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Marketing is all about people and communication, and the way in which businesses connect with customers has changed drastically over the past century. The introduction of digital marketing has provided new ways in which businesses can connect with customers and are coming increasingly important (Greasing-polar, 2014). However, older traditional methods are arguably equally as effective when marketing a new product or service, and businesses continue to use old and new techniques.
Digital marketing through the usage of smart phones has increased rapidly over the past century with around 4. 33 billion people using a smartened in 2013 (marketer, 2014), which has resulted in businesses taking advantage by creating phone applications. “APS” install in seconds and allow customers to access ample information on a business through their fingertips. APS can be easily updated by businesses meaning they are always current and can provide valuable information for the customer.
An example of a business that uses APS effectively is popular food chain Monads. Their app Includes menu Information, promotional deals, updates on loyalty cards and where the nearest restaurant is situated (App Store, 2014). When comparing and contrasting digital and traditional methods of communication, It would appear that digital Is the more cost-effective technique because there is no charge to advertise through social mediums like Faceable. However, traditional methods have a high success rate’ (Higher, V, 2014) and are easily accessible through a newspaper. Gained or radio as statistics show that 9,540,993 people buy a newspaper in London every day (Greensward, R, 2014). When considering audience coverage, digital communication has a ‘far greater exposure’, with anyone In the world being able to see a little as one marketing campaign (Business zone, 2013), compared to traditional communication, which is seen to have a more localized approach, for example, when companies advertise through radio like Radio Norfolk, only those In that specific county will be able to hear about new products or services on offer.
Finally, with the use of digital communications, you can assess what, if any, progress the company has made from the digital campaign very quickly and further Improve the outcome, whereas with a more traditional approach, the process of gathering information could be extremely time consuming. Therefore, when comparing and contrasting both digital and traditional communication, it would seem that digital marketing Is the most effective method due the almost infinite audience a company can appeal to at an extremely low cost.
However a vast amount of people still listen to the radio and read newspapers daily, hence traditional forms of communication are also an effective method of launching new products and services. The marketing mix is a key issue when companies attempt to launch a new product or service. Firstly, the role of ‘price’ is arguably one of the most Important out of the ‘ops’ as It Is the ‘only element that generates a turnover’ for the company (Learn Marketing, 2014), because the other ‘Was’ consist of the organizations variable costs.
There are several different pricing strategies that enable the launch of market high with the intention to lower the price in the long term. For example a games console such as the Shoebox came into the market at IEEE (Curette, T, 2005) can now be bought for El 79. 99 (Argos, 2014). Therefore the role of price is of paramount importance in the marketing mix because the ‘price of a product or service will determine how the consumers perceive’ and ‘reflect its brand positioning (Dib, S, 2013).
Moreover, when considering the role off ‘product’ as an element of the marketing mix, the product itself must be well designed, creating a strong brand image because it is ‘central to a company’s marketing proposition’ (Dib, S, 2013). The role of the product is therefore to connect the company with its target market and to generate sales (weeklies, 2014), as the product is the company’s only ailing point to get a return on their investment.
As shown in Image 1, there are many aspects that need to be considered in the construction of a product to make it successful, which have been split into three levels: the core benefit, the actual product and the augmented product. These steps cover the performance of the product or service through to the delivery time and after-sales support (Reid, M, 1980). Therefore, the role of the product is a vital part of the marketing mix, due to the link it makes between the company and the consumer. Another important factor of the marketing mix is ‘Place’.
This element consists of Where the product is made, where is it stored and how is it transported to the customer’ (Learn Marketing, 2014). It could also relate to consumer behavior in a certain environment as a study from Michael Baker shows ‘people behave differently in different settings and respond to their environments in different ways’ (Baker, M, 2007), hence suggesting certain surroundings can drive consumption. Therefore ‘place’ is an important factor as it is how ‘a business gets its products to the customers’ (Riley, J, 2011), and in the long term creating a customer or brand loyalty.
The final element of the marketing mix is ‘promotion’. Promotion is a vital part of the marketing mix because it ‘[communicates] the product or service and its merits to target customers and persuades them to buy it’ (Kettle, P, 2008). There are several ways in which a company can promote its product or service for example through social media, television adverts, radio and many more, all of which have the ‘capacity to reach huge audiences with simple messages’ (Fill, C, 2011).
The concept of promotion also extends to exclusive offers and deals to attract customers to buy certain products, so f a product was launched by a penetration pricing objective, then promoting the product or service plays a vital part in order to attract the customers. Therefore, the role of promotion is to ‘raise awareness of a product or to encourage customers to purchase a product’ (Learn Marketing, 2014). Part 2: Marketing Application by the Company Morrison is known as being one of the most established supermarkets in the UK with one of the widest target audiences of working to middle class individuals and families.
The introduction of the match and more card has allowed Morrison to exploit the working to middle class market by offering cheaper prices to customers in the long term. Morrison, the Auk’s fourth largest food retailer, has an 10. 9% share of the market behind Kingsbury (16. 7%), Sad (17. 1%) and Tests (28. 9%) (Brooks, B, 2014). By combining high quality products with affordable pricing, Morrison has developed significant scope in which to either consolidate or expand their market share, depending on the use of their marketing communications, a crucial factor in the growth of a business (Hackle, C, 2014).
As a company, Morrison occupy a very broad customer profile in which they try to appeal to. As mentioned previously, this includes the working to middle class, families and more recently students, with the contemporary introduction of “M Local” (Baker, R, 2012). With such a broad customer profile, the introduction of Morrison’ ‘Match & More’ card looks extremely promising with “The Grocer” stating that it ticks boxes’ and gives ‘consumers hassle- free added value’ (Gales, S, 2014).
Moreover, the creation of the Morrison ‘Match & More’ app is a further sign of Morrison targeting any Apple users, which potentially includes anyone between the ‘[ages] of 18 to 65’ (Twitchiest, 2014). This therefore allows Morrison to market the ‘Match & More’ service to anyone within that age gap, and hence why Morrison hold the Auk’s widest target audience. Morrison ‘Match & More’ card is further extended to the ‘Morrison Miles’ card, which grants you points for every liter of petrol you put in your car (Morrison Website, 2014).
The inclusion of the ‘Points for Miles’ in the ‘Match & More’ card has also expanded Morrison target market to anyone with private car ownership. Therefore, in relation to Morrison’ target audience, the launch of the ‘Match & More’ card has been a huge success due o Morrison diverse approach of their marketing communications. The marketing mix played an integral part for Morrison during the introduction of the ‘Match & More’ card, accompanied by the fact that Morrison is the only supermarket to price match your comparable grocery shop with the other leading supermarkets (Morrison, 2014).
Firstly, the ‘product’. The ‘Match & More’ card is the first service in the I-J that offers a price match against the discounters, Laid and Lid. The loyalty scheme works using an internal price comparison where you get ten points for every ann. saved and provides customers with an “ultimate guarantee on price” (Vizier, S, 2014). With this in mind, Morrison’ chief executive hopes the scheme will ‘boost the basket size of over 12 million people’ who undertake their weekly shop at Morrison (Vizier, S, 2014).
By introducing the ‘Match & More’ card, they can also view their and cross-sell across their product ranges and entice customers to keep coming back. If you look at the segmentation graph, the fact that Morrison has lower prices than both Tests and Kingsbury could be a massive positive for Morrison because here are more points available to collect, an therefore more money back when you shop at Morrison showing their competitive-based pricing. One method of promotion used to advertise the ‘Match & More’ card is through social media such as Faceable.
Faceable is a good medium for Morrison to advertise through due to the 24 million daily Faceable users across the I-J (Huffiest Tech, 2013) creating mass awareness of the new service. Other ways of promoting the new service is through television adverts, whereby Morrison use their brand ambassadors, Ant and Deck (world renown celebrities), to create awareness of the ‘Match & More’ card. However, with traditional marketing, anyone with a newspaper, mail service, television or radio can learn about a business or service (Beanies, P, 2013), therefore creating product or service awareness has become much broader for the ever-modernizing world.
Finally, the last factor of the marketing mix is ‘place’. Prior to Morrison introducing the ‘Match & More’ card across the I-J, it was put on trial in East Anglia and was described to have ‘[beaten] expectations’ (Hegiras, R, 2014). However, Morrison have struggled with the ‘place’ factor due to their main stores being situated in the North, asking it difficult to compete with the other mainstream supermarkets like Tests and Kingsbury.
The introduction of ‘M Local’ in 2011 (Morrison Website, 2014) has however improved Morrison geographical position across the southern parts of the I-J. Therefore, from the evidence above, the marketing mix plays a vital role in the inauguration of a service, especially if the service is a success. When carrying out a SOOT analysis on Morrison, it is clear that there is room for improvement. My first recommendation on how marketing can be successfully applied to launch a new reduce or service would be to meet a ‘genuine customer need’ (Anderson, J, 2014).
In this case, Morrison could offer a ‘Click and Collect’ scheme as they are currently one of the only supermarkets not to offer this type of service. This service enables the customers to come in to the store and pick up the products they have purchased online, hence speeding up the process of supermarket shopping. My second recommendation for Morrison would be to expand its geographical position to enable the ‘Match & More’ service to become reputable and therefore giving Morrison a substantial scope to market new products or services.