Developing an Individual Marketing Plan: ALDI Case Study Report

This individual project report presents a comprehensive marketing plan for ALDI, a discount supermarket chain. It includes a marketing audit, TOWS analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and the setting of SMART marketing objectives focusing on sales growth, customer base expansion, and new store openings. The report also details the marketing mix (7Ps), recommending improvements in product offerings, pricing strategies, promotion through digital marketing, and customer service enhancements. The ultimate goal is to provide actionable recommendations for ALDI to achieve a competitive advantage and improve its market position, emphasizing the importance of aligning marketing activities with overall business goals and adapting to evolving market dynamics.

PROJECT INDIVIDUAL
MARKETING PLAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Marketing audit............................................................................................................................1
TOWS Analysis of ALDI............................................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Marketing Objectives...................................................................................................................3
Marketing objectives for ALDI...................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
Marketing Mix.............................................................................................................................5
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................7
Customer service.........................................................................................................................7
Recommendations for Improvement of Customer Service for Aldi............................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REREFENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers a combination of some functions and a strategy which allow companies to
promote their products and services in order to make people aware about features and attract
them (Armstrong and et.al., 2018). This present study is based on ALDI which is a discount
supermarket chains with having approximate 10,000 stores in around 20 countries. It offers
grocery and household materials to customers. This study of marketing is going to show
importance of developing a marketing plan and making it successful Marketing plan consists of
several steps which are being discussed in this study such as marketing audit, business
environmental analysis and marketing strategies. It will analyse TOWS model in a detail manner
which allows ALDI to identify link between its strengths-opportunities, strengths-threats and
others for taking advantages of external opportunities. Further, it will also show all elements of
marketing mix which allows an organization to compare its elements with competitors and
making changes in its own strategies accordingly for being the market leader.
TASK 1
Marketing audit
Marketing audit is a procedure of reviewing marketing plan, its set objectives and
strategies in a complete and detailed manner. With the help of auditing, company can view all
marketing activities which are being executed by them in order to identify areas which are not
working properly. With the help of marketing audit tool ALDI can make changes in its
objectives, activities, strategies and all elements of marketing plan if required. If it feels need of
changes for more improvement and taking competitive advantages, than marketing audit plays a
key role (Chen and Yang, 2019). There is a requirement of marketing team to take active
participation in marketing audit in order to analyse all those areas which need to be improved for
making marketing plan successful. There are main reasons which shows and put pressure to
companies that why they should develop a marketing audit such as:
 Identifying all those areas which are not working properly and take appropriate actions.
 Getting new ideas and different strategies into action for making marketing plan
successful.
 Taking in depth insight of competition and taking advantages as well.
 To save time as well as money for the long run.
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 Aligning marketing activities with goals of the company.
TOWS Analysis of ALDI
For making a marketing plan successful, it is important for organization to analyse its
internal environmental factors. TOWS analysis model is known as the best and effective way to
identify own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Kulshrestha and Puri, 2017.). It
can also make ALDI able to match its internal strengths and external opportunities for making
itself successful. Detailed analysis of this strategy is discussed below:
Strengths Weaknesses
Opportuniti
es
 One of the main strength of
ALDI is it provides higher
quality of products at lower and
affordable price. This strength
can provide it opportunity to
attract wider range of customers
and increasing customers’
satisfaction.
 Other main capability and
strength is it has brand name in
Australian economy by which it
can take opportunity to create a
positive association within
various states as well as
communities.
 One of the main weakness of
this company is it has poor
employees satisfaction as they
are being paid lesser than
other. This weakness can take
some opportunities from it like
opportunity to take competitive
advantages.
 One of the other weaknesses of
ALDI is low level of
advertising and lack of
investment in promotion and
advertising. It can also snatch
opportunity from it to increase
sales and revenue.
Threats ALDI has ability or strength of having
marketing presence in around 15
countries worldwide. This strength can
help ALDI in reducing threat of
competition (Kulshrestha and Puri,
2017).
 It is stated that ALDI has poor
penetration in high income
group which can increase its
threat of reducing market
shares in the UK and
decreasing number of
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customers.
Strengths-opportunity: As per the strength and opportunity strategy, ALDI can match its
strength with its opportunity. So, in this context, it can be said that ability or strength of ALDI
eco system and making it products organic can help it out in taking environmental opportunity of
sustainability and increasing number of customers.
Weaknesses-opportunities: According to weakness and opportunity strategy, ALDI can identify
its weakness which can snatch some opportunities from it. One of the main weaknesses of ALDI
supermarket is low profit margin as well as limited diversity of products. This weakness can take
opportunity of taking competition advantages and increasing sales and revenue.
Strengths-threats: It is other main strategy by which ALDI can identify its strengths and can
link it with threats as with the help of its own ability and strengths which types of threats it can
remove. It is analysed from this model that it has lower operating cost and also provide products
to customers at lower price. So, with the help of this strength, it can decrease impacts of threat of
intense competition. By providing qualitative products to customers at affordable prices, it can
attract them as well as influence them to shift their shop. So, it can directly help it out in
reducing threat of competition (SWOT Analysis of ALDI, 2018).
Weaknesses-threats: As per this strategy, ALDI links its weaknesses with threats. It impacts on
its performance and productivity in a negative manner. As per the weaknesses and threats
strategy, ALDI have to identify its weaknesses which can increase threat. One of the main
weaknesses of ALDI which can not only snatch some opportunities but can also increase threats
such as: poor employee satisfaction and low profit margin. These weaknesses can increase threat
of competition and lower sales, revenue and market share. When employees do not feel satisfied
than it directly affects image of the company which lower sales, profits and revenue as well.
So, from the above discussed strategies, it can be suggested to ALDI that it should focus on
diversifying its products range and focus on all income age group of people. By doing this it can
take opportunities of competition and increasing customers’ satisfaction.
TASK 2
Marketing Objectives
Marketing objectives are basic defined goals of the brand. Marketing objectives helps in
outlining main intentions of the marketing team. It also provides clear directions for team
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members to follow (Mirzaei, Carter and Schneider, 2018). These marketing objectives one of the
most important part of marketing strategy without which it is difficult for brand to achieve their
desired goals and it won’t be clear for the brand what they want to do. In order to develop a
marketing strategy to is important for organizations to develop SMART marketing objectives
first that are required to be achieved. These objectives also help in establishing communication
and assign responsibilities to the employees to that they can work in an enhanced manner. This
further helps an organization to identify their long-term goals so that they can grow and develop
within their target market and gain competitive advantage.
SMART is a criterion on the basis of which objectives should be defined as it helps in
making objectives clear and reachable. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Relevant and Time Bound (Jaminyasa, Pulawan and Amerta, 2017). SMART objectives help an
organization in setting them up for success by making their objectives specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant and time bound. Such kind of objectives also help an organization to move
further, provide a sense of direction to its employees, helps them to become organized and
achieve their desired goals in an easy and defined manner. In simple words it can be said that
SMART objectives help a business to focus on their efforts and increase their chances of
achieving their goals.
Marketing objectives for ALDI
ALDI is focusing on starting a marketing campaign known as ‘Express ourselves’ over a
period of next six months. In order to ensure success of this marketing campaign 3 SMART
objectives are required to be set by ALDI so that they can ensure success of their ‘Express
ourselves’ marketing campaign. Three main SMART objectives of ALDI are as follows:
 To increase their overall sales by at least 20 percent over next 12 months’ time period.
 To enhance overall customer base by 15 percent within next 12 months estimated time
period.
 To open at least 3 more Brick and Mortar Stores at three different locations in next 12
months.
Achievement of these objectives will help in ensuring overall success of the marketing
campaign of ALDI. Overall success of the campaign will also be measured with the help of these
objectives i.e. till what extent objective have been achieved or how many objectives have been
achieved.
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TASK 3
Marketing Mix
Marketing mix can be defined as a set of actions that can be used by an organization in
order to promote their products, services or their brand in their target market (Beygiyazdi,
Nayebzadeh and Davoodi Roknabadi, 2018). Marketing mix helps an organization to focus on
product, price. Promotion, distribution and many more in order to increase overall market
share and sales of the project. It is known as marketing mix because each of the ingredient of
marketing affect other ad this mix is required to be suitable for the target customer base of the
organization as well. There are 7 P’s of marketing that helps in development of marketing
objectives. 7 P’s of marketing mix are: product, price, promotion, place, process, physical
evidence and people.
ALDI is required to develop a marketing mix strategy so that they can achieve desired
results within the market they serve. 7 P’s of marketing mix that are required to be proposed and
that are required to be undertaken by ALDI in order to achieve defined marketing objectives over
a time period of 12 months are as follows:
Product: They sell their products under various kinds of categories for each of their product line.
All the products sold by ALDI are completely different from each other (Ali, Ibrahim and
Hashim, 2017). All the unique products sold by them have offer various kinds of features to their
customers that are not offered by its competitors. There are few recommendations that can help
ALDI to achieve their desired targeted marketing objectives. First is ALDI can provide various
kinds of purchase benefits to their customers which will help them to attract a greater number of
customers and they can enhance their customer base.
Price: Currently ADLI has adopted competitive pricing strategy as per the competition in the
industry in which they operate. Other than this they also take price in considerations whenever
they want to set price of some product, they compare price of products offered by competitors
and then on the basis of this they set prices of their products. They have fix prices of their
products. So here are few recommendations that can be used by ALDI to bring changes within
their strategy such as: they can provide various kinds of offers or discounts to the customers so
that they get attracted towards their products or services. They can also bring changes within
their prices in order to attract a greater number of customers like instead of displaying prices in
100’s they can display prices in 9’s form.
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Promotion: In order to promote their products, ALDI uses different multi- media channels like
television, radio advertisements and many more (Parment, Kotler and Armstrong, 2016). They
use these platforms because with the help of these platforms they can easily reach and attract
their target customers. ALDI can adopt various kinds of digital marketing techniques as today
more than 90 percent of people uses digital technologies so it would become much easier for the
organization to reach their target customers.
Place: ALDI sell their products through online website as well as through their Brick and Motor
stores. But currently their online website is any used by their wholesalers to send products of
ALDI to different retailers. They can focus on updating their website and developing their own
websites for their customers so that they can directly order or buy products from their website or
application.
Process: ALDI have an inventory management system that helps them to management
availability of their products at all the retail stores. This system also helps them to check
availability of products within their inventory and if they run low of any product then there are
being notified about the same. ALDI should focus on enhancing their research and development
department so that they can work on ways to innovate or bring improvement within their
products and services.
Physical evidence: ALDI sell their products in unique and different packaging so that their
products are easily visible and identifiable to their customers. Their online website also quite
user friendly that can be easily used by everyone (Gujral, Rauzela and Chuchu, 2016). ALDI can
ask their customers to provide them feedback about their packaging and online services so that
they can get to know improvement or changes that are required to brought by them.
People: ALDI has large number of employees working for them under their sales and marketing
department. These employees work for identifying their customer’s needs, preferences and
requirements. Other than this they also have a customer service department who focuses on
resolving their customers issues. ALDI can focus on providing advance training to their customer
service department employees so that they can understand ways in which they should tackle with
different kinds of customers. Sales and marketing team should also be provided with different
kinds of incentives so that they feel motivated to achieve their desired goals or objectives.
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TASK 4
Customer service
Customer satisfaction impacts overall success of a business in many ways. Customer
service plays an important and vital role within a business organization as it helps an
organization to enhance their overall customer satisfaction level (Lim, Jee and De Run, 2018). It
can help a business to increase their customer loyalty, increase their sales as well also helps in
enhancing overall positive feedback from customers. For retail sector organizations customer
service is heart of their business that helps business in providing exceptional service to their
customers. It also helps in maintaining overall reputation of the organization. It also helps an
organization to ensure that they provide excellent service to their customers and enhance their
overall experience.
Recommendations for Improvement of Customer Service for Aldi
There are various ways that can help an organization like ALDI to enhance or bring
improvement within their overall customer service level. Some of the recommendations for
Improvement of Customer Service for Aldi are as follows:
 By providing excellent training to customer service department employees so that they can
enhance their overall listening skills, enhancing overall knowledge so that they can lean ways
in which they can empathize with their customers. Practising active listening will help the
customer service executive or other employees of this department to understand problems or
issues faced by the customers in a better manner so that those issues can be resolved easily
(Zafeiriou, Siatri and Garoufallou, 2016). Learning to empathizing within customers will
help the employees to understand their customers feelings. This will help them to understand
their customers problems and resolve any kind of conflict which is being faced by their
customers.
 Installation of customer service management system. Most of the organizations in retail
sector uses customer service management system which helps them to track their customers
details, purchase history, issues raised by them and many more. These systems also help the
employees to understand depth of the problem which is being faced by their customers so
that, that problem can be resolved easily. Not only this some of the system are so much
advanced that those system helps the organization to analyse their customer satisfaction level
and feedback provided by their customers. ALDI can work on installing customer service
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management system as this system will help them to bring improvement within their
customer service level in a much better and easy manner.
 ALDI can focus on analysing and measuring their customers feedback. They can ask their
customers to participate in a survey in which they can provide feedback to organizational
products and services (Githinji, Mbugua and Chege, 2019). This will allow the customers
to provide suggestions to the organizations that can help them to bring improvement
within their customer service level. Feedback provided by the customers can be analysed
and measured by the organizations in order to understand level of satisfaction and
customer experience related to the company and their products.
 They can also focus on reaching their customers personally either though emails,
messages or though feedback calls related to customers complains, issues or problems.
This personalized way of reaching the customers will also help the organization to bring
improvement within their customer service level in a much better and enhanced manner.
These recommendations will help ALDI to bring improvement within their customer
service level and will also help them to increase satisfaction level and positive experience of the
customers with the organization.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that marketing plan is one of the
most important things which is required to be developed by organization for successful
marketing of their products and services. In order to develop an effective marketing plan, it is
important for organizations to first develop SMART marketing objectives as these objectives
helps an organization to measure success of their marketing campaigns etc. It has also been
analysed that there are various methods or techniques through which marketing audit can be
conducted. These marketing audits helps an organization review their marketing plan in a
detailed manner. It has also been analysed that there are various kinds of strategies or set of
actions that can be used by organizations in promotion of their products and services. Marketing
mix is one of those set of action though which organizations can promote their products or
services in an effective manner. In order to attract a greater number of customers it is important
for organization to bring improvement within their customer service and provide excellent
service to their customers.
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