Marketing Plan for Marks & Spencer

Marketing Plan

I declare that this assignment is all my own work and that I have acknowledged all materials used from the published or unpublished works of other people. All references have been duly cited.

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Executive summary

The report discussed the marketing management styles of the UK’s retailer, Marks and Spencer. It also evaluated the STP strategy used by the company for its market study and its implementation in the current business scenario. Critical analysis of the marketing mix is produced in the report that analyses the product and service-related attributes. Marks and Spencer’s branding, advertisement, technologies used and other marketing-related factors are discussed in the document. It also provided recommendations to Marks & Spencer for it to enhance the marketing strategy.

Introduction

Marketing management is a process of identifying the market needs and scope for an organisation to expand in that market so that it can sell the products efficiently (Zeithaml et al., 2020). The report will critically analyse the marketing management strategies of Marks & Spencer. The marketing mix, segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies will be explained in the report. The report will recommend ways to improve the marketing strategy of the organisation.

Mark & Spencer is a British retailer that focuses on its own label business in food, clothing, home and others in the UK and 62 other countries (corporate.marksandspencer.com, 2021). The organisation owns 1519 stores all over the world employing approximately 80,000 workers and 44 global websites. Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer founded it in 1884 in London. Blue Harbour, Boutique, Rosie, Una are some of the major brands under Marks & Spencer. The organisation’s net income is £27.4 million. M&S Banks was established in 1985, however, from 2004, its parent organisation is HSBC.

Task

Analyse their STP strategy, providing an insight into how segmentation, targeting and positioning are currently applied by your chosen organisation.

STP marketing stands for Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning – a three-tier model that classifies, examines and plans the product sales (PERTIWI, 2018). This model lets the business planner segment the market, target the customers, and position the sales and services accordingly. Following is the business STP marketing plan for Marks & Spencer.

Segmentation

Segmentation is the process of dividing the market into different groups depending upon their characteristics. There are four types of segmentation depending upon different characteristics:

• Demographic Segmentation: This type of segmentation is dependent upon age, gender, price, class, income and literacy of the consumers. Marks & Spencer implemented this segmentation strategy based on gender, age, and price. The implementation has turned out to be fruitful for the organisation.

• Geographical Segmentation: It depends upon the country, area code, urban or rural area, climatic conditions of the market to be approached.

• Psychographic Segmentation: This type of segmentation is dependent on values, principles, motivation, priorities, lifestyles and others in the context of the customers. This strategy is been implemented through Autograph and has positive impacts on Marks & Spencer sales as new and favourable customers have increased.

• Behavioural Segmentation: This attribute defines the behavioural pattern of customers in terms of buying a product or service that is purchasing habits, spending habits, user status, brand interaction and so on. Purchase pattern refers to- in a particular period of a month an individual purchases fixed products.

Marks & Spencer uses demographic segmentation to develop and execute its products into the market. Demographic segmentation can be defined as grouping the market into groups of similar people based on age, gender, price, income, lifestyle and others. The organisation uses age and gender-wise segmentation in the clothing sector. It has a wide variety of clothing collection for women. Marks & Spencer uses psychographic segmentation for designing the clothes for high society people. The organisation has a separate department named Autograph for exclusive and expensive outfits. This scheme has however pulled the high society customers towards Marks & Spencer increasing the sales and work productivity. In the food sector, the organisation segments based on prices (marketingweek.com, 2013). Consumers like to have eatables with lower prices as they are frequently required. The reduction in food prices has proved to be advantageous to the organisation as people are attracted to delicious food at a lesser price. Consumers that are away from home usually tend to buy cheaper readymade snacks.

Targeting

Targeting is the process of focusing a segment of a market so that their need and problems are identified and solved. Organisations fix a base on which the target group can be attracted. Marks & Spencer target male customers in the age group of 25-40 who are interested in trendy and branded clothes. The organisation identified the target group to be inclined towards purchasing formal wear, casual wear, as well as party, wear outfits from the company. It also offers selected garments in women's clothing targeting the age group 18-35. Marks & Spencer estimates this target group would be the most loyal one as the organisation provides a variety of options like casual wear, corporate wear, pyjama party outfits, workout outfits and many more.

Positioning

Market Positioning refers to the ability to influence customer’s views regarding a brand. It aims to change the brands' identity in the customers' view so that the customer is attracted to buy the products of the desired organisation. The food sector is very important for the organisation, and due to this, the organisation would have undergone great loss, as 2013 had no major events. To overcome this threat, Marks & Spencer had launched a new positioning strategy in its Food sector (marketingweek.com, 2013). The strategy aimed at focussing on daily food items then the events.

Positioning refers to changing the consumers’ mind, which is achieved through deals and discounts at Marks & Spencer. The organisation offers great deals to its customers that the customers cannot resist. It is known for high-quality goods at an affordable price. Marks & Spencer positions its product depending upon the prices that are price based positioning strategy. For an exclusive target group, the organisation positions its products based on Quality based positioning strategy. Young customers value fashionable clothing, as they believe it to be an important factor. The senior citizens of the UK tend to buy UK manufactured clothes. It is an important factor for them as it indicates status for the citizens in the UK.

Figure 1: Positioning map

Examine their marketing mix, focusing on the 4Ps for products and 7Ps for services, that your chosen organisation is currently applying.

A marketing mix is a set of actions used by business managers and marketers to understand and promote their brand to increase organisational performance. When a new product is launched an organisation needs to identify the elements of the marketing mix and systematically blend them to obtain the profitable result (TUFA, 2020).

Elements	Strategy
Product	Marks & Spencer offers a wide range of clothing collection for women, men, and children. It has an outstanding food sector, which is considered an important sector by the organisation. Furnishings and home decor are now crucial and high on demand products of Mark & Spencer. It has a varied variety of accessories such as watches, jewellery, purse, handbags and so on. The organisation offers ethnic and trendy types of footwear collection that attracts many consumers. It tries to fulfil customer expectations regarding the product, as it is the most essential factor for a business to survive. The wide variety of apparels and accessories collection has attracted many customers worldwide. M&S offers its customers with banking service that gives excellent Internet banking experience with security. They have good loan schemes and the interest rates are affordable for the borrowers (bank.marksandspencer.com, 2021).
Price	Marks & Spencer serve its consumers a good quality and delicious snacks and meals at an affordable price, as it is the most important factor for a customer. The organisation has changed its pricing strategy in 2013, to focus on day-to-day meals. This strategy brought an outstanding change in the sales of the company as that year had no vents or any major celebrations in the UK (Heikkurinen et al., 2019). The organisation has implied a dynamic pricing strategy, which offers its consumers discounts during festivals or off-seasons. This clears the old stock and new customers are introduced to the organisation. This strategy proved advantageous as it boosted the sales of everyday meals. However, high pricing strategy of the organisation, in apparels, is disadvantageous because it has led to a reduction in customers in early 2000s (marketingweek.com, 2013).
Promotion	Promotion refers to advertisements, marketing strategies, and sales techniques used by the organisation to grab consumers’ attention. Television advertisements, promotions through shows and events, organising exhibitions at malls, billboards and so on are the advertisement techniques used by Mark & Spencer to publicise its products. The promotions techniques have a direct impact on the success of the brand. In the pandemic period, Mark & Spencer almost digitalised itself according to the changing conditions. It reduced its marketing cost by £50million (marketingweek.com, 2021). This strategy has also been proved disadvantageous sometimes as social market competition is tough and distractive, and people tend to change their shopping retailer. The organisation has always done celebrity endorsements through famous people like Lisa Snowdown, John Sergeant and others. This is advantageous as consumers follow celebrity fashion more often.
Place	Place refers to the place where the product can be accessed and purchased. The organisation positions its product depending on the customers’ interest, rate of the products and others. Marks & Spencer has a good variety of cosy and winter wears. These apparels are distributed depending on the geographical area and the climate. The organisation has expanded its business in Spain, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Finland, Ireland, Kabul, Canada, Qatar, France, Germany, India and others. The brand is well known and successful all over the world and the expansion has increased its overall performance hence advantageous. The company uses both online and offline mode of distribution that makes customers to get products easily.
Physical evidence	Marks & Spencer have lavish stores that show their standard in clothing and accessories. Most of the stores are located in high-class streets. The stores' view changes the consumers' point of view regarding the organisation. M&S uses St Michael’s image as their logo to assure the consumers of the quality of their products. The use of St Michael’s image has created a positive attitude towards the organisation, in the minds of people (dailymail.co.uk, 2021). However, the organisation has to invest in much quantity in terms of products, services, employees and other things required at the stores.
People	This is an important factor for any business as hard work of all the employees’ results in the organisation’s success. Marks & Spencer have 80,000 employees and 90% of them are UK based (corporate.marksandspencer.com, 2021). The organisation states that employees bring values to life. It treats employees with respect and dignity. It provides pension to its employees after retirement. The pension strategy has improved the workforce productivity of Marks & Spencer, which has proved advantageous to the organisation. The organisation has many schemes for its employees along with gift vouchers. This reward scheme is disadvantageous as it may sometime cost the organisation more than expected expenses.
Processes	Process refers to the process of development of a product until it delivers to the consumers. Marks & Spencer takes extra efforts to import high quality and sustainable raw materials in its food sector. The organisation has to limit the profit margin and bear the cost to deliver the best. Mark & Spencer follows a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach to ensure food safety while food manufacturing process (corporate.marksandspencer.com, 2021). This process is advantageous because it ensures the food quality and standardises the taste so that the consumers can receive the same taste and quality at each visit.

Table 1: 7P’s of Marketing mix of Marks & Spencer.

Assess their relationship marketing strategy with an emphasis on their current tactics.

Marks & Spencer is a well established retail organisation in the UK market. Yet, due to the covid-19 pandemic, the organisation has faced various consequences in the sales field. Further, due to lockdown in the UK, the organisation has loosened the potential employees and trusted customers. Relationship marketing is made to nurture customer loyalty, communication and long-term engagement (Sheth, 2017). An essential element of relationship marketing strategy is building up a strong way of trust and respect between the business and the customer (Hollensen, 2019).

Branding: Marks & Spencer is one of the oldest and most well-established brands in the UK since 1884, and offering the product and services from more than 100 years, through M&S is consistently focusing on value, quality, and customer experience (Marks and Spencer, 2021). Further, the Christmas digital campaign helps the business to boost its strategically sales and build new potential customers. However, M&S has focused on promoting the sub-brands by bringing further celebrity and designer input into the brands. Other than that, social trends such as consumer are more likely to attract to the brands, which provide self-esteem to the consumers. Because of the brand positioning of M&S as a quality company helps the business to attract customers who are brand conscious.

Advertisement: Marks &Spencer has become a market leader and gains a competitive advantage in own-branded products that have been supported while high profile TV advertisements. The organisation believes to offer high quality of product and services at competitive prices by making its own manufactured products. It displays negative perception that 'own-brand equals inferior' has broken down by M&S, increased the reputation, and thus boosting trust. The advertisement strategy helps to attract and engage the customers through TV, Radio and other multimedia channel. Yet, the advertisement on TV could not provide leads or generated extensive sales as the customers are more engaged on social media and smartphone technologies.

Data insights: M&S have direct contact with their customers and uses management information systems with the help of customer service centres and using data analytics from loyalty cards and direct feedback, to offer their new product development to satisfy consumer needs. The data insights help the Marks & Spencer to analyse the buyer persona and their preference and customer trends to enhance the productivity and efficiency of the business operations. Yet, understanding the buyer persona and personal details could affect the privacy and sometimes provide misleading information that could create miscommunication and failure of future marketing strategy.

Technology: Internet is the way of gathering information, knowledge, way of communication, and a new pattern of visual to make effective interactions. Today, billions of people are using the internet, and engaging with internet facilities and surfing internet had become a hobby for customers. By making use of internet Marks & Spencer customer can able to check on their order status, Delivery Services & Charges, Store Collection time shift, Payments & Offers by applying promo code, Store Finder and Returns & Refunds through its online portal.

Friendly environment: Creating effective store environment is essential for M&S, as the environment directly affects consumers’ perception and purchase behaviour and their total shopping experience. The friendly and technological environment will be the facts affecting consumer's store choice to decide on shopping. Marks & Spencer stores provide a comfortable and convenient shopping environment, where the customers feel pleasant in the stores (Marks and Spencer, 2021). Further, M&S has created a different design for each store, to feel something special in the stores so that customers will not feel bored while shopping. The M&S has created RFID technology to enhance the in-store experience of the customers and engage technological enthusiastic customers.

Provide recommendations on how your chosen organisation can improve its marketing strategy.

Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the sales and revenue of Marks and Spencer have gone down in some product and services in the market. Yet, the company could make use of other marketing strategies to boost its sales and revenue and increase customer expansion. M&S could make use of various marketing strategies to enhance the company's growth.

Social media: The organisation may continue to build strong customer bases on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram by sending stories, status and communicating with lucky followers and tagging with the official page of M&S. It will help the organisation to engage new potential customers across the world.

Public Relations: Marks & Spencer will create addition by involving celebrity people to endorse the company’s clothes and sportswear or food dishes. The company should introduce celebrity to endorse their sustainable working ethics. The combination of influencers and companies’ image to make ‘British clothing’ and line the company’s brand image to enhance potential through PR and the Marks & Spencer will appeal to the customer segment that increasingly values ethically produced clothing and food products.

Sales promotion: Marks & Spencer should create a non-stop marketing campaign promotion to eliminate the competition and generate various social trends through a marketing campaign. The effectiveness of sales promotion will drive profits by investing some of its gross margin in price cuts and promotions. Further, Marks and Spencer should emphasise on their strategy in using discounts to sell products that do not have the anticipated demand.

CSR activities: M&S's has created a good reputation by diversification of strategy and hence, company overcome the branding issues of food association while entering financial service, in which building trust among consumers is important. Marks & Spencer can perform Corporate Social Responsibility to sustain competitive advantage in the market through the success of M&S Money and Insurance which is credited to the poor PR among the financial sector, effective CSR defines customers of own-label foods are more likely to try other own-brand services. The CSR activities performed by M&S have a positive impact on the public image and gaining sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Yet, practising misleading activities with stakeholders and government could lead to de-motivation among employees and customers and reduce brand reputation.

Commercial platforms: YouTube is the commercial and video-sharing platforms, which have the second largest active users in the world (Ha, 2018). M&S should create its official page on commercial channels by offering new and engaging videos to the customers. Marks & Spencer should solve the customer query and act as solution for the consumers on the YouTube channel by providing tips and tricks to use fashion clothes. Further, M&S can influence the consumer by interacting with the audiences with the help of influencers. With the help of commercial platforms, the company could increase its customer base that will help to gain new sources of income through YouTube by advertising on specific products.

Pay-per-click (PPC): It is the model of internet marketing which helps to target a specific number of customers who are recently found active while scrolling the website to make the purchases (Kundu, 2021). Through the PPC, M&S can convert the leads into sales by targeting them on a various third-party website. The advertisement of the specific product and services to the targeted customers help to reduce operating and investment cost and generates high sales in quick time.

Conclusion

From the process study, it can be concluded that Marks & Spencer is a well-established retail organisation that has created a sustainable competitive advantage in the market by offering a high quality of product and services at competitive prices to the customers. The organisation has made social-economic status in the market, which has influenced the psychology of customer, which helps to engage the customers based on creating social-status. It has been found that M&S uses different strategies such as branding, data insights, and advertisement on TV, E-commerce facility and providing an effective in-store experience. Furthermore, M&S should develop its new official page on commercial platforms such as YouTube to target new social media audience and offer problem-solving content to them and this can be aligned with product and services.

Reference List

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