Comparison Of Social Media Marketing Strategies For ALDI And GOOD TIMES In Netherlands

Social Media Marketing for Brand Promotion

Question:

Discuss about the Measuring Perceptions of Brand Luxury.

The current assignment focuses on the use of social media marketing for the promotion of brand and its business. The current decade has seen more dependence upon the social media handle for the development of brand awareness about products and services.  Some of the online search engines such as facebook, instagram, twitter are been extensively used to reach to wide section of audiences. In this regard, much of the companies are focusing upon the development of their own social media pages such as facebook and whatsapp. The communication modes are used to develop personal rapport with the target customer group. The social media marketing uses some of the primary features such as search engine optimization for optimization of the searches made by the customers online. The goal is to facilitate the online searches in a manner so that the results are displayed at the very top or beginning (Ashley and Tuten 2015). The social media marketing needs to follow the General Data Protection regulation (GDPR), which focuses mainly upon keeping the personal details of the candidate safe and privy. With the advent of the social media marketing concepts such as pay-per-click have been doing the rounds. In this regard, the specific company or organization designs or optimizes its web page in a manner that maximum information are provided to the customers making the online searches within a nutshell. The goal is to develop an effective and engaging content where every random searches made by the customer on the basis of each and every click are made into money. The more the number of clicks, the more is the money generated which can be further used for the expansion of the business (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014).

In the current report, the social media marketing strategies for two Netherlands based small scale grocery stores have been compared.   The organizations which have been selected for the purpose of the study are – ALDI and GOOD TIMES.

For the current study, two Netherlands based small scale grocery stores have been taken into consideration. The goal is to provide daily household and basic needs at cost effective prices to the customer.   The start-up organization of focus over here is the “GOOD TIMES” which had the purpose of providing cost effective household goods to the local residents as well as the by and large population across Netherlands. The grocery market of Netherlands is dominated by a number of similar market players which are JUMBO, LIDL and HOOGVLIET etc. Due to the presence of a large number of existent grocery stores it became difficult for the new hand furniture outlet to develop a competitive advantage.  In order to develop a competitive advantage, GOOD TIMES need to review some of its basic features such as products, cost, services, after sales support system, online support system. In this respect, GOOD TIMES had a tough competition in ALDI,   as the later had been exceptionally famous with the local residents as well as the tourists and foreign national students visiting Netherlands. By 2017, ALDI had increased it number of stores to almost 67 in Netherlands in comparison to GOOD TIMES, which had around 12 stores spread across   the north and south provinces of   Holland and Amsterdam. It faces stiff competition from ALDI located in the same geographical area. A comparison could be done within the marketing tactics of ALDI and GOOD TIMES in order to identify the area where the company could gain a competitive advantage.  The 4P marketing mix could be used over here for doing the analysis which has been further divided into- product, price, place and promotion.

Comparison of Social Media Marketing Strategies for ALDI and GOOD TIMES

Table: 4P of marketing

(Source: author)

In the present scenario, a 4P analysis have been conducted in order to understand the brand positioning of the company within the current market compared to some of its competitors which can give the brand  competitive advantage over others. From the marketing mix analysis of the two companies a number of factors and issues have been figured out.  For example, ALDI is an established brand with huge number of parallel stores across many different provinces and regions. As commented by Shen and Bissell (2013), easy accessibility to location can give the store competitive advantage to other similar outlet and stores. Though the prices are a bit on the high side, ALDI has its loyal customer base, which can give the brand a better competitive advantage.

On the other hand, GOOD TIMES were offering its products and services at cost effective prices along with seasonal discounts.  The stores also harbored a separate section for the women and the kids.  The brand also used social media campaign for reaching out to a wide section of audiences. On the other hand, ALDI has so far followed cash and collect mode, where the customers are expected to visit the stores physically and collect the products (Hutter et al. 2013). The GOOD TIMES went one step ahead offering door step delivery to the customers alongside promoting features such as click collect on their website.  As the store is not widely spread across Netherland therefore having such premium features can help in reaching out to a wide range of target customer base. Additionally, building effective advertisements for the brand using social media channels such as facebook, twitter have been able to attract a large number of target customer bases.

The goals and social strategies of both the GOOD TIMES and ALDI could be compared to analyze the situation of competitive advantage of both the brands. The GOOD TIMES focuses upon gaining sufficient market stakeholders through its philanthropic activities alongside the marketing activities. The organization has since it very inception diverted a huge amount of the earnings towards the social and community based services. These would also enable the brand to gain sufficient financers and stakeholders who could help the business thrive.  Being a start up business, GOOD TIMES need to have a wider outreach reach to the target customer base (Tiago et al. 2014). Hence, it needs to increase the number of its distribution channels which could incur additional costs to the company. The company can regulate the prices by reducing its dependency upon the supplier base by sourcing some of its products near to the raw materials. Additionally, the GOOD TIMES  uses the  Pay per click (PPC)  feature effectively where every search hit  generated by the  customer online contributes to  significantly towards increasing the internet shares of the company. This could further help in balancing the negative returns on investment (ROI). The company uses the property of search engine optimization for generating effective web traffic content.

The ALDI grocery stores on the other hand provides effective discount through the festival seasons, which can help in attracting huge number of target customer base.  Some of the strong features of the company need to be highlighted over here which are huge number of stores spread across the globe and across Netherlands. Therefore, being an established grocery brand the company focuses more upon maintaining the loyal customer base than looking for new customers. The company plans to do this by way of e-mail marketing where the company can share feedback receiving mails with some of its priority based customers. The responses shared through the mail will be used by the company to focus upon the internal loopholes or the gaps in the services (Gensler et al. 2013).  Therefore, meeting with the business gaps can help in making the services better.

4P Analysis

In this respect, the choice of the marketing strategy is dictated by the market penetration rates of the company. An established brand with sufficient market penetration can do with less social media marketing (Goh et al. 2013). However, the growth of social media places much more dependency upon the social search engines for the branding and the positioning of the products (Hill et al. 2014).

There are different social marketing strategies such as audio video mode of   marketing, news and print media.   The social marketing strategy which has taken over the current decade is the use of effective social media handles such as twitter, facebook for promotion (Huang and Sarigollu 2014).  In the current study, the social marketing strategy of the two organizations of interest are compared which are the ALDI and the GOOD TIMES. The ALDI has less or little social marketing and depends more upon festive discount and super buy offers. The GOOD TIMES on the other hand employs a number of key metrics for the measurement of sales rates generated through the online channels.

Some   of the objectives undertaken by the GOOD TIMES over here are conducting a social media audit.   It helps in understanding the figuring out the specific section of target customer who connects to the brand via social media. As mentioned by Ewing  et al. (2013), undertaking a metric assessments also help in analyzing the online presence of the brand.  The social media metrics can also help in understanding the customer preferences for a product over others (Ashley and Tuten 2015). The GOOD TIMES plans to use the metrics for the tacking down the number of clicks. As commented by Miller (2014), tracking clicks though the online campaigns help in understanding the factors which generates curiosity within the target customer group. Additionally, some of the objectives such as hashtag performance can also be used to analyze the most used keywords for making the search online (Bauer et al. 2013). This could be further used for optimization of the web content for which would help in targeting higher base. The ALDI on the other hand uses responses obtained through the e-mail for analyzing the customer demands. The  comparison of the social marketing strategies of the two grocery stores GOOD  TIMES and ALDIO have  been compared over here though the 4 c’s of marketing which are- Client, cost, communication and convenience.

Table: 4C’s of marketing

(Source: Author)

From the 4c analysis of the two target companies a number of factors have been evaluated over here which are discussed in the later sections. ALDI uses intelligent pricing strategy for generating sufficient revenue from the sale of the products. Additionally, using competitive pricing strategy also provides it an upper hand over it similar market players (Burchell et al. 2013). However, as argued by Vigneron and Johnson (2017), the lack of effective social media campaigns can reduce the visibility factor of the brand which could be used as a competitive advantage by the GOOD TIMES. The effective online presence could be used to promote the upcoming services and products of the brand (Parmentier et al. 2013). Additionally, the online click and doorstep delivery can give the brand competitive advantage over others.   As commented by Centeno  et al. (2013), with the advent of globalization the disposable time limit of the target customer group have been reduced drastically. Therefore, provision of click and doorstep delivery features could be welcoming changes for the target population group (Capaldi et al. 2013).

Brand Positioning

There are a number of benefits of the social media marketing which have been discussed as follows. The social media marketing strategies adopted by ALDI can help in developing effective brand awareness for the company. As commented by Trong Tuan (2013), it provides an effective platform to the company where it can display all its products and services to the target customer group under one roof. Therefore, developing effective and engaging web content with the product features and the respective prices can help in attracting more number of target customers. The   transparent advertisement over the social media channels can help in empowering customer loyalty towards the brand and its products. As commented by Grant (2016), every positive interaction increases the likelihood of an eventual conversion as followers produce more followers. Every response from the target customer segment can be used to build your brand awareness (Trong Tuan 2013). As commented by Epstein and Buhovac (2014), social media marketing is affected by high conversion rates which have positive consequences on the building of a brand.

 In order to succeed within the competitive scenario an organization needs to develop an effective policy or framework. Some of the effective frameworks which could be developed over here are D.U.M.B. which stands for –Durable, Understandable, Marketable and Beneficial. In this respect, the GOOD TIMES need to develop the long term goals and plans for the company for sustaining itself within the current market scenario.

The goals and the initiatives of the GOOD TIMES could be compared with the ALDI though the D.U.M. B. framework such as:

Table 3: Evaluation through D.U.M.B framework

(Source: Author)

Thus, some of the features such as advance contingency planning and strategic progress by breaking the objectives of the organizations into small goals can give ALDI a better competitive advantage compared to GOOD TIMES. As commented by Grant (2016), stepwise planning can help in better aligning with the changing market dynamics.

Conclusion

The current assignment focuses on the concept of social media marketing for achieving   optimum brand growth and sales in the competitive market. In the current report, two different organizations had been taken into consideration.  The GOOD TIMES is a start up grocery store and faces stiff competition from the established and some of the famous grocery outlets.  One of its toughest competitors is the ALDI which has huge number of operational stores across different countries. Therefore, being in the business for a very long time ALDI has its loyal customer base. However, GOOD TIMES being relatively new faces stiff market competition. Therefore, using the concepts of search engine optimization along with using multiple social media sites the GOOD TIMES will try to develop sufficient brand awareness along with a loyal customer base.

Some of the steps which could be taken over here are:

• Designing of an effective and engaging  web content
• Enhancing the web security standards by implementation of  strict GDPR norms
• Use e-mail marketing for reaching out to their priority based customers
• Integrating the searches with multiple social media marketing sites

References

aldi.nl 2018, aldi.nl , Available at : https://www.aldi.nl/ [Accessed on 10 Mar. 2018]

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