Marketing Management: ALDI Marketing TOWS, Objectives, and Customer Service

This report discusses marketing management for ALDI, including a TOWS analysis, marketing audits, marketing objectives, and a marketing mix plan. It also provides proposals for improving customer service as part of the 'Express Ourselves' marketing campaign.

Marketing Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Construct a Marketing TOWS for ALDI, explaining the Marketing Audits that you have
undertaken in doing so. ..............................................................................................................3
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................................6
Marketing Mix plan.....................................................................................................................7
Provide proposals on how ALDI can improve their levels of Customer Service as part of their
`Express Ourselves` Marketing Campaign.................................................................................9
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................11

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.
External Opportunities External Threats
Internal Strengths SO(maxi-maxi strategy )
1. The brand image which
ALDI have developed
overtime is one of its
strengths. It can use it
as an opportunity to
venture into different
product. The organic
range of food which
many companies offer
is still not available
ST (maxi-mini strategy)
1. ALDI is well known as
discount supermarket.
This discounting
strategy of ALDI
leaves it with very less
profit margin at the
end. It has worked as a
strength for the
company as it created a
strong customer base.

with ALDI. It can add
organic food in its
product line.
2. Another strength of
ALDI is its strong ties
with suppliers. ALDI
has built a strong
supply network in its
lifetime till date. It can
use these networks as
its core competency.
This can also help the
company to bargain
and attain the goods at
a lower prices. This
will further help ALDI
to gain price leadership
in the market.
The customers of
ALDI are regular and
loyal towards the brand
which other
competitors of the
company can never
have.
2. ALDI also provides its
employees with a
number of benefits.
Although it costs them
but it build the loyalty
of employees towards
the firm.
Internal Weaknesses WO (mini-maxi strategy)
1. Company can ignore
the losses for once and
emphasize on organic
food market which will
generate profit in the
coming years.
2. Company must focus
on hygiene in their
products as well as
stores. It will provide
opportunities of
attracting more
WT(mini- mini strategy)
1. A lot of competition
has been arising in the
market in same
segment. Company's
strategies of providing
discounts is being
copied by competitors.
Company can open
some more stores with
different pricing
strategies and then shut
down some of the

customers. stores which have been
generating losses over
years.
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.

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 “express ourselves ” 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 -”Express ourselves”.
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.
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 .
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.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Act, C.P., 2019. Aldi Stores Ireland Ltd v. Dunnes Stores. IIC-International Review of
Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 50(8), pp.1029-1031.
Anwar, Y. and El-Bassiouny, N., 2020. Marketing and the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs): A Review and Research Agenda. In The Future of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (pp. 187-207). Springer, Cham.
Armstrong, G.M., and et. al. , 2018. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson UK.
Brandes, D. and Brandes, N., 2015. Bare essentials: The Aldi success story. Linde Verlag
GmbH.
Chapman, M., 2016. Aldi Puts£ 35 m Into Ecommerce as It Begins Selling Wine
Online. Marketing Magazine.
Kilian, K., 2016. Experiential marketing and brand experiences: A conceptual framework.
In Memorable customer experiences (pp. 45-64). Routledge.
Lamey, L., and et. Al. 2018. New product success in the consumer packaged goods industry: A
shopper marketing approach. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 35(3),
pp.432-452.
Schwarzkopf, S., 2015. Marketing history from below: towards a paradigm shift in marketing
historical research. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing.
Seah, J., 2018. Big brother is marketing you. News Weekly, (3027), p.8.
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Striving for Customer Benefit: The Case of Aldi.
In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 11-24). Springer, Cham.