A Report on the Digital Marketing Strategies of Woolworths Supermarket

This report provides an analysis of Woolworths Supermarket's digital marketing strategies, examining its website and social media presence. It discusses the company's current strategies, including its use of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, and evaluates their effectiveness in reaching the target market. The report identifies key reasons for the less successful online strategies, such as issues with banner pages, the absence of a mobile application, and a lack of active customer service on key platforms like Twitter. The report also provides a competitor analysis, focusing on Coles, highlighting its successful digital marketing strategies and comparing them to Woolworths. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of a robust online service delivery for Woolworths to enhance its brand presence and customer engagement. The report references relevant sources to support its findings.

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DIGITAL MARKETING
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DIGITAL MARKETING
Introduction
Woolworth’s supermarket is one of the retail chain stores in Australia. The supermarket offers
food products as well as liquor to its target customers through its in-store services as well as
online services. The chain supermarket is one of the biggest in Australia making high profits
from its selling services, as a result of positive leadership and improved service provision to both
suppliers and their customers. The company’s target market include all social classes in the
society as the prices quoted vary depending on the product to be sold. This makes it easier for
their customers to buy what is affordable and of their preference. Both food and liquor products
offered by the company are of high value to ensure they satisfy the needs of their customers. The
company’s online services have not been as productive and successful as the in-store services
due to a weak digital strategy as discussed below.
Digital Marketing strategies used by Woolworths
Most of the customers live close to 10kilometres and more away from the stores where the in-
store services are offered. This has enhanced the establishment of digital marketing strategies to
ensure their customers are able to access their services as required by them. Some of these
strategies include the company’s website and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube and Pinterest. The Company recent website is bright with a great view on web design
to help attract their customers and make them feel comfortable shopping online. The website also
gives clear banners of interest depending on what the customer require, some include shop
online, grocery facts store hours among others to keep their customers informed. Social

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platforms used by the company have also enhanced its online services to its target market. These
include;
Facebook, Woolworths Company has more than 800,000 followers on Facebook which is close
to 5% of the Australians total population .This is a clear indication that the retail company is
very popular within the home base of every brand in the market. Facebook is very useful in
updating their customers on the available products by posting photos of various food products as
well as videos. Instagram is another social platform where Woolworth has been able to enhance
its customers to buy their various products. Unlike with other brands, photos posted in Instagram
are the same with those posted in Facebook to ensure similar information gets to their customers.
YouTube is another social platform where the company has used to enhance online contact with
their customers. The company presents cooking videos to their customers to enable them
enhance their cooking skills as they buy the stores food products. On the last note is that on the
company’s social media there is a list of icons known as Pinterest. This gives improved quality
of shared photos of food products, liquor labels as well as cooking videos (Li & Tan, 2017).
Reasons for unsuccessful digital strategies
One reason is failure of the banner pages. Though the company website is well designed and has
various banner options to allow the customer choose what he or she requires, they are not easy to
open. In cases where the banners open, it’s not easy to locate the information about the goods
sold making it hard for the online service to match that of the in-store service. This makes the
online customers to lose hope and interest in shopping online for the products. Another reason is
lack of active application and instead have a mobile site. Unlike other successful brands in the
same market that have developed both iPhone and Android shopping application, Woolworths

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lacks the application making it hard for their customers to create a favorable shopping list hence
unsuccessful customer experience. Lack of active customer help service online in the most useful
social media platforms. Unlike in other brands, Woolworths has no active platforms in terms of
help services to their customers online. A customer may not understand the terms given for a
given product and requires to confirm from the providers, without the helpline service the
customer may not buy the product. One of the major social media platforms where information is
given to the consumers is twitter, Woolworth is inactive in this platform making it hard to reach
a bigger section of its target market (Mahesh & Amulya, 2013).
Competitor brand
One of the major competitor brand in the same industry with Woolworth in using digital strategy
to enhancing brand awareness is Cole’s chain supermarket retailing in food products as well as
liquor. Using digital marketing platforms to enhancing their brand awareness and selling of their
products has played a great deal in ensuring that the company sells greatly to making high
profits. With a well-developed iPhone application, the company has made it easier for its
customers to create shopping list and also purchase their products (Varadarajan and Yadav,
2002). Cole’s success in using digital strategy has also been enhanced by a positive and present
online help service to their customers. This is important to make sure that the customer buys only
what is in line with her or his interest after understanding what might be unclear.
In conclusion, to enable a successful digital strategy, Woolworth should ensure a positive online
service delivery to its target market. This is important to show that customers are able to connect
with the brand positively hence increasing the brands output.

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References
Cole’s supermarket 2018 website link - https://www.google.com/search?
q=coles+chain+supermarket+in+australia&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
Li, Z, & Tan, D 2017, 'Two-Stage Dynamic Pricing and Advertising Strategies for Online Video
Services', Discrete Dynamics In Nature & Society, pp. 1-8, Academic Search Premier,
EBSCOhost, viewed 30 March 2018.
Mahesh, L, & Amulya, M 2013, 'social media marketing: an important phase in modern business
management', clear International Journal Of Research In Commerce & Management, 4,
3, pp. 162-164, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 30 March 2018.
Varadarajan, P.R. and Yadav, M.S., 2002. Marketing strategy and the internet: an organizing
framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30(4), pp.296-312.
Woolworth’s supermarket 2018 website link- https://www.google.com/search?
q=woolworths+australia+company+website&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b