Aldi's Marketing Plan Evaluation

This assignment focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of Aldi's marketing plan. It requires understanding various marketing essentials, roles of a marketing manager, steps in developing a marketing plan, and utilizing tools such as SWOT analysis, return on investment (ROI), competitor responses, market expansion, and direct advertising feedback to assess the plan's success.

MARKETING
ESSENTIALS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P 1....................................................................................................................................................1
Key role and responsibilities for marketing manager............................................................1
P 2....................................................................................................................................................3
Relation of role and responsibilities in wider organizational context ...................................3
P 3 ...................................................................................................................................................5
7 P's of marketing and marketing planning/ differ form other organisations .......................5
P 4....................................................................................................................................................9
Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for ALDI.........................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Marketing essential is defined as knowing customer and market properly to accomplish
the defined objectives of an organisation. It includes awareness about current marketing
strategies and understanding of marketing techniques. Marketing includes various kind of
manager like advertising, promotions and publicizing techniques (Hofacker and et.al, 2016).
Further, marketing is a process which depends on all the operational unit of an entity. This
learning thus comprises of roles and responsibilities of these units.
For carrying out this study the selected business concern is ALDI. This is one of the
leading supermarket chain in UK. The organisation have more than 10000 stores in 20 countries.
The company was found in 1913. The retailer company is sells all type of grocery products and
goods. For an entity who contributes 5.3% of share in the market, it is necessary to prepare
marketing strategies to attain the set targets. Present report describes about roles and
responsibilities of marketing manager. In addition to that relation of these roles and
responsibilities in marketing has been explained. Marketing mix for the chosen organisation has
been illustrated. In order to further evaluate the effectiveness of the selected enterprise, the
marketing mix is compared to some other entity. Moreover, basic marketing plan for the
organisation is also described in this report.
P 1
Key role and responsibilities for marketing manager
There are various role and responsibilities of marketing manager that should be followed
in selected organisation. Marketing function is defined as a tool that supports organisations in
identifying proper promotional plans and strategies for promoting their products. ALDI is one of
the largest supermarket chain of UK. Following are the roles and responsibilities of the
marketing function in ALDI:
Role of marketing manager
Research
Marketing function plays major role in conducting research on target consumers. ALDI
can find out taste and trends of customers regarding products. Companies always requires
information about trends and expectation of customers (Oelze and et.al, 2016). Marketing
function helps the organisation in identifying these needs and outlook of consumers. It also help
in determining competitors strategies and their current products. Marketing function also assist in
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making marketing campaigns. Researches and survey supports the organisation in determining
marketing opportunities and better understanding of expectations of customers.
Product packaging
Marketing manager also involves packaging of product. It focuses on making product
packaging attractive so that it can appeal consumers. It plays vital role in designing packaging by
considering customer mind set. For this to happen proper market research is conducted to find
out the prototype. Marketing function also includes product pricing so that maximum profit can
be gained.
Transportation
Role of marketing function is to find out best supply chains and distribution channels to
make the product available for the consumers. It supports in figuring out shipping and storage
techniques to for the products (Yu and et.al, 2017). Delivery of product directly impacts the
marketing campaigns of the ALDI.
Risk assessment
Another role of marketing function is to assess the risk that can affect the sale of product
and services of ALDI. Manager of marketing assist in controlling quality of products. It helps in
ensuring that product of the company is able to make place in competitive market.
Responsibilities of marketing manager
Marketing managers are responsible for increasing revenue, market share and enhancing
the profitability of the organisation. Following are the major responsibilities of the marketing
manager of ALDI:
Making strategies
Members involved in marketing manager makes strategies for proper marketing of
products. They make plans to accomplish the goals and objectives of the firm. They are
responsible for making strategies which can increase company's profit and share in market.
Marketing function also supports in forming new distribution channel to increase sale of
products (Kumar and et.al, 2017). Strategies help company in reaching to wider areas and
geographical markets.
Market research
It is a key responsibility of marketing manager. Researches and survey supports the
organisation in determining marketing opportunities and better understanding of expectations of
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customers. Marketing function supports in determining strength weaknesses of the rivalry firms
in market (Liu and et.al, 2017). Marketing function helps the organisation in identifying these
needs and expectation of consumers.
Product development
Marketing function is also responsible for internal and external product development. It
supports in improving exiting products and also in making of new products and services. It is
responsible for identifying needs and expectations of consumers to make products accordingly.
Communication
Marketing manager are responsible for developing communication for promoting
products and services to buyers. According to budget of the ALDI advertising campaigns are
planned. In addition to that they also promote products by making use of e -mails, social media
and newspapers.
Support in sales
Responsibility of marketing manager is to maintain balance between sale and marketing
so that sale rate of the organisation can be improved (Metcalf and et.al, 2016). It provides high
quality advertising methods to sales team of the company. Providing promotional material is also
a responsibility of marketing manager.
Organizing events
In some organisation marketing manager also involve conducting events and programs
for promoting products and services. Exhibitions, sale and various kind of hospitality events are
organised to gain consumer attraction.
P 2 Relation of role and responsibilities in wider organizational context
Marketing is a key element in any business to enhance it's value. This process involves all
the departments of entity to perform effectively. There are many units in an entity and every
operational unit plays crucial role in accomplishing this purpose. Below are some various
departments along with their roles and responsibilities in marketing: Human resource department- There are several roles of this department in marketing
such as this unit needs to hire right people at right time who can help in boosting the
process (Grewal and et.al, 2016). Also, the proper allocation of resources required by
organisation is done by this department. There are also some indirect roles which should
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be functioned by human resources that involves conducting workshops and training
programs to provide education of marketing to the employees. Product development- The main focus of effective marketing is on appropriateness of the
services that are being served to the people. For promotion of any product it is important
to ensure its effectiveness, thus this unit assures the development of appropriate product
depending upon the needs and demands of customers. Further, this development of
services also diminishes the cost associated with developing the unwanted products
(Balmer and et.al, 2016). Sales unit- Sales department includes responsibilities of meeting the target of sales
through effective planning. This unit should also perform proper budgeting process. Finance Department- This unit involves the checking of the strategies and policies
designed for the marketing and then providing them with the appropriate budget. This
unit should provide funds to the realistic process only. Product management- To maintain the fluidity of products, it is essential to monitor the
supply chain and logistic management of the entity (Porcu and et.al, 2017). It is crucial
for marketing that the products should be present in required stock so that the customer
figure do not decrease. Social media unit- Nowadays social media plays a significant role in business purposes.
From selling to buying and marketing, social media is been used by people till higher
extent. Thus, it is mandatory for organisations to possess quality of handling social
media. Advertising and promotion unit- All the impelling information like demanded products,
offers, etc. should be gathered by this department top include these information in
advertising and promotion process. The marketing highly depends upon the level of
promotion. Thus, effective and creative employees are needed in this process.
 Managers- Managers need to create a positive working environment in the organisation.
These stakeholders further implement effective communication between and within the
departments for effective functioning of the entity. Also, they should motivate the
employees and should appreciate their work.
 Employees- Workers are the key element which can mould the market value of any
organisation (Nykiel, 2016). In context to ALDI, the employees need to observe the
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services that are maximumly bought by the customers so that development of those
products can be done. Also, innovative and creative ideas of marketing should be
suggested by them to enhance the marketing process.
Thus, above were some various roles and responsibilities of different departments that
impacts upon the strategies and policies making of marketing. It is essential for the above stated
units of ALDI to possess the functions explained below.
SOSTAC can be determined as a planning model that is helpful with marketing plan.
There are six aspects covered in this and they are as follows:
 Situation: As per the present situation that is faced by ALDI, it can be stated that the rate
of competition from other firms are high. This has negative impact over the business.
 Objectives: To overcome the issues, cited firm needs to focus on strategies that will
improve sales of the business. Further, it also includes raising employees performance
level by delivering them appropriate training and development.
 Strategy: Employees will be monitored so that management is able to identify the areas in
which improvement needs to be made. Further, use of social media and promotional
strategies will be applied as it will help to raise the sales and profitability.
 Tactics: Total three months’ time period will be taken into consideration. In this period,
managers will be responsible to monitor their employees and to identify the areas in
which workers lack. As per the findings made appropriate training will be provided.
 Action: There are different set of activities that will be set and for each of them there are
budget that will be planned. Social media enables will enable have direct interaction with
customers and developing strong relationship.
 Control: Within the speculated 3 months of time, the desired goals will be attained.
There are various type of roles that has to be played for marketing in B2C and B2B.
B2B: Main focus in this aspect is done for logic of the product. This is done by covering the
features of the product. It is important to understand the buying behaviour of organization.
B2C: Focus is made on the benefits of products. Customers develop need and when the product
is able to satisfy their requirements, then there will be purchase decision made by them. Further,
it requires to have variety of distribution channels required by services so that they are able to
reach out the product.
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Marketing is determined to be the business functions as it is focused on making use of
strategies through which they get to develop positive perception within the mind of customers.
When marketing is not properly done by firms like ALDI, then the rate of sales and profitability
will be reduced or fall. Further, it also includes interrelationship between functional units and
marketing. When a product is developed by the firm, then to make others information and to
know about it, it requires to have making use of marketing strategies.
P 3
7 P's of marketing and marketing planning/ differ form other organisations
7 P's of Marketing mix is also called extend marketing mix. It consist of seven p's
includes product, prices, promotion, place, people, process and physical evidence. Marketing
manager of ALDI organisation need to consider these 7 marketing mix element for successful
marketing of its products. Following are the elements of marketing mix:
Product
This component of marketing mix is intangible and non physical in nature. It can be
intangible and tangible both for ALDI. Company should always ensure that right product should
be distributed in the market. Product should have quality which is required by the consumers. In
the phase of product development marketing manager must conduct in depth research on creation
of products (Westwood, 2016). Goods and services should be made with care and should have
capability to get customized according to the demand of customers. ALDI should focus on
making products which customized to gain more consumer attraction. Marketing manager
should also create proper product mix. Looks of the products also included in product mix. Also,
ALDI needs to maintain the fluidity of the services.
Pricing
Product price is the amount which is paid by consumers for buying any product or
service. It is the major element of marketing mix. This component helps in determining overall
profit and revenue of the ALDI. Adjustment in product price greatly impacts the marketing
strategy of the organisation. It highly affects the sales and revenue of the organisation. Price of
product should be set which is affordable. Its also makes perception of the company in eyes of
customers (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017). Consumers always get attracted to low price products.
So the marketing manger of the firm should consider the price of product while making
strategies. Low price product can support the organisation in making high profits. When
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deciding price of product marketing manager should consider market penetration, market
skimming, and neutral pricing.
Place
Placements of the product is an essential part of the marketing mix. Marketing manager
of ALDI should decide a place where products can be made available easily to consumers. For
deciding place and distribution deep understanding of of the particular market is required.
Internal and external understanding is required to explore best distribution channels and place for
the products (Pappu and Quester, 2016.). Various kind of distribution strategies like intensive
distribution, extensive, selective and franchising distribution can be used. The best pale to open a
supermarket like ALDI is highly populated area. Location for service distribution should be
analysed carefully. Location should allow customers to access the products easily.
Promotion
It is very significant component of marketing mix because it helps in boosting popularity
of brand. It also supports in increasing the sales and revenue of the ALDI. Promotion involves all
activities which should be considered by marketing manager to aware customers about
company's products and services. It motivates consumers to buy these products. Promotion
involves sales organisation, relations with public, advertising and promotion of sales. Promotion
should be done in way that it can bring more numbers of consumers to the organisation.
Marketing manager of the company should make promotional strategies which can appeal
customers. Promotional tool is used by organisations to make reputation of brand in the target
market.
People
This is the most vital component of the marketing mix. People are termed as humans who
plays significant role in product delivery (Anusha and et.al, 2016). Any service or product made
by ALDI should be consumed and used at the same time. People are the one who can label the
service and product bad or good. So the services and product should be of quality which can
satisfy it consumers. Services and product should be altered timely to met consumer needs.
Physical evidence
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Company can develop its stores so that their physical layout can be improved and
consumers should gets more attracted towards purchasing the products and services offered by
the firm (Wedel and Kannan, 2016). In addition to that it is vital that customer care executives
should also provide support to the buyers so that their issues and problems could be solved
properly. It will help for gaining positive support of the buyers. ALDI has both the thing,
impelling facilities and good care of customers which attracts the customers.
Process
Process is termed as the method in which the product is delivered to consumers. It is a
procedure that use various mechanisms of product delivery. Processes are seen as way to
accomplish outcomes (Nath, 2017). This helps ALDI in increasing its market share. It provide
interface between consumers and business organisation.
(Source: Marketing and the 7Ps, 2015)
The effectiveness of the marketing mix of the ALDI can be evaluated by using the
comparison technique. For scrutiny the selected organisation is TESCO. TESCO also does retail
business in UK but on larger level as compared to the ALDI. The share of the organisation is
20% of the total retail business. Thus, there is some difference in its marketing mix. The
marketing mix elements of this organisation are as follows_
Product
Products are the services that are offered to the customers. In case of TESCO, the
services offered are good enough to meet the demands and expectation of the customers. Also,
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Illustration 1: 7 Ps of marketing

the fluidity of products maintained there is appreciable. TESCO further focuses on product
development that highly impacts upon the satisfaction of the customer.
Place
Place is an element that signifies the areas from where the customer can access the
services offered by the entity. These places can be malls, street, etc. TESCO leads ALDI in this
factor too as the organisation provides the customers with the option of online shopping which is
beneficial for both, the customers and the entity (Wheelen and Hunger, 2017). Both can save
their time with the help of this technique. Further, this tool has made the shopping process easier
which is resulting in high customer figure and hence, more profitability to the organisation.
Price
It is the money that customer pay for the service. Customers always aims on buying the
best products at the least price. TESCO satisfied the consumers as it is good in product quality
but it fails in pricing strategy. There is noticeable difference in the price of products of the two
organisations. High prices of TESCO makes the people to shop from ALDI.
Promotion
Promotion is an element that deals with influencing the customers to buy the services that
are offered (Malone and et.al, 2016). There are many ways of promotion that are being used by
the different entities. In context to TESCO, the main platform of promoting their services are the
websites, social media, emails etc. These tools are used because they are accessible by everyone.
They promote their products on the basis of their good quality.
People
People is that element of marketing mix that deals with the selecting and hiring right
people at right time and on right place. It is the most important factor that accounts in the
effectiveness of the processes being done in an organisation. TESCO uses external recruitment
system to recruit the front line sales employees to the managers. The organisation believes that
with the help of external recruitment process they are enabling the entrance of highly qualified
employee who can increase their productivity by providing his/her services. Further, this method
of hiring candidates needs more funds making the system less appropriate for ALDI and more
for TESCO.
Processes
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This factor is associated with the method in which the services are made to reach the
customers. TESCO being a large size firm, it is difficult to monitor the entire process, Thus, it is
quite challenging for the entity to manage.
Physical evidences
These are the facilities and the services offered by the organisations to the customers
(Johnson and et.al, 2016). In case of TESCO, the shopping is mainly done online but still
improved layout of stores are there which attracts the customers and also the care they provide
to the customers is really impressive.
The marketing mix of two different organisations, namely TESCO and ALDI are been
discussed. This comparison can help in evaluating the effectiveness of the selected organisation
i.e. ALDI. It is been observed that out of seven factors there are some in which ALDI leads and
some in which it lacks TESCO. The pricing strategy of the chosen organisation is better than that
of the other. This element engages the high customer figure to the entity. But the organisation
needs to work on development of product. Also, the supply chain and logistic management of the
organisation also needs to be improvised. Further, ALDI should implement online shopping
facility to satisfy customers. There are also some factors on which it is found that both the
entities are performing correct at their place according to their organisational situations. For
example both have effective system of recruitment depending upon their firm size.
P 4
Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for ALDI.
For implementing a marketing process, it is essential to prepare a trenchant plan. This
plan is a document that involves the marketing strategies and techniques which are to be used
during the whole process (McDonald and Wilson, 2016.). The plan prepared is useful in
providing direction to the business. Also, there are many more benefits of planning a marketing
method such as clarification of receivers, crafting of marketing messages that will generate
results, rallying points, etc. The main objectives of planning the strategies of marketing are as
follows:
 To identify the customers who are to be targeted.
 To identify the competitive companies.
 To develop effective marketing strategies
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An effective marketing plan helps entity in various ways and the major among them is
the increased sales which directly influence the business value. In context to ALDI, a basic
marketing plan is created which is present below:
 Situation Analysis- This is the first step of creating a marketing plan. In this phase a deep
research of the products and services present in the company is done (Simonson, 2017).
This step further helps organizations in evaluating their recent position in the market.
There are numerous elements that are researched in this phase such as the dynamics of
the market, the recent patterns, the volume of customers, etc. In completion of this stage,
the element of marketing mix used is product. The entire details from development to
management are done in this step.
 Target market setting- This stage describes the customers which are to be targeted by the
organisation. There are different type of consumers depending upon various factors such
as age, gender, interests, etc., the needs also varies widely because of these factors. Thus,
for earning profitability it should be decided that what type of customers, entity wants to
deal with? so that the work can be done accordingly (Anderson and et.al, 2017). The
more clarification of the target audience will provide a proper idea of pinpointing the
marketing process. The marketing element that is associated with the target setting is the
promotion.
 Goal setting- This is the most crucial stage of designing of marketing plan. In this phase,
the goals which are to be achieved are listed down. These goals are very helpful in
providing the direction to the process. By working according to them, ALDI can achieve
the required objectives. This step involves various elements of marketing mix as it is
important to satisfy all the factors.
 Designing of strategies and techniques- After that the objectives for impelling marketing
process are set, it is crucial to prepare effective strategies and tool in order to attain them
(Melchiorre and Johnson, 2017.). The strategies used in this process are mainly effective
advertising of the product, direct marketing policies, training programs for employees to
provide them with advertising knowledge, effective advertising methods such as
websites, emails, etc. In this method, the process elements is focused mainly.
 Budget breakdown- Budgeting is an important tool for allocating the resources in
marketing process. This is the final stage of planning in which budgets are prepared on
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the basis of strategy. Fund for all the strategies are distributed in this stage so that further
processing can be done.
Further, the prepared plan is then evaluated for checking the effectiveness. Evaluation of
marketing plan for ALDI can be done using following parameters:
 Customer feedback- It is direct method of evaluating the effectiveness of the designed
plan. Also, this strategy of evaluation does not require high amount of work. In this
method, consumers are made to share their thought about specific services. This tool
helps to a greater extent in improving the products and services.
 Sales numbers- This is an internal method of determining the needs of customers. In this
techniques, the company records of product sale details are been observed and checked.
By checking this, organisation can observe which services are most liked by the
customers and which are least liked (Noel, 2016). Thus, providing them an idea of
appropriate product development.
 SWOT analysis- This tool is useful in evaluating both the internal and the external factors
that impacts upon the marketing process. They states the strengths of the company and
the methods to use those strengths in accepting the opportunities. Also, with the help of
this analysis the weaknesses of the organisation can be reduce to overcome the upcoming
threats. Hence, this analysis is very crucial in evaluating the impact of strategies.
 Return on investment- ROI helps in measuring the effectiveness of the marketing
campaign. But for this measurements it is must to know the amount spent on every
project versus the amount every project brings in to the organisation (Mishra, 2016).
This method depends upon the budget breakdown stage of marketing plan. In this
method, if the money earned is more than the amount spent then the process is considered
as impelling.
 Responses of competitors- Reactions of competitive companies after every action
organisation take. tell a lot about the effectiveness of the chosen strategies. The success
and failure of these techniques lies within the action of other companies. If the
competitors implement new strategies similar to you then the organisation succeed in
implementing those strategies.
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 Expansion- Market expansion is the positive result of the techniques used. Expansion of
business also depends upon the activities of the networking channel in creating new
opportunities for the enterprise.
 Direct response from advertising- This is also a vital element in checking the ability of
the implemented policies. This is a direct method of evaluating the level of marketing
planning (Oxford, 2015).
Above are some methods which can be used by ALDI to check the effectiveness of the
marketing plan. This judgement is necessary to understand that either the work is done in right
direction or not. Also, these methods helps in determining the factors which needs to be
improvised by the organisation. Thus, with the help of these techniques, entity can attain the
marketing objectives to enhance the business value.
CONCLUSION
The above study is based on the marketing essentials in an organisation. The importance
of various constituents is been discussed. This study further involves the roles and
responsibilities of a manger in marketing. Moreover, various factors along with their impact
upon the advertising are determined. Also, steps of marketing plan are also described in this
assignment. In this learning, the 7P's of marketing mix are also explained, also the effectiveness
of the marketing mix in the selected organisation is determined by comparing it with some other
organisation. Similarly, the effectiveness of marketing plan of chosen entity is also evaluated by
comparing it with other.
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