Marketing Strategies of Asda: An Analysis

Introduction:

Marketing Strategy defines objectives and describes the methods you’re going to make happy customers in your target markets. It does not have to be written down but it is easier to communicate to outsiders if there is a plan, strategy.

What is a Marketing strategy?

• The broad approach the company intends to implement in the long term to achieve its objectives.
• A medium to long term plan for achieving a firm’s marketing objectives.
• The means or game plan by which marketing objectives will be achieved.
• Concerns markets, positioning, direction of development and competitive advantage.
• A plan for future marketing activity.

What should have to be in marketing strategies?

Marketing strategy should be:

• Be part of the all strategies of the company.
• Be a clear understanding of the markets to implies the strategy.
• Market should be analysis first.
• Be based on the company’s strengths.
• Checked the opportunities by strengths.
• Analysis the company’s weaknesses.
• Act in response to threats.
• Be incorporated and logical.
• Be carefully checked out the all strategies.

MOST: Components of the Strategies

Mission

Objectives

Strategy (overall plans)

Tactics short term responses to opportunities or threats

Effectives on strategies:

Business objectives

The firms resources

The firms strengths

Market conditions

Opportunities in the market

Competition and market structure

Stages in the development of marketing strategy:

• Objectives should have to be clear.
• Marketing audit should be done before implemented.
• Arrange the SWOT analysis
• Define marketing objectives
• Develop marketing strategies
• Implement marketing plans
• Review and realize the outcomes
• Prepare the next plan

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Objectives of research:

I will have set objectives for my research, to outline what it is that I want to gain from my research. These objectives should be closely related to the statement of the problem. Marketing is a key area of the business to help it to develop and grow (Marketing is therefore a tool for any business). The purpose and objectives of my research is to find out why companies spend a significant on their marketing strategy and what strategies they adopt to compete with their competitors.

There are two types of research objectives:

General Objectives:

A General Objective is a brief outline of what the researcher expects to achieve by carrying out his research

For example:

• How the “GREEN” is helping to the ASDA’ business?
• How and Why ASDA spending more on their marketing?
• why the grocery retailers are giving the preference to get their “CASH & CARRY” from ASDA’ stores?
• Why the ASDA has only BIG STORES?
• How the GEORGE is getting more clothing customers on their prices?
• How ASDA getting more customers from GEORGE?
• How ASDA marketing for GEORGE?

Specific Objectives:

A specific objective is where it is possible to breakdown the general objectives into smaller, logically connected parts.

• How ASDA can seek more business from its existing customers by aiming to grow its market share with the products that it already in its portfolio.
• How ASDA can seek expansion by taking its traditional product range into new markets.
• How ASDA can persuade existing customers that they should buy different products or services a sort of product line extension.
• How ASDA’ marketing researchers could explore the needs of customers for the products that are contemplated for the extended collection.

Opportunity Meeting Objective:

• How can ASDA improve their existing and more offers to customers by their (the product/service, the delivery, the guarantees, the service support etc)?
• How can ASDA segment the market so that they can better satisfy their all customers’ needs?
• What are the best routes to ASDA’ marketing because they already got and knows the marketing routes?
• How can ASDA convince people to buy their products when they are being tempted in other directions?
• How can ASDA increase their sales by marketing in other territories?
• What changes for the packaging of the product ASDA will do to sell them?

LITERATURE REVIEW

The marketing mix:

Marketing strategies generally fall in to following four controllable categories.

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion

The four P’s are the parameters that the marketing manager can control, subject to the internal and external constraints of marketing environment. The goal is to make decisions that centre the four P’s on the customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response.

Product Contribution:

The term “product” refers to tangible, physical products as well as services. Here are some examples of the product and how to contribute them in the marketing strategy.

Brand name

Functionality

Styling

Quality

Safety

Packaging

Repairs and support

Warranty

Accessories and services

Price Contribution:

Some specification in price contributions is

Pricing strategy (skim, penetration, etc.)

Suggested retail price

Volume discounts and wholesale pricing

Cash and early payment discount

Seasonal pricing

Bundling

Price flexibility

Price discrimination

Place Contribution:

Place is about getting the products to the customers e.g.

Distribution channels

Market coverage (inclusive, selective, or exclusive distribution)

Inventory management

Warehousing

Place centres

Order processing

Transportation

Reverse logistics

Promotion contribution:

In the marketing mix, promotion represents the various aspects of marketing strategies that is the strategy of information about the product with the goal of generating a positive customer response.

Promotional strategy (push, pull. etc)

Advertising

Personal selling & sales force

Sales promotions

Public relations & publicity

Marketing strategies budget

Every marketing strategy whenever it going to makes it will be implemented by the marketing mix and that strategy will be analysed first to fit in the marketing mix.

Product Life Cycle

Introduction Stage

At the Introduction (or development) step market size and growth is slight. It is possible that extensive research and improvement costs have been incurred to get the product to this stage. In addition, marketing costs may be more in order to test the market, experience launch promotion and set up distribution channels. It is quite unexpected that companies will make profits on products at the Introduction Stage.

Because that time company will just invest on their product that should not be the time for enough profit.

Growth Stage

The Growth Stage is characterized by rapid growth in sales and profits. Profits arise due to an increase in output (economies of scale) and possibly better prices. At this stage, it is cheaper for businesses to invest in increasing their market share as well as enjoying the overall growth of the market

Maturity Stage

The Maturity Stage is, perhaps, the most common and peek of product stage for all markets. It is in this stage that competition is most intense as companies fight to maintain their market share. Here, both marketing and finance become key activities. Marketing spend has to be monitored carefully, since any significant moves are likely to be copied by competitors. The Maturity Stage is the time when most profit is earned by the market as a whole. Any expenditure is to be restricted.

Decline Stage

In the Decline Stage, the market is shrinking, reducing the overall amount of profit that can be shared amongst the lasting competitors. At this stage, great care has to be taken to manage the product carefully. It may be possible to take out some production cost, to transfer production to a cheaper facility, sell the product into other, cheaper markets.

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SWOT ANALYSIS before Marketing:

SWOT analysis is an important tool for auditing the overall marketing strategic position of a business and its environment. Because businesses don’t want to waste their money and resources on the fake planning for their business. SWOT is the internal and external view of the company what they’ve got, what they have to do to survive in the markets, what they can do, what they are loosing.

Once key strategic issues have been identified, they feed into business objectives, particularly marketing objectives. SWOT analysis is very popular tool in business for marketing strategies because it is quick and easy way to analyze the company.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. For example, strength could be your specialist in marketing capability. A weakness could be the required for the new marker for new products which helps you to get the big market share.

Opportunities and threats are external factors. For example, an opportunity could be a developing distribution channel, marketing for the products such as the Internet, or changing consumer lifestyles that

Will be easy to by the things online and that would be the extra sale of the company and potentially increase demand for a company’s products. A threat could be a new competitor in an important existing market or a technological change that makes existing products potentially obsolete

ANSOFF MATRIX:

“The output from the ANSOFF product/market MATRIX is a series of suggested growth marketing strategies that set the direction for the business strategy. From the ANSOFF matrix I am getting two growth strategies which will help us for our marketing analysis to do the marketing because we are not going to launch new products this analysis is the clear eye for the company where they have to go and what they have to do” (tutor2u,2010 online)

Market Penetration

Market penetration is the name given to a growth strategy where the business focuses and going to more marketing on selling existing products into existing markets.

Market penetration seeks to achieve four main objectives:

Maintain or increase the market share of current products – this can be achieved by a combination of competitive pricing strategies, advertising, sales promotion and perhaps more resources dedicated to personal selling

Secure dominance of growth markets

Restructure a mature market by driving out competitors; this would require a much more aggressive promotional campaign, supported by a pricing strategy designed to make the market unattractive for competitors

Increase usage by existing customers – for example by introducing loyalty schemes

A market penetration marketing strategy is very much about “business as usual”. The business is focusing on markets and products it knows well. It is likely to have good information on competitors and on customer needs. It is unlikely, therefore, that this strategy will require much investment in new market research.

Market development

Market development is the name given to a growth strategy where the business seeks to sell its existing products into new markets.

There are many possible ways of approaching this strategy, including:

New geographical markets; for example exporting the product to a new country

New product dimensions or packaging

New distribution channels

Different pricing policies to attract different customers or create new market segments

These are the tools to analysis the strategies before to get start the marketing, with out the strategies analysis it is like “we are traveling on the road with closed eyes”. After this checklist, you will find out the path which path you can adopt and where from you can get start.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Secondary data:

The possibility of reanalyzing data that have already been collected for some other purpose it is called secondary data. Secondary data include both raw data and published summaries.

Secondary data will probably provide the main source to answer your research question and to address your objectives. This data should be already analysis and recommended for the publish. So the secondary data will help to make your primary data to make your research meaningful and achieved.

Primary data:

Primary data is the data which is collected by the researcher directly from his own observations and experiences. For example, if the researcher conducts a survey for the collected of data then it is known as primary data. Primary data are those data which are collected for the first time, taking a sample, representing a population. It is not a published data, it is problem specific data collected by the researcher, first time.

Methods or Ways of primary data collection:

There are some methods to collect the primary data which is most important data in the research because the researcher only the one who is going to know what he/she will found against of their objectives. The primary data is just like new innovation or uncompelled information which should be helpful to meet your objectives.

Now we are going to discuss the methods.

Questionnaires

Interviews

Focus group interviews

Observation

Case-studies

Diaries

Critical incidents

Portfolios.

Questionnaires:

Questionnaires are a popular means of collecting data, but are difficult to design and often require many rewrites before an acceptable questionnaire is produced.

In the questionnaires method there are some more types of the questionnaire that would be helpful to understand the researcher’s objectives.

Interviews:

Interviewing is a technique that is primarily used to gain an understanding of the underlying reasons and motivations for people’s attitudes, preferences or behavior. Interviews can be undertaken on a personal one-to-one basis or in a group. They can be conducted at work, at home, in the street or in a shopping centre, or some other agreed location. (Sounders, 2010)

This is the 2nd method to get the information and data from your interviewee and researcher can find the perfect and exact information about their research.

There are different types of the interviews which can be conduct.

Semi- Structured Interviews:

In this type of the interview the researcher will have a list of themes and questions to be covers, although these may vary from interview to interview. The order of questions may also be varied depending on the flow of the conversation. On the other hand, additional questions may be required to explore your research question and objectives given the nature of events within particular organizations. The nature of the questions and the ensuring discussion mean that data will be recorded by note taking.(Sounders,2010)

Unstructured or In-Depth Interviews:

We can use these to explore in depth general areas in which I am interested. There is no predetermined list of questions to work through in this situation, although you need to have a clear idea about the aspect or aspect that you want to explore. The interviewee is given the opportunity to talk freely about events, behavior and beliefs in relation to the topic area. (Sounders, 2010)

Focus group interviews:

A focus group is an interview conducted by a trained moderator in a non-structured and natural manner with a small group of respondents. The moderator leads the discussion. The main purpose of focus groups is to gain insights by listening to a group of people from the appropriate target market talk about specific issues of interest.

Observation:

Observation is a somewhat neglected aspect of research. Observation is adding considerably to the richness of your research data. it can even be fun. If my research questions and objectives are concerned with what people do, an obvious way in which to discover this is to watch them do it.

Types of Observation:

Participant observation

Structured observation

Participant observation is qualitative and derives from the work of social anthropology early in the twentieth century. Its emphasis is on discovering the meaning that people attach to their action. This is where the researcher attempts to participate in the lives and activities of subjects and thus becomes a member of their group, organization or community.

Structures observation is quantitative and is more concerned with the frequency of those actions.

DATA ANALYSIS

Analyzing qualitative data:

Qualitative e data consist of words and observation, not numbers. As with all data, analysis and interpretation are required to bring order and understanding. This requires creativity, discipline and a systematic approach. These are no single or best way.

The process will depend on:

The questions you want to answer,

The need of those who will use the information , and

Your resources

Narrative data:

Test or narrative data come in many forms and from a variety of sources. You might have brief responses to open-ended question on a survey, the transcript from an interview, or the text of a published report. Your data may come from many people, a few individuals, or a single case.

Any of the following may produce narrative data that require analysis

Open-ended questions and written comments on questionnaires may generate single word

Individual interviews can produce data in the form of notes.

Discussion group or focus group interview often involve full transcripts and notes from observer.

Observation might be recorded in your field notes as a result of watching and listening.

Documents, reports and news articles or any published written material may serve as evaluation data.

The analysis process:

When we got the data what do i do? The steps are describing which will explain the narrative data analysis and interpretation.

Get to know the data:

The qualitative analysis, this mean i have to read and re-read the test. If i got any idea i have to write it down may be useful later. When we got the data it dose not mean those are the quality data. Sometimes information provides does not add meaning or value and may be collected in a biased way.

Focus the analysis:

Review the purpose of the evaluation and what you want to find out. Identify a few key questions that you want your analysis to answers. Write these down and these will help me decide how to begin. These questions may change as you work with the data, will help me get started

Categorize information:

Some people refer to categorizing information as coding the data or indexing the data. However, categorizing does not involve assigning numerical codes as you do in quantitative analysis where you label exclusive variables with preset codes or values.

Identify patterns and connections within and between categories:

As you organize the data into categorize either by any way we will begin to see patterns and connections both within and between the categories. Assessing the relative importance of different themes or highlighting subtle variations may be important to your analysis.

Interpretation bringing it all together:

Interpreting the data attaching meaning and significance to the analysis. A good place to start is to develop a list of key points or important finding you discovered as a result of categorizing and sorting your data.

For the researcher this is the main caring point where they have to analyse the data what they collected because they are going to publish a report or making the dissertation they need the solid and realistic data from their primary and secondary data collection. Collecting the data and analyse for the right and authentic data. They have to go through the entire analysis step for their qualitative data.

Analysing quantitative data

Statistic analysis could be involved to analyse the quantitative data. There are some common mathematical techniques that can be make the evaluation data to more understandable, this called the descriptive statistic because they help to describe the raw data. And these methods includes.

Numerical counting.

Percentages.

Measures of central tendency.

Measures of variability.

There are some steps which are using in analysis of quantitative data.

State your research questions in a clear, precise way.  If your main question(s) imply other questions, state these as sub-questions.

Determine what kinds of comparisons you need to make in order to answer your questions.

What variables do you need to measure?

Are you interested in differences between groups?  Correlations between variables?

  This step will often help to clarify the research question!

Decide how to assess each variable, and verify what kind of variable it is.

This will help you decide what kind of comparisons you will want to make.

Set up blank tables.

Devise a research method and gather your data.

Summarize your data in such a way that you can fill in the blanks in your tables. (Analyze your data.)

Interpret your data:  What is the answer to each of your questions?  What kind of argument will you make?

Make your argument.

In my research there is not too much data which I have to analyze to quantitatively, because I am writing the report about the marketing strategies, I am not doing the financial analysis or making the report of the ASDA finance report. Where ever I need it I will be analyze it then I will use that.

Research presentation

Presenting the research:

The last step in market research is the presentation of a formal plan. At this stage, the marketing researcher should summarize the plan in a written proposal to management. A written proposal is especially important when the research project will be large and complex or when an outside concerned concern it out. The proposal should cover the company problems addressed and the research objectives, the information to be obtained, the sources of secondary information or methods for collecting primary data, and the ways the results will help for company decision making for the implementation. A written research plan or proposal makes sure that the marketing manager and researchers have consider all the important aspect of the research and that they agree on why and how the research will be done.

Recommendation:

The best way to find out the ways or methods to collect the perfection in primary data. Because I am searching some thing better, perfect and solid for my research topic and the primary data is first time collected from the researcher. And I have to find out the best tools for the marketing which is affected for the company for best marketing. If we follow the all primary data collection method we can get the knowledgeable and soled data for our research. I describe the objectives of the ASDA stores which I have to search out will be credible for my research. And the analysis of the data is very important because we can get the data from every where and any kind of the data. But to get the realized and perfect we have to analysis first and apply all the methods.

Conclusion:

For my research I will be looking into the strategy that ASDA, one of Britain’s leading supermarkets has adopted. Writing clear objectives is the most important step in designing qualitative marketing research. I am very intrigued as to how customers are being drawn in to the Asda brand and why it has been known for some of the most memorable advertising campaigns. After carrying out this research I will have an extensive knowledge about marketing strategies, and how they work. I will be gathering together data (which need to be collected) and then I will analyze it. This will allow me to implement the data and answer my objectives.