Strategic Marketing Report for McDonald's

This strategic marketing report for McDonald's explores the importance of effective marketing strategies in the fast food industry. It covers market analysis, identification of strategic marketing objectives, implementation tools and tactics, communication mix, marketing mix, and more.

STRATEGIC
MARKETING
REPORT FOR
MCDONALD

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Market analysis............................................................................................................................3
Identification of organisations' strategic marketing objectives for the campaign.......................7
Strategy implementation tools and tactics with covering of communication mix and marketing
mix...............................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
Books & Journals:......................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Strategic marketing is refers to a method in which organisations is focusing on its
strengths so that they can differentiate themselves from their competitors. This can be done with
the help of providing value and better services to their customers (Codignola, F., 2019). An
organisation can achieve their goals and objectives with the help of effective strategic marketing.
Marketing is one of the important functions of organisation in which they promote their goods
and services but it should be strategically plan as it increases the effectiveness of function. In this
context, McDonald’s case study is undertaken in order to show the effectiveness of strategic
marketing. McDonald’s is the American fast food company that founded in 1960 which has
headquartered in Chicago, US. Currently they are facing a challenge due to pandemic situation of
COVID-19. It gives a great impact on organisation and they analyse that at the crisis time
communication is very important. This can be done with the help of marketing campaigns
because after lockdown it becomes more important in order to inform the customers that they are
reopen their restaurants.
MAIN BODY
TASK
Market analysis
Market analysis is defined as the study of dynamics and attractiveness of a special market
in industry. It provides relevant information about customers, industries, competitors and other
variables of market. It also helps to determine the relationship between demand and supply for
product and services (BOZBAY). In the case of McDonald’s, they identified that we cannot
always be at the cutting edge of innovation, portents and technology according to the CEO of
company. After COVID-19, CEO of the company analyse that communication is very important
as it becomes the key to reopen their business. They identified that closing of restaurant is not
much hardest decision as opening was harder. In the crisis time, McDonald’s CEO found that
marketing is more crucial then ever as compared to previous time with crisis time. The reason
behind this is communication which becomes more important in present scenario as they have to

inform to the customers that they are reopening their restaurants. Communication gives
important information about opening which is the important part of marketing. That’s why they
need to focus on effective marketing with improvement of diversity in order to build a talent
pipeline. Company need to analyse the market with consideration of important elements which
are mentioned below:
Market size
Market size of McDonald’s is very wide as they daily serve about 4 million customers.
They just not are focusing on offering of new products and services but also maintaining a
consistent experience with the help of building a balance (Yoo and Kim, 2017). Company has 40
outlets in UK that served 1.1 billion customers. The CEO of company invest 1 billion pound in
the reason for the next three years as they are focusing on improvement of digital experience and
restaurant refurbishments for customers.
Competitor’s analysis
Competitor analysis of McDonald’s is very necessary in the present situation as they have
no idea about the new competition which raises the competition for company. This can be
effectively done with the help of using Porter’s five forces analysis model. Porter’s five forces
analysis model consists of five important forces which assist in analysing the competition of
business in the market. It includes threat of substitute, threat of new entrants, bargaining power
of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers and competitive rivalry.
 Competitive rivalry for McDonald's corporation is very strong as they have higher
number of forms which provided similar products such as Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc.
 Bargaining power of McDonald’s customer is also have a strong force as they have many
options to switch to other organisation.
 Bargaining power of McDonald’s suppliers is analysed that they are weakin the
bargaining because there are many suppliers available in the market which provide goods
to restaurant.
 Threat of new entrant is analysed in the case of McDonald’s that they have moderate
force as it is not easy for any other organisation to make the position similar to the
McDonald’s.

 Threat of substitute is very high in the case of McDonald’s as they have high number of
substitute available in the market.
Macro and micro economic forces
Macro and micro environment need to be analysed by organisation in order to analyse the
effect on operations and functions (Payne, AFrow and Eggert, 2017). It is just not a fact on the
operations but also effect on market size and trend data of organisation. Macro environment can
be analysed with the help of using PESTEL analysis model whereas micro environment can be
analysed with the help of SWOT analysis model.
PESTEL analysis
This is the model which consists of 6 important factors that impact on organisation
market trend and size that well explained below:
 Political factor: It includes the effect of governmental policies and actions. The company
analysed that it has a impact of Brexit as UK is separated from European Union.
 Economic factor: It includes effects of economic trends and conditions. Currently UK
economy is declining due to COVID-19 pandemic situation.
 Social factor: This is concerned with social trends which influence customer’s behaviour.
A currently urban area has a busy lifestyle so it has an opportunity for McDonald’s to
increase their sales.
 Technological factor: It consists of all technology changes which are daily update.
McDonald’s need to keep abreast in order analysing the impact of technology related
trends.
 Environmental factor: In present scenario of business environment, it is identified that
every organisation is followed the current trend i.e. sustainable development. This can be
done with the help of fulfilling corporate social responsibility.
 Legal factor: It includes all laws or regulation which gives a great impact on firms.
Currently increasing in health regulation and schools and workplaces becomes a threat
for McDonald’s.
SWOT analysis

It is the tool which helpful in order to analyse the internal environment of the company. It
consists of four elements.
Strength Weakness
 It is the tenth most valuable brand which
provides tasty food and also an initiator of
technology.
 It is analysed that their
employees are not satisfied
from the wages they got and
also lacking in franchise
business model as it raises
many risk.
Opportunity Threats
 Their innovative product becomes an
opportunity in order to expand their
business.
 They are facing a fierce
competition in the market such
as Burger King.
Customer analysis
Customer analysis is the process in which organisation collect data from their customer in
order to analyse the behaviour towards organisation products and services. It is very crucial for
McDonald’s as they have to analyse the customer tastes and preferences in order to make better
relationships (Kalyuzhna, Pisarenko and Nesterenko, 2018). This is very helpful for making key
decisions with the help of predictive analysis and marketing segmentation. The information
which gets from customer analysis is used by McDonald’s for the purpose of site selection, direct
marketing and customer relationship management. This can be done with the help of social
media marketing and taking feedback from the customers.
Stakeholder analysis
Stakeholder analysis is very important for McDonald’s as they have to analyse the power and
interest of people in order to produce goods and services which satisfy their stakeholders. This
can be done with the help of using stakeholder analysis matrix which consists of four important
quadrants that are mentioned below:

 High power, highly interested people: this type of people should be managed closer by
organisation in order to satisfy them as they are fully engage with the organisation
functions. It includes employees, owners, etc.
 High power, less interested people: These people are also important to keep them
satisfied in which they include customers. McDonald’s should take care that they get not
board with the messages of company.
 Low-power, highly interested people: These people should be adequately informed by
organisation in order to ensure that no issue arise. It includes investors.
 Low power, less interested people: In the private organisation government has very less
power as they are not interfere in the decision of organisations but there always
monitoring by organisation.
Identification of organisations' strategic marketing objectives for the campaign
Company should identify strategic marketing objectives for their campaign so that they
can make a perfect plan of strategic marketing (Herhausen and et. al., 2021). Objectives are very
necessary for organisation as it provides direction as well as guidelines to the employees.
Strategic marketing objective should be SMART so that they a can easily achieve. Some
important strategic marketing objectives identified by McDonald’s in order to recover their
position after the impact of COVID-19 on the business practices.
 McDonald’s analyse that communication becomes very necessary in present case. It
becomes more important than ever in crisis time as it helps in better communication in
order to inform customers about reopening of restaurants.
 They also have a strategic objective of collaboration as they analyse at it is very
important in present time.
 One important goal is to overcome with the logistic all challenge of reopening.
 To improve leadership in order to overcome with the challenges that occur from COVID-
19 pandemic situation.
In addition to the strategic objectives, company should provide reason for their marketing
campaign to the employees so that they can perform accordingly. After analysis of today's
business environment, it is identified that McDonald’s has a market opportunity of reopening
their restaurants so that they can target audience with providing the message of campaign.

Strategy implementation tools and tactics with covering of communication mix and marketing
mix
McDonald’s is needed to make a strategic marketing plan so that they can achieve their
target market (Goh and et. al., 2019). It consists of many important elements which should be
considered by marketing manager of McDonald’s. All consideration is mentioned below with the
use of framework:
Overview of an organisation
McDonald’s is an American based company that has a fast food chain which supply in all
over the world. They are founded in 1960s and currently supplies dairy products in all over the
world.
Objectives
The main objective of McDonald’s is to sell their products in all over the world. They
also aim to providing better communication in order to inform the reopen of restaurants.
Communication mix
It is the tool that helps to communicate with the customers who can be done with the help
of using social media, advertising, product packaging, events, websites, direct marketing and
exhibitions (Jacobson, Gruzd and Hernández-García, 2020). McDonald’s need to use
communication mix tools in which they have to cover advertising, direct marketing, personal
selling, public relations and sales promotion. After the analysis of case study, it is analysed that
they need to use communication mix tool so that they can effectively communicate with their
clients regarding the information of reopening their restaurants.
Marketing mix
McDonald’s also uses marketing mix tool which becomes very necessary in order to
promote their goods and services (Langroudi, Sharifi and Langroudi, 2019). It consists of 4
important Ps that include price, promotion, product and place. This is an effective model which
is focus on setting of marketing tools in order to pursue their marketing objective for the
achievement of target market.

 McDonald’s has a product mix organisation which include food and beverage products
and many varieties of their product line. It includes chicken and fish, burgers,
sandwiches, beverages, etc.
 Places are the element which include venues or locations that selected by McDonald’s in
order to offering products to the customers (Kumar, Lahiri and Dogan, 2018). Their main
prominent places are restaurants where they distributed their products.
 For the promotion element, McDonald’sselected many promotion tools such as
advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and public relations. These are the part of
promotional mix that used by McDonald’s.
 McDonald’s using bundle and psychological pricing strategy in the element of price.
RACE model for digital campaign planning
Currently organisation is focusing on key online and multi-channel marketing activities so
that they can achieve their objectives (Vaillant and Lafuente, 2019). For that purpose, they need
to manage all the activities which are the part of digital marketing. It consists of 4 steps online
marketing activities which helps McDonald’s to engage their customers in the life cycle of
customer. Four steps that are included mentioned below:
 Reach: It involves building awareness of McDonald’s brand with the help of offline as
well as online media in order to increase traffic.
 Act: This is concerned with interaction in which McDonald’s need to focus on
encouraging interaction in their social media and websites so that they can reduce the
challenge for online marketers.
 Convert: In this step, McDonald’sneed to convert their audience into paying customers so
that they can effectively generate their online e commerce transaction.
 Engage: The last step is to develop a long-term relationship with the customers in order
to build customer loyalty which helps in repeating of purchases. This can be done with
the help of proper communications.
Gantt chart
Gantt chart is the type of bar chart which design in order to show the dependency
relationship between current schedule and activities (Eggler and et. al., 2017). It is an effective

tool which is used in project management that assist in planning and scheduling of all types of
projects. From the below Gantt chart, McDonald’s is able to achieve their objective as they get
proper guideline with time.

Budget
Budget is an important document which needs to be included in the marketing plan of
McDonald’s. It becomes more important after pandemic situation as it is analysed that
McDonald's need to reducing the cost or expenditures so that they can achieve their ultimate
objective with optimum utilisation.
Cost:
Particulars Amount in euro
Marketing 10000
Human resource management 5000
Raw materials 15000
Assets 8000
Total 38000
Key performance indicators
Key performance indicator is defined as the set of quantifiable measurements which
McDonald’s use in order to gauge the long-term performances (Tarigan and Siagian, 2021). It is
also helps in to determine meaning financial, strategic and operational achievements of company
so that they can effectively compared with other organisations. Some important key performance
indicators that used by McDonald’sthat are profit margin, average class attendance, client
retention rate, revenue per client, etc.
Recommendations
There are some recommendation to McDonald’s which mentioned below:
 It is recommended to the organisation that they should focus on inter relationship with
their capability and resources to macro environmental factors so that they can analyse
that they are capable to overcome the issues.
 After COVID-19, reopening of restaurant becomes not an easy task. So that's why it is
recommended to the company that they need to identifying and analysing communication
tools so that they can effectively inform and communicate with the customers.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above discussion that strategic marketing is very important
as it is defined as a method in order to achieve goals and objectives with differentiate from their
competitors. In addition to this, market analysis should considered market size, competitor
analysis, macro and micro factors, customer analysis and stakeholder analysis. It also covers the
campaign strategy with the marketing plan in which it include all important frameworks and
models that helps organisation to implement strategy for the purpose of achieving target market.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals:
BOZBAY, Z., CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT: FROM PAST TO THE FUTURE. Strategic
Marketing, p.59.
Codignola, F., 2019, February. Big Data Marketing: A Strategic Alliance. In International
Conference on Data Science and Social Research (pp. 103-113). Springer, Cham.
Eggler, L., and et. al., 2017. Strategic Recommendations: Marketing, Fundraising and Branding.
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. School of Business.
Goh, W. H., and et. al., 2019. How green marketing mix strategies affects the firm's
performance: a Malaysian perspective. International Journal of Sustainable Strategic
Management, 7(1-2), pp.113-130.
Herhausen, D., and et. al., 2021. Re‐examining strategic flexibility: a meta‐analysis of its
antecedents, consequences and contingencies. British Journal of Management, 32(2),
pp.435-455.
Jacobson, J., Gruzd, A. and Hernández-García, Á., 2020. Social media marketing: Who is
watching the watchers?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 53.
Kalyuzhna, J., Pisarenko, D. and Nesterenko, S., 2018. Strategic management of labor resources
of agricultural enterprises on the basis of marketing. Agricultural and Resource
Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, 4(2), pp.55-68.
Kumar, V., Lahiri, A. and Dogan, O. B., 2018. A strategic framework for a profitable business
model in the sharing economy. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, pp.147-160.
Langroudi, H. R., Sharifi, M. and Langroudi, H. R., 2019. The Effect of Strategic Orientation on
Market Performance: Study of the Mediators. The Journal of Industrial Distribution &
Business, 10(4), pp.33-41.
Payne, A., Frow, P. and Eggert, A., 2017. The customer value proposition: evolution,
development, and application in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(4), pp.467-489.
Tarigan, Z. and Siagian, H., 2021. The effects of strategic planning, purchasing strategy and
strategic partnership on operational performance. Uncertain Supply Chain
Management, 9(2), pp.363-372.
Vaillant, Y. and Lafuente, E., 2019. The increased international propensity of serial
entrepreneurs demonstrating ambidextrous strategic agility. International Marketing
Review.
Yoo, S. G. and Kim, J., 2017. IT-Dependent Strategic Initiative to Increase the Marketing
Performance of Mobile Security Solutions. International Journal of Applied Engineering
Research, 12(6), pp.1084-1092.