GSB007 Woolworths Marketing Audit Assignment Sample

• Subject Code : GSB007
• Subject Name : Marketing

Marketing for Managers

Executive Summary of Woolworths Marketing Audit

The report is prepared on Marketing Audit over supermarket Woolworths. The information is collected from the environment and analysis is done on consumer behaviour due to demographic and technical changes. Also, business to customer analysis is performed for knowing about consumer behaviour. The selection of the target market and covering that market is a time-consuming and most important part of an organization. And also studies the importance of Brand positioning of products for affecting the demand of consumers over the competitor’s product.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary.

Introduction.

Collecting information on the external environment.

Analyzing the market.

Identifying target market segments.

Crafting the brand positioning.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Woolworths Marketing Audit

The marketing audit means the detailed, systematically, periodically, analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of the environment (internal and external both) of business. The objectives, steps, strategies, and principles are analysed properly for identifying the challenges and opportunities of a marketing organization (Camilleri, 2018). The marketing audit of an organization is not done by a member of the organization; it is done by the third person. A marketing Audit is very important for determining the effective and efficient working of a marketing team. This audit will analyse how the marketing team deal with their customers and the latest technology so that the team members will improve the situation and adopt new activities for the growth of the marketing movements of an organization. The main focus of the marketing audit is to analyse the current strategies and policies of the organization and develop a plan for improvement in the marketing of products and services by the organization. Customer satisfaction is most important for increasing the effectiveness of the organization. So the marketing team develops comfortable and suitable channels for the customers for attracting them towards the organization. One of the examples of such an organization is Woolworths. Here in this assessment marketing audit is going to be performed over the Woolworths group.

Collecting Information on The External Environment

The most important task of the organization is proper scanning of the environment because the environment has some direct and indirect factors which affect the working of an organization. So the marketing department studies both the internal environment and external environment. Internal environment factors are those which lie within the organization such as men, material, machinery, money, and management. The external environment consists of microenvironmental factors (controllable factors) and macro-environmental factors (uncontrollable factors). Microenvironment factors are the factors that are in partial control of the organization such as intermediaries, suppliers, competitors, customers, and the public. Macro environmental factors are not in the control of the organization such as economic, political, social, legal, technological, demographic, and natural factors. Woolworths Group is one of the biggest retailers of Australia dealing in groceries, liquor, petrol stations, and hotels. Woolworth business is so dynamic that they adopt changes according to the change in the environment. They work for the customer’s choice and also follow ethics. Woolworths not only attract the customers towards them but also change their structure and policies according to change in the environment (Naidoo and Gasparatos, 2018). They are in the opinion that change is very necessary for competition in the market.

• The target market refers to a particular group of people out of the total population which is selected by the company for providing their products. Under demographic, the market is divided into segments on different basis like age and gender of the customer, income level etc. So Woolworths select people of age groups 6-55 as their target market because they provide consumer use products for daily use (Biddle, I., 2016). Next, they categorize people of higher income groups to sell their high priced products. If the inappropriate target market is selected then it will reduce the sale of goods of the company.
• The economic trends show the financial position of a region or the country. It includes factors like the unemployment rate, interest rates, and inflation in the economy. The economic trends have a serious impact on the behaviour of buyers for example if interest rates are high in the economy, then fewer consumers spend on the products and services and invest more in banks (Van Kampen and Kirkham, 2020). In the case of inflation, the prices are very high in the market so the consumer buys only necessary goods.
• Woolworths provides its products to customers at its best possible prices, choice, and convenience. From the last few years, Woolworths changes its retail formats, introduce new and innovative products, increased choice for customers as to when, how, and where they want the product and services. Behind all these changes the driving force of Woolworths is the latest and advanced technology. The Australian retailer continues this change for satisfying their buyers.

Analysing the Market

Analysing the market refers to properly examine and evaluate the activities performed in the market and its impact on the organization, customer, and society.

• Different factors will influence consumer behaviours and that are Personal factors, psychological factors, cultural factors, and social factors (Akman and Mishra, 2017).

Personal factors refer to a person’s opinions and interests. Such factors are affected by demographics like age, gender, and profession. Woolworth has different items for different age groups and gender.

Psychological factors are those which are related to the attitude and perceptions of an individual. Each person has a different ability to react, their perception level is different and their attitude is also different from others. For example, fresh foods to customers have a positive impact on customers but some people said that nothing is fresh or criticizes the thought of Woolworths. All these depend upon the attitude and thoughts of consumers.

Cultural factors mean differences in the buying behaviour of buyers due to their culture and caste. Woolworth has fresh meat and fresh vegetables. It is observed that Indians purchase vegetarian food items while Australians prefer non-vegetarian items from the supermarket.

Social factors include factors like class, education, and income of the consumers. Woolworths have different items in their stores for different income groups. This will help them in leading the Australia market.

• There are various tools for interacting with the customers such as social media and direct questioning from them (Pütter, 2017). Consumer behaviour is the study through customer reviews, Q&A sites, surveys, directly questioning from customers, keyword research, customer analysis, twitter insiders, government data, Google trends, social media, and blog comments. For Woolworth's social media research is beneficial are preferable.
• According to Woolworths, they focus on the variety-seeking behaviour and habitual buying behaviour of consumers. Woolworths is a big retailer of Australia having groceries that are essentially required by the citizens. So it focuses on the habitual buying behaviour of customers means they provide fresh and safe items to their customers. Also, Woolworths works upon the variety-seeking behaviour because a large number of people always want something new and innovative. Also, Woolworths are interested in doing something new and innovative to adapt themselves to the environmental changes.
• The consumer buying process has six steps (Anjana, 2018):

Problems recognition: Content marketing

 Information Search: Advertisement and Promotion

Evaluation of Alternatives: Give a comparison of own product and price with competitor’s product and price.

Purchase Decision: Inform customers about their needs and your product specialization for satisfying their needs

Purchase: Test the brand’s purchase process and make sure it must be simple with fewer steps.

Post- Purchase Evaluation: Send follow-up surveys and emails to customers to thank them or confirming any dissonance.

Identifying Target Market Segments

The target market refers to a particular group of people out of the total population which is selected by the company for providing their products (Thao and Duong, 2019).

The identification of the product is time – consuming process. There are six steps followed for identifying the market fit product:

1. Identify the target market
2. Identify unfulfilled customer needs
3. Plan your product vale so that customer will prefer their product over a competitor’s product
4. Mention the minimum simple features of the product
5. Prepare a bare-bones structure for the product and finalize after consumer feedback
6. Testing of the product with customers (Minimum Viable Product)

• The business markets are divided by small customers and large customers or by the geographical area. And consumer markets are divided into five bases: demographic, psychographic, geographic, benefit and volume. The organization segment is possible on the size of the client or industry, characteristics of the purchasing function, and use of the product.
• According to the marketing strategy of Woolworths, the different basis of segments are used for understanding the buying behaviour of buyers because they need, buying behaviour and expectations of customers are different according to their age, income, values, gender, and lifestyle. With the help of segmentation techniques, Woolworths reduces the wider audience into a narrow target market. After getting narrow groups and a proper understanding of consumer behaviour, Woolworths use different segmentation basis like demographic, psychographic, behavioural, and geographic characteristics and get small homogeneous groups of customers (Camilleri, 2018).

Yes, the company can choose one or more than one segmentation base for choosing the right and small segments. This depends upon the characteristics of the segmentations and resources and capabilities of Woolworths. Also, this will helps in the proper implementation of marketing strategies.

Demographic segmentation divides the market according to demographic characteristics such as age, values, gender, and income.

Psychological segmentation is used for dividing the customer's group according to their interests, values, lifestyles, attitudes, and trials.

According to behavioural segmentation, Woolworth divides on their buying patterns such as benefits sought, brand loyalty, usage frequency, and usage occasions.

Geographic segmentation divides Woolworths according to the geographic areas such as country, region, and city.

• Woolworths pursued product specialization because they compete with Coles and other retailers on basis of product differentiation and charge different prices of the same product from the competitor. The special attention given by the Woolworths is on fresh and healthy items. Fresh Food to customers makes them healthy and safe. Woolworths focuses on four key items: Fresh food and vegetables, fresh deli, fresh meat, and fresh bread. It will increase satisfaction among customers and create a positive impression in front of customers. Due to this Woolworths became the most leading company in Australia.

Crafting the Brand Positioning

Brand Posting refers to differentiating the brand of one product from its competitor’s product and find out the ways to make an impression about the brand in the mind of the consumer (Koch and Gyrd-Jones, 2019). Woolworths develops its positing statement by answer some questions:

• What brand stands for?
• What are the needs and wants of the target market?
• How the brand fulfils the needs?
• Difference between Woolworth offering and its competitor

• Woolworths refreshes its position Australia’s market share because it focuses on low prices and a higher level of value and satisfaction. They use new and innovative techniques for the satisfaction of their buyers.
• After comparing products from competitors, Woolworth collects reviews of customers and adjusts brand positioning. Woolworths prefer to provide fresh food to people and use Fresh Food People as a tagline for attracting their customers and creating an impression.
• Coles is the competing company of Woolworths in Australia and both are the supermarkets that are dealing with grocery items. So the point of parity is grocery items. And both firms are rivalry with each other so the point of difference between them is Price discrimination (Pulker, 2018). They sell their product at different prices from competitors by differentiating their product qualities from others. The customer prefers Woolworths over Coles due to many reasons which are considered as an opportunity for Woolworths. The reason behind the success of Woolworths over Coles in the last few years is the fresh food provided by Woolworths: Fresh meat, fresh bread, fruits and vegetables, and fresh deli. At the time of such a pandemic, a fresh and healthy diet is very necessary for customers which serve as a positive point for Woolworth.
• Emotional branding refers to developing a brand for affecting the need, emotional state, and aspirations of consumers (Kim and Sullivan, 2019). Emotional branding has a major impact on customers when they experience some strong attachment from the brand as compare to the other competitors. Even customers define them with their brands like clothes they wear, drinks they consume, and cars they drive, and so on. For example in the case of Woolworths Fresh food brand relates the consumer with their health. By providing fresh food to customers Woolworths create an impression over the mind of the consumer to get fresh and healthy food. Emotional branding is an important task for the marketing department because it relates to the bond between the customer and the organization’s product. The company can easily increase its sales, market share, and profitability by attracting the customers towards their organization with the help of emotional branding.

Conclusion on Woolworths Marketing Audit

The examination and detailed analysis are performed over one of the most leading company Woolworths. Marketing is the most important part of an organization. It starts before deciding the product and continues even after selling the product to customers. It means pre and post services provided to customers. There are various decision and steps which the organization have to take carefully and timely.

References for Woolworths Marketing Audit

Akman, I. and Mishra, A., 2017. Factors influencing consumer intention in social commerce adoption. Information Technology & People.

Anjana, S.S., 2018. A study on factors influencing cosmetic buying behavior of consumers. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 118(9), pp.453-459.

Biddle, I., 2016. The Wesfarmers/Woolworths duopoly war: The Bunnings vs. Masters battle. Busidate, 24(3), p.3.

Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Market segmentation, targeting and positioning. In Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 69-83). Springer, Cham.

Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Strategic planning and the marketing effectiveness audit. In Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 117-135). Springer, Cham.

Kim, Y.K. and Sullivan, P., 2019. Emotional branding speaks to consumers’ heart: The case of fashion brands. Fashion and Textiles, 6(1), pp.1-16.

Koch, C.H. and Gyrd-Jones, R.I., 2019. Corporate brand positioning in complex industrial firms: Introducing a dynamic, process approach to positioning. Industrial Marketing Management, 81, pp.40-53.

Naidoo, M. and Gasparatos, A., 2018. Corporate environmental sustainability in the retail sector: Drivers, strategies and performance measurement. Journal of Cleaner Production, 203, pp.125-142.

Pulker, C.E., Trapp, G.S., Foulkes-Taylor, F., Scott, J.A. and Pollard, C.M., 2018. The extent and nature of supermarket own brand foods in Australia: study protocol for describing the contribution of selected products to the healthfulness of food environments. Nutrition journal, 17(1), p.95.

Pütter, M., 2017. The impact of social media on consumer buying intention. Marketing, 3(1), pp.7-13.

Thao, N.X. and Duong, T.T.T., 2019. Selecting target market by similar measures in interval intuitionistic fuzzy set. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 25(5), pp.934-950.

Van Kampen, T. and Kirkham, R., 2020. Assessment of the Supermarkets and Grocery Stores Sector in Australia: A Case Study of Woolworths and Coles using DEA and VAIC™. Journal of New Business Ideas & Trends, 18(1).

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