Internet Marketing Marketing Techniques

Question: Discuss about the Case Study for Internet Marketing for Marketing Techniques. Answer: Introduction The current assignment revolves around the strategies used in internet marketing. Marketing is the technique, which recognises, anticipates as well as supplies customer requirements profitably. Many researches have been conducted on internet marketing to identify the significances of the internet marketing. It is observed that internet marketing includes the use of interactive, virtual spaces for promoting as well as selling the products and services. Moreover,internet-based communication technologies had contributed to the restructuration of large economic sector (Kacen, Jacqueline, James Hess, and Wei-yu Kevin Chiang 2013). Due to several reasons such as cost-effectiveness, flexibility, unprecedented global reach associated with internet marketing, many large organizations prefer internet marketing as their core strategies for promoting and selling products and services. The major purpose of the report is to understand how internet marketing helps firms to promote and sell their products and services in both local market as well as global market. Thus, in order to understand the strategies and approaches used by the organizations in adopting internet marketing, the current strategic scenario of Woolworths Limited, Australiahas been considered in the current report. Woolworths is known as Australias one of theretail companies, which was established in 1924 in Sydney. The organization is determined to act on its portfolio to increase the shareholder values. Situational Analysis The organization Woolworth has been running the operation for decades; thereby, it has implemented multiple strategies to create the global presence. However, Woolworths has to deal with some external and internal factors that benefit the organization and throws serious challenges to the organization. While analysing the internal environment of the organization, some crucial factors have come into the organization influencing the growth of the company. Figure 1: Situational Analysis (Source:Tsimonis, Georgios, and Sergios, Dimitriadis 2014) Environmental Analysis External analysis: It is significant for Woolworth to realise and analyse the influence of external environment on its profitability as well as the accomplishment of the business strategies. In this context, it can be added that external factors also have wide impact on the corporate strategies of the organization (Shani, David, and SujanaChalasani 2013). While discussing the approaches of implementing the strategies some issues and positive insight have come out through five forces. Bargaining power of the supplier- If the organizationshave higher suppliers, they would be stronger (Shih, Bihà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Yaw, Chenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Yuan Chen, and Zihà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Siang Chen 2013). It is identified that the business of Woolworth, especially Safeway super market have low dependence on the suppliers. This indicates that suppliers of the company have low bargaining power. The major reason behind this is the large amount of retailing market share in Australia as well as New Zealand. Customers bargaining power- Massive number of Woolworths customers have strong bargaining power (Yoo, Myongjee, and Billy Bai 2013).In this context, if the customers have strong bargaining power, the organization faces the compulsion of reducing the price as attribution of buying the products at the store (Czinkota, Michael andIlkka Ronkainen 2013). In such as condition, Woolworths utilises the strategy of low price to meet the needs of the customers. Figure 2: Porters Five Forces (Source: De Mooij and Marieke 2013) Threats from the new retailers- The threats of new retailers is low, as the establishing the business with a massive number of stores as well as high quality to compete with the organization and other competitors is rigorous activity. In addition, Woolworths and the competitors like Coles have wide access to the distribution channels. Threats of substitutes- It is evident that there is an increasing threat for Woolworths business in respect to the substitute products and services. A massive amount of substitute products is offered to Australian retail industry. In such context, Woolworths needs to come up with strategies that are innovative and potential to attract the customers and build the brand identity. Industrys rivalry- It has been identified that the presence of strong competitors in the retail industry in Australia such as Coles is likely to constrain the market share of Woolworths and add up high level of competition. Internal analysis SWOT analysis Strength- Pioneer and one of the oldest organizations to use the modern retail trade model Most of the businesses such as Big W, Dan Murphys have presented a vast financial status in past few years. In addition to this, by reducing the overall cost of the business, the company has reached 7.96% growth in revenue for a half of the decade (Czinkota, Michael and Ilkka Ronkainen 2013). Woolworths gained the ability to generate capital and they formulate the plans to expand its market by opening new stores as well as updating new facilities. Woolworth has established an effective relationship with the suppliers and the producers. Some of the pricing actions initiated by other retailers; this includes the private milk reduction, which has caused considerable concern among the suppliers. Weaknesses The debt rate of Woolworths has increased dramatically; especially in 2012 it has largely increased in comparison to previous five years (Wirtz, Jochen, Anouk den Ambtman, JoseBloemer, CsillaHorvth, Ramaseshan 2013). The annual report of the company reveal that in the of 2013 financial year, the debt of Woolworth increased from AUD$513 million in 2008 to AUD$ 4,316 (Ho-Dac, Nga, Stephen, Carson, and William, Moore 2013). Thus, it can be mentioned that though, sale margin is still high, the rapid increase of debt rate could generate financial risk for Woolworths. The organization has limited market share Opportunities: Expanding online retailing:For decades, it is learnt that the future of the retailing industry has been re-built essentially with the help of computerization, the enhancement of technology and supply chain, implementation of the innovation (Hays, Stephanie, Stephen John Page, and DimitriosBuhalis 2013). The retail industry has now been approached differently based on which it is driven by digital commerce as well as internet development. After implementing the online shopping for Woolworths business across the country. Threats: It has been identified that Woolworths has been facing threats from the competitive market. The organization has to deal with some large competitors like Coles group in Australia. The low price strategy of Woolworths is responded by the price rewind strategy of the competitor Coles (Ludwig, Stephan, Ko De Ruyter, Mike Friedman, Elisabeth, Brggen, Martin Wetzels, and Gerard Pfann 2013). E-marketing Strategic Plan As the organization Woolworths has been effectively running its operation for decades, major focus of the organization has always been the extension of market share through a wide range of products and services. This helps the organization to increase the customer base and, to increase the customer reach it is better to implement the internet marketing strategies. While adopting the e-marketing strategies, it is effective adopt digital marketing in the existing strategies (Lambrecht, Anja, and Catherine Tucker 2013). Creating public forum-Most of the large organizations should create a public forum, which is also an internet marketing strategy. Hence, the customers could drop their queries, complaints and provide recommendations regarding the products and services. The customer executives of the company collects those feedbacks and develop the solution. In addition, Woolworth could promote new products and services through this public forum. The major purpose of this initiative is to make the customers aware of new products and services. Utilizing the digital media- With the help of digital media, Woolworths gains some key benefits such as building the visibility and brand awareness, reaching wider target audience, acquisition of the customers, decreasing the marketing cost and increasing customer retention. The e-marketing strategic plan of the organization includes the extensive research and monitoring the market, competitors and in the industry. With the help of online marketing, Woolworths reached the market of New Zealand and other urban sub-urban areas of Australia. The strategic plan of internet marketing of the company also includes identification of the target market such as the sub-urban areas of Sydney. Through digital media, the company focuses on the online strength and weakness of the competitors. Likewise, to learn about customers online strength and weakness of the customers, the organization uses the social media tools. The social media also helps the marketers to learn about the current trends, life style and economic background of the people in the target market. Segmentation and Targeting As Woolworths is one of the oldest organizations in the retail industry, it has wide market share. Thus, the organization develops its segmentation and targeting strategies. Through the market segmentation, the organization Woolworths gains the ability to identifythe specific targets and then implement the strategies to meet their requirements and demands. The market segmentation of Woolworths can be categorizedon four different characteristics such as demographic, behavioural, psychographic and geographic. The demographic features may include the aspects such as income, ages, gender as well as other population characteristics. It is evident that the stores of Woolworths need access to a specific size of market. These demographic characteristics largely influence products range and store location. For example, in the urban areas of the country such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the dispensable income of the people is high. Thus, people follow the current trends. In such context, Wo olworths designs the new products and services at competitive price. Likewise, the psychographic feature includes the ways the customers consider themselves as well as the lifestyle in which they are accustomed (Teresa PinheiroMelo Borges, and Jos Manuel CristvoVerssimo 2014). Based on these aspects, Woolworths develops the quality of the products and increases brand identity. On the contrary, behavioural features refer to how people make and repeat the buying decision. In such context, Woolworths focuses on increasing customer loyalty through relationship management. The organization could provide the customer loyalty card to its potential customers. Lastly, the geographical features refer to the actual physical location of markets and stores (Ryan and Damian 2014).Woolworths usually focuses on the urban areas for opening up the stores where the population is comparatively high and people get the essay access to the stores. Differentiation The current business strategy of Woolworths is considered as the differentiation strategy. This strategy helps the organization to pay attention to the creation of highly differentiated products range as well as marketing programs to become the dominant leader in the retail industry. By launching the Fresh Food People as its initiative, the organization Woolworths has become successful with this developed differentiation strategy. In addition, by positioning the business across the primary value of food being fresh, the organization has acquired a wide portion of the market share. Positioning This refers to a persons perception of where in respect to the quality as well as competitors, an organization and its products and services stand. In this context, the high quality of brand along with increasing reliability are usually positioned first, while the lowest quality products are usually positioned lingers in the mind of the consumers (Leeflang, Peter SH, Peter, Verhoef, Peter Dahlstrm, and TjarkFreundt 2014). Thus, it can be mentioned that Woolworths super markets could probably be placed below the competitor like Coles in the mind of the customers; however, Aldi, Franklins and IGA sores. The comparison also indicates that Big W (Everyday low price) could be positioned below David Jones as consumer products retailers. E-marketing objectives Internet marketing has always been effective for the organizations belonging to any industry. There are some key advantages associated with the e-marketing. One of the major objective of Woolworths is to increase the global reach within a short time. Another objective is to increase the online sales of the company, which could further help the organization in internal promotion. Based on the outcome of this objective, Woolworths could set the global strategies for expanding the business. This means Woolworths could set the objective of increasing sales margin to a particular extent within a particular time such as six months. By implementing these objectives, the organization could increase the market share as well as effectively meet the needs and demands of the new customers. If the above two objectives are implemented successfully and organization received the desired outcome, Woolworths would become the giant of online retail seller in the industry; this can also be considered as one of the e-marketing objectives. It could further strengthen the brand presence both in local and international market. E-marketing Strategies In order to implement the above-mentioned e-marketing strategies, the organization could implement as set of strategies related to internet marketing. One of the major strategies is to posting daily content for continuous growth and development. One of the easiest ways to develop the social communities over time is to post relevant contents on regular basis (Lambrecht, Anja, and Catherine Tucker 2013). In addition, the different audiences react to different frequency of posting (Ho-Dac, Nga, Stephen, Carson, and William, Moore 2013). Thus, it is necessary for the organizations to test the optimal frequency with its own frequency. In addition to this, Woolworths could focus on the engagement level compared to the posting frequency of the competitors. In such situation, the firm could take the advantages of the social media tool such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other tools. Figure 2: Online contents on social media (Source: Ryan and Damian 2014) Another significant strategy is to use the images when posting the contents of the products and services to social medial tools. The effective way to increase engagement on social media tools is include the images within the posts. In addition, while posting the contents of the products and services or promoting a piece of content, it is necessary to include link the page within a post. The next strategy, Woolworths could run a launchrock Campaign. It is a popular free service for tracking the email address of people who wish to get early updates of the products and services. The consumers would be aware of the latest product and services. Implementation Plan In order to implement the e-marketing objectives and strategies, the organization should focus on certain plans. For example, the organization may have to invest a large amount to technology as e-marketing is widely depended on the technology. Woolworths could develop a page on social media tools such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Technical executives of the organization should monitor the pages regularly and observe the interest of people based on the likes, shares and comments. In addition, the organization could create videos featuring the celebrities on a particular products and services. Thereafter, the video could be shared on social media tools such YouTube. Based on the shares and other feedbacks of the customers, the organization could measure the demand of the markets. Moreover, the contents of the goods should be clear and concise and it should be designed manner that attracts the customers. Evaluation and Budget The recommended e-marketing objectives could help Woolworths to gain the market share and increase the sales margin. However, it is also evident that the competitors of Woolworths also implement the e-marketing strategies to increase the sales and create wide market presence. Thus, investing a large amount on e-marketing could also be a risk. Nevertheless, as organization is one of the oldest organization, it has become one of the popular brands. Woolworths could gain positive outcome from the initiatives. Strategy Description Evaluation Criteria Budgets Launching a new product through online marketing Promoting the products through social media such as YouTube and Facebook, The number of visitors on the page who hit share and likes v Increase by 15%- Bad performance v Increase by 20-25 % Average performance-Average performance v Increase by 25% -Excellent performance $10,00 once off and $10/month for web maintenance Creating the online presence in new market v Targeting the customers in urban areas of New Zealand v Promoting the content of the products and service Total number of online customers Increase by 20%-bad performance Increase by 20% excellent performance Sales performance during the promotion Increase by 15% bad performance Increase by 18 performance excellent performance Table 1: Evaluation and Budget (Source: Created by Author) Conclusion The current report is an analysis of the organization Woolworthss present and future strategy for development. 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