M003LON Marketing Plan: Strategy and Analysis for Argos Ltd, UK

This report presents a comprehensive marketing strategy and plan for Argos Ltd, a British catalogue retailer. The analysis begins with an executive summary and introduction, followed by a detailed situational analysis using SWOT and PESTEL frameworks to assess Argos's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors influencing its operations. The report then defines Argos's objectives, focusing on customer satisfaction and providing goods at moderate prices, and outlines strategies, including market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification using Ansoff's matrix. A marketing mix (7Ps) strategy is employed, covering product, price, place, promotion, process, people, and physical evidence. The SOSTAC plan is also discussed, providing a structured approach to marketing. Finally, the report addresses how to monitor the company’s progress towards its objectives. The report concludes by highlighting key performance indicators (KPIs) such as feedback forms to monitor customer satisfaction.

Running Head: MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 0
MARKETING STRATEGY AND
PLAN
STUDENT DETAILS

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 1
Executive Summary
In this study, the discussion will be made regarding the marketing strategy and plan of the
Argos Ltd. For the study purpose, ARGOS is the selected company. In this report, SWOT
analysis, PESTLE analysis, Ansoff’s matrix, etc will be discussed. In order to succeed in the
market, the company should need to pay close attention over the on-going market condition
and the behaviour of its competitors.
In this report, two objectives of the company are discussed these objectives are related to
customer satisfaction and providing goods at a moderate rate. However, in order to achieve
customer satisfaction more effective and efficient training of human resource needs to be
conducted. On the other hand, for providing goods at a lower cost, the company should make
contact with the supplier for getting the discount. In this case, ARGOS can pass over the
discount to its consumers. The management of the company requires to adopt various theory
related to the marketing for accomplishing these objectives.

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 2
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Stage 1........................................................................................................................................4
SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................4
PESTEL Analysis...................................................................................................................5
Stage 2:.......................................................................................................................................7
Stage 3:.......................................................................................................................................8
Ansoff’s matrix......................................................................................................................8
Stage 4......................................................................................................................................11
The marketing mix (7P's):....................................................................................................11
Stage 5......................................................................................................................................13
Stage 6......................................................................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................16

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 3
Introduction
A marketing plan is the layouts which shows company’s advertising system for the particular
period of time. The marketing plan also includes a diagram of the company’s strategies
related to the advertising and promotion objectives (Baker & Saren, 2016). It also describes
the company's existing position. Selected company for this assignment is "ARGOS",
headquarter of the company is situated in Buckinghamshire, England. Argos Ltd is a British
catalogue retailer working in the United Kingdom. This company is a subsidiary company of
Sainsbury's (ARGOS, 2019). The organization operates its operations from physical shops
and from online sites. Argos have more than 845 retail shops with 29 million yearly shop
clients (ARGOS, 2019). On their online portal about one billion guests visit annually which
makes them biggest catalogue retailer in the United Kingdom. In this assignment 6 stages
will be discussed, these stages will discuss the situational analysis, objectives, strategies,
tactics, actions and controls that the company should take to accomplish their targets.

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 4
Stage 1
Situational analysis for Argos will be organized into two sections:
 SWOT Analysis
 PESTEL analysis
SWOT Analysis
Strength:
 Argos has various products and offers online shopping services (Buratto & Grosset,
2019).
 In steady touch with its customers utilizing informal communication. They always ask
for criticism, conducts rivalries, and so on (Buratto & Grosset, 2019).
 Argos have nearly 29 million shop clients and more than 1 billion yearly online
guests.
Weakness:
 Argos has constrained worldwide presence as compared to its competitors.
 The management of the company have the limited market share. (Hackley & Hackely,
2017).
Opportunity:
 Around 25% of offers are originating from web-based selling. Thus, it can stay
further into this fragment.
 They use the catalogue retail marketing. This is the creative idea which helps the
company in minimizing their human resource efforts.
Threats:

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 5
 Value or price war with other retail chains brands.
 Consistently changing arrangements/policies of central or state government (Hult &
Ketchen, 2017).
PESTEL Analysis
 Political:
National guidelines influences work, enactment, purchaser rights and taxes affect the
functioning of the company (Morgan, Feng & Chari, 2019).
 Economic environment:
Argos needs to pay attention over the financial factors which includes pay level, cost
of credit, work supply, aggressive weights, costs and so on. These monetary elements
affect the price strategy.
 Social factors:
Social changes like maturing population and lifestyle are significant for Argos.
Understanding social components helps ARGOS to present new items/benefits in the
market.
 Technological environment:
Utilization of emerging technology, high speed internet and artificial intelligence are
the great way to deal with the technological changes. Every huge market is
continually chipping away at how best to utilize innovation to support administration
(Percy, 2016).
 Environmental factor:
Carbon Impression, green house, contamination, perilous waste, natural nourishments
are significant for ARGOS. The company takes care of the environment well-fare
(Wensley, 2016).
 Legal factor:

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 6
ARGOS must follow the guidelines mention under the law of the United Kingdom
(Baker & Saren, 2016). For example, management of the company cannot pay less
wages to their employees as prescribed under the law (ARGOS, 2019).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 7
Stage 2:
Stage 2 will discuss the objectives of the company.
ARGOS’s objective is to give merchandise and enterprises that are modest and moderate to
people in general. Diminishing bundling is one of ARGOS's key objective and the
management makes consistent efforts to accomplish their pricing, advertising, etc related
objectives (Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen, 2015). They purchase bulk items from their profound
supplier. (Buratto & Grosset, 2019).
Another objective of the ARGOS is to focus on customer satisfaction (Argos, 2019).
Business achievement in the present aggressive markets requires a high understanding of the
client’s need. Clients have more cash to spend with a wide accumulation of merchandise and
enterprises to browse. Management of the ARGOS wants to fulfil the need of their clients.
For fulfilling customer's need the management should most likely tune into improving their
administrations and products to keep customers satisfied (Hult & Ketchen, 2017).
Clients and consumer loyalty are the most significant factor (Morgan, Feng & Chari, 2019).
Consumer loyalty relies upon the item's apparent presentation relative to a purchaser's
desires. If the item's presentation fails to fulfil the desires of the customers, the customer will
be disappointed. If the presentation matches desires, the customer will be fulfilled. If
presentation surpasses desires, the customer will be very fulfilled and enchanted (Hackley &
Hackely, 2017).
To enhance the customer satisfaction employees are required to be thoughtful, considerate
and kind while serving the client or customers (Wensley, 2016). The company wants to
achieve the objective of customer satisfaction so they should conduct the training of their

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 8
existing employees to serve the customers with more gratitude ways. Great hospitality
enhances the overall satisfaction of the customer (Percy, 2016).
Stage 3:
Ansoff’s matrix
Figure 1: Ansoff’s Matrix
(Source: By Author)
Market penetration:
In order to enhance the sales, the management of the Argos is required to emphasis more on
their online presence by using the ways of online reputation management. Online reputation
management is critical in the present advanced age. This incorporates working out for a
mobile application, this is one of a kind and amazing way to boost the business. It likewise
means setting up an awareness via web-based networking media stations and dealing with the
significant private venture for example, Google. This is the ideal opportunity for the
company to enhance their volume of sales (Baker & Saren, 2016).
Market
penetration
Increasing
volume of sales
Product
development
Introducing
products at low
cost
Market
development
Enhancing
customer
satisfication
Diversification
Introducing new
line of products

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 9
Product development:
One of the objectives of the company is to distribute the products at a low cost. Distributing
product at cost will also help them in building up their sales. There are three types of product
distributions:
 Intensive distribution: Approaching outlets of the ARGOS, as much as possible and
announcing discounts. Intensive distribution implies that the company should enter in
the market after following all the legal guidelines.
 Selective distribution: Selective distribution includes utilizing middle people and
wholesalers who convey the organization's items. By choosing selective distribution,
the company can enjoy the benefits of huge discounts (Herring, Wachinger & Wigley,
2014).
 Exclusive distribution: Limited outlets. This means anything from luxury brands that
are selective to special collection only. It means the organization should made
segments to target upper class people. By doing this, it can enhance their sales and
attract more sales (Buratto & Grosset, 2019).
Market Development:
Another objective of the company is to enhance customer satisfaction by improving their
customer hospitality services. Consumer loyalty or satisfaction is a fundamental concept in
modern marketing. In numerous associations, consumer loyalty is viewed as the most
significant advertising metric because it is viewed as a key driver of client faithfulness and
primary concern with the financial performance of an organization (Dwivedi, Kapoor &
Chen, 2015).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 10
As a rule, consumer loyalty shows increasingly imperative to retail chains (instead of
producers). This is because administration firms (which likewise includes retailers) generally
have direct contact with the end-client. Consumer loyalty is commonly viewed as a less
significant issue in the assembling division/manufacturing sector as these sorts of firms
ordinarily sell their items through appropriation channels including retailers. Staff members
of retail chain includes sales reps, administration staff, call focus staff, etc. (Hackley &
Hackely, 2017).
Diversification:
To introduce the new line of products the management of the ARGOS needs to conduct a
study about their competitors. The management should make a list of the industry or another
retailer which also offers the same line of products or services (ARGOS, 2019).
Introducing new products will require to set a target audience. ARGOS should ask for
feedback from their existing customers (Hult & Ketchen, 2017). By doing this, ARGOS will
be able to get information about the market condition and they can understand which new
types of products will still need to introduce in the market (Morgan, Feng & Chari, 2019).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 11
Stage 4:
This section will explain about the marketing strategy that will succour the management of
the company in accomplishing their marketing-related objectives. Marketing mix of 7P’s is
the selected strategy in this part:
The marketing mix (7P's):
 Product:
ARGOS gives a wide range of items including new sustenance, basic food item,
garments, home, relaxation, entertainment merchandise, etc. Customers can purchase
new, chilled, and solidified sustenance, beverages, wellbeing and excellence items,
clothing and family unit items, garments, etc (Percy, 2016).
 Price:
ARGOS always makes efforts to offer product at the lower cost for their customers.
ARGOS pursue their low-cost agenda so they can offer lower costs. Their goal is to
provide value for money to their customers (Wensley, 2016).
 Place:
Argos have more than 850 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Apart from this,
they also operates via their online distribution channels.
 Promotion:
ARGOS utilizes TV, papers and other news sources to speak with their customers.
The organization utilizes various methods for promotion and advertising. They also
have their own charitable houses, operated under the name 'The ARGOS Foundation'
(Baker & Saren, 2016).
 Process:

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 12
Process refers to a set of exercises performed to accomplish something. ARGOS get
items from their supplier and after that these items are sorted out and kept on racks for
clients to purchase.
 People:
Argos have more than 30,000 employees and due to their self-service systems, the
management is able to minimize the efforts of their human resource (Buratto &
Grosset, 2019).
 Physical evidence:
ARGOS provides great quality of goods and services to their customers. They have
separate team for monitoring the quality of goods. The company never compromise
on the quality which they offer in the market (Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen, 2015).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 13
Stage 5:
Figure 1: SOSTAC PLAN
(Source: By Author)
SOSTAC is the short form of Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and control.
This is the Gantt chart which is describing about the SOSTAC plan. This plan concern about
marketing plan or business plan of the company. This plan is created by the PR Smith’s
SOSTAC and the reason for its popularity is that this business plan is very simple and easy to
understand. This plan offers a good approach for the ARGOS.

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 14
Stage 6:
This part will explain how can the management of the company can monitor the growth of
their objectives. ARGOS have two objectives that are: to enhance the satisfaction of the
customer and providing goods at a moderate rate. To accomplish the objectives, the
management of the company need to set parameters for monitoring. It means they need to set
key performance indicator which will tell the management about the progress report of their
objectives (Hackley & Hackely, 2017).
KPI for monitoring customer satisfaction:
To monitor the increasing or decreasing level in customer satisfaction, the company should
introduce the feedback forms (Morgan, Feng & Chari, 2019). Whenever any customer goes
out of the stores, the store manager should request them to fill the feedback form (Percy,
2016). In the feedback form, text fields should be mention regarding the customer
experience, store cleanliness, staff behaviour, etc.
KPI for monitoring that stores are providing goods at moderate rate or not?
To provide goods at moderate, the company need to monitor that their suppliers are
delivering goods to them at a low cost so ARGOS can pass the discount to their customers.
This key performance indicator will help them in monitoring that goods are available for the
customers at low cost (Wensley, 2016).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 15
Conclusion
It has been concluded that ARGOS has two objectives that are providing goods at moderate
rates and enhancing customer satisfaction. In order to enhance customer satisfaction, the
company needs to conduct effective training and development of their staff. Their sales staff,
store representatives, etc are the front-line staff of the company. To provide goods at a
moderate rate the company needs to contact the manufacturer or supplier to supply. When the
company will receive goods at discounted rate then they can transfer the discount to their
customers. Offering goods at low cost will help the company in acquiring new and existing
customers. Apart from this, it is concluded that the management of the company can use the
various marketing strategies like 7P's of the marketing mix. SWOT analysis and PESTLE
analysis described in this study which will help the ARGOS in identifying their strength,
weakness, threat and opportunity. In order to accomplish the objective, the company needs to
pay close attention to its competitors. Currently, ARGOS has stores at the prime location and
they have more than 30,000 employees. They have various monetary and non-monetary
incentives policies for motivating their human resources.

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 16
References
ARGOS. (2019) ARGOS OFFICIAL [online] available from <https://www.argos.co.uk/>
[22nd July, 2019]
Baker, M.J. and Saren, M. (2016) Marketing theory: a student text. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Buratto, A. and Grosset, I.L. (2019) ‘Advertising and Promotion in a Marketing
Channel’. Applied Mathematical Sciences 13(9), 405-413.
Dwivedi, Y.K., Kapoor, K.K. and Chen, H. (2015) ‘Social media marketing and
advertising’. The Marketing Review 15(3), 289-309.
Hackley, C. and Hackley, R.A. (2017) Advertising and promotion. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Herring, L., Wachinger, T. and Wigley, C. (2014) ‘Making stores matter in a multichannel
world’. Perspectives on retail and consumer goods, 2(3), 4-12.
Hult, G.T.M. and Ketchen, D.J. (2017) ‘Disruptive marketing strategy’. AMS Review 7(12),
20-25.
Jones, P. and Comfort, D. (2019) ‘Stories and Retailer Brands: A Study of the UK’s Leading
Retailers’. Indonesian Journal of Sustainability Accounting and Management, 1(2), 2-
5.
Morgan, N.A., Feng, H. and Chari, S. (2019) ‘Research in marketing strategy’. Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science 47(1), 4-29.
Percy, L. (2016) Strategic advertising management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wensley, R. (2016) The basics of marketing strategy. In The marketing book. Abingdon:
Routledge

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 17