Marketing Report: Strategies for Customer Value and Business Growth

This report provides a comprehensive overview of marketing principles and strategies. It begins with an introduction to marketing and the 7Ps of the marketing mix, illustrating how these elements contribute to customer value. The report then explores how businesses leverage marketing to maintain a competitive edge, employing SWOT analysis to evaluate internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. Ansoff's growth matrix is described, explaining how businesses can use it for strategic planning and growth. Finally, the report delves into the use of digital marketing, highlighting its role in enhancing business performance and driving growth in the modern market. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and their implications for effective marketing practices, drawing on Sainsbury's as a case study to illustrate these concepts.

Introduction to
Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Marketing...............................................................................................................................3
7Ps of marketing.....................................................................................................................3
How businesses use marketing to remain competitive...........................................................4
Ansoff matrix..........................................................................................................................5
Explanation of how business can use digital marketing to enhance its performance & growth.6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is defined as series of activities that allow an organisation to promote its
offerings and gain higher profitability in an effective manner. In addition to this, the main
objective of marketing is to capture target market and raise sales effectively (Blakeman, 2018).
The report will describe how marketing mix develop customer value. In addition to this, there is
a description about how businesses use marketing to attain competitive advantage. In the last,
how business entities use digital marketing to enhance its performance & growth is elaborated in
a proper manner.
Main Body
Marketing
Marketing is defined as activities that an organisation undertakes to aware and promote
buying as well as selling goods or service. Along with this, it include all the actions an
organisation consider to draw in customers & maintain relationship with them. It assist business
entities to increase its customer base level which in turn leads to increase in sales and
profitability of an organisation.
7Ps of marketing
Marketing mix refers to a mix consisting different elements that helps the company to
promote their brand or product. These elements helps an organisation in placing right product at
right time and in right place. The 7Ps of marketing are described below with the help of
Sainsbury's example.
Product- Tangible and intangible goods and services manufactured by an organization is
known as product. Sainsbury always prefer to invest in their own brand product development as
it increases the reputation for the quality of their own products.
Place- To determine effective distribution plans for product so that their product have
better reach. Sainsbury offers their products online as well as offline. They have around 600
supermarkets and 8oo convenience stores.
Promotion- It helps in communicating the benefits and features of product so that
product can attract more and more customers and reach to targeted audience. (Sharp, 2017)
Saisbury was the first one to sponsor London Paralympic games as a part of promotion strategy.

Price- Its the cost paid by the customer for purchase of product. Price must be suitable
and should be in accordance to the value that the product is providing to the user. Sainsbury
announced to ditch its brand match promotion so that they can cut prices on everyday products
such as bread, cheese, etc.
People- People mentioned here are not customers but colleagues or co-workers. It refers
to level of expertise , staff can provide in order to be one step ahead of the company's
competitors. Sainsbury has provide great after sales service to their customers, they specially
train their staff on how to be quick and efficient responder to the service request as well as
complaints.
How businesses use marketing to remain competitive
SWOT analysis is reffered as a strategic tool that is used by organisation to evaluate the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization's environment. The internal
analysis of the organization is basically identifying the core competencies, resources, capabilities
of the organization whereas external analysis tells the organization about the opportunities,
competitors, etc. For better understanding an example of Sainsbury is taken and is given below:
Strengths- Sainsbury has approximately 150000 employees and has experienced
leadership teams. The company uses print ads, online campaigns, TVCs for branding and
advertising throughout the UK (Boyd and Koles, 2019). In addition to this, the company has
more than 1100 stores globally that help company to raise its customer base level and attain
profitability.
Weaknesses- The company sells goods at slightly higher prices which decline customer
base level of organisation as they shift to other companies who offer products in low prices. The
competition in every segment of retail sector is giving Sainsbury a tough time and affect on its
performance level negatively.
Opportunities- In order to boost sales, the company can take help of self checkout
machines which will help the company to open stores for 24 hours. In order to expand, the
company must enter into growing economies like Asia, Africa, etc.
Threats- The biggest threats of Sainsbury is its competitors such as Aldi and Lidi. This
impact on the sales and profitability of respective organisation in a negative manner.
By conducting the above analysis it can be said that the company can adopt self checkout
machines which will help the company to open their stores for 24 hours and give the

convenience of anytime purchase which will definitely increase the sales of the company
(Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019). In addition to this, the company can enter into new markets
which will allow to capture large market share and attain competitive advantage as well.
Ansoff matrix
It is also known as product expansion grid that is used by an organisation in order to plan
and analyse growth strategies in an effective manner. In addition to this, it allow companies to
evaluate opportunities to enhance sales and profitability level. Moreover, various entities adopt
this matrix in order to gain competitive advantage at marketplace. There are mainly four
strategies that are explained below:
 Market Penetration-It is referred as increasing sales of existing product in the current
marketplace. Under this, company makes different strategies to expand the amount of
total output which leads to increase in profit (Fritz, Sohn and Seegebarth, 2017). There
are various ways of market penetration such as Decreasing Product price,doing
promotion of products and by acquisition of competitive Company as well. All this will
allow to gain higher profits and revenue as well.
 Product Development- It is a significant strategy that focuses on introducing new
product at existing marketplace and enhancing the quality of the product in the current
market. It covers focus on Research and Development for the product innovation,
Company also acquires patent of competitor's product to gain edge in the market. This
allow company to attract large number of customers and attain competitive advantage.
 Market development- Herein, company enter into new marketplace with having existing
product. In this method,organisation focuses on market expansion with availability of
same products. It includes choosing the right location in the market for operating the
sales part in the business.
 Diversification- In this strategy, company introduces a new product in a new
marketplace. In addition to this, it is a long process for the company as it requires heavy
amount of efforts by the management (Kelsey, 2017). The major aspects of
diversification are choosing right business production strategy, innovation in product and
analysing business environment to conduct business operations and choosing whether to
expand globally or domestically in the market.

From the above discussion, it is analysed that Sainsbury's can adopt Product development
strategy in order to expand its business as well as profitability in the coming future. As of now,
company is manufacturing only traditional clothes and offer it at marketplace. Sainsbury's can
produce modern fashion cloths so that in the era of globalization and modernity customers can
purchase unique fashion clothes. This will help respective organisation to gain competitive edge
at marketplace.
Explanation of how business can use digital marketing to enhance its performance & growth
In the present time, the way people buy products and services has really changed a lot
and offline or traditional marketing are now not as much effective. Most of the people nowadays
buy products online which is a more hassle free as compared to going to shops which is also
more time consuming (Kotler and et. al., 2017). Digital marketing helps the brand to reach the
customer anytime, anywhere. Through digital marketing brand can reach its targeted audience
without any delay. Digital marketing gives the small brands equal opportunity and a platform to
compete with big brands they have have more finances to invest in television commercials as
well as nationwide campaigns. While traditional ROI is hard to measure, it is actually possible to
measure the ROI of online marketing. For instance, Sainsbury moves forward on its merger of
1.4 billion euros with Argos, the new digital media channels Facebook and Twitter, Sainsbury
will increase the share of its media spend (Park, 2020). As the growth in use of marketing
platforms such as facebook and twitter, Sainsbury group is focussing more to build engagement
with customers through these platforms.
All this will assist company to reach large number of customers and remain in touch with
them that leads to increase in customer base level and profitability of an organisation (Perreault,
2018). Moreover, it also assist company to gain competitive advantage and attain higher growth
at marketplace.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that marketing plays an important role
in enhancing sales and profitability of company. In addition to this, Ansoff matrix assist business
entity to determine the opportunities and gain growth as well. Moreover, it is analysed that
digital marketing help organisation to reach large number of customer and maintain good
relationship with customers that affect positively on productivity and performance as well.

REFERENCES
Books & Journal
Blakeman, R., 2018. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to
implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Boyd, D. E. and Koles, B., 2019. An introduction to the special issue “virtual reality in
marketing”: definition, theory and practice.
Deepak, R. K. A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Fritz, W., Sohn, S. and Seegebarth, B., 2017. Broadening the perspective on mobile marketing:
an introduction. Psychology & Marketing. 34(2). pp.113-118.
Kelsey, T., 2017. Introduction to social media marketing: A guide for absolute beginners.
Apress.
Kotler and et. al., 2017. Marketing for hospitality and tourism.
Park, S., 2020. Marketing management (Vol. 3). Seohee Academy.
Perreault, W. D., 2018. Essentials of marketing. New York: Mc Graw Hill.
Sharp, B., 2017. Marketing: theory, evidence, practice. Oxford University Press,.
Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J. and Gremler, D. D., 2018. Services marketing: Integrating
customer focus across the firm. McGraw-Hill Education,.