Marketing Essentials: An Analysis of Boots UK's Marketing Strategies

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Marketing essentials
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
Task 1.............................................................................................................................. 4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 11
Reference list................................................................................................................. 12
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Introduction
Marketing is the set of activities of an organization associated with selling, promotion,
advertising and other. Marketing is aimed at creating value to the customers and
influencing customer purchasing behaviour. Small to large size multinational companies
are using effective marketing tactics to create a wide range of customer base.
“Boots UK” is one of the most popular health and beauty retailer companies across the
UK premises. John Boot established the company in 1849, more than 170 years ago.
Now, the company has over 56,000 trained employees. It has over 2500 stores
throughout the UK premises. Last year, the company generated £4.36 billion in their
existing business (boots, 2019).
This paper will highlight the significance and role of marketing department in increasing
sales of an organization. Additionally, stages of marketing process and interrelationship
between marketing and other organizational departments will be evaluated in this study
as well.
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Task 1
1. Explain the role of marketing as a function of business, opposed to
marketing as a department in a company.
Marketing is the process of capturing attention of customers. Successful companies like
“Boots UK” spend huge amount of money on marketing activities (Feng et al., 2015).
Marketing plays several vital functions of an organization that are as follows:
Deep market research
Market research is all regarding collecting information concerning the target customers.
This research provides all the detail information related to business atmosphere of the
selected business location (Price et al. 2015). Additionally, information of the rivals and
their products are gathered in this market research process.
Setting price
Setting appropriate price of a product that can be acceptable by all types of customers
is such a big deal. If the price is too high, company may lose potential customers, where
lower pricing may result high business loss of the company.
Promotional channels
Almost every business organization of this modern era is familiar with the idea of
promotion. Conducting effective promotional activities on appropriate promotional
channels is such important to retain existing customers and attract new customers as
well. Marketing does it for organization.
Marketing is regarded as one of the core departments of an organization like “Boots
UK” and it is responsible for growing revenue, accelerating market shares and
contributing to the growth and success of the organization. Effective roles of marketing
department in companies like “Boots UK” are as follows:
Setting marketing strategy
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Marketing department’s senior manager has the responsibility of setting marketing
strategy aligning with business objectives. Marketing department of “Boots UK” sets
strategy in such manner that it can provide benefits to business organization and
increase the sales revenue simultaneously.
Internal and external product development
Marketing department of “Boots UK” works with internal and external product
development teams for developing products or improving existing ones. Marketing
department gathers information regarding customers’ expectations and demands so
that they incorporate those requirements in the existing product (Gmelin and Seuring,
2014). It results in high customer satisfaction and accelerated sales revenue.
Communications and promotions
Promotions are conducted to attract customers and informing them regarding the new
products and its value. In this process, marketing department arranges different
marketing campaigns and informs wider range of customers about how the product can
meet customers’ expectations (Andrews and Shimp, 2017).
Apart from that, marketing department works to directly influence customers so that the
company can accelerate the organizational sales and profitability simultaneously.
2. Explain the structure of the marketing department of your selected
organisation, and succinctly explain a minimum of two different marketing roles
(e.g. Chief Marketing Officer, Marketing Manager, and the Social Media Manager).
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Structure of marketing department of Boots UK has been detailed in the below section:
Figure 1: Structure of marketing department of Boots UK
(Source: Piercy et al., 2014)
In the above structure, CMO is the highest position and there are three departmental
heads in the organization those are responsible for managing almost every marketing
activities. Marketing manager, content manager and other marketing authorities work
under these departmental heads to manage rest of the marketing staffs of the company
named, Boots UK.
Role of chief marketing officer
Chief marketing manager of “Boots UK” has the responsibility of overseeing the
planning, development as well as execution of a company’s marketing as well as
promotional initiatives. In marketing department, CMO is the highest position that has to
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play a verity of roles to manage diverse marketing operations. CMO ensures that all the
important information is served to promotional channels and customers so that they can
better understand the value of the upcoming products (Germann et al., 2015). It is one
of the tricks used by CMO to reach out more customers and increase revenue.
Role of marketing manager
Marketing manager of an organization like “Boots UK” oversees the promotion of a
business, product, service. Relying on the company, marketing manager may be
managing the entire marketing of an exhaustive product line or be concentrated upon
one specific thing for promotion (Ekpo et al., 2015). Marketing manager leads the entire
marketing staffs towards meeting the set sales target of the company.
3. Provide an overview of the marketing process, and analyse the importance
of the marketing environment to the marketing function.
The entire marketing process of “Boots UK” is divided into four important stages that
are as follows:
Situational analysis
Analysing the situation including the customers’ demands, company’s capabilities and
the market environment in which the company is conducting its marketing operations.
Situational analysis must include past, present and future aspects. If the situation
analysis reveals gaps between what currently company is offering to customers and
what customers are demanding, then there may be opportunities for introducing goods
to satisfy those consumers in better manner (Van Velsen, 2017). Several frameworks
have been used in this situation analysis process including 5C analysis, PESTLE
analysis or SWOT analysis.
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Figure 2: Overview of the marketing process
(Source: Hair Jr and Lukas, 2014)
Marketing strategy
Just after the assessment of actual needs of the customers and their expectations it is
possible to make an effective marketing strategy that can bring positive changes within
the firm (Baker, 2014). Market research will offer exhaustive information regarding the
market condition and customers’ demands so that company use that information to
select the target market segment as well as optimally positioning the offerings in the
segment. It involves four stages that are as follows:
 Segmentation of target customer
 Selection of target market
 Position the good in the target market place
 Value proposition to the audience
Marketing mix decisions
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Another important consideration is marketing mix decisions. Companies like Boots UK
conduct marketing mix to understand the business atmosphere aligning with product of
the company (Londhe, 2014). It includes:
 Development of product
 Pricing related decisions
 Distribution contracts
 Promotional campaign development
Implementation and control
This is the final stage of marketing process. In this stage, plan has been prepared and
product has been launched in the market. Therefore, implementation and effectively
controlling of the marketing plan is such required in this stage. Apart from that,
marketing mix will help to measure and conduct necessary changes in the product so
that it can meet the expectations of the customers in a better way. Companies like
Boots UK always focus upon conducting and controlling the entire marketing process
effectively to meet their sales target successfully.
4. Analyse how the marketing function influences and interrelates with other
departments in the organisation (a minimum of 2 departments).
The marketing department of “Boots UK” influences and interrelates other
organizational departments.
IT department
IT department of an organization like “Boots UK” is responsible for conducting and
managing all the online activities related to promotion of new product. Marketing
department works with IT department during conducting range of online promotional
activities on different social media sites and websites. It department provides full
support to the marketing department in reaching out more numbers of customers
(Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). IT and marketing department both work together to
accelerate organizational revenue.
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Finance department
Finance department of “Boots UK” has the responsibility of conducting all the business
activities under the financial capabilities of the organization. Finance department
allocates adequate amount of capital to different departments to conduct wide range of
business activities. Marketing department consult with finance department of the
organization and finance department allocates capital to marketing department for
conducting promotional activities. Thus, the company has a great relationship between
its fiancé and marketing department.
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Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that marketing assists an organization
to attract more customers and increase revenue. All size business firms use effective
marketing techniques to reach out more customers and influence them to purchase
products from the company. Every business organization uses effective marketing
structure to support their sales unit. However, marketing process is separated in four
major steps that have been detailed in the above portion. Apart from that, marketing
department influences other functions and it has great interrelationship with other
organizational departments such as finance department, IT department and others.
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Reference list
Andrews, J.C. and Shimp, T.A., 2017. Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of
integrated marketing communications. Nelson Education.
Baker, M.J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
boots 2019. [online] Boots.com. Available at:
https://www.boots.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategoriesDisplay?
catalogId=28501&langId=-1&storeId=11352&webrewrite=Y&geoOpts=Y [Accessed 14
Apr. 2019].
Ekpo, A.E., Riley, B.K., Thomas, K.D., Yvaire, Z., Gerri, G.R.H. and Muñoz, I.I., 2015.
As worlds collide: The role of marketing management in customer-to-customer
interactions. Journal of Business Research, 68(1), pp.119-126.
Feng, H., Morgan, N.A. and Rego, L.L., 2015. Marketing department power and firm
performance. Journal of Marketing, 79(5), pp.1-20.
Germann, F., Ebbes, P. and Grewal, R., 2015. The chief marketing officer matters!.
Journal of Marketing, 79(3), pp.1-22.
Gmelin, H. and Seuring, S., 2014. Determinants of a sustainable new product
development. Journal of Cleaner production, 69, pp.1-9.
Groucutt, J. and Hopkins, C., 2015. Marketing. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Hair Jr, J.F. and Lukas, B., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 1). McGraw-Hill Education
Australia.
Londhe, B.R., 2014. Marketing mix for next generation marketing. Procedia Economics
and Finance, 11, pp.335-340.
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