BMA610 E-Business and Marketing Plan Assignment Sample

• Subject Code : BMA610
• University : University of Tasmania My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
• Subject Name : Marketing

Digital and Social Media Marketing

Executive Summary of Digital and Social Media Marketing

This report was based on a new organization the following business to business and business to consumer model. The mobile app is to be created that will associate with the local vendors for helping sell leftover meals to the customers at discounted prices. Moreover, this app will offer vital produced boxes that can be donated to families in need especially during this pandemic where many people are losing their jobs or being stood down.

There were various strategies suggested in the report related to the pricing and positioning of the product that will help in acquiring a successful position in the marketplace. The report also mentioned about industry analysis including competition analysis, market structure, social and cultural factors and technology. The strength and weaknesses have also been discussed along with the opportunities and threats.

Contents

Executive summary.

Introduction.

Product description.

Customer analysis.

Problem..

Solution.

Market segmentation and target market.

Positioning strategy.

Industry analysis.

Competitive analysis.

Market structure.

Social and cultural factors.

Technology

SWOT analysis.

Marketing strategy

Pricing strategy.

Promotion.

Analytics.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Digital and Social Media Marketing

Food businesses in Australia on an average bin over 100 kilograms of food every week and individually we contribute almost 300 kilograms of food to landfill annually (Booth & Whelan, 2014). With many cafes, bakeries, supermarkets, and restaurants often having to throw out surplus food just because it goes unsold, the aim would be to help solve the current and prevailing food waste problem. This is the reason why I have chosen to develop an app that makes surplus food affordable and accessible to everyone which in turn will help prevent surplus food from being dumped in the landfill. The app created will partner with local vendors to help sell surplus meals to customers at discounted prices. This app will also provide essential produce boxes that can be donated to families in need especially during this pandemic where many people are losing their jobs or being stood down.

The report aims to provide a digital business and marketing plan for a new business that is able to utilise digital means as a part of the business model. The following sections of the report will provide a description of the product along with the analysis of the customers. In addition to this, it will also highlight the problem that the product will solve for the customers. In the next sections, the report will provide market segmentation, positioning strategy, industry analysis and the marketing strategy for the proposed business plan. Along with this, the report will define the industry analysis covering a number of factors and also undertake the SWOT analysis covering strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Product Description

One of the biggest growth markets in recent years has been online food delivery industry such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Menu log. The other key market growth has been in the areas of food coupons and subscription reward apps. The start-up business that I am proposing to create will essentially combine the two areas of food technology and create an app which allows you to buy discounted surplus food from restaurants and cafes. The discounts can range from 30% up to 70% depending on how much a business is willing to sell their discounted food for. Food sustainability and environmental issues will be the core values of this business which can help reduce the carbon footprint associated with the food industry.

Customer Analysis

The app will attract a number of potential customers where these will primarily include the people who are looking for affordable food that is good for consumption at the same time. These will generally include students, part-time employees, people living away from their families. Along with this, due to pandemic, people are finding it hard to spend money on meals and would happy to get meals at a discounted rate. The customer would get a benefit of buying food at a comparatively lower price and also avail the benefits of home delivery.

Problem

The proposed product will solve the problem faced by people in the area of affordable and good quality food while ensuring minimum wastage of food by restaurants and other food outlets. Furthermore, it will help in addressing the sustainability and food insecurity issues thus reducing carbon footprints. Businesses also face an issue to manage the food waste which is huge in quantity considering the level of operations and number of customer catered by the business.

Solution

The product will solve the above-highlighted problems by providing people with an app where they can find out the discounted food items that are sold by the restaurants. Along with this, it will help in reducing the food waste generated in huge quantity across the globe. This will also address the food insecurity problem faced at the time of the COVID 19 pandemic. Along with this, the app will help the food outlets and providers with selling their leftover food items even at the lowest value. The discounts that can range from 30% up to 70% will depend upon how much a business is willing to sell their discounted food for. This way the business would be able to save a lot in the area of waste management as well.

Market Segmentation and Target Market

Market segmentation is a process which is aimed to select the most suitable group of people having same characteristics, needs and expectation among the potential group of customers in the market (Venter et al., 2015). In this respect, the most appropriate bases for segmenting the market for the product is the demographic segmentation and the behavioural segmentation. The demographical market segment is the one where the customers are segmented on the basis of personal factors such as age, gender, religion, income and many more. The behavioural on the other hand is the one where the market is segmented on the basis of the spending habits, user status and many more. The demographic segmentation is appropriate as the app will cover the low-income people specifically during the pandemic when the livelihoods of people have been affected. The behavioural segmentation is appropriate as the app will target the people with specific spending habits on food where people try to limit their expenditure while looking for food that is fit to be consumed. Both the demographic and behavioural segments would help the business is targeting the potential customer base and define the marketing strategies as per the needs and the expectations of the target audience.

Positioning Strategy

Positioning is considered to be a tried-and-true strategy for marketing allowing businesses to influence the perception of the target audience of offerings of the company (Iyer et al., 2019). These perceptions may involve brand image, attributes and ability to achieve consumer’s needs. Positioning strategy allows the companies to locate themselves more advantageously within the competitive markets such as App Store. This specifically is essential for new apps since the customers may tend to assess new products and services by comparing them with the products and services that are already available in the market. This provides the existing apps with a considerable advantage as the new app is required to show that they are better than the ones existing and the competition for warranting a download. However, in this situation, the company has introduced an innovative concept of offering leftover food that will completely change the way people think about leftover food that they will get from the restaurants at the lowest price. This new concept of purchasing food from the restaurants has never been witnessed before, and therefore it can help capture huge market share.

Industry Analysis

Industry analysis is regarded as a tool that enables a firm to know its position in relation to its competitors producing similar products and services (Anwar & Hasnu, 2016).

Competitive Analysis

Some of the massive market share within the online food ordering and delivery platforms within Australian Industry comprise Deliveroo Australia, Uber Australia Pty Ltd, Delivery hero, foodora and Just Eat Pty Ltd (Patel et al., 2020). Moreover, the key players within the market rely on partnerships as well as acquisitions as the well-known strategies for helping enhance their market growth. These companies have the largest market shared because of considerable financial backing or control huge global market share within the industry of food delivery. By having such kind of financial input, these key players have acquired a firm position within the Australian market. Some of the minor competitors that have not been able to acquire the industry market share include Lite n’ Easy and Youfoodz.

Deliveroo is one of the fastest-growing food delivery services having 600 restaurants in catalogue which has positioned itself in a niche high-end market and has links with the nest restaurants. The objective of Deliveroo is to maintain the elite niche restaurant market and also to retain the position of foremost niche restaurant of delivery service (Belleri, 2020). The strategy followed by it is mainly based on social media marketing strategy and also leverage email for providing access to the finest deals and various other offerings to their consumers. Moreover, their strength is to share for best and expensive restaurants for the consumers looking for the best and high quality of products.

Delivery Hero is the market leader in the delivery of food across the globe and has been positioned giant within the food delivery. Their current strategy of the company is based on online advertising as well as the business model for the restaurants. The restaurant takings provide them with the percentage for the sale of food and also for promotion. The strength of the company is to incredible backing from Germany and is also the second leading market share within Australia.

Market Structure

The market for online food is majorly driven by the augmentation in the internet penetration that is coupled with the rise in the working population along with the surge in the industry of food and beverage (Yeo et al., 2017). This company tends to enter into the restaurant industry as one of the intermediary food couriers between consumers as well as restaurants. This innovative food delivery service is going to enter a promising market in Australia which is the food delivery service. By implementing Porter’s Five-Factor Model in order to profile the profitability along with the attractiveness of the company that largely depends on the cut-throat competition amongst its rivals, bargaining power of consumers, the threat of substitute, the threat of potential entrants and bargaining power of suppliers.

Social and Cultural Factors

Australian consumers are likely to result in busy lifestyles in the coming years that can drive demand for more convenient meals at the cheapest price, specifically in the pandemic situation. Moreover, it can be anticipated that discretionary income along with the consumer sentiment will reduce due to the current circumstances of COVID-19. Therefore, this innovative idea of providing leftover food to the customers can be forecasted to become progressively more normalized over the next few years. The service of online food delivery allows the consumers to order food from the preferred food outlet with the help of internet which can be easily done either by visiting the site of the desired food outlet or by using a mobile application (Wang & Chou, 2014). Moreover, customers can be seen being busy with little or no leisure time and hence it can be the best option that can save their time in meal preparation.

Technology

Response to the technology for the consumers may tend to vary. The mobile application for food delivery can be maintained as the major point of call for this innovative service which will remain essential for the business for presenting easy-to-use App. Big data is regarded as a phenomenon that can determine patterns as well as trends within huge data sets (Luck, 2017). With the help of Big Data, the company can easily track the current location of the consumers and also can advertise the local restaurants. Moreover, it has been observed that Smartphone engagement of above 80% in Australian customers is majorly application-based and with Smartphone to be the most recognized device having users 65 years and younger. However, the incessant advancement of technology may enforce extra costs the business but it also displays an opportunity to improve their technology in-line by having advancements of Smartphone.

SWOT Analysis

Marketing Strategy

The strategy of a market can either be long or short terms which play a critical role in organizational success (Armstrong et al., 2018). Any business can easily acquire an edge against its competitors by using an efficient strategy for marketing its offerings. Marketing strategies will be helpful for the business in identifying and understanding the needs of the target audience.

Pricing Strategy

There can be various pricing strategies used by the company such as value-based pricing, market penetration strategy and price skimming (Wood & Jobber, 2016). Market penetration strategy is the strategy in which the prices are kept lower initially by the company and then get increased with time with the growth in the customer base. In value-based pricing, the price of the product is decided on the basis of the external environment. However, economical pricing and value-based pricing cannot be considered reliable for this business.

In order to introduce the innovative concept of leftover food delivery through mobile, economy pricing can be regarded as the most suitable option available to the organization as the service and the organization are new to the market. Economy pricing can be regarded as the volume-based strategy for pricing in which prices of the goods and services are kept low due to the low overheads (Llic et al., 2014). The price can be kept low for numerous reasons. Since we are providing leftover food, keeping prices at a lower price would be the best option for the customers specifically when the world is fighting with the situation of COVID-19. The cost structure will be based on the cost of the meal at a discounted rate with no delivery charge.

Promotion

 No customer is going to avail the service if they are not aware of the offerings and hence great strategy for promotion is crucial for growing the business (Clow, 2016). For our service of leftover food, social media marketing would be the best option for promoting services. Websites such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram are some of the most popular and easiest methods of promoting services within a relaxed environment. This is known as direct marketing. Social networks are the means of connecting with a world of probable consumers who can view the details of the organization along with its services from a distinct perspective.

Email marketing can also be used in which emails can be sent to the consumers and is also considered as one of the cheapest strategies of advertisements (Hartemo, 2016). Emails newsletter helps in sharing the news of the new services along with images and information with the consumers.

Another effective strategy that can be used is the word-of-mouth which is a strategy of persuading and encouraging organic discussion of word of mouth related to the brand, resource or organization (King et al., 2014) It is considered as one of the powerful industry trends of e-commerce that displays no symptom of slowing down.

Analytics

The company is required to emphasize on after-sales services and must also look forward to embracing feedback, positive or negative so that it could be understood whether the customers were happy and satisfied with the service. Apart from this, surveys can also be carried out that would be quite useful in the determination of customers’ views and wether the new innovative service was appreciated or not. It constitutes a thin line between failure as well as the success of the product. If the customers are satisfied they will provide positive feedback while the unsatisfied customers will give negative feedback if they find a single glitch in it.

Conclusion on Digital and Social Media Marketing

The beginning of the online food delivery system has proved to be one of the most convenient approaches that have resulted in the reduced queues and also the waiting time of the ordered food delivery. This marketing plan presents how the new app for delivering the leftover food along with the provision of essential produce boxes can utilize various strategies for establishing a dominant position within the Australian market of food delivery. The plan outlines the online purchase of leftover food by using the mobile app makes surplus food affordable and accessible to everyone particularly those who are suffering in the pandemic situation. Lastly, we will aim at energising the product with the help of social media campaigns. Moreover, the strategies are going to benefit the business specifically in the initial phase attracting sign-ups to the mobile app.

References for Digital and Social Media Marketing

Anwar, J., & Hasnu, S. A. F. (2016). Business strategy and firm performance: a multi-industry analysis. Journal of Strategy and Management.

Armstrong, G. M., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2018). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson UK.

Belleri, C. (2020). Deliveroo: improving a service making IT 24 hours.

Booth, S., & Whelan, J. (2014). Hungry for change: the food banking industry in Australia. British Food Journal, 116(9), 1392-1404.

Clow, K. E. (2016). Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications. Pearson Education India.

Hartemo, M. (2016). Email marketing in the era of the empowered consumer. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

Ilić, D., Ostojić, S., & Damnjanović, N. (2014). The importance of marketing innovation in new economy. The European Journal of Applied Economics, 11(1), 34-42.

Iyer, P., Davari, A., Zolfagharian, M., & Paswan, A. (2019). Market orientation, positioning strategy and brand performance. Industrial Marketing Management, 81, 16-29

King, R. A., Racherla, P., & Bush, V. D. (2014). What we know and don't know about online word-of-mouth: A review and synthesis of the literature. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(3), 167-183.

Lusk, J. L. (2017). Consumer research with big data: applications from the food demand survey (FooDS). American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 99(2), 303-320.

Patel, N., Taneja, B., Kumari, V., & Shingla, M. (2020). Study of Different Marketing Elements by Top Food Apps: Zomato & Swiggy. Studies in Indian Place Names, 40(56), 1557-1560.

Venter, P., Wright, A., & Dibb, S. (2015). Performing market segmentation: a performative perspective. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(1-2), 62-83.

Wang, S. T., & Chou, P. Y. (2014). Consumer characteristics, social influence, and system factors on online group-buying repurchasing intention.

Wood, M. B., & Jobber, L. (2016). The marketing plan handbook. Pearson.

Yeo, V. C. S., Goh, S. K., & Rezaei, S. (2017). Consumer experiences, attitude and behavioral intention toward online food delivery (OFD) services. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 35, 150-162.

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