Marketing Strategies: An Analysis of Aldi's Promotional Activities

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Aldi's promotional strategies, examining various techniques employed by the supermarket chain. The report begins with an executive summary highlighting Aldi's growth and use of promotional channels, including television, social media, and its website. It then delves into the company's background, promotional methods, and theoretical aspects of the promotional mix. The core of the report explores Aldi's promotional techniques, including its use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as advertising, personal selling, public relations, email marketing, and its website. The report also analyzes the theoretical aspects of promotional mix, including above-the-line and below-the-line promotion, and how Aldi utilizes the AIDA model to create awareness and drive customer engagement. The report concludes with a discussion of the effectiveness of Aldi's promotional strategies in achieving its marketing objectives.

Running Head: PROMOTION 0
Marketing

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Executive summary
Aldi is one of the growing supermarkets in recent time. It has huge customer base due to its
innovative services. It also uses effective promotional strategies due to growing concern for
the innovations. It has several promotional channel including television, Facebook, twitter as
well as its own website. Using these channel, it is able to inform its customer regarding
launching of any product. It also believes that awareness is essential for customers to know
the brand and company properly. In this regard, it makes use of AIDA for proper functioning.
Above the line and below the line promotion is also effectively managed by Aldi.

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Contents
Introduction about the company.................................................................................................3
Introduction to the report...........................................................................................................3
Promotional techniques of Aldi.................................................................................................4
Social media sites.......................................................................................................................4
Theoretical aspect of promotional mix......................................................................................8
Above the line promotion...........................................................................................................8
Below the line promotion...........................................................................................................9
AIDA model of Aldi................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction about the company
Aldi is a German based supermarket. The full form of Aldi is Albbrechta discount. Aldi
supermarket chain is consisting of the two essential groups named as Aldi Sud and Aldi
Nord. It is true that both the groups are not dependent in their operations. They work within
the specific market ground. This company has changed the small business to one of the well-
known and most successful Company. It has around 9,000 stores in over 18 countries. It also
employed around 1, 00,000 employees all over the World. Due to its best quality products
with low prices helps it in attracting the huge customer base from all over the world. At Aldi,
from selecting suppliers, building shop, selling and locating goods is done in effective
manner to gain the competitive advantage with huge market and customer base. Due to these
reasons only, Aldi is considered as sales oriented as well as market oriented organization
(Bilińska-Reformat, 2016). Inn this way, with the help of promotional techniques, it becomes
easy for the companies to keep updated their customers.
Introduction to the report
In recent time, it is essential for the organization to effective promote its products as well as
services that it offers to the customers. Promotional techniques help the organization convey
its message in an effective manner. Promotion techniques is also said to be a tool that is used
by Aldi to remind its customers for making purchases about their new products or any new
offer that it is presenting for the customers. Several promotional techniques exist such as
publicity, marketing, social media communication, sales promotion, and advertising (Kumar,
Suganya and Imayavendan, 2018). Aldi also uses these techniques in an effective manner that
is helping the company to expand its wings in several new market segments and countries. In
the first section of the report, promotional techniques of Aldi have been described. It is true
that for achieving its objectives, it is essential for Aldi to ensure that all of its promotional
activity to effectively demonstrate the balance of marketing mix. In order to accomplish this,
it uses the both type of channel that is above the line and below the line promotion. This
helps Aldi in several ways. In addition to this, Aldi also uses AIDA model in order to create
awareness regarding its several products and services. It has been founded by using this
theoretical aspect, it effectively promote its products and services to the potential customers.
Therefore, discussion ends by explaining the theoretical aspects of promotional techniques.

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Promotional techniques of Aldi
Promotional techniques are essential as it leads to create the general awareness among all the
customers regarding the products and services that they are offering. A well-maintained
promotional strategy also helps the organization in increasing its marketing share. Aldi uses
several promotional strategies in order to promote its products and services in the market
(Duke & Ashraf, 2019). Following are the promotional techniques of Aldi:
Online media- Aldi take help of several social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter
in order to maintain the two-way communication with all of the customers. By suing these
mediums, it also encourages the participation of customers for creating the better visibility of
brand. It also sues direct e-mails in order to promote the seasonal offers (Mullin, 2018). Aldi
also has its official website that feature the promotional messages like new campaigns and
some extra contents like recipes, weekly offers and new additions in its stores. Due to this
only, Aldi was awarded as best supermarket in the year 2012 (Fitzpatrick, 2017).
Social media sites
1. Facebook- Aldi uses Facebook page in order to promote its products as well as brand
by offering several incentives. It also encourages all its followers in order to interact with the
post. Aldi also has social media team that post the daily updates by encouraging all its
followers to like or comment on Aldi’s post. It encourage by offering chance to audience for
winning several vouchers or product (Evonomie, 2015). This proves to be helpful for Aldi but
it can be costly for Aldi to regularly give products or vouchers.

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Twitter- about nearly 2,00,000 followers, Aldi has great presence on the Twitter. It uses it as
a vehicle for the product promotion or brand. Using this, it encourages its followers to engage
the followers for tweet by using some hash tags such as #Super6silliness and
#BathroomBallad. All these hash tags works quite well for the Aldi that proves to be great
strategy for interaction for social media (George and Lord, 2015).
With the help of Twitter, it ensures effective competition by asking the followers to retweet a
message in order to win (Frey, 2015).
You Tube- Aldi update its YouTube channel every month with some videos. While other
videos are sorted into categories like, “Aldi favourite things,” “TV Ads,” “Recipes,” and
“product videos.” The channel was started in the year 2008. Now it is effectively using
YouTube to effective promote its product and services (George and Lord, 2015).
Advertisement- It is a paid form of presentation that promotes the ideas, services or good that
is provided by recognized sponsors. Using this, it covey its messages to wider audience
regarding several things such as benefits, prices, uses and availability of products and

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services that are offered by marketer. It is true that marketer is required to properly express
the ideas and choose the right media in order to connect with the customers.
Personal selling- It is a medium where the products are made available to the consumers
directly through the seller. By using this strategy, it leads to bring the personal interaction
between the seller and buyer. It is based on the customer satisfaction, as it tends to bring the
two-way communication that helps the marketer in building relationship. By using this, it
easily gets to know the response from the consumer (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017).
Public relations- It is a tool that is used to maintain the public relation that helps Aldi in
creating the goodwill. In order to gain the acceptance from public, it evaluates the procedures
and policies and identifies the attitude of public. Public includes the customers, suppliers,
intermediaries, shareholders and success of company is also depends on them.
Email marketing- It is the core strategy of Aldi. Aldi is proving itself best in the significant
channel. By suing this, it has the potential to drive the huge amount of sale. The email
marketing campaign of Aldi is simple. Each Monday as well as Thursday between the 5 pm
and 7 pm, it sends email to its entire database that features various special products. On
Monday, Aldi email features those products that will be available in the stores on this coming
Saturday. As compare to this, Thursday email features those products that will be present in
its stores on following Wednesday (Prediger, Huertas-Garcia and Gázquez-Abad, 2019). The
email marketing campaign of Aldi was quite strong that was helping it in many ways.

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Website of Aldi- Aldi’s website is also an integral part of its promotion. The website of Aldi
features all its message as well as some additional content in order to engage the customers.
Some of the example includes the weekly offers or some of the recipe ideas. In addition to
this, Aldi has also developed the www.likealdi.co for encouraging the brand engagement with
the TV campaign of “like brands.” This site of Aldi also provides the consumers an
opportunity to upload their ideas for the upcoming TV campaign of Aldi. Besides this, Aldi
also uses the dedicated website f recruitment in order to promote the career opportunities and
employer brand messages (Hose, 2019).
In this way, promotional activities of Aldi brand are comprehensive. It invests very less
amount in the promotion and even does not keep the marketing department in Germany. It

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offers the “super buy” offers that are available until the stocks last. It changes every week and
all these things are communicated to the customers by several means of weekly newsletter
that is called “Aldi informs.” In Australia, US, and UK, Aldi extensively uses Email
marketing from which it informs all the customers regarding its new products and special
buys (Joseph, 2018).
Theoretical aspect of promotional mix
Above the line promotion
In order to achieve the objective of increment in market share, it is required by Aldi to
ensure that its activities of promotion demonstrate the balance of its own marketing mix.
Example- In order to increase the customer loyalty, it must require to communicate the value
messages and key quality. Promotion helps it in increasing the awareness as well as
improving its recognition of brand. It also helps in increasing the demand for products.
Besides this, it also assists in improving the brand image. Above-the-lien promotions in Aldi
are paid-for advertising that has aim to cover the wider audience. It covers the media such as
radio, television, newspapers, and magazines that helps in reaching to large number of
audience. In this technique, it includes the media such as radio, television, newspaper, and
magazines. This form of promotion can be costly and also prove to be difficult in order to
target the specific number of people. Aldi uses wide variety of above the line method for
reaching its potential customers. Above the line, promotion of Aldi includes:
 Advertising on TV. The like brands campaign of Aldi features the almost 20 second
TV advertisements that focus on a particular market. It shows a well-known brand as a
benchmark for quality side-by-side along with the brand product of Aldi. Like brands is a
slogan used by Aldi. It supports the message that products of Aldi are cheaper than the other
brands (Tuffaha, 2016). Besides this, it uses humour that assists it in building trust as well as
connects emotionally with the target audience.
 Printed leaflets are also distributed within the stores as well as to those customers also
who are living near its stores. These brochures helps it in reinforcing the like brand
campaign. It also helps in displaying the products that are limited as well as, seasonal offers
that are available.
 Newspaper advertisement also extends the “like brands” campaign. It also helps in
displaying various categories of product. They also helps in communicating the “swap and

PROMOTION 9
save” message. This campaign also demonstrates the amount that the customers can save if
they will swap their weekly swap to shop at Aldi. In the stores of Aldi, posters are also used
in order to highlight the “swap and save” message.
Below the line promotion
This promotion uses several ways to engage with all the customers. These kinds of methods
can easily target the specific audience as compare to above the line promotion. This helps the
organization in offering a great level of control over its communication. Aldi uses several
below the line promotions such as targeted email to the customers, social media, 3rd party
endorsement and rewards and media as well as public relations. Aldi Twitter as well as
Facebook page encourages the two way communication with its customers. These channels
of social media provide a platform to Aldi from which it can easily interact (Ramanathan,
Subramanian and Parrott, 2017). It can also easily assess the opinions regarding the brand.
The main objective of this form of promotion is to create the Aldi advocates. These
customers are the example that recommends the Aldi to other people regarding its low prices
or high quality of products. For example- Aldi campaign with the name “ I Love Aldi” asks
the fans to send the virtual Aldi valentine card to their any friend of Facebook. This campaign
of Aldi provides the chance to Aldi for winning the voucher of £10. Customers can also win
the box of chocolates for their valentine. It also provides the chance to customers for
completing the sentence “I love Aldi because” into the Facebook page of Aldi. Besides this,
Aldi also uses the direct e-mails (Peeroo, Samy and Jones, 2017). This helps Aldi in
communicating several messages to the target customers. Website of Aldi is an integral part
of below the line promotion. It features all the promotional messages and extra contact for
engaging its customers. A further method of below the line is used to highlight the quality of
products of Aldi. Aldi has also entered into the several awards such as Pasta and Pizza
awards, as well as British Frozen Food Federation awards (Gauri, Ratchford, Pancras &
Talukdar, 2017). Moreover, it is founded that below the line promotion helps Aldi in a huge
way. It is also tends to be affordable as compare to other mediums of promotion. It also
presents several opportunities for the company to grow in a better way (Istanbulluoglu,
2017). Aldi believes that promotion is an excellent way to target its potential customers for its
various products and services.

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AIDA model of Aldi
AIDA model in every organization is used in demonstrating the aim of any promotional
activity. This helps in initiating the awareness among all the customers. It means it helps in
generating the interest and desire to avail the services of products. It also leads to customers
by taking action for purchase. AIDA also uses the various communication channels and
models in order to meet the aim of AIDA and increase the impact of promotional impact. In
this model, organization required the balanced marketing mix in order to meet the needs of its
customers. In order to fulfil the demand of Australia, Aldi uses this (Lee and Hoffman, 2015).
It has used its suppliers very systematically that will provide the products to customers at
lower price and as a result, achieves the economies of scale properly. Due to this, Aldi
maintain the proper and best quality of product through its demanding process of supplier
selection. In this way, supplier provides the best quality of product that is further sold by the
Aldi under its own brand name. Every customer for Aldi, from vegetable and fresh fruit to
electronics and meats, it is an expert in this field. This enables them to gain the best quality
products that Aldi sells under its own brand. Selection of price is the most common difficulty
that Aldi is required to consider when developing the marketing mix. In Aldi, competitive
pricing strategy is used. Through this strategy, it is able to offer the best quality product in
lower prices. The facts behind this is that Aldi buys the products in lower prices that helps it
in negotiating the best prices with the suppliers. In this way, AIDA model helps Aldi in its
promotional activities by creating awareness among all its consumers.
Aldi believes that distribution channel is quite essential for the companies because it serves as
a function of consumer convenience in information search and access. In case of Aldi,
selective distribution channel method has been used as the goods that they sell is complex.
However, assistance is also required when customer wants to purchase something. In this
way, awareness term of AIDA model helps it in attracting the attention of potential clients
(Vizard, 2017). It has been seen that Aldi tends to create awareness among consumers
through several medium of promotion. It also raises the interest of customers by putting
emphases on and demonstrating the benefits or advantages. The short demonstration of its
products or services on You Tube is the essential element of Aldi. The desire element of
AIDA model is used by Aldi in such a way that convince the customers regarding what they
want or what product will satisfy their different needs. At last, the action element in AIDA
model leads the customers toward purchasing or taking action. In this regard, several

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promotions are by Aldi using different discounts and coupons for its customers (Voigt,
Buliga and Michl, 2017).
Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that Aldi is one of the well-known
supermarket chain that is operating in several countries with huge customer base. It has
distinct approach from all other supermarket chain that helps it in gaining unique competitive
advantage. Aldi also has unique balance of the promotion techniques that enables its
customers in gaining high quality products at lower prices. Aldi also has innovative “Swap
and save” and “Like brands” campaigns that assist it in improving its brand perception
knowledge. By using these techniques, Aldi tends to achieve its marketing objectives easily.
The promotional techniques also tend to increase the sales of its store in several countries
where it is operating. Its multiple channels of promotion techniques is engaging several
customers and creating the positive feedback in its organization (Fassnacht and Königsfeld,
2015).

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