Social Media Marketing Report: ALDI vs. GOOD TIMES Analysis

This report examines social media marketing strategies for a startup grocery store, GOOD TIMES, in competition with ALDI in the Netherlands. It analyzes the use of social media to enhance brand awareness and gain a competitive edge. The report includes an executive summary, table of contents, and an introduction that highlights the importance of social media marketing in the current business environment. It compares and contrasts the brands, considering the 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) and analyzes their social strategies and goals. The report also compares different social marketing strategies, identifies social media opportunities, and sets clear goals for both companies. It emphasizes the importance of search engine optimization, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Pay-per-click (PPC) model in social media marketing. The analysis reveals that while ALDI is an established brand with a strong physical presence and customer loyalty, GOOD TIMES leverages social media and cost-effective pricing to attract customers. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and providing insights into how GOOD TIMES can improve its marketing efforts.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Social Media Marketing
Name of the student
University name
Author’s note

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Executive summary
The current assignment focuses on the use of social media marketing for developing
of brand awareness for a startup organization. For the current study a start up grocery store
GOOD TIMES have been taken into consideration. The startup is to compete with similar
grocery stores in Netherlands. One such competitive grocery store selected over here is the
ALDI. The ALDI provides a complete range of household goods along with individual
customer segment products. Thus, being in the business since a long time it gives a tough
competition to the start up organization of interest which is the GOOD TIMES. Therefore,
the various ways social media marketing could be used to give the brand a competitive
advantage over ALDI have been compared over here.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Comparing and contrasting personal brand with competitors....................................................4
Social strategies and goals of self and competitor in business environment.............................7
Comparison of different social marketing strategies.................................................................8
Identification of social media opportunities.............................................................................11
Designing a clear set of goals for self and competitors..........................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
The current assignment focuses on the use of social media marketing for the
promotion of brand and its business. The current decade has seen more dependence upon the
social media handle for the development of brand awareness about products and services.
Some of the online search engines such as facebook, instagram, twitter are been extensively
used to reach to wide section of audiences. In this regard, much of the companies are
focusing upon the development of their own social media pages such as facebook and
whatsapp. The communication modes are used to develop personal rapport with the target
customer group. The social media marketing uses some of the primary features such as search
engine optimization for optimization of the searches made by the customers online. The goal
is to facilitate the online searches in a manner so that the results are displayed at the very top
or beginning (Ashley and Tuten 2015). The social media marketing needs to follow the
General Data Protection regulation (GDPR), which focuses mainly upon keeping the personal
details of the candidate safe and privy. With the advent of the social media marketing
concepts such as pay-per-click have been doing the rounds. In this regard, the specific
company or organization designs or optimizes its web page in a manner that maximum
information are provided to the customers making the online searches within a nutshell. The
goal is to develop an effective and engaging content where every random searches made by
the customer on the basis of each and every click are made into money. The more the number
of clicks, the more is the money generated which can be further used for the expansion of the
business (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014).
In the current report, the social media marketing strategies for two Netherlands based
small scale grocery stores have been compared. The organizations which have been selected
for the purpose of the study are – ALDI and GOOD TIMES.

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Comparing and contrasting personal brand with competitors
For the current study, two Netherlands based small scale grocery stores have been
taken into consideration. The goal is to provide daily household and basic needs at cost
effective prices to the customer. The start-up organization of focus over here is the “GOOD
TIMES” which had the purpose of providing cost effective household goods to the local
residents as well as the by and large population across Netherlands. The grocery market of
Netherlands is dominated by a number of similar market players which are JUMBO, LIDL
and HOOGVLIET etc. Due to the presence of a large number of existent grocery stores it
became difficult for the new hand furniture outlet to develop a competitive advantage. In
order to develop a competitive advantage, GOOD TIMES need to review some of its basic
features such as products, cost, services, after sales support system, online support system. In
this respect, GOOD TIMES had a tough competition in ALDI, as the later had been
exceptionally famous with the local residents as well as the tourists and foreign national
students visiting Netherlands. By 2017, ALDI had increased it number of stores to almost 67
in Netherlands in comparison to GOOD TIMES, which had around 12 stores spread across
the north and south provinces of Holland and Amsterdam. It faces stiff competition from
ALDI located in the same geographical area. A comparison could be done within the
marketing tactics of ALDI and GOOD TIMES in order to identify the area where the
company could gain a competitive advantage. The 4P marketing mix could be used over here
for doing the analysis which has been further divided into- product, price, place and
promotion.

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4p’s of
marketing
GOOD TIMES ALDI
Product Complete range of household
products including separate section
for kids and women
Supermarket offering wide range
of household products such as
fresh fruit and vegetables, beauty
products, electronic products, toys
(aldi.nl 2018).
Price The newly opened store offers cost
effective products to the customers
with additional level of discount
during the festive seasons.
Offers products at unit pricing
strategy so that the customer can
easily compare. ALDI prices it
products in an intelligent manner
such as $3.78 instead of $4. The
point difference in the price index
gives it the favorability of cost
effectiveness over some of its
market competitors (aldi.nl 2018).
Place GOOD TIMES have 8 stores across
the different provinces of Northern
and southern Holland and 4 stores
in the Amsterdam region.
ALDI has over 8000 stores in 18
countries. ALDI supplies all its
products from different suppliers
and stores them in local
warehouse. Therefore, the brand
has superior location accessibility
compared to others.
Promotion The GOOD TIMES on the other
hand has focused upon developing
The ALDI follows a word – of –
mouth promotion mostly by virtue

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their social media pages to reaching
out to a huge number of target
customer base.
of its brand awareness and
customer loyalty. ALDI has little
or negligent social marketing
strategies. It mainly does the
promotions by offering super buys
offers.
Table: 4P of marketing
(Source: author)
Analysis:
In the present scenario, a 4P analysis have been conducted in order to understand the
brand positioning of the company within the current market compared to some of its
competitors which can give the brand competitive advantage over others. From the
marketing mix analysis of the two companies a number of factors and issues have been
figured out. For example, ALDI is an established brand with huge number of parallel stores
across many different provinces and regions. As commented by Shen and Bissell (2013), easy
accessibility to location can give the store competitive advantage to other similar outlet and
stores. Though the prices are a bit on the high side, ALDI has its loyal customer base, which
can give the brand a better competitive advantage.
On the other hand, GOOD TIMES were offering its products and services at cost
effective prices along with seasonal discounts. The stores also harbored a separate section for
the women and the kids. The brand also used social media campaign for reaching out to a
wide section of audiences. On the other hand, ALDI has so far followed cash and collect
mode, where the customers are expected to visit the stores physically and collect the products
(Hutter et al. 2013). The GOOD TIMES went one step ahead offering door step delivery to

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the customers alongside promoting features such as click collect on their website. As the
store is not widely spread across Netherland therefore having such premium features can help
in reaching out to a wide range of target customer base. Additionally, building effective
advertisements for the brand using social media channels such as facebook, twitter have been
able to attract a large number of target customer bases.
Social strategies and goals of self and competitor in business environment
The goals and social strategies of both the GOOD TIMES and ALDI could be
compared to analyze the situation of competitive advantage of both the brands. The GOOD
TIMES focuses upon gaining sufficient market stakeholders through its philanthropic
activities alongside the marketing activities. The organization has since it very inception
diverted a huge amount of the earnings towards the social and community based services.
These would also enable the brand to gain sufficient financers and stakeholders who could
help the business thrive. Being a start up business, GOOD TIMES need to have a wider
outreach reach to the target customer base (Tiago et al. 2014). Hence, it needs to increase the
number of its distribution channels which could incur additional costs to the company. The
company can regulate the prices by reducing its dependency upon the supplier base by
sourcing some of its products near to the raw materials. Additionally, the GOOD TIMES
uses the Pay per click (PPC) feature effectively where every search hit generated by the
customer online contributes to significantly towards increasing the internet shares of the
company. This could further help in balancing the negative returns on investment (ROI). The
company uses the property of search engine optimization for generating effective web traffic
content.
The ALDI grocery stores on the other hand provides effective discount through the
festival seasons, which can help in attracting huge number of target customer base. Some of

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the strong features of the company need to be highlighted over here which are huge number
of stores spread across the globe and across Netherlands. Therefore, being an established
grocery brand the company focuses more upon maintaining the loyal customer base than
looking for new customers. The company plans to do this by way of e-mail marketing where
the company can share feedback receiving mails with some of its priority based customers.
The responses shared through the mail will be used by the company to focus upon the internal
loopholes or the gaps in the services (Gensler et al. 2013). Therefore, meeting with the
business gaps can help in making the services better.
In this respect, the choice of the marketing strategy is dictated by the market
penetration rates of the company. An established brand with sufficient market penetration can
do with less social media marketing (Goh et al. 2013). However, the growth of social media
places much more dependency upon the social search engines for the branding and the
positioning of the products (Hill et al. 2014).
Comparison of different social marketing strategies
There are different social marketing strategies such as audio video mode of
marketing, news and print media. The social marketing strategy which has taken over the
current decade is the use of effective social media handles such as twitter, facebook for
promotion (Huang and Sarigollu 2014). In the current study, the social marketing strategy of
the two organizations of interest are compared which are the ALDI and the GOOD TIMES.
The ALDI has less or little social marketing and depends more upon festive discount and
super buy offers. The GOOD TIMES on the other hand employs a number of key metrics for
the measurement of sales rates generated through the online channels.
Some of the objectives undertaken by the GOOD TIMES over here are conducting a
social media audit. It helps in understanding the figuring out the specific section of target

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customer who connects to the brand via social media. As mentioned by Ewing et al. (2013),
undertaking a metric assessments also help in analyzing the online presence of the brand.
The social media metrics can also help in understanding the customer preferences for a
product over others (Ashley and Tuten 2015). The GOOD TIMES plans to use the metrics for
the tacking down the number of clicks. As commented by Miller (2014), tracking clicks
though the online campaigns help in understanding the factors which generates curiosity
within the target customer group. Additionally, some of the objectives such as hashtag
performance can also be used to analyze the most used keywords for making the search
online (Bauer et al. 2013). This could be further used for optimization of the web content for
which would help in targeting higher base. The ALDI on the other hand uses responses
obtained through the e-mail for analyzing the customer demands. The comparison of the
social marketing strategies of the two grocery stores GOOD TIMES and ALDIO have been
compared over here though the 4 c’s of marketing which are- Client, cost, communication
and convenience.
Factors GOOD TIMES ALDI
Client The GOOD TIMES uses a number
of measurement systems for
gathering data regarding the client
where the metrics tracks the
customer search history to
optimize the online search options.
ALDI uses the feedback responses
from the e-mail of the customers for
designing of its products and
services.
Cost The GOOD TIMES offers the
products and services at wide
range of prices allowing seasonal
or additional discounts.
It implements unique pricing
strategies so that the customers can
easily compare the prices. It uses
intelligent pricing strategy where

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point reduction in prices helps in
gaining more customers along with
reducing the effects of negative
revenue generation (negREVPAR)
(aldi.nl 2018).
Communicatio
n
The web pages hosted by the
company over facebook are
further subscribed by the
customers, which helps in
reaching out to the customers
effectively.
ALDI maintains an effective
communication with its target
customer base through e-mails.
Convenience They have online purchasing
options where every single
products clicked will be provided
to the customer through door step
delivery.
ALDI on the other hand uses pay
cash and collect feature where the
customer need to actually visit the
stores to make the purchase (aldi.nl
2018).
Table: 4C’s of marketing
(Source: Author)
Analysis:
From the 4c analysis of the two target companies a number of factors have been
evaluated over here which are discussed in the later sections. ALDI uses intelligent pricing
strategy for generating sufficient revenue from the sale of the products. Additionally, using
competitive pricing strategy also provides it an upper hand over it similar market players
(Burchell et al. 2013). However, as argued by Vigneron and Johnson (2017), the lack of

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effective social media campaigns can reduce the visibility factor of the brand which could be
used as a competitive advantage by the GOOD TIMES. The effective online presence could
be used to promote the upcoming services and products of the brand (Parmentier et al. 2013).
Additionally, the online click and doorstep delivery can give the brand competitive advantage
over others. As commented by Centeno et al. (2013), with the advent of globalization the
disposable time limit of the target customer group have been reduced drastically. Therefore,
provision of click and doorstep delivery features could be welcoming changes for the target
population group (Capaldi et al. 2013).
Identification of social media opportunities
There are a number of benefits of the social media marketing which have been
discussed as follows. The social media marketing strategies adopted by ALDI can help in
developing effective brand awareness for the company. As commented by Trong Tuan
(2013), it provides an effective platform to the company where it can display all its products
and services to the target customer group under one roof. Therefore, developing effective and
engaging web content with the product features and the respective prices can help in
attracting more number of target customers. The transparent advertisement over the social
media channels can help in empowering customer loyalty towards the brand and its products.
As commented by Grant (2016), every positive interaction increases the likelihood of an
eventual conversion as followers produce more followers. Every response from the target
customer segment can be used to build your brand awareness (Trong Tuan 2013). As
commented by Epstein and Buhovac (2014), social media marketing is affected by high
conversion rates which have positive consequences on the building of a brand.

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Designing a clear set of goals for self and competitors
In order to succeed within the competitive scenario an organization needs to develop
an effective policy or framework. Some of the effective frameworks which could be
developed over here are D.U.M.B. which stands for –Durable, Understandable, Marketable
and Beneficial. In this respect, the GOOD TIMES need to develop the long term goals and
plans for the company for sustaining itself within the current market scenario.
The goals and the initiatives of the GOOD TIMES could be compared with the ALDI though
the D.U.M. B. framework such as:
Factors GOOD TIMES ALDI
Durable Development of sole distributor
channel for achieving the long
term sales target of the company
by reaching out more number of
customers.
Possess a number of distributor
channels which helps in reaching
out to wide section of target
group of customers, giving them
a better hold over the changing
market dynamics (aldi.nl 2018).
Understandable The company conducts online
survey for understanding the
brand positioning of the grocery
store within the current market.
The loopholes identified through
the survey process will be used to
design improved marketing plans.
The long term goals of the
company are broken into time
bound small tasks for achieving
success
Marketable The company uses social media
marketing for highlighting the
The company builds upon the
marketable assets of the products

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features and assets of the products
marketed by it (Epstein and
Buhovac 2014).
and services (USPs) for gaining
of sufficient target group of
customers.
Beneficial The company uses a part of the
internet share for promoting some
of its philanthropic activities
which could help in gathering the
attention of important market
stakeholders.
The company uses the returns on
investment for contingency
planning or future risk
management.
Table 3: Evaluation through D.U.M.B framework
(Source: Author)
Thus, some of the features such as advance contingency planning and strategic
progress by breaking the objectives of the organizations into small goals can give ALDI a
better competitive advantage compared to GOOD TIMES. As commented by Grant (2016),
stepwise planning can help in better aligning with the changing market dynamics.
Conclusion
The current assignment focuses on the concept of social media marketing for
achieving optimum brand growth and sales in the competitive market. In the current report,
two different organizations had been taken into consideration. The GOOD TIMES is a start
up grocery store and faces stiff competition from the established and some of the famous
grocery outlets. One of its toughest competitors is the ALDI which has huge number of
operational stores across different countries. Therefore, being in the business for a very long
time ALDI has its loyal customer base. However, GOOD TIMES being relatively new faces
stiff market competition. Therefore, using the concepts of search engine optimization along

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with using multiple social media sites the GOOD TIMES will try to develop sufficient brand
awareness along with a loyal customer base.
Some of the steps which could be taken over here are:
 Designing of an effective and engaging web content
 Enhancing the web security standards by implementation of strict GDPR
norms
 Use e-mail marketing for reaching out to their priority based customers
 Integrating the searches with multiple social media marketing sites

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