Contemporary Marketing Practice Assignment Sample
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Executive Summary
The concept of contemporary marketing practices primarily encompasses the multiple methods of marketing and tactics that goes beyond the marketing mix. Furthermore, it also highlights acquisition of greater support and determines a significant orientation of the market. The purpose of this study is to shed light upon exploring service marketing mix with reference to Sainsbury’s marketing strategy. It also ensures to determine strategies that would help in management of service experience thereby determining growth and retention of new and existing customer base.
Introduction
Determining and arranging the elements of marketing mix helps the business in making profitable marketing decisions. In this report the contemporary marketing practice of Sainsbury Company is going to be discussed. The main focus of this report would highlight the service marketing strategies and how marketing strategies of this company affects service experience management used by Sainsbury.
Organisation Overview
Sainsbury is the second largest retail company in UK. It provides facilities for selling groceries in supermarkets to customers. This company works with local farmers, growers and suppliers. As per the study of 2019, total revenue of this company was 29.007 billion Euros (Sainsburys, 2019).
Linkage between services marketing mix to an organisation’s marketing strategy
Purpose of the Services Marketing Mix
Solving problems of customers through simplified offerings is another purpose. As per Thabit et al. (2018) the major purposes of Service marketing mix are to provide products in response to customers’ needs. Enabling the gain of competitive advantage through introducing relationships is also included. Enhancing value over pricing and profits and implementing appropriate people within service management is another major purpose of services marketing mix.
7Ps Marketing Strategy of businesses
7Ps marketing mix shows the critical factors of an organisation which provides a detailed analysis of the trade acronyms within their organisational management. 7Ps model helps a company to conduct a proper marketing plan to implement successful service management (Do et al. 2020). This also helps to ensure customer satisfaction of a certain company.
STP Analysis
According to Nurendah et al. (2019), “Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP)” strategy helps an organisation to identify its customer segments and choose customer groups that can be targeted through the creation of an effective marketing strategy. It further helps businesses to identify their position within the market leading to development and implementation of an effective marketing plan to attract their desired customer groups.
Link between Services Marketing Mix and Organisation’s Marketing Strategy
Marketing mix includes the strategic marketing tools which are being controlled and used by the companies to manufacture desired response from target audiences. This influences demand for products which helps on marketing planning and execution. Marketing strategy combines with the service marketing mix to meet ultimate objectives of a company by providing values to customers. Service marketing mix is related to marketing strategy by establishing products’ position among target audiences. As per Pomering (2017), the weaknesses of service marketing mix affect the marketing strategy. For example, non specific services are being categorized as service products. This can affect marketing strategy by decreasing customer interests. Another problem is service marketing mix mostly focuses on marketers’ view but marketing strategy requires to focus on customers’ view.
Marketing Strategy of Sainsbury
Segmentation
Sainsbury’s point of view of target segmentation of this company involves both geographical and behavioural segmentation. Sainsbury’s consumer segment includes individuals who prefer shopping for groceries offline. Sainsbury uses UK region as its prime geographical segment.
Targeting
As per Makgosa et al. (2018) and service marketing point of view the company tries to portray its position in market through targeting its customers belonging to households. The values of service management come under the major focus through targeting strategy.
Positioning
As per Arunachalam et al. (2018), the pricing marketing strategy has a range between medium to high end because Sainsbury targets a more quality centric market. Sainsbury provides affordable prices of varied products. This makes the organisation use their positioning strategy for highlighting values for its customers.
Product
Sainsbury provides fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and meat, chilled beverages, dairy products, bakery and wine products (Sainsburys, 2021). Variety of product supply attracts more customers which help to increase customers’ adequate experience and ensure satisfaction.
Price
It has been seen that the company obtained 26.224 billion pound of revenue and £642 million in operational income respectively (Sainsburys, 2021). Due to the competitive consumer market situation, Sainsbury adopted competitive pricing policies to deal with rival companies and attract more consumers.
Place
The major operational dominance of Sainsbury is mostly in areas like Wolverhampton, Enfield, South East London, Dartford and Redhill (Sainsburys, 2021). This helps to acquire a greater customer base which automatically increases profitability and brand value along with service experience.
Promotion
Sainsbury builds its brand image by using sales promotion via incentives and database marketing (Sainsburys, 2019). Other than this, advertisement campaigns in radio, television and leaflets are also included in a promotional strategy which increases customer service experience.
Process
This helps the company to find pricing and product decisions. Assistance of this element helps to maintain a proper database of loyal customers and their feedback. This generates an easy billing and payment process for customers.
Physical Evidence
The layout of shops and reception procedures play a big role in customer service experience of the company (Sainsburys, 2019). Sophisticated appearance and easy procedures to check out of local partner retail shops increase the customer base.
People
People element focuses on the capabilities and efficiency of employees within the company. The interaction skills of staff with customers increase customer service experience of the company.
Evaluation of Services Marketing Mix for Analysis of Services
Existing Marketing Service Experience Management of Sainsbury
Customer service excellence is the major element for rapid growth in sales. Sainsbury has an aim to become a customer-oriented supermarket. The existing service experience management process used by Sainsbury has been identified to be an organisational culture regarding customer services by highlighting services access. Sainsbury aims to increase customer satisfaction by providing an excellent shopping experience. As per Pulker et al. (2018), corporate social responsibility is major key evidence of the food safety policies. The policies ensure health and safety of customers which can be followed as per the food safety policies. The main objective of the company is to provide fresh and healthy food. Achieving the position of leader in market by ensuring needs of consumers is another focus of customer service experience management of the company. By providing training to employees Sainsbury ensures loyalty among customers.
Evaluation of how well the Organisation manages its Service Experience aligned with its marketing strategy
Identification of positive and negative aspects of the services
Increasing competitive pressure ensured that Sainsbury is providing a higher service level and great customer relationship. This has shown a positive aspect of the strategy by creating increased value for customers and building capabilities. Through marketing strategies Sainsbury developed the Customer Service Excellence project. New levels of customer service drive the growth of the company. Core assets of the company are customers which are being protected, nurtured and leveraged by creating customer care functions. The implementation of CRM has helped Sainsbury to gather information about customers which provided a clear perception of customer needs. Išoraitė (2018) noted that brand image and popularity helps businesses to gain more customers. The local approach in marketing strategies has helped in the betterment of customer services for Sainsbury. On the contrary, lacks of transparency on the objectives of marketing strategies have a negative impact on customer services which Sainsbury is required to address effectively.
Justification of Judgements
The increasing customer base of this company can be justified through powerful branding strategies. Low prices on products justify customer satisfaction. Brand equity and partnerships justify strong public relations. As per Scott et al. (2018), advertising strategies justify success of expanding into new sectors and markets. A better understanding of consumer segments and shopping profiles justifies Saainsbury’s strategy of building loyalty and developing promotional offerings which suit customers properly. Relationship marketing strategies justify development of a better understanding of consumer demands. Sainsbury introduced the concept of maintaining balanced customer intimacy which justifies capability of providing value towards customers. Customer Service Excellence project justifies the objective of maintaining responsibilities for customer care. Productivity in CRM justifies improvement of customers’ relations. Moreover, marketing strategies of Sainsbury has an effective impact on its customer service management which is justified through customer aspects.
Recommendations
Creating Clear Vision
It can be recommended according to Sainsbury’s customer service experience that clear customer focused vision can create a set of statements that would act as guiding principles. This would help Sainsbury to build emotional connection with its customers. Creating effective shipping management can improve the customer service experiences.
Using quality framework
It can be recommended to Sainsbury that implementing a quality framework by managing phone calls and email communication can help the company to track down its development of teams. According to Martinaityte et al. (2019), through coaching, e-learning and training groups efficiency of employees can be improved which would lead the company to achieve successful customer service experience. Acting upon employee and customer feedback and following ROI framework the company can increase customer experience through quality delivery.
Optimizing customer journey
It can be recommended to Sainsbury to focus on specific customers’ journey and identifying the problems among them would offer Sainsbury to create a great customer experience. Sainsbury can increase customer loyalty programs offered by the company to enhance customer interaction with brands. The company can further be recommended to apply online customer query solving programs that would optimize customer journey through faster query resolution.
Conclusion
Lack of proper planning in marketing strategies creates challenges for Sainsbury to implement proper customer service management. Customer expectations are becoming more empowered as the importance of customer service experience is increasing among the companies making it necessary for marketing strategies to be aligned with their expectations. It can therefore be concluded from this study that Sainsbury can improve its customer service experiences and manage its competitive situation by implementing the offered recommendations.
Reference list
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Pantano, E., Priporas, C.V. and Migliano, G., 2019. Reshaping traditional marketing mix to include social media participation. European Business Review.
Pomering, A., (2017). Marketing for sustainability: Extending the conceptualisation of the marketing mix to drive value for individuals and society at large. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 25(2), pp.157-165.
Pulker, C.E., Trapp, G.S., Scott, J.A. and Pollard, C.M., (2018). Global supermarkets’ corporate social responsibility commitments to public health: a content analysis. Globalization and health, 14(1), pp.1-20.
Sainsburys.co.uk(2021), Sainsbury’s Official Website. Available at:https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/ [Accessed on: 15 February 2021]
Scott, P. and Walker, J.T., (2018). Retailing under resale price maintenance: Economies of scale and scope, and firm strategic response, in the inter-war British retail pharmacy sector. Business History, 60(6), pp.807-832.
Thabit, T. and Raewf, M., (2018). The evaluation of marketing mix elements: A case study. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 4(4).
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