment on the basis of their characteristics which
involves several demographics, psychological, behaviouralist and geographic elements
(Weybrecht, 2017). The demographics traits include segmentation of audience on the basis of
age, gender, income and so on. Psychological traits involve elements like interest, opinions,
values and so on. The geographic traits includes division on the basis city, language, population
and many more, while behavioural involves division depend upon the factors such as purchase,
usage, benefits sought and many more. This assists the organisation in segmenting that audience
which are cost conscious, so that they are able to target well. The organisation should make sure
to develop product and this could be done by conducting surveys to knowing about the wants and
preferences of the people. Along with this, they could also conduct fun activities or games online
so that they could able to know about the tastes and desire. From this manner, the organisation

could easily allocate different prices on the product, keeping in my mind about the preferences as
well as their demographics so that they could make transactions. Organizations could create
goods that satisfy consumer demands, provide value, and establish brands which provide added
brand value through segmenting the market.The selected organisation will then target their
audience by selecting the most attracting and captivating ones. The organisation will analyse that
group in which the profits could be made easily. They will also make sure to examine the size
and potential development of all the groups which are segmented (Ralston and Blackhurst,
2020). Marks and Spencer ensures to target that market which belong to upper class and upper
middle class as their products are quite highly priced. Marks and Spencer make sure to make a
footprint in the minds of the people so that they are able to replace their competitors in the
industry. They will try to position their products in such a manner that they are able to satisfy
the needs and demands of the consumers. The selected firm would identify their distinct selling
proposition and drive a positioning map for understanding that how each groups from the
segmentation perceives (Anning-Dorson, 2018). The firm assures to position itself in high
quality within the reach of the customers.
Marketing theory
Marketing theory helps in understanding of all the assumptions that can be the outcomes
of the future decisions taken by the organisation. In context to the selected organisation, the
different types of marketing theories are mentioned below:
Marketing mix
Marketing mix is a tool which is utilised the marketers for identifying the different products and
services offered by the firm. Marks and Spencer is known for its quality products. Recently, the
firm is not able to maintain with the designs of their clothing material as people are inclining
more towards their competitors such as Primark, TK Maxx and so on. The selected organisation
is present at the lower end of the fashion industry in the United Kingdom. The price of the
products of Marks and Spencer is comparability present between ranges of medium to high. The
pricing strategy of the firm has been criticised by multiple number of customers. Along with this,
it is also found that their delivery partner is charging different price for the same commodity.
Furthermore, the costs of the products are higher in their stores and also on the online shopping
site (Michaelis, Aladin and Pollack, 2018). The selected organisation has invested millions of

pounds for promoting of their organisation and goods and services. Also, they have decided to
cut down their 50 million pounds on marketing which was done with the help of televisions and
press and instead, they are more focusing towards social media. Marks and Spencer is catering to
their customers with the help of more than 1500 stores with over 78000 employees. Also, the
organisation has brought Ocado's UK retail business for launching of online food delivery
services. This enables people to shop for more than 6000 food products of Marks and Spencer
from Ocado. Marks and Spencer has more than 1500 stores across the globe with employing over
78000 people to serve to the customers. The organisation has adopted a competitive payment
policy for keeping their staff members (Swanson and et. al., 2017). Along with this, the
organisation is giving various rewards and incentives to their employees for enhancing their
performance. Furthermore, the employees has also the benefits of gaining a special discount
which can be used at both online and offline stores. The firm also make sure that their employees
get training sessions time to time so that they are able to cater the customers properly as they
represent their organisation (Gur and Greckhamer, 2019). The selected organisation has well
structured design with separate divisions according to the different commodities sections. The
shoppers can able to purchase products depending upon their requirements and at the end, they
can pay their bills on the checkout counters. Along with this, the customers has also the facility
to shop and make payments on the online e-commerce website Marks and Spencer has its
footprints in more than 1500 nations, catering with all their stores. These stores represent
physical evidence of the organisation. The products that they are selling and their e-commerce
site a also acts as physical evidence for the firm.
Importance of planning and the use marketing activities
Planning in any organisation play a vital role in making sure about the paths which will
make the organisation successful.In order to minimise all the coming years uncertainties, the
firm has marketing manager which makes various strategies and tactics depend on the current
trends and conditions of the organisation (Brychkov and Domegan, 2017). Through effective
planning, it will assist the organisation in eliminating the future uncertainties as well as satisfy
the aims and objectives of the organisation. The aims and objective of the firm assist them in
maintaining and keeping the work and operation properly. It will be beneficial for the
organisation in formulating all the functions which includes directing, controlling and

organising. A proper planning for the organisation will assists in identifying all the aims and
objectives and decision making for achieving them. The marketing planning will contribute in
coordinating will all the managerial functions and operations of the organisation. This will assists
in coordination with the work and functions as well as managerial functions and activities which
are performed in the organisation which will directly contributes in achieving all the aims and
objectives (Taipale, Wilska and Gilleard, 2017). The marketing planning sets the performance
standards and these are compared and contrasted with the actual performance of different units of
the firm. When these elements are favourable to the organisation, then all the efforts are made to
keep them and if the components are not in favour, then ultimately eliminated from the
organisation. The marketing planning assists organisation in increasing the managerial
effectiveness. This means that they assure efficient and effective allocation & usage of assets.
Along with this,it also compares and contrasted the outcomes with the set standards that make
sure of the performance of the firm (Gilligan and Lowe, 2018). This directs all the managerial
functions and operations of the company as well as track and controls these operations. This
creates a feeling of sincerity and sense of responsibility within the managerial individuals with
the help of defining the jobs, rights and liabilities of all staff member of the organisation that it
covert and increases the performance of the organisation. In marketing planning, the needs and
demands the customer are properly examined and marketing functions and operations are
channelized for offering a improvised customer satisfaction that in response will increases the
earnings of the organisation. Moreover, by focusing on customer satisfaction, marketing
management increases market share and profitability of the organisation. Marketing planning
assists in achieving all the aims and objectives of the company economically. This evaluates and
tracks all unnecessary costing of the organisation. The marketing planning contributes in
evolving inclined performance standards and this makes simpler seamless decision-making that
aids in solving of several issues and concerns quickly and effectively.
Importance of using marketing activities
It is beneficial for the customer knowledge. Marketing allows the organisation to
communicate the different products and services to the customers as well as prospective. This
makes sure to provide a brief knowledge about the offerings and its working of the selected
organisation. Social media is playing a vital role in reaching to both customers and prospective in
much more finance possibility. This makes sure that organisation is able to cater their customers

with making comfortable with the prices of their commodities. As organisation has nature of
small perspective, the managers generally have more time for giving attention to each and every
customers with the assists of different marketing channels (Heath and Richards, 2020). The
marketing is performed by the organisation is to sustain their presence in the industry. This helps
in keeping their relationship with all the clients. It also have an advantage of allowing company
to maintaining and keeping their long lasting relationships with their core demographics.
Customer engagement is the major element of any organisation. This involves in keeping the
conversation with the customers and maintaining even after they walked out of the organisation.
This makes customers becoming loyal towards the organisation and it can effectively done by
making sure to clarify all their issues and concerns as well as assuring to provide quality product
and service to the customers. Marketing is considered vital as this enables them to sell the goods
and services. The organisation make sure to establish such marketing strategies and tactics in the
market such that they are able to create a captivating image in the eyes of the customers as well
as makes sure that people will buy the products (Peterson, Søndergaard and Kara, 2018). For
growth and development of the organisation, marketing has a significant role. This enables the
organisation to works and function for the customers by keeping themselves engages in proving
value proposition, high quality goods and services to the customers as well as prospective so that
these prospective will spread a word by word of mouth which is an effective marketing strategy.
Critical evaluation of how organisation could use marketing techniques
From the above mentioned, it can be encapsulated that marketing plays a vital in any
organisation for itself and their different commodities and services. For marketing, the
organisation could utilise the different marketing techniques such as social media, search engine
optimization, email marketing, customer relationship management and press release. As social
media is a powerful and effective technique for marketing, the selected organisation could use
this strategy. This will not only assists the organisation in gaining attention of large number of
people but also contributes in making the sales (Scuotto and et. al., 2017). Along with this, the
social media also enables the organisation to monitor and track the number of people who saw
their content as well as like, comment and share to other people.

Moreover, the organisation could also use search engine optimization for their website which
contributes in the websites of the firm in placing top of the lists of the search engine. It would
also helps in increasing traffic of the website by biding on special keywords.

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