Unit 9 M1

Marks and Spencer’s

Business aims and objectivesThe objectives for Marks and Spencer's are;

To focus on the UK; they will improve on the brand, stores, clothing range, home department and food products.

To distribute products over a variety of channels; meaning customers will be able to buy products in store, over the phone and online.

International; they want to have higher international sales for the markets they operate in.

IT, logistics and supply; increase cost savings and increase capital investment, reduce dependence on supply chain and have greater control.

Marketing and promotional objectivesThe marketing and promotional objectives for Marks and Spencer’s are;

Focus on promotions and marketing campaigns to help food sales within the market. Improve the public relations and coordination of advertising campaigns. Improve awareness and use of the online version of their stores and boost purchases made

through the site.

Link between business and marketing aimsBy focusing on the promotions in the UK and the marketing campaigns, specifically for food products within the UK stores will allow the objective to be met within the UK, they can then use the knowledge of how this worked in other countries. The company originated in the UK.

To improve the public relations they could make their store more organised such as labelled aisles, this would allow customers to know exactly where they have to go for certain products and if they also decide to promote their update in organisation in their advertisements it can catch the customers attention.

By advertising a new layout update of their website it would give a significant boost to people trying the website to shop. On the front page of their website they could show the biggest and latest price cuts and savings which would completely catch the attention of customer’s eyes. The aim to focus on the UK can be combined with the aim to focus on promotions and therefore they can focus on promotions within the UK to meet both of these objectives.

Target marketMarks and Spencer’s target their market usually by email, as soon as new offers are introduced they send out emails to people that regularly visit their website about the offers and include them on the

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Unit 9 M1

website; they can also advertise their offers through newspapers and television or radio advertisements. The customers that see these advertisements can relate to the promotional message even though Marks and Spencer’s uses a mass marketing approach. They use lots of channels so will have a wide opportunity to ensure their marketing messages are heard.

Promotional mix

People are usually looking to receive a good deal and therefore will always go for the products which have the higher customer satisfaction and brand recognition therefore Marks and Spencer’s products will need to be have satisfied customers to ensure that people will purchase them in the future. Customers are also interested in different particular things so for this reason Marks and Spencer’s need to make sure that the products on their website are categorised for the customers to have easy access to. The more preferred of the categories are shown on a larger dynamic box so that customers are notified with the current offers in that category. The way Marks and Spencer’s use their website is that they put every interesting update on to their website so that customers and potential customers see them. This includes things such as offers and high customer ratings. The way Marks and Spencer’s use TV is that they promote both the products they have and the products they sell through indirect marketing, this way they promote both types of products at the same time and can relate the products together such as McVitie’s digestives and M&S digestives.

How they segment customersMarks and Spencer’s segment their customers by category and by gender; this can be seen on their website. They have a section which is for women which includes women’s clothing and there are even subsections for the different types of clothing and the offers that are available. The same applies to the men section on the categories. It can be seen how it is categorised because they have sections for things such as technology, which again has subsections for things such as TV’s and gaming devices. The subcategories even include “popular brands”, this allows customers to see what products are purchased more and therefore be of higher quality. They may also segment customers by income meaning that more budget items are available for the people that don’t receive as much money. Middle and higher incomes can also take advantage because of special offers such as 10% off on purchases over £50. They also segment by interest people that are interested in saving money and finding bargains may take advantage of such offers as “buy one get one free” and may be persuaded to save money but at the same time help Marks and Spencer’s profit and build on their customer base. Finally Marks and Spencer’s segment by option because if the customer does not want to buy the M&S products they can buy brand named products instead, this also applies to service such as self checkout, checkout, delivery, collect and also the forms of payment used to pay for the basket of shopping.

Brand valuesMarks and Spencer’s own brands are regarded as one of the best quality for a store selling its own branded products; they are purchased by customers on a regular basis and are considered to be a good value for the price in relation to the quality that they provide. As well as this Marks and Spencer’s also sell branded products which they offer a reasonable price range on and are considered good value for money.

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Brand benefitsMarks and Spencer’s benefit from selling their own brand, as they are regarded the best own branded product seller they have the advantage in the competition. Although branded products may be purchased elsewhere for cheaper than they are at Marks and Spencer’s they have their own cheaper and high quality branded products which have little competition and if someone is looking to buy cheap branded items they could possible visit Mark’s and Spencer’s rather than a competitor. The benefits of the brand are that it increases the reliability making it more likely for customers to use the shop again.

Brand extensions Marks and Spencer’s have been able to extend into other services such as finance; they offer credit cards, loans and insurance products. The reason they have been able to do this is because of their success and brand awareness. They also offer banking services.

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