Marketing Management: Objectives and Marketing Mix Plan for Aldi

This assignment focuses on the marketing objectives and marketing mix plan for Aldi's 'Express Ourselves' marketing campaign. It discusses the construction of marketing TOWS for Aldi, three marketing objectives for the campaign, and a marketing mix plan to achieve the objectives over a 12-month period.

MARKETING MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Marketing TOWS construction for ALDI and key principles and practices of Marketing Audits
.....................................................................................................................................................1
Stating and justifying three Marketing Objective which should be set for 'Express Ourselves'
Marketing Campaign over 12 month period................................................................................2
Marketing Mix Plan in order to achieve objectives over a time period of 12 months................3
Ways in which ALDI can improve their Customer Service level...............................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing management can be defined as organizing, planning, implementing and
controlling of marking programs, policies, strategies and many more (Reynales-Shigematsu and
et.al., 2019). Marketing management plays a vital role within an organization as it helps an
organization in understanding their customer’s needs, demand and desire in a proper manner so
that they can bring improvement within their products and services in order to satisfy their
customers’ needs and demands. This assignment will lay emphasis on Aldi Super market which
is a German supermarket chain which is present in more than 20 countries and has over 10,000
stores. Aldi Supermarket was founded in 1913. Products sold by Aldi are Grocery, household
and various other essentials. This assignment will focus on Marketing TOWS for ALDI, 3
Marketing Objectives for `Express Ourselves` Marketing Campaign of Aldi, Marketing Mix Plan
to achieve objectives and ways in which ALDI can improve their levels of Customer Service.
MAIN BODY
Marketing TOWS construction for ALDI and key principles and practices of Marketing Audits
Marketing Audit can be defined as a systematic interpretation and evaluation of
marketing environment of an organization both internal and external. It also helps in identifying
areas of opportunities and ways in which an organization can enhance their overall performance.
Marketing Audit is conducted for various purposes such as: examining effectiveness of current
marketing tactics and strategies, identify various kinds of under-utilized marketing resources,
business choice for marketing position and many more. There are various kinds of tools or model
that can be used for fulfilling or explaining marketing Audits that an organization have
undergone (Kotler and et.al., 2018). One of the most common tools for marketing audit is SWOT
analysis where internal and external capabilities analysis of an organization is done. TOWS
matrix is an extended version of SWOT analysis or it can also be said that it has been derived
from SWOT analysis. Here, Marketing TOWS for ALDI will be constructed in order to explain
Marketing Audit.
Marketing TOWS
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Strengths
 low prices
 strong ecosystem
 high level of support
from customers
 effective product mix
 high savings
 strong brand portfolio
 superb performance in
new market
 high return on capital
expenditure
Weaknesses
 Low Employee
satisfaction
 Poor margins
 Poor penetration in
high income group
 Improper financial
planning
 Need investment in
new technology
 Limited success
outside core business
 High employee
turnover
Opportunities
 customers' preference
 new environmental
policy
 lower inflation rate
 new technology
 emerging markets
 core competencies
 increase in customer
spending
 market development
Strengths-Opportunities
 High level of customer
support and preference
of customers.
 Increase in customer
expenditure and
increase in customer
spending (Černý,
Vaněk and Hubáček,
2018).
 market development
and superb
performance in new
performance
Weakness-Opportunity
 Need of investment in
new technology can be
covered with core
competencies.
 Poor penetration in
high income group and
success in emerging
markets
 increase in customer
spending to cover poor
margins
Threats
 Competition
Strength-Threats
 High level of customer
Weakness-Threats
 Low employee
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 increasing pay level
 suppliers
 New entrants
 fluctuating rates
 increased marketing
and promotion by
competitors
 Availability of
substitute products.
support can help ALDI
to compete and stay
strong in competition.
 Through strong brand
portfolio and low rates,
it will be able to give
tough competition to
new entrants.
 Availability of strong
brand portfolio can
reduce effect of
substitute.
satisfaction in high
competition is not good
as employees are key
resource which can be
used by companies to
stand in competition.
Internal
Strength
These are internal factors and are affected by companies and its people and its culture.
Low cost, support from customers are strength of the company which are due to its effective
performance.
Weakness
These are also affected by internal environment of the ALDI in which high employee
turnover and less employee satisfaction.
External
opportunities
Emerging market and core competencies of ALDI are opportunities which are available
to ALDI
Threats
Increasing competition which is added by increasing promotions by competitors pose a
serious threat in front of ALDI.
Strategies
Strengths-Opportunities
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ALDI can increase its strength by employing new technology which will improve its
performance.
Its product mix can be strengthen by increasing spending of customers and this can add value in
its market development. For the purpose of knowing about the customers and their increasing
spending ALDI can conduct task environment audit this includes audit of factors which are
closely associated with firm and affect efficiency of its marketing program.
Strength-Threats
In this company need to ensure how it can reduce impact of threats through its strengths. ALDI
can compete in market with the help of customer support. In this company can chose marketing
strategy audit which will enable company to check its marketing strategies, its mission and
objectives and goals and how strengths of the company can captalize its mission and goals and
also which can also help to prevent impact of threats .
Weakness-Opportunity
These strategies seek to use opportunities so that weakness do not affect the organisation
negatively (Jibai, Alaaraj and Issa, 2018). Increasing customer spending can also increase the
margin of the company. In this ALDI can employ marketing function audit which will capitalize
its opportunities by identifying its core competencies and utilizing them for opportunities.
Weakness-Threats
In this situation firm have to position itself in such manner that it does not get affected by its
threats. ALDI need to conduct marketing audit in this this will enable company to know about
maintaing and updating marketing information system so that it can identify its threats on
time and also identify its weakness against its
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Stating and justifying three Marketing Objective which should be set for 'Express Ourselves'
Marketing Campaign over 12 month period
Main marketing objectives that are best suitable for Aldi’s 'Express Ourselves' Marketing
Campaign:
Marketing Objective:
 To enhance sales by 40% till the end of 2021-
Marketing Campaign 'Express Ourselves' will be launched by Aldi in such a way that its
objective can be successfully achieved. The main objective of launching this Campaign is to
increase their sale in marketplace by 40%, this can be done by Aldi through marketing and
advertising the products and services effectively through this Campaign. The advertising through
social media channel and Campaign is helpful for them in attracting wide range of population to
company's products, through advertising they are also availing the huge discount offers to their
consumer (Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019). This strategy will be helpful for Aldi to enhance their
sales significantly as more and more consumer will be attracted to the stores for purchasing the
products.
 To expand 2 more branches in international market within 6 months-
They also had an objective to open two more new branches in two locations for this they
will be doing the market research and analysing the macro-environment factor of that location
and after analyse whether the company can sustain in this market successfully or not. After
analyse all such factor Aldi will be deciding to open the store at appropriate place. For enhancing
consumer attraction, they will be providing various discount and offers to them through
Campaign on purchasing of products.
 To enhance number of customer through this 'Express Ourselves' Campaign.
Thus, more and more consumer will be attracted to the stores. The 'Express Ourselves' ad
also conveys their message to the consumer without talking to them. They will be using simple
word and the effective visual which is helpful for them in delivering their message to audience.
This will be helpful for Aldi to grab the attention of audience and encourages them to shop with
them. Aldi has effectively competed with the big supermarkets such as TESCO, Sainsbury, Asda
etc., and had gain huge consumer attraction towards their store by providing wide range of
discounts to their customers. Thus, their sale and revenue had risen significantly.
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By launching this Campaign, they can effectively place themselves in market and
promote themselves so that sales of company will enhance. So that they could have more
business opportunity and become the biggest supermarket chain in the whole United Kingdom.
With the help of these Campaign 'Express Yourself' consumers will be attracted in wide range
and by maintaining huge consumer loyalty base they can let these consumers to sustain with
company for long term. Along with the low pricing quality product must also be given to the
consumer by Aldi. The effective marketing of these Campaign through social media channels
Aldi could gain huge consumer attraction and enhance their sales effectively. The overall
objective of the Campaign will be achieved through its significant marketing and wide range of
market segmentation.
Marketing Mix Plan in order to achieve objectives over a time period of 12 months
Marketing mix is one of the most important tools that can be used to understand services
and products that can be offered and develop a plan for successful product offering. Marketing
mix helps an organization to decide ways in which they can achieve their desired goals and
objectives (Datta, Ailawadi and Van Heerde, 2017). There are seven elements of marketing mix
that helps in achieving desired marketing objectives that are to be achieved within a fixed desired
duration. Seven elements of marketing mix are product, price, place, promotion, people, process,
physical evidence. Developing a Marketing mix plan for ALDI will help ALDI to achieve their
marketing objectives over 12 months’ period.
Product: ALDI provide vide range of products to their customers that provides an opportunity to
their customers to select a product their suits them best.
 Aldi can provide various kinds of purchasing benefits to their customers that includes after
sales services, helpline services and many more.
 They can introduce new product line according to current trends that can satisfy their
customer’s needs and requirements. This will help them to increase their overall sales as well
as will help them to enhance their overall customer base.
 Today a greater number of customers are becoming environment friendly (Stead and
Hastings, 2018). So, Aldi can focus on enhancing their product packaging and should focus
on using environment friendly material for packaging.
Price: Currently Aldi uses competitive pricing strategy i.e. they offer or sell products according
to their competitors’ products price.
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 Aldi can focus on introducing various kinds of discounts or coupons that are applicable on
various kinds of products for a short duration of time period in order to attract large number
of customers
 Aldi can also bring improvement within their prices i.e. instead of pricing their products in
100’s of 10’s they can focus on using psychological pricing i.e. instead of displaying £10 or
£100 they can focus on pricing those products as £9 or £99. People not only consider it as
lower price but it will also help them to achieve their main marketing objective of increasing
their overall sales (Liu and et.al., 2017).
Place: Currently Aldi uses both online and offline channels to sell their products or services.
Currently they use online channel or online websites to sell products to their retailers who are
located at different locations in different countries.
 Aldi can focus on enhancing their sales on using online channels as well i.e. instead of selling
products only to retailers they can focus on selling products directly to their customers
through online website, social media etc. This will help them to increase their sales and also
increase their overall customer base as well (Jindal and et.al., 2019). For this Aldi can focus
on making their online website more user friendly for their customers.
 Aldi can focus on opening retail stores that are directly operated by the organization itself.
This will help them to increase their profit margin ass retailers in between would not exist as
well as it will also help them to achieve their second marketing objective to open 2 more
branches within a time period of 6 months.
Promotion: Currently Aldi uses various channels for marketing such as social media marketing,
television etc.
 Aldi should work on organizing advertisement campaigns though which they can deliver
desired message to their customers. This campaign will help Aldi to increase brand
awareness among their target customers which will further help them to increase their overall
sales.
 They can also use search engine optimization technique as well. This technique will help
them to build brand credibility, will enhance their customer experience as well as will also
help them to increase their online presence by increasing their presence in top position in
their users searching.
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People: Aldi has various employees working in different departments in order to increase their
sales, customer experience etc.
 Aldi should focus on providing training to their employees so that they can focus on
enhancing their customer experience by providing them with excellent services (Dost and
et.al., 2019). This will also help them to resolve any kind of issues that are faced by their
customers in a much better manner. this will not only increase their customer sales but will
also drive their sales to desired target. So sale of company will enhanced and consumer as
well.
Process: Aldi mainly focuses on maintaining their products availability by making sure that their
inventory does not run low.
 Aldi can focus on using advance management information system that will not only help
them to maintain, manage and monitor their inventory level but will also help in forecasting
items or products that are running low. This will increase their customer service by always
maintaining availability of their products and making sure that those products are delivered
on time to their customers (Giraldi, Mengoni and Bevilacqua, 2016). This will also help them
to reduce their overall cost and increase their efficiency. This can help Aldi in increasing
their sales and customer base as well.
Physical evidence: Aldi focuses on packing their products differently so that they can be easily
identified by their customer other than this they also focus on providing pictures of their products
on their websites so that customers do not get confused and their shopping experience can be
enhanced.
 Aldi can focus on asking their customers to provide feedback for their packaging and their
online shopping experience so that if there is requirement to bring improvement then they
can focus on it and increase their customer experience. So further sales of company will be
enhanced as per the rise in consumers. This will create a opportunity to the company to
expand at international level.
Ways in which ALDI can improve their Customer Service level
Customer service is one of the most important function of a business. Providing
appropriate and adequate level of services to their customers helps an organization to increase
customer satisfaction level among their customers (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017).
Improving customer service should be an important part of an organization’s marketing
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campaign. Aldi should focus on improving their customer service level and should making it a
part of their marketing campaign ‘Expressing Ourselves’. It is important fort Aldi to focus on
this factor as they have tough competition in the market in which they operate and in order to
gain competitive advantage it is important for them to increase their customer service level.
Some of the ways through which they can increase their customer service level are as follows:
Seek customer feedback: In order to provide excellent service or increase customer service
level it is important for an organization to understand areas in which their customers are facing
problems or what are their needs or requirement that are still required to be fulfilled (Kim and
Choi, 2016). It will help Aldi to understand their customer’s experience and areas where they
need to bring improvement or development. Other than this asking for feedback from customers
ensures then that their issues will be resolved or their needs might be fulfilled. It is the first step
through which customer service level can be enhanced. They can also provide online customer
feedback service to their customers so that they can drop their suggestions or issues online.
Focus on strengthening customer service team: In order increase customer service level it
is important for an organization to build a strong customer service team (Bilgihan, Kandampully
and Zhang, 2016). Aldi can focus on providing training to their customer service team so that
their overall skills and knowledge can be enhance. Providing training will help Aldi to develop
required skills within their employees such as: enhance their knowledge so9 that they can resolve
their customer’s issues, enhanced communication skills to increase their customer satisfaction
level, develop empathy and patience in order to deal with different kinds of customers. This will
help Aldi to increase satisfaction level of their customers.
Track customer representative’s performance: in order to increase customer service level,
it is important for organizations to continuously track their customer representative’s overall
performance i.e. whether they are dealing with their customers and their issues in a correct way
or not, whether their customers issues are being resolved or not and if any customer
representative reach a desired level of performance then they should be rewarded for providing
excellent service to their customers.
Customer relationship management software: CRM Software implementation can help
Aldi to maintain as well as set high customer service standards. With the help of this software
they can interact with their customers in a much better manner and changes of any kind of
confusion get reduced. It will also help Aldi to build a strong relationship with their customers.
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Multi-channel services: Aldi needs to focus on enhancing their multi-channel servicing
for their customers. They should not limit themselves on one channel but should focus on
enhancing their customer service across various other channels. This will help them to increase
options for customers so that they can enjoy quality service regardless of the channel they opt
for. They can focus on extending their customer service to social media or mobile devices as
well so that customers can provide services to their customers and if they want or desire any kind
of additional services from the organization they can easily get in touch with the organization.
This will help Aldi to improve their levels of Customer Service in a much better manner
as a part of their `Express Ourselves` Marketing Campaign.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that marketing audit can help an
organization to enhance their overall performance as well as also helps in evaluating internal and
external capabilities and business environment of an organization. From the above assignment it
has been summarized that if an organization wants to successfully launch their marketing
campaign then it is important for them to define desired marketing objectives that will help an
organization to achieve success. In order to achieve these objective Organizations should focus
on developing a marketing plan so that company can achieve their desired marketing objectives
that are required to achieved.
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