H&M's Marketing Plan: Application of Marketing Mix Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of H&M's marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to marketing concepts, including the product concept, and discusses the roles and responsibilities of a marketing unit. The report then delves into the relationship between marketing and other functional units within an organization, such as HR and finance. A significant portion of the report focuses on the application of the marketing mix (7Ps) by H&M and other companies like Adidas, examining product, price, place, people, promotion, physical evidence, and process. A marketing plan for H&M, including the SOSTAC model, is also presented. The report aims to provide insights into how H&M builds brand awareness, targets its audience, and maintains its competitive advantage in the fashion industry.

Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................1
Marketing and its concept...........................................................................................................1
The roles and responsibilities of marketing unit.........................................................................2
Importance and relation of Marketing unit with other units in organisation. ............................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
Application of marketing mix by different organisations to the marketing planning process....4
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the process of enhancing product or brand awareness among all individuals
and raising their interest to buy particular products and services (Purvis, 2015). In order to
sustain in the competitive environment there is need to market their products so that company
can attract more buyers and can make them positive towards business. Current assignment is
based on H&M firm which is the leading and popular fashion brand. It offers cloths and many
other items to wide range of buyers. Report will highlight role of marketing and its impact on
business unit. Relationship between marketing and other functional units will be explained in this
assignment. This report will prepare marketing plan for its product so that it can generate more
sales.
Part 1
Task 1
Marketing and its concept.
Marketing is the process which is apply by business to improve value of company and
develop positive image in the mind of consumers. This is the techniques that supports firm in
attracting new buyers and raising sales of H&M. Production concept states that companies need
to produce high quality goods that can satisfy consumers. Buyers like to spend money in such
kind of items that are widely available and people can buy it at affordable prices. Product
concept states that consumers like to spend their money in most valuable products that have
required quality and have some unique feature. If companies are able to offer them such
satisfactory goods and services, then consumers will like to buy such items. H&M follows
product concept in which it ensures top offer high quality material to its buyers. Selling concept
states that there is need to make high investment of marketing or promotion activities so that
people take interest and make their mind of buy such products (Puddle, 2015).
Marketing concept explains that needs of consumers matters a lot hence if companies are
considering their requirements then it would help H&M in gaining competitive advantage and
performing well in market.
Role of marketing
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Marketing is considered as tool which is used by business to make people positive and gain
competitive advantage. H&M is the leading fashion brand that ensures to serve consumers by
considering them latest trends. That is the reason that people are highly satisfied with its products
and services. Marketing plays researcher role in the H&M, it conducts necessary primary and
secondary research in order to understand buying behaviour of consumers. By this way
companies can offer goods to the potential buyers accordingly. This kind of tactics are helpful
for the organisation in managing business activities and satisfying demand as well. Apart from
this marketing plays role of relationship builder. Its major role is to make communication with
consumers and know more about their teste. By this way people can interact with firm and can
tell their actual requirement. By this way a strong relationship gets build up which supports
H&M in managing consumers and creating value for them successfully. This is the ways that
helps in retaining the consumers in business for longer duration (Perreault, 2018).
Responsibility
Marketing has some responsibilities towards the business:
 Making connections: This major responsibility is to manage administration things and
make communication with potential buyers. This is the best tactics through which
business can gain attention of buyers and can make them ready to buy products of
organisation. By this way firm becomes able to build relationship with the potential
buyers successfully.
 Planning: this is another major responsibilities of marketing, as it understands the needs
of market and accordingly manager of marketing can make proper plan and strategies so
that company can perform well in market and can again competitive advantage
significantly. H&M is the leading brand hence it has created huge competition in the
market but to maintain its position there is need to make effective plan through which
business can gain success in the market.
 Research: marketing have to perform another responsibility that is conducting research,
marketing team of H&M always ensures to have close eye over market. By this way firm
becomes able to know more information about latest trends. This helps business in
making necessary changes in its cloths and designs so that it can serve the consumers
well and can offer them satisfactory goods of cloths.
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Relationship of marketing with other units
H&M being a successful brand company always have to ensure that nothing happen in
such manner that can affect its brand image (Pappas, 2017). H&M always try to build strong
relationship with other departments as well so that no confusion take place and firm can meet its
goal successfully.
Marketing and HR. Botha re most essential department of the company, they both create
value for business unit. There is need to have strong relationship between these units so that
company can perform well and can improve its image in the market. HR department hires the
talent and manage them. This tactic is helpful in getting experienced people and through training
raise their knowledge so that they can serve the consumers well by working in marketing
department. Whereas marketing team conducts research that helps in analysing future demand
hence HR team can hire new workforce so that that forecasted demand can be met. This
relationship is helpful in managing business activities in effective manner and getting positive
result.
Finance and marketing unit- Both are most essential functional units, finance
department analyses funds and manage it well so that over costing issues can be minimised. It
ensures to give proper fund to marketing department so that necessary expenses such as
promotions, advertisement can be performed properly. On other hand, marketing team is
responsible for generating revenues which enhances cash flow and finance unit can easily allot
funds to each units. This relationship helps the H&M in managing funds well and getting
adequate money which is necessary to run operations in smooth manner.
Marketing and Production unit- this is another most essential department whi is
responsible for raising satisfaction level of consumers. Production unit ensure to have quality
goods and services but this cannot be possible if marketing team fails to know about needs of
consumers and complains of buyers. By interacting with consumers marketing team get to know
problems in products and this information is communicated to production unit and production
department makes changes in production so that quality of goods and be raised and H&M can
satisfy buyers to great extent (Okumus and Cetin, 2018).
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Part 2
Task 2
Marketing mix
Marketing mix is a pivotal tool which helps to understand planning for offering a
distinguished product and what to produce in terms of quantity (Muralidharan, and Raval, 2017).
It can be implemented with the use of 7 P's of marketing.
Product-Product includes the physical goods or services which the company sells or
provides in the market. It offers fashionable cloths. It uses EDLP concept. It offers cosmetics,
home, sportswear items to consumers.
Price-Price refers to the value that is put for a product or the amount which the seller
receives in exchange of its goods and services. This is using cost based pricing staretgy.
Place-Place is the area or platform where the company is engaged in selling its products
or it can be said as a targeted area for sale of a product. Place can also includes mediator,
distribution and channel. It is possible through place that the products of the company are made
available for selling to the customers. H&M has its own website from where people can buy
products and get all details about it.
People- People are the most vital component who are engaged in the activity of buying
and selling of a product in a market. Without the involvement of people there is no value to the
product. People consists of every human who is related to the product. They may be
manufacturers, suppliers, mediators, retailers, customers, sellers, buyers, etc.
Promotion- Promotion is the way of communication used by the company to make its
product's presence felt by the customers or targeted group of people in selected environment.
Promotion sets the position of the product in the market (Mueller and et. al., 2015). It may
include the activities like marketing, cold calling, advertising, creating awareness, creating brand
image, sales and offers. It is done in order to create awareness about the product in the market. It
is using celebrities to promote its brand and also e-marketing concept is being used to promote
H&M.
Physical Evidence- It is the environment where the seller and buyer interacts with each
other or any other activity related with the product. Through physical evidence the presence of
the product and services is felt by the people associated with the product and service. Physical
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evidence includes business cards, web pages, business reports, brochures, symbols and signs,
surrounding environment, billing statements, buildings, etc. It is the element which can
determine the success of the product in the coming years.
Process- Process includes all the activities directly or indirectly involved with the
product. It can be raw material, manufacturing, supplying. It can also be termed as methods of
offering a service (Malhotra, 2015)
The use of 7 P's of marketing can be clearly understood by the following comparison:-
Particulars H&M ADIDAS
Product It supplies products like cloths,
cosmetics, home and
sportswear products..
It offers various products for
skin, hair care, nails and hair
colour.
Price The company uses different
types of pricing strategies. The
pricing policies of the
company varies according to
different situations. They are
skimming pricing strategy,
penetration pricing strategy
and competitive pricing
strategy. Prices of the H&M
products vary according to
their value in the market.
It uses premium pricing
strategy for its products.
Place It provides its products in US,
Canada, Middle East, Africa,
Australia and Europe.
ADIDAS operates in US,
Mexico, France, Spain,
Belgium and UK.
Promotion H&M uses push and pull
strategies for promotion of its
product. It provides both
discounts and coupons through
The company provides trials,
discount offers and guarantees
like money back to attract new
customers and engage existing
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with newspapers and
magazines. The company uses
both television based
advertising as well as web
based advertising with sales
promotions, hoardings and
print media as other medium
for promotional purposes.
customers in company's
products itself. In order to raise
the brand image ADIDAS
adopts various other
marketing strategies like
celebrity endorsement,
corporate advertisements,
promotional schemes,
sustainable development.
People This alludes service personnel
department, eye and hair care
experts, brand ambassador and
the customers of the company
all over the world.
The well trained employees at
various branches with good
interpersonal skills
concentrates towards
satisfaction of customer.
Process The demand of the customer is
maintained and product is
delivered optimally without a
loss in quality by the company.
It sells products directly or
indirectly to the customers.
H&M is assuring its presence
in malls, multiplexes, and
multi-brand outlets.
They provide their products
directly from the company's
website, retailers and
wholesalers.
Physical Evidence Salons, stores, various offices
at different branches and
online entranceway are
available.
ADIDAS online portals for
public whereas Salon centric
store and CosmoProf available
for only licensed professionals.
Marketing Plan
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A marketing plan is nothing but a strategic draft that every businesses utilize to create,
implement, and lead marketing strategy for a specified time period (Larson and Draper, 2015). It
may regard different strategies for separate teams of marketing throughout the company with
same business objectives. H&M company uses product development strategy in evolution of new
product Sportswear cloths for over 30's arena of market.
SOSTAC model-
It is a planning model which focuses on implementation of strategies and plan of action
(Lane, 2016). It can be used in various situations like product renovation, product development,
re-launching of existing products, expansion, etc. This model includes- situation, strategic
objectives, strategy, tactics, actions, control.
Swot analysis of H&M
Strengths-
 Coverage of huge market targeted in
UK.
 Great service provided to customers.
 Provides broad scope of products in
cloths to men and women at
competitive price range.
 Outstanding content of shopping on
both online and offline platforms.
Weaknesses-
 It largely depends on manufacturers to
produce a product as it do not make its
own products.
 High alteration in sales in various
stores.
 It holds high amount of goods which
can be treated as useless during changes
in trend.
Threats-
 Addition of new competitors in
marketplace.
 Fluctuations in demand in market.
 Increase in costs of working class
impacting the operational costs of
company.
Opportunities-
 Availability of flourishing market.
 Investments in global areas will
increase the brand image.
 Increase in marketing with the help of
social media.
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H&M Overview- It is one of the leading company in UK in sportwear products. The
company has several divisions in fifty places throughout the UK. H&M. It distributes the
products like toiletries of different brands to its customer in the market. It is situated in UK.
Objectives- To gain improvement in the visits of customer on sites of company and to
increase profitability by providing impressive products.
Mission- To assist the requirements of men and women by providing best products in the
market as well as supplying great service to the customers to make them feel easeful in shopping.
Vision- To design system of progressive digital and occupy customer with best
experiences which are moved by a powerfully built understanding of the consumer, retail and
brand.
Strategy- It is considered as the base of any marketing plan. A marketing strategy is made
after proper research to concentrate on right kind of product mix in order to attain the maximum
profit from its sale and increase the sustainability of the company (Eng, 2017). The strategy used
for development of sportwear product in H&M company is STP. It consists of three components
like segmentation, targeting and positioning. Further application of strategy is given below:-
Segmentation-This step includes the division of expected market segments into various groups
such as demographics, geographical, psychographics and behavioural. H&M will do
segmentation in the following way-
Basis Description
Psychographics The people who have addiction of going
through newspaper and magazines.
Geographical Population living in metropolitan cities, urban
and semi-urban areas.
demographics Men and women of middle age and above.
Behavioural Consumers, bprofessionals and various Salons
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Targeting- In targeting step, company decides the segment which is to be targeted for its
products and services (Bastable, 2016). H&M will target authorized professionals, large Salons,
Middle aged men and women in UK.
Positioning- This is the final step and it refers to determination of idea for placing the products
in the targeted group of customer and essential areas (Baker and Magnini, 2016). Supplier of
sportwear products across UK. Celebrities will be used for promotion of new product. H&M
events will be programmed at various places. The distribution will be done after considering the
requirements and will be cost effective.
Budget for new product- It includes the total expenses which new product will require
for its development stage to delivery stage. The budget for sportwear is given as below:-
Particulars Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
Initial capital 5000 7500 11000 13500 17350
Total Investment 13000 15000 26500 33000 14500
Total 18000 22500 37500 46500 31850
Marketing outlay
Promotional cost 5500 2200 4200 3200 3150
Sales publicity cost 2300 3000 3200 2100 1900
Direct selling cost 5100 2600 6200 3200 4850
Overall Total 12900 7800 13600 8500 9900
The cost of the development of the product will be maintained by H&M with the help of this
budget estimation.
Tactics- The marketing tactics helps in performance of plan and it assists the strategy.
When the development of the strategy is completed in the market plan, there arises a continuous
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requirement to perform evaluation (Babin and Zikmund, 2015). It is possible through the usage
of tactics. It is done by using the 7 P's of marketing.
Evaluation of above strategy of development of ''Forever young'' through 7 P's is as under:-
Particulars Statement
Product Forever young an anti-ageing cream for both
women as well as men.
Price It will use price penetration strategy in pricing.
Place The product will be available on existing
online site of the company, in all the 50 stores
of UK and in malls.
Promotion H&M will offer sale during special occasions,
some old products will be free with new
Forever young cream, advertisements will be
done by male and female models, street posters
and banners will be applied at several places.
People Customers will be of above 30 years age group.
Employees, Professional experts and
dermatologists will be the part of the company.
Process The product will be manufactured by the
company for the first time.
Physical evidences Very innovative method will be used for
packaging the products. The company will use
recycled products for packing the Forever
Young cream.
Actions- All the work assigned for the development of new product in H&M were carried
on by the employees successfully. The scheduled working for the product was completed in
estimated time by the marketing team and production team. Overall efforts of the H&M
workforce helped the company in achieving the goals and objectives of developing new product.
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Control- It is the procedure which monitors the projected plan. It helps to understand
whether the aim of the market plan is achieved or not. The success and failure of the plan can be
evaluated through control process. H&M involved its employees in collecting the feedback from
the targeted customers through various channels adopted by them.
Conclusion
Study can be summarised as marketing is the best concept that takes care of needs of
buyers and offer satisfactory goods to them so that their spending in business can be increased.
Marketing is helpful process that enhances value of firm and make the person positive towards
the brand. It is essential for every business that to takes care of needs of consumers and
implement effective marketing mix strategies sot that companies can perform well in market and
can meet the organisational goal successfully.
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