Situational Analysis

Discuss about the Digital and Direct Marketing Audit Plan.

Digital media is now playing an important role in the success and growth of every business. With the help of online media tools, companies are able to connect with the customers and know their needs and requirements. This report is basically a digital media marketing plan for a famous Mexican food restaurant chain Zambrero. Zambrero is the Australian quick service restaurant chain which is serving Mexican food. Company started its operations in 2005 and now it has established its successful business. Founder of Zambrero is Dr. Sam Prince who has aim to help the people in need by its Plate 4 Plate initiatives. In this initiative, if a customer purchases a bowl at Zambrero, a meal is donated to someone who is in the need. Further, the aim of Zambrero is to provide best food experience with the fresh ingredients to the customers. The company has commitment of ‘Let’s eat to beat the World hunger’ to ensure the combination of humanely, socially and environmentally responsible products (Zambrero, 2017). The company y has differentiated itself by the sustainable building designs, best experience and community building. In terms of unique building, company is focused on helping to the needy people. Now, Zambrero wants to enhance its brand awareness in the Australian society so that it can help more and more people with the food products. For this manner, digital media plan would be helpful for the company.

The situational analysis of Zambrero can be examined by the situational analysis of the company in the operating market. It is crucial for each and every business to understand the situation of the present market before focusing on the goals and objectives for the future. For this manner, SWOT analysis will be effective in analyzing existing situation of the market. On the basis of the outcomes from SWOT analysis, it is analyzed that company has various strengths by which it can be able to grasp various chances present in the market.

The major strength of Zambrero is the stage of reliability in the various operations of the business. The idea, mission, values, strategies to achieve competitive advantage, value propositions, effective business messages and business practices of the buiness are the factors that lead to the success of the company in the operating market. Further, Zambrero has well developed brand image based on the standard of integrity and quality. Along with this, company had adopted various marketing strategies and tactics beyond the traditional marketing. By the marketing tactics, company has got innovative ways by developed marketing campaign.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Zambrero

Apart from this, employees are the core strengths of Zambrero because ‘popular culture’ of the restaurants attracts the employees to come again and again. Further, Zambrero has small and consistent menu which is helpful in reducing the cost of R&D for the new products advertisements of new products and training for the employees. These above discussed are the strengths of Zambrero which lead to the success and growth of the company in the food market (Zambrero, 2017).

Despite of strengths, there are some weaknesses of Zambrero that must be addressed effectively. One of the weaknesses of Zambrero is the supply chain management. Company is operating in the food industry and because of the high standard of integrity and quality of food products, sometimes Zambrero has to face the shortage of the suppliers for business operations. Further, brand building in terms of excellence by the Zambrero is a dilemma. Although with the affordable prices, huge components of price propositions and the brand are the achievement features for the company but sometimes they are uncontrolled factors because of the market fluctuations and conditions.

Zambrero is operating in the Australian market and company has opportunities to expand its business in various countries. Continuous business expansion in the global market is the existing opportunity for the restaurant chain. Along with this, opening for new branches can be better chance for the Zambrero. It can offer breakfast menu to the consumers that is the new chance for the business growth. In the global market, company can have opportunity to enhance the sales of food products (Taleghani et al, 2011).

Some big threats are also available for Zambrero which impact the growth of the business in the in service market. First of all, the increased competition in the food industry is the major threat for Zambrero. Company has adopted price premium based strategy to make differentiation in the products from the other companies. But, because of high level competition in the industry, Zambrero has to set high prices for the food products which are the threat for the company to achieve the business objectives. Along with this, the increased cost of food items are the big threats for Zambrero. Because of limited supply chain and changed commodity prices, the profitability and business expansion plan of the company can be negatively impacted. Further, it is observed that the labor cost in increasing in the food industry. Due to the variations in the wages and employee benefits, labor cost is increasing and affecting on the profitability of Zambrero (Porter, 2016).

Opportunities and Threats of Zambrero

Generally, purpose of Zambrero is to enhance the awareness about the products in terms of high excellence fast food and quality taste while selling the food products. The core aim of the digital plan is to make the customers aware about the offerings by the company. In current time, there are around 1,100,140 followers of Zambrero on FaceBook along with the positive comments towards the products. Along with this, company has around 11,400 followers on its Twitter page. Company and its digital marketing team are active on the page of Twitter to converse with the consumers on daily basis. Now, the company seeks for the improvement the methods of communication with the consumers in the restaurant industry. The objective of Zambrero team is to improve the sales of food products in the ending of the year so; company has set some expectations for this way (Cadogan, 2012). In general, Zambrero has aim to differentiate in the market in terms of food products with value proposition. Based on the situation, objectives for Zambrero are as follows:

• At the end of the year, most of the Australian food market should be covered with its products i.e. fast food products. The targeted customers should consider the products of the company for meeting their needs. This objective will be achieved by collecting information of products and services.
• Most of the market should use the products of the company. The success of objective would be achieved by improving effectiveness of the products (Roger, 2013).
• Objective is to attract new customers who never used the product of Zambrero Company. This objective would be achieved by enhancing brand awareness among the customers. The promotion and advertisements should be done and attractive offers should be provided by the company to attract the new consumers.

In the strategy development, strategy identifies that what information should be provided to the potential customers by the promoting the messages. For the advertisement of the products, there must be an effective tagline which could attract the attention of the customers. the tagline of Zambrero is ‘Mexican with A Mission’ as this tagline suits the communication objective of the company. This tagline is helpful in attracting new customers and retaining new and existing customers. The objective of digital media campaign is to increase brand awareness of the fast food products of Zambrero Company. By the digital media strategies, company would be able to improve brand image of the company. Company would be able to cover more market by this media plan. The target market of digital media plan will be those people who love to eat fast food products (Buhalis, & Neuhofer, 2012).

For the digital media plan, there is the need of an effective message to achieve the business goals and objectives. The details of the products and specialty of the products are included with the media plan. There are various marketing tools such public relations, advertisements, and direct marketing which would be used in the media plan.

The promotional tools for the media plan for Zambrero’s product would be based on online marketing. Reason to choose for online marketing is that online marketing is the most effective tool for promotion of the food products. In current time, people are very active on social media platforms and social media is covering almost half part of digital marketing. Social media involves YouTube, FaceBook, Isntagram and Twitter which is used for the online and digital marketing. The social media channels are providing most of the marketing facilities. These social media channels are both paid and unpaid channels. It is assumed that 55% of marketing of Zambrero will be covered by FaceBook, 25% by Instagram, 22% by YouTube and 22% by Twitter (Porterfield, Khare & Vahl, 2013). Along with this, in the digital media, Email marketing will also be used by the company and this media tool will cover 1% of market for the company. By the proper use of these digital media channels, company would be able to target new customers and retain existing customers for the fast food products. This can be the two way communication method (Tuten, & Solomon, 2013).

Objectives of Zambrero

Content marketing is helpful for Zambrero to attract more customers as compared to the traditional marketing. It is observed that the traditional media i.e. television, radio and magazines are losing their importance for the promotional activities of the products. There are some effective ways by which Zambrero can create awareness among the potential customers.

Use of SEO and key words would have positive impact on the potential customers for improving awareness for the products. With the Search Engine Optimization, company will use various webmaster tools to give important and relevant information to the potential customers.

Before attracting more customers, Zambrero has to provide right information to them. Zambrero is focused on providing tasty and delicious fast food products to the customers. So, it is important for the company to provide correct information about the food products. In the story, company would tell how the food products are prepared with the environmental friendly products so that customers would be connected with the company with honesty and openness (De Mooij, 2013).

In terms of e-mail marketing, the company will use opt-in-list method to target the customers. By adopting this method, company would prepare the record of those emails to which the company wants to target. The customers would be those who want to be agreed to subscribe their mail lists. With the help of email marketing, managers of Zambrero woukd send every factor of media plan such as newsletters, broachers, and advertisements in the opt-in email list. Email marketing would be effective for Zambrero to make the people aware about the food products provided to the customers. Print media and posters can also be sending to the target customers to meet their needs and requirements in terms of food products (Armstrong, Adam, Denize, & Kotler, 2014).

Zambrero will adopt some marketing tactics so company will implement promotional mix to enhance the brand image. The communication plan and action plan of the company would be effective for Zambrero to achieve the business goals and objectives. In terms of products and services, Zambrero would be focused on offering various food products based on the needs and preferences of the consumers.

In the pricing tactic, Zambrero would charge affordable rates for the consumers. Zambrero is the famous food chain and it is assumed that it will hike the costs because of the business expansion. In terms of distribution strategy, Zambrero would use selective suppliers for the distribution of ingredients as Zambrero has selective market system with the limited suppliers. But, for the product distribution, more channels will be created in the future. At last, in the promotional strategy, Zambrero would focus on the new promotional mix for developing awareness among the customers. Zambrero would show logo and advertisements by which many of the customers can see it (Luttrell, 2016).

Strategy Development

In terms of communication tactics, Zambrero would adopt social media platforms to communicate with the customers. Further, Zambrero would seek for new strategies to stay connected with the customers. For this manner, there is the need of effective message to improve the brand image in the market. So, Zambrero would adopt two-way communication method in the business strategy. Zambrero would create promotional mix department for the effective digital media plan with the long term strategies (Alam, 2014).

Zambrero will develop promotional mix department along with the experienced team to create digital media plan for the short-term and long-term strategies. Effective and brain-storm planning would take place in the first quarter of the year. The team would develop an effective marketing strategy to extend the digital marketing platform. Along with this, annual plan including budget and program calendar would also be prepared (O’Guinn, Allen & Semenik, 2011).

Zambrero will launch a new ways of creating awareness among the customers by effective marketing and advertisement strategy. The marketing team would create short term as well as long term objectives by creating sustainable prices of the products. Along with this, marketing team would include direct selling, social media, public relations, explore, mobile, promotion, design and production team members on the progress and implementation of digital media plan. Advertisements will be implemented on various social media platforms and email marketing (Fifield, 2012).

In this quarter, Zambrero would continue to promote the company by the digital media platforms and evaluate the progress. This stage would include ‘stepping back and analyze the complete processes. Third quarter is all about where the company is going with the strategy. Along with this, it is about improving the image of the company with its mission statement. Maintaining and updating the annual plans would also be the part of this phase. The marketing team would manage all the media budgets, processing and tracking invoices and evaluating the effectiveness of the digital marketing plans. The team would work at the project cost along with various departments i.e. IT, operations, training and Finance (Chakravarthy & Coughlan, 2011).

Zambrero would be in its last quarter and there is the need to improve the sales to the product. Zambrero will push harder to achieve its objectives in last few months. This last quarter is the most important quarter of the year. Finishing good will bring good start for the next year. This quarter is all about being work with all the efforts and adding adjustments and changes. In the last quarter company will provide additional discounts and offers on the important holidays i.e. New Year and Christmas (Epstein & Yuthas, 2007).

Promotional Tools

For the effective digital media plans and actions, tight controls will be monitored and measured by the marketing managers. By the customer outreach and two-way communications, Zambrero will be able stay connected with the potential customers and their satisfaction (Martínez, 2012). For the fast growth of the company, Zambrero would focus on maintaining the prices of food products along with the high quality ingredients to provide healthier food to the customers. Along with this, marketing team of the company would also keep a close eye on the progress of the business and monthly sales as the sign to strategize the business. Company would forecast towards culture, trends, and the strong point to enhance brand personality in the future. Currently, Zambrero is seeking for the ideal candidates who have knowledge of national as well as international market tactics and platforms. New digital marketing strategies would be helpful in developing the growth of Zambrero at the global level and focusing on the short and long-terms objectives (Peñaloza, Toulouse & Visconti, 2013).

Based on the above discussion, there are recommendations for Zambrero for the effective digital media tactics. Zambrero should focus on some areas to improve the competitive position in the market.

• For the media plan, high and middle income people are being targeted and internet is the effective medium to communicate. So, company should primarily focus on the online media tools i.e. blogs, social media sites, and public discussion forums to get instant feedback from the customers.
• Company should focus on offering some healthy food products to the customers. Although changing menu is not an easy task but company has to bring some changes in the menu and should include healthy options for the customers.
• Company should also focus on creating culture to motivate and engage the customers. Along with this, company should provide proper training and development programs to the staff and employees in terms of using online media tools (Turnbull & Valla, 2013) and
• Zambrero should hire those employees who have some technical skills such as editing, writing, photo editing and responding in real times which are required for digital media team.

Conclusion

For every business, it is crucial to maintain strong connection with the potential consumers in the operating market. For the growth of the restaurant, it is also important to sustain strong relations with the traders. This report is based on the digital media marketing plan for Zambrero Company which is a famous Mexican food restaurant chain in Australia. This is the famous restaurant in the fast food industry. The objective of this digital media plan is to enhance the image of Zambrero by the digital media tools. For this manner, company uses various social media platforms so that the awareness of the food with the high quality and food standard can be increased. Further, an action plan will be created by the digital media platforms. In the digital media campaign, various tools like SEO, story development, Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube and email will be used for achieving the objectives of digital media plan. Further, to monitor the campaign, effective and tight controls will be implemented by the company. From the overall discussion, it is observed that in current time, online and digital media is very effective tool to achieve growth and success in every business. Technology is helpful in connecting with the various customers and getting instant feedback from them.

References

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