Strategic Marketing Planning for ASOS: Impact of Br-exit and COVID-19

This assignment focuses on the strategic marketing planning for ASOS, a top online cosmetic and fashion retailer in the UK. It discusses the impact of Br-exit and COVID-19 on the retail industry, organizational structure, required resources, environmental analysis, corporate and marketing objectives, marketing strategy selection, market targeting and positioning, and assessment of the 7Ps of marketing mix.

STRATEGIC MARKETING
PLANNING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
TASK..........................................................................................................................................................3
Brief investigation of current retail industry including impact on Br-exit and COVID-19......................3
Discussion based on organizational structure and resources required......................................................3
Environmental analysis............................................................................................................................4
Corporate and marketing objectives........................................................................................................6
Marketing strategy selection....................................................................................................................7
Market targeting and positioning including global implication and potential expansion globally...........7
Assessment of 7Ps of marketing mix ......................................................................................................7
Implementation, control and evaluation...................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Strategic marketing planning is the key element that contribute in excellent progress and
success of varied companies. It includes several activities and significant components that
management take into consideration for obtaining competitive edge and gaining benefits while
operating in challenging business environment. The current assignment will be based on ASOS,
which falls under list of top 10 online cosmetic and fashion retailers in the United Kingdom. The
study will explain, overcome of retail sector including impact of pandemic and Br-exit upon it. It
will define organizational structure, assets that are needed and implication of environmental
analysis. Furthermore, the report will justify corporate and marketing objectives of company and
will also describe marketing strategy that marketer use in the context of firm. It will clarify
market positioning and targeting including globalization. Lastly, the assignment will explain
assessment of 7p’s of marketing mix and explanation of each component on current situation.
TASK
Brief investigation of current retail industry including impact on Br-exit and COVID-19
Retail industry is considered as one of the most profitable and beneficial sectors in the
whole world. It is witnessing drastic modifications with changing economic conditions. There
are many factors exist and emerge in the business world that put positive and negative impact on
retail industry. For example, Br-exit is one of those external factors that have put almost
negative affect on sector in term of decreasing workforce, because many people go back to their
home town due to Brexit and leave UK. But it also put positive impact on industry in term of
providing opportunities to expand business across United Kingdom.
Along with this, in recent time retail industry has get affected by COVID-19 which is
another factor that decrease productivity, profitability and sales of overall sector that may
approx. 50%, as it put negative impact on it (Brydges, Retamal and Hanlon, 2020). On the other
hand, it may put positive impact as well in term of driving attention of management towards
taking better precautions for workers and consumers health and using e-commerce to increase
sales. It may affect positively in term of performance growth approx. 20%.

Discussion based on organizational structure and resources required
Organizational structure is defined as one of those approaches that has been taken into
consideration and conducted into practical manner for dividing activities of workers, organized
everything in a company and coordinate with each other at workplace (Schulman, 2020). In the
context of ASOS, management has adopted and developed hierarchical organizational structure,
which contribute in its greater success in the future.
It is not possible for organization to run venture successful in market or industry as it may
require many resources to overcome negative impact of factors that has been discussed above. It
includes good source of finance, skilled and hardworking employees, effective leadership and
management style & research and development team.
Environmental analysis
Environmental analysis is defined as strategic management tool that help to analyze and
identify external and internal factors and their impact on business performances (Ong, Blanch
and Jones, 2020). It entails assessing extent of opportunities and threats or challenges that
presents by existing factors. Environment analysis is the important part of strategic marketing
planning. In term of element, it helps to analyze the effect of factors upon organizational
capabilities, and operational effectiveness. Here, PESTEL analysis model in the context of
ASOS.
Political factor-
Br-exit as an external factor may put negative impact on productivity and operational
efficiency of organization, in term of putting a lot of pressure on management to restructure their
plans and strategies, which is not that easy to do for any company in short term period ( Noja,
Cristea and Yüksel, 2020). This factor brings a lot of challenges for retail sector and create
barriers related to international trade, which is not simple to overcome. It drives the attention of
national and international authority towards taking rash decisions in the context of corporate
world and economic well-fare that made Britain independent nation in the world. Varied changes
in government policies and regulations, specially related to international trade have been taken
place due to Brexit.
Economic factor-

Fluctuation related to any economic factor directly impact strategic management
practices and activities of organizations like ASOS. Pandemic is one of those factors that affect
this factor in negative manner, it increases unemployment rate and decrease operational
effectiveness of this brand. It put a lot of pressure on management to manage their business
functions during pandemic, it drives their attention of offer products to customers which become
more complex for company. On the other hand, it may put positive impact on employment
practice and policy of firm, in term of providing opportunity to hire people in cheaper rate who
seek to work in a company to earn money and improve their living standard that have been
affected due to COVID-19.
Social factor-
Increasing demand for home delivery and paraben free cosmetic products, may put
negative impact on sales and worker’s performance of ASOS, as it put high pressure on
managers and top authority to fulfill the demand of their customers, which is not that easy to do,
but important for growth and success of business (Online fashion demand will outlast pandemic,
says Asos, 2021). COVID-19 also makes their factor more challenging, as it drives attention of
people towards making social distancing and because of that individual person prefer to buy
good online and demand for home delivery, for which company may hire more people who may
do this by following pandemic guideline in term of keeping social distance from customers. It
consumes a lot of time, efforts and money as well.
Technology factor-
Technology advancement may put positive impact on sales and productivity ASOS as it
gives opportunity to firm in the context of selling its products whether clothes or cosmetic
online, with few employees who may take initiative to deliver goods on time at right location,
without making any mistakes. It may provide more chance in term of tracking orders and
updating consumers about this, which is important and beneficial to as it help to build strong and
long run relationship between brand and its target segment. During pandemic, organization skill
continues its marketing activities by using social media marketing channels or platforms, which
is an appropriate example of technology advancement that gain the attention of more buyers
toward purchase of its goods.

Environmental factor-
Environment sustainability is trending topic, because customers and government is quite
concern to environment safety and prevention from varied forms of pollution. They seek to
reduce carbo foot print, and drive the attention of all the companies like ASOS to do so in
effective and ethical manner, which is actually quite beneficial and essential for brand image and
business sustainability in retail industry. It put positive impact on venture, and attract more
buyers towards organization, which in return increase its sales and build strong brand image.
Pandemic affect this factor in term of spreading awareness about importance of hygiene and their
benefits in life. All because of these company has taken initiative to use recyclable goods and
guide workers to create hygienic environment at workplace that is actually good for them and
consumers as well.
Legal factor-
Fluctuation in government policies, regulations and attributes, especially related to
employment may put negative impact on brand in term of putting a lot of stress upon
management to change their practices and policy according to new terms. For example, in many
nations government has taken decision for workers in term of providing guidance to corporation
to pay half salary to their staff during pandemic even they work or not. COVID-19 is the main
reason behind this change that affect current policies. It led to decrease profits margin of
company.
Corporate and marketing objectives
ASOS is the most popular fashion brand in the UK, because it offers the top quality
clothes and cosmetics to customers. It may take varied initiatives to achieve strategic business
aims and marketing goals as well (Michalewska-Pawlak and Klimowicz, 2021).
Corporate objectives-
 Organization objective is to become the number one fashion destination for fashion
lovers in the world.
 Another objective of firm is to achieve greater coherence and competitive edge.
 Its third objective is to increase loyal customer base.

Marketing objectives-
 To increase web traffic by 50% within 1 year.
 To increase profitability and productivity up to 40% within 1 year.
 To enhance customer satisfactory level by 50 percent within 12 months.
Marketer may achieve these aims by taking varied methods into their considerations.
Marketing strategy selection
Marketing strategies is defined as set of initiatives that has been taken by manager in
order to make customers aware about the product. It is a vast process which includes planning of
strategy, research, analysis and implication of that strategy. A manager may use these major
strategies of marketing in an organization.
Digital marketing – This strategy includes marketing by an organization on digital
platforms which may include Internet, application, social sites etc.
Paid Advertising – This strategy encompasses the advertisement of organization by
paying the media which includes advertisement through newspapers, Television, banners etc. It
is the most traditional style of marketing.
Cause Marketing – This includes marketing of a product by linking it to a particular
social cause or issue.
Customer Relationship Marketing – This type of marketing is generally focus on
building relationship with the customer. Leaving an impression on existing customer that may be
helpful in retaining them and it increase the chances of attracting new customers for the
company.
Implication of Marketing strategy in ASOS.
Digital marketing - The marketing management of ASOS majorly relies on the
medium of Digital marketing. This medium of marketing is the most appropriate for a big firm
which operates online. It is also the strongest source for firm to endorse its products. Although
marketing managers at the company develop other strategies also, but through online marketing
they managed to reach out to a huge customer base. Attracting a big customer base turned out to
be a profitable venture for the firm. As this strategy includes various tools, which in return

provide many benefits to ASOS in term of increasing its web traffic. The firm through its
website and application becomes accessible to the customers from any remote location. Both
these medium needs marketing to make the consumers aware about it, it is done through tie up of
the firm with other websites and applications, Tie up with brands of social media which helps in
promotion of the firm. It becomes important for a E - commerce firm like ASOS to heavily
market its brands and products online as it is the best way to cope up with the heavy cost of
productions of the company. The organization may also tie up a contract with small digital
marketing entities to carry out their digital marketing process. It eases the pressure on marketing
managers and helps them to strategise for different mediums.
This medium also tests the varied and creative thinking of managers to plan and
strategies. Creative way of endorsing the products through this medium benefited ASOS in terms
of expanding customer base. The successive profit and loss statement of the company resembles
the positive impact of digital marketing. The management is planning to further extend its
marketing operations by contacting the local community pages for endorsing online. It may help
the firm to derive more profits and gain more customers. Officials at the Organization keeps
developing new online strategies to access more visibility, which is the most important aspect for
any firm.
Market targeting and positioning including global implication and potential expansion globally
STP – The marketing model of STP refers to segmentation, Targeting and positioning of
a brand or product by an organization (Dadzie and et.al., 2017). The managers state this as the
most commonly practiced marketing model for all the big firm across the globe. It derives the
formation of different categories of customer by the firm in order to access them.
Market segmentation- In this process identification of the segments of customers by
classifying them into different categories is practiced by the management at ASOS. The
marketing team evaluates two major strategies for segmentation demographic and
psychographic. In demographic the firm classifies individuals into different age groups such as
children from 0 to 16, youths from 16 – 30 and Adults from 30 – 50. By using the psychographic
segmentation the firm classifies its customers on the basis of their personality traits, interests,
attitudes and their values.

Market Targeting – This module is implicated globally to target the segments of
customers for a company’s product. It gives a specific idea to managers for product promotion to
all the categories of consumers. Like ASOS this model is been used by every big organization in
the world which are operating with various products. As the firm deals with clothing and
cosmetic products, it caters from various age group of customers from children of age group 0 to
16 to adults of age group 30 to 50. Managers may categories the potential consumers into age
groups to target them with the products. The marketing department implies the method of
differentiation in which the firm provides different offerings to the selected target market.
Market Positioning – It refers to the proper positioning of the brand name and its
products by an organization to set strong image in mind of customers. Firms all over the world
make strategies to position their brand in to the market, thus making it a common phenomenon.
Its implication in ASOS is handled by the marketing department online. From past several years
the firm has made a strong brand image for itself, by using social media platforms.
Organization may choose the best entry mode such as joint venture, direct investment,
franchise and other, which made it capable to reach at global level.
Assessment of 7Ps of marketing mix
The 7 Ps of marketing refers to the set of marketing tactics which is used by a business
Organisation to in order to make their services accessible to the customers of the target market
(Kwok, Tang and Yu, 2020). It is a part of marketing mix which includes Product, Price, Place,
Promotion, Physical evidence, People and Process.
Product – Product are the services offered by an organisation. The major products of
ASOS are clothes and cosmetics. The firm implements various strategies to improve the quality
and quantity of their products according to the parameters of the customers. Better quality of
products helps company to increase its base of customers and also ensures the sustainability in
the target market which is crucial. Because of the changing preferences of the consumers there
are various changes implemented by the management in production strategies of clothes and
cosmetics products. For example, the changing trend of wearing ripped jeans in youths led to
changes in production process of jeans in the firm to attract the target segment of youths.

Price – This process of marketing refers to the pricing of products offered by ASOS.
The pricing strategy depends upon various factors which are acknowledged by the marketing
department of the firm (Kienzler and Kowalkowski, 2017). The management team evaluates the
pricing process in a manner which may prove to be beneficial for the organisation in terms of
customer gathering and to cope up with the cost of production as well. Because the firm offers
large variety of substitutes for their products, the pricing for each product is kept at affordable
measures so that each target segment may access their products. The marketing department of
the company follows value based pricing method which refers to setting up of the value of cloths
and cosmetics according to worth of that product and customer satisfaction.
Place – ASOS operates its market in UK, the vast presence of firm in its target market
reflects the positive impact of evaluating the strategies of place selection by the marketing
department. The products of the company such as cloths and cosmetics holds a customer in each
remote location. The team has to form decisions regarding to the selection of place where the
target market is direct accessible. Company also evaluates the future possible chances of
expanding the market in selected place. Strategies includes benefits of selecting target place in
terms of customers presence, geographical factors, accessibility of production materials for the
firm.
Promotion – A big organisation like ASOS use different medium and platforms for
promoting its final products. Evaluation of strategies regarding the products on most visible
mediums is crucial to create customer awareness for products of the organisation. Popular
mediums such as Digital marketing, Paid Advertising and Customer relationship are been
implemented by the management of the firm. Marketing team has been successful over the years
in terms of customer gathering through promotion. It helped the firm to expand its customers
base and led to the growth of the company.
People – People refers to the individuals such as customers, staff and salesperson of
ASOS including the marketing team itself. The aim of the marketing department in the firm is to
provide excellent customer service to its customers in order to retain them which may lead to
further increase in sales. The team may develops and implements various strategies such as
providing the customer feedback portal to address the queries, proper management of consumers
resulted in forming of loyal customers by the organization.

Process – The plans and process of delivering products to the customers without any
interruptions is managed by the marketing team of the company in this process. ASOS relies on
the customer satisfaction point to Operate its business and make various changes to the process
in order to satisfy the consumers. Marketing management of the firm may assess the evaluations
of different plans and strategies of efficient delivery of products in order to save time and money.
Production control is a process evaluated by the marketing team to track and compare the
production at a stage with its desired outcome at that stage. Systematic channel of delivery is
another process used by the management to assess the delivery of the product.
Physical Evidence – The firm's strategies to present the evidence of its physical
existence falls under this process. ASOS is a big organization, thus it may provide evidences
which may prove its physical existence to the customers which is a crucial process. It also refers
to the physical services of the firm. In term of physical evidence, firm may use products
labelling, their logo and official websites. This helps the firm to gain the trust of consumers and
satisfy them. Satisfied consumers may result in increasing sales, thus it is important for marketer
to enhance satisfactory level of each buyer.
Implementation, control and evaluation
Implementation is process of implementing set aims, strategies, methods, plan and
techniques, which in return provide a lot of benefits to management. Manager may implement
plan by dividing roles and accountabilities among staff and providing training to them.
In order to achieve success in regard to strategic marketing plan of ASOS, management
may take initiative to implement schedule, control the activities of workers related to plan and
evaluate success of overall procedure, for which they may use effective and suitable techniques,
approaches and concepts.
For example, schedule implementation is the most important element of strategic
marketing plan, it shows which role and responsibility as well as action may be done when and
by whom. According to that, marketer may coordinate with management to allot task and action
on the basis of their abilities and skills. They may provide each responsibility and guide people
how to perform to achieve it, which is quite essential as it made them able to obtain desire
outcomes. Under implementation phase, marketer may create appropriate budget.

Marketer may take each step according to budget that help to achieve corporate aim and
marketing objectives.
Control-
The importance of strategic marketing plan is their effectiveness, which needs timely
implementation and controlling and evaluation of outcomes. In order to do that, marketer may
take initiative to provide accurate guidance to each worker, which is important for them as well
as business growth. Their suggestions and directions, play vital role in the context of this phase,
in term of controlling performance and increasing productivity of candidates who are able to
obtain desire outcomes and gain competitive edge. By monitoring employee’s performance and
activities that have been conducted at workplace, manager may control everything, which enable
them to achieve set aims and greater success for business. Controlling is one of the most
important initiative of management which have been done in appropriate and systematic manner
for gaining competitive advantages and increasing sales. Training is the best approach that
manager may use to control and manage the productivity and performance of each applicant.
Evaluation-
At last, marketer may attempt to evaluate success of their marketing plan, by using varied
methods and techniques as well, for example they may review overall plan periodically by
making comparison of growth with implementation schedule (THIS, 2020). Furthermore, along
with this they may measure success of company after plan implementation by using
benchmarking, which is one of the most common and effective approaches that has been used by
many companies to make a clear comparison between their success criteria and rivals. By
conducting this practice, manager may identify areas where improvement is required, for which
many actions will be taken in the future according to this circumstance.
They may evaluate success of marketing plan by considering and identifying gab between
previous and current market share, profits margin and sales, which make everything clear in front
of them that is important as it guide manager for in the future initiative which they may take for
better growth and success.

CONCLUSION
From above analysis, it has been concluded that organization has achieved its marketing
and corporate objectives by taking initiative to overcome the negative impact of external factors.
It has gained competitive advantages by considering the needs, key market trends and consumer
preferences regarding products, which is not that easy to obtain for any company as it requires a
lot of hard work and attempts to do so. Furthermore, by summing up above discussion, it has
been identified that by developing the best marketing strategy and using the most influencing
advertising platform, marketers has contributed to increased web traffic, profits margin,
productivity and customer base. They have taken initiative to target appropriate and profitable
group of customers, which in return has provided benefits to company in term of increasing its
sales. Moreover, by summing up above assessment, it has been summarized that by
implementing each element of marketing mix 7p’s model, marketer has enhanced the operational
efficiency of company and increase satisfactory level of customers.

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Online
Online fashion demand will outlast pandemic, says Asos. 2021. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/online-fashion-demand-will-
outlast-pandemic-says-asos-1.4532170>