Social Media Marketing - Essay Example

Marketing Executive Summary The social media marketing plan is prepared for a famous retailer company in the US, Trader Joe’s. It is one of the toughest competitors of the mega chains such as Wal-Mart and Costo in the American market. Trader Joe’s do not have any official social media presence though its fans have created an account where they share their experience regarding the products and services of the company. Thus, the social media marketing plan is prepared after considering all the characteristic features of the company. The competitors of the company are also analysed giving emphasis on Whole Foods as it is also an organic food provider like Trader Joe’s. It is observed that Whole Foods has an established social media network, which helps them to communicate with the customers and general people. The social media platforms that are recommended for Traders Joe’s are Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, through which they will be able to get in touch with the complaints and experience of the customers. Table of Contents Trader Joe’s: Brief description 4 Analysis of competition 5 Traditional advert 7 Social media marketing Plan for Trader Joe’s 8 Goals of the campaign 9 Targeting the audience 10 Strategies and tactics 10 Creation of content 11 Monitoring and measuring 12 Reference List 13 Trader Joe’s: Brief description Trader Joe’s is a privately owned grocery chain in America, which is headquartered in California. Presently it owns more than 400 stores (Packaged Facts, 2015); the highest number of stores is present in California, mostly concentrating on Southern Californian market. However, it has opened 38 stores in other states (Packaged Facts, 2015). It started its venture during 50’s as a small convenience store; later the stores were large enough to add value to the customer expectation. The company sold food items under their own name “Trader Joe’s” (Packaged Facts, 2015). The company used innovative packaging for the products and offered tasty foods so as to attract customers. The quality of the food products plays a crucial role is influencing customers and the price is considerably affordable. More surprisingly it does not provide any special cards, no offer for joining any club or swipe a card to get discounts on products. The price of the products is reasonable and no discounts are needed by the customers as they have built a sense of trust on the company product (Trader Joes, 2015a). The company has succeeded gaining good customer base in the US as the sales revenue during 2013 was 11.3 billion (Packaged Facts, 2015). About 4,000 items are displayed in the shelves of the stores, which bear the private label of the company (Packaged Facts, 2015). The company aims at serving organic, vegetarian, gourmet frozen and imported foods; along with beer and wine, staple foods and also non-food items. The products are environment friendly. In the US, there is solid growth in sale of organic foods till 2008 and it is expected to continue till 2018. In 2010, organic food market in the US captured about 4% of overall sales in the food market (Packaged Facts, 2015). The increased demand for the organic foods was about 7.6% during the period 2010-2012 (Packaged Facts, 2015). This is a good opportunity for Trader Joe’s to attract maximum number of customers in the US through its healthy and organic products. Consumers of organic products are highly educated as they are conscious regarding the nutrition level and the ingredients of the food items they purchase. They are also concerned regarding the fact whether the products are environment friendly and are declared as per the Consumer data obtained from the Simmons National Consumer Surveys. The most surprising fact related to the company is that it does not participate in social media marketing. The company has a well structured website that give details of every product that they offer and also announce the upcoming products so that the customers are well aware of the happenings (Wegley, 2013). The social marketing plan for Trader Joe’s is prepared so as to give a new direction to the company in promoting their products and offers. The fan following of the company is high and they have created social media page in the Facebook where they discuss about wide range of products and also share their experience regarding after using the products (Destein, 2014). Hence the Facebook page is not an official page created by the company; Trader Joe’s should develop its own Facebook page and interact with the customers. Analysis of competition The US grocery and retail market is ruled by mega chains such as Costo, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. These companies have maintained their business in the market and threatened the business of small retail stores. In light of this, it can be stated that Trader Joe’s has maintained its market within these mega chains. The demand is higher than the supply and the customer prefer to purchase products from the retail store (Packaged Facts, 2015). This is the reason why the retail chains are preferred by the customers (Farfan, 2015). Nevertheless, it can be noted that, Whole Foods Market is the direct competitors of Trader Joe’s as both of them offers organic and natural foods to the customers. The strength of Whole Foods Market lies in their marketing strategies, which is quite similar to the Trader Joe’s. The consumer markets seek authorized products, which are both organic and natural. Both the retail stores have devised strategies for marketing products in the US market (Packaged Facts, 2015). Competitor analysis of Whole Foods Market is discussed below. The main differences between the retail chains is that Whole Foods Market sell its product at premium quality and have huge collection of products in their store shelves. However, Trader Joe’s concentrates on selling edited assortments of products that are sold at higher prices. The Whole Foods Market is regarded as the leading retailers of organic and natural foods, who aim at selling, capturing, recognizing and driving the trends of selecting wide range of quality foods. Apart from its wide range of products, Whole Foods has threatened its competitors because of its high standard products, business ethics and maintenance of transparency. The company also targets to expand in the secondary market and it is expected that the store value will grow to 1200 in the US (Schoultz, 2014). The chain has also concentrated on expanding value offerings (Packaged Facts, 2015). The company also improves price positioning against its conventional competitors so as to protect the Whole Paycheck reputation (Packaged Facts, 2015). The most striking feature that can be compared between Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods is that the former is no social media presence while the latter maintains excellent network for communicating with the population in the US. It is well noticed that Whole Foods maintain a good network of followers in Twitter. During the first year, the company has gained millions of followers and presently the number of followers has increased to 1.75 million (Schoultz, 2014). Even before employing Facebook or Twitter, the company has included user-generated content in the websites, where the customers and general people can review the recipes and rate the products along with the company blogs. The Facebook page of the company is very similar to that of blogs, where there are a lot of editorial contents; however, it is full of conversation and also invitations are made to the people for sharing their experience with them (Stelzner, 2010). In Facebook, everyone can see the posts and individual comments unlike Twitter so it is more like group conversation. However, Twitter is employed as customer service tools, where blogs are focus on customer service issues. The questions roused in Twitter generate direct responses to the customers. Few questions are “Can I get this at my local stores?” Or “What are your holiday hours going to be? Or “Can you tell me a gluten-free alternative to cornbread stuffing?” (Stelzner, 2010). The company also uses Google+, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube (Destein, 2014) for its social media networks. Traditional advert Trader Joe’s have not used any traditional advertising strategy to promote the products rather they are convinced with their quality of products and have the confidence that its products are preferred by the customers. The company gives emphasis on 4 P’s of marketing and promotes its products in the company websites. The specifications of new items that are introduced in the company are also provided in the websites. Apart from that, the company does not give any newspaper advertisement or does not have any social media presence. However, the company has made YouTube videos for promoting its products and communicating the fact that the products are cheap (Cherunilam, 2010). Among those videos, a video is chosen for developing social media marketing plan for the company. The link of the video is provided below. The video indicates that the shoppers are excited to purchase quality food at a cheap price and have recommended their friend to buy the same. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI3AvqH3Trs Social media marketing Plan for Trader Joe’s Trader Joe’s does not use any social media networks for promoting its products and services. They only use their website to provide information regarding the products. Like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s can use social media for promoting its products and also give opportunity to the customers to share their experience in the Facebook and Twitter page. Trader Joe’s can make its own Facebook page and view the comments and experience of the customers. This will enable the company to understand its customers better and know if there are any complaints regarding the quality of the products and customer service. The following social media plan will assist the company to enter into the social media world and acquire more customers by sharing new product information (Pride and Ferrell, 2004; Rugman, 2009; Schultz and Gordon, 2011; Williams and Cutis, 2012). The social media plan indicates that the company should advertise its products on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Facebook and Twitter has become popular in the contemporary world as majority of the global population has created account in those three social media networks. Among the three social media platforms, Facebook is the most important one as the comments can be seen by all and they have the right to comment on their experience too. However, in Twitter the follower can only read the comments and share the experience of products. Hence, both are significant for the success of any company as social media has become prominent in the contemporary world. Goals of the campaign The social media marketing plan for Trader Joe’s can be executed with the help of the following steps: 1) Firstly, Facebook page is to be created so as to communicate with the customers and general public. The main aim of creating the Facebook page is that it establishes a communication channel for the company so that it can get product review from the customer and also consider their demands. The page will display information regarding the company and its location. Moreover, it will also display the products that will be newly introduced by the company at a certain period of time. The company will also get the opportunity to get an idea whether the public will accept the new products and its ingredients. If the company gets negative response regarding the ingredients of the product, then it will have the scope of modifying it according to the specification of the customers and public. This will help Trader Joe’s to avoid any controversy related to product ingredients. Trader Joe’s will also get the chance of taking advice from the public and develop products accordingly by considering the mentioned ingredients. The comments of customers and public are very important for the success of any company as it takes into consideration the needs and demands of the customers and public. 2) Secondly, Trader Joe’s should also create an account in Twitter so that it can develop a new base of customer from Twitter. Through Twitter, the company can understand how many followers are there and whether they are satisfied with the company products and culture. However, the Twitter page will also highlight the events that will take place in the upcoming period of time. 3) Thirdly, Trader Joe’s should also create an account in Pinterest and share the pictures of events and ceremonies that are held for the promotional purpose of the company. Though the company does not undertake any marketing strategy for promoting the products on social media network, but it can share pictures of products and customers in the Pinterest account so that public gets to understand the culture of the company. As a result, they show more interest in the products. Targeting the audience After Whole Food Market, Trader Joe’s is the second largest organic and natural food provider in the American market. Thus, the target market for the company will be the general public irrespective of age and sex. The products that are available in the company stores are targeted at all groups of customers in a community. However, if the target audience is needed to be specified then the household women can be identified as the best one. They have the responsibility to purchase grocery items for the household. The social media pages are created for the general public and they recommend their dear ones to purchase from Trader’s Joe’s. The video, which is chosen for the social media is important as it identified customers are amazed to get products at a cheaper price (Holmquist, 2012). Strategies and tactics As the company do not have any social media presence, the general public are aware of the fact that Trader Joe’s does not have any account in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Hence, it is the responsibility of the company to do a road show for announcing the news that the company will be using Facebook for providing detailed information regarding the new products and it also needs comments and feedbacks from the general public so as to improve the quality. Apart from the road show, it can also prepare banners regarding the information that the company has developed a well structured social media page where the general public is invited to comment on the success of the products and events. The information of the events is provided so as to make the public aware regarding the details of the program so that they can attend. Creation of content In the Facebook, the company should provide all the information pertaining to product and events that are taking place. The product information should be given with the help of pictures and ingredients along with the offer on the products like the following post: Post: “Trader Joe’s new taste: Turkish Honey- healthy and tasty” The post should be followed by the picture of bottle of honey along with the ingredients. Though the company does not believe in providing any discount to the customers, as it is the part of their company policy, but it can highlight that the product is sold at an affordable price by maintaining the quality. The information regarding events such as: “Trader Joe’s Customer Choice Awards Winners: Favorite Products of 2014” should be given in the following manner in Twitter and Facebbok: Post: “Vote for the best product in 2014 and help us to improve the rest” The post should be followed by the list of ten products of the years along with the picture, from which the visitors of the social media platform need to choose one. Monitoring and measuring Trader Joe can use monitoring and measuring tolls such as Hootsuite, Klout, TweetReach, Social Mention and Twazzup. These tools will help the company to measure and monitor the activities of the visitor of the Facebook and Twitter page and also highlight their interest in a particular comment and post. It will also help in identifying the real-time updates (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2010; Henry, 2008; Flamholtz and Randle, 2012) Reference List Cherunilam, F., 2010. International business: Text and cases. New Delhi: PHI Learning. Destein, 2014. Whole Foods vs. Trader Joe’s: How do their social media strategies compare? [online] Available at: < https://entre528.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/whole-foods-vs-trader-joes-how-do-their-social-media-strategies-compare/ > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Farfan, B., 2015. Why Trader Joe’s Has No Competition - Grocery Creativity Beating, Not Competing. [online] Available at: < http://retailindustry.about.com/od/retailtrendsetters/a/Why-Trader-Joes-Has-No-Competition-Grocery-Creativity-Beating-Not-Competing.htm > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Flamholtz, E. G., and Randle, Y., 2012. Growing pains: Transitioning from an entrepreneurship to a professionally managed firm. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Henry, A., 2008. Understanding strategic management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hitt, M. A., Ireland, D. and Hoskisson, R. E., 2010. Strategic management: competitiveness and globalization concepts. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Holmquist, L. E., 2012. Grounded innovation: Strategies for creating digital products. Massachusetts: Elsevier. Packaged Facts, 2015. More Than Mere Supermarkets, Whole Foods And Trader Joe’s Are Health Food Meccas. [online] Available at: < http://www.packagedfacts.com/article/2014-03/More-mere-supermarkets-Whole-Foods-and-Trader-Joe%E2%80%99s-are-health-food-meccas > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Pride, W. M., and Ferrell, O. C., 2004. Marketing: Concepts & strategies. Daryaganj: Dreamtech Press. Rugman, A. M., 2009. The oxford handbook of international business. Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online. Schoultz, M., 2014. Whole Foods Marketing Uses Social Media To Advantage. [online] Available at: < http://www.digitalsparkmarketing.com/creative-marketing/social-media/whole-foods-marketing/ > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Schultz, H., and Gordon, J., 2011. Onward: How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul. New York: Rodale. Stelzner, M., 2010. Reaching Millions With Twitter: The Whole Foods Story. [online] Available at: [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Trader Joes, 2015a. Our Story. [online] Available at: < http://www.traderjoes.com/our-story > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Wegley, R., 2013. Ahoy Trader Joes! Its Not the Pirate That Is Hurting Your Brand. [online] Available at: < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reid-wegley/ahoy-trader-joes-its-not-_b_3937003.html?ir=India > [Accessed 16 January 2015]. Williams, J., and Cutis, T., 2012. CIM Coursebook 06/07 marketing management in practice. London: Routledge. Read More