Marketing Strategy Sainsburys Supermarket

Introduction

Sainsbury plc trades as Sainsbury's and has a market ratio of 16% of the supermarket section in the United Kingdom, making it the second-largest supermarket chain in the UK. John James Sainsbury founded J Sainsbury's plc in 1869 with a store in Drury Lane, London (Aluko and Knight 2017). Sainsbury's in 1922 became the biggest retailer of groceries, but in 1995 they were taken over by Tesco, who became the market head. Tesco has since been ranked third or second after being taken over by Asda from 2002 till 2014 and once more in 2019. J Sainsbury plc, the holding company, is split into three divisions: Sainsbury's supermarkets Ltd, Sainsbury's Bank, and Argos (Al Habibi p.13, 2019)

Sainsbury's shops are substantial, particularly in London and the southeast, and have positions within many UK cities. Sainsbury's expansion since 1945 has enabled each it to reach national reach, although it isn't well represented inland at Tesco and Morrisons. Sainsbury's opened one of the largest shops in the UK on 29th September of 2010 (Bloomberg, 2021). It extended the current shop in Crayford South East London, currently over 9300 square meters of retail area (Aluko and Knight 2017). Sainsbury's is led by managing directors, chief executive officers, and shares.

In this report, the focus is on only Sainsbury's supermarket. It discusses the digital and marketing approaches that the supermarket uses, the marketing strategy it has adopted over the years, the challenges they have faced in tradition in transition from traditional to digital marketing, and generally the transformation the supermarket has acquired. Sainsbury's has an online shopping service branded as "Sainsbury's online." The customers now have a choice to buy groceries online or by phone. They provide Sainsbury's gift cards and Sainsbury's Business Direct transactional website, which sells the gift cards, gift vouchers, and food tokens with value or credit that can be spent at Sainsbury's shop. A discussion in detail of Sainsbury's online activity will be included in this paper.

Marketing

Marketing is used to the activities that accompany us to sell its products or services and promote them to consumers to generate revenue for the company or organization (Groucutt and Hopkins 2015). There are two types of marketing approaches digital and traditional marketing strategies. The main difference is how the marketing message reaches the audience. The two work with the right balance and a great marketing campaign; they are usually elevated when used in unison; both the approaches have their benefits that the company needs to understand their market needs consider their budget and their target audience, which is the key to understanding the market needs.

Traditional marketing, of course, does not mean that it is old-fashioned. Traditional marketing is just the use of Media like magazines, newspapers, banners, and brochures to advertise the product or services (Opreana and Vinerean 2015). Traditional marketing is still used today, and it plays a significant role in people's lives when they ever need to step out of the digital world. Social media has been on the rise, making people undermine traditional marketing. However, people still use traditional marketing daily; therefore, the money could be well spent if a company budgets magazines on time. Traditional marketing has its pros and cons. One of the pros is that it's permanent and memorable. Its cons are that they are expensive, do not give direct interaction, and are hard to measure customer reach.

Digital marketing uses digital channels like social media on websites to advertise the products or services of the company (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2019). Like traditional marketing, digital marketing is also as important, if not even more so. The internet is now a regular part of people's daily lives. If one Google's about, for example, a painting, chances are that they will see a sponsored advert from one of the artist's painters. Digital marketing takes advantage of this situation and cleverly weaves marketing communications into every digital channel. Digital marketing also has its benefits as well as downsides. The notable advantages are that it engages people, is measurable, and is targeted. While the limitations are that they are potentially annoying because they pop up everywhere and every time on the internet, they are less permanent and change constantly. Therefore, one has to catch up with the trends.

Sainsbury's adopted marketing strategy

Promotion and Advertising strategy

Sainsbury's has a billion consumers who stop by Argo's digital channels every other year; they have more than 200 digital assembly points. Seven domains opened 60 Argos digital shops in the supermarket and are planning to emerge with 200 more. Sainsbury's uses digital marketing methods and tools like Facebook to attract and gain customers. The company also uses different companies such as Spotify and hashtags for marketing the products online (About.Sainsburys.co.uk 2020). Social media marketing utilizes social media channels to interact with the audience, increase sales, and amplify website congestion. Therefore, the company has an account on Facebook that uses its content community online, known as TrolleyTalk. Sainsbury's continuously shares plans and celebrates their triumph with the customers using their Facebook posts. They have almost 1.8m people; they are peach and almost 1.7m people who follow their page (Facebook.com 2020). They have tried to make their page quite attractive to their customers, a seemingly working strategy.

Sainsbury's uses promotional strategies above-the-line and below-the-line to draw customers' attention and build their brand name. Under the below-the-line promotion uses packaging, promotion, and database marketing. In contrast, its above-the-line promotion uses broadcast means such as radio and television to communicate its corporate identity. It has given celebrities like David Beckham endorsement to make advertisements that highlight its sponsorship of the London Paralympic Games.

Supermarkets have an advantage over retailers to maintain their customers through loyalty schemes; their capability to nurture loyalty is desirable. For Sainsbury's to maintain their customers, they have introduced a 'nectar reward card,' which helps customers earn points on every purchase they make; being a nectar card member and having nectar apps installed in your smartphone makes one receive additional points when they shop. The customers receive bonus points according to what they buy, how frequently they buy, and how much time they spend in the supermarket and shop for each visit. After they have accumulated these points, the points can be redeemed at their to come purchase, and these cards also create the database for their customers, they can discover what their customers are shopping, what the customers are buying, and where they are shopping according to both brick and mortar and store location vs. online. With the details accumulated, sainsburys.com efficiently delivers offers, promotions, and advertisements when they are most beneficial to the customers, thus creating the highest odds of increased spending. The company also provides voucher schemes like 'active kids,' enabling certain sports clubs to redeem these vouchers to get sports implements. Sainsbury's also operates Community Services and environmental responsibilities to promote its image.

Sainsbury's Online

With the assignation of Justin King to be the chief executive of Sainsbury's in 2004 (Lloyd pg. 23, 2016), the home carriage service was once more rebranded to the now-famous Sainsbury's online. Still, in 2007, the home shopping service was closed down due to losses. They had to sit down and develop a better strategy for the online world. In July 2009, Sainsbury's set in motion 4,500 food products on the internet and later on in September increased them to 8,000 products, enabling them to participate with asda.com and tesco.com. They also relaunched their website and included the main categories of technology, food and beverages, home and gardening, games and toys, appliances, leisure, finance, and sports. The website is arranged, appealing, and straightforward so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can use it easily. One strategy is for Sainsbury's to offer catalog services like Tesco and Asda competitors.

Challenges Faced in transition to digital marketing

Knowing the customer

From 2022 onwards, targeting one's audience will be more critical than ever. As the competition between SEO and paid advertising intensifies, it is prudent for one not to afford to waste time and money on too wide or poorly selected content. One of the best ways to reach the correct targets is the buyer's image. It is core in using to visualize and better understand the average customer. HubSpot has a handy tool called Make My Persona that simplifies creating a buyer's persona. One can also understand its customers by surveying and asking questions on blogs and social media handles. (Tiago et al., 2014)

Generating eligible leads

All companies live from leads. A highly competitive market is expected in 2022 as many service-oriented companies are trying to attract more chosen guides. Financed adverts such as Google ads and Facebook ads can be more expensive. Experienced marketers will learn to use more cost-effective lead generation strategies, such as video marketing, LinkedIn networking, and coming up with engaging channels such as virtual meetings and webinars. As potential customer competition intensifies, it becomes inevitable to provide solid worth before expecting a successful sale. Check out this guide to see potential customers' strategies for a good overview (Alexander, 2021).

Cash flow Management

In challenging economic conditions, businesses can suffer from capital issues. For example, if the holidays became successful in 2020, consumers may spend less and have longer dry periods. Entrepreneurs and marketers need to be especially cautious when managing capital. It helps to reduce waste and reduce unnecessary expenses. Fortunately, operating some or all of the business online often saves money since there is no renting office or retail space. Companies with time to time repeaters are encouraged to consider innovative funding alternatives such as invoice factoring (Warokka et al., 2020).

Creating compelling content

Content merchandise continues to grow and remains more important to digital marketers than ever before. Customers and candidates are constantly eager for new content that gives them more knowledge and provides solutions. Some of the most popular content in 2022 will be podcasts, short videos, Facebook stories, Instagram, and live streaming content. Viewers accept interactive stories that allow people to express their opinion (Kingsnorth, 2019).

Compliance with data protection and data release regulations

Rules like the GDPR are not gone. If anything, one can rely a lot on such laws across the globe. Websites can allure visitors from any country, so one must comply with all laws affecting their target audience's population. Ensure the website is clear about cookies, privacy policies, and data sharing. Try to maintain compliance in areas like data storage. An example, the GDPR restricts how long visitor data can be retained. In addition to being amenable to the GDPR (and all its future versions), we've improved email deliverability so that email list users can keep their emails in their inboxes instead of their spam inbox folders (Johnson et al., 2021).

Making the website attainability

Reachability is another fast-growing problem that every website owner needs to realize. Accessible websites are available for the hearing, visual, or other disabilities. There are some moves one can take to make the site attainable. E.g., when posting a photo, ensure that alt text is used to understand visually impaired users, suitable for SEO. In addition, not all users can use the mouse; it is recommended that one allows users to navigate the website only using the keyboard. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides extensive knowledge on web reachability. (Chaffey, and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019)

MobileFirst Strategy

People are surfing and buying more than ever on their smartphones and tablets. A few years ago, marketers advocated a mobile-friendly approach, quickly becoming a mobile-first strategy. If a company wants to gain market portion in the growing mobile market, make sure the website is put up for mobile operators. Try all features on several devices. Ensure the customers add items to their online shopping carriage, check out, and pay on their mobiles. Keep in mind that even mobile users can take a long time to load large photos and videos (Forbes, 2021)

Establishing an Omni-channel Marketing Strategy

Customers are becoming more and more dynamic on multiple platforms and devices. Focusing all the attempts on a solo strategy like Facebook or email is no longer enough. They want business entities 'subscribers, customers, and followers to associate with it everywhere easily. That does not mean the company has to be everywhere. Focus on the platform on which the viewer is in action. The goal is to give a perfect experience that allows users to navigate from one medium to another easily. For example, link to a social page or website in the company's email (Wong et al., 2021).

Maintaining brand authority and consistency

As a business entity, one would want their consumers to see them as a leading voice in the market. Additionally, building the company's branding to help attract loyal customers is core. In a highly competitive environment, the company does not just provide high-quality goods and services, following the example of brand-building experts like Nike and Apple. Their clients are looking for them and haven't compared their products to others. Pick out and emphasize the USP. Make the company's view and style consistent over all platforms and channels (Ahmed, 2021).

Keeping Google's Algorithms up to date

One item that is unlikely to switch in 2022 is Google's superiority as the most significant search engine. If anything, Google continues to enlarge its digital empire. To be at par, one must closely observe search engine giants' latest algorithms, rules, and features. That includes ensuring one's Google My Business listings are accurate and up-to-date for local businesses. Another vital region to note is Position Zero, also known as Google snippets in Google search outcomes. The unique type of content for this covered area is a numbered list and FAQ that answer the customer's most pressing questions (Forbes, 2021).

Transformation in the Supermarket Marketing Practices towards digital marketing

Sainsbury's Online Marketing

It is an Electronic Commerce website controlled by Sainsbury's, United Kingdom's second-largest supermarket chain. Sainsbury's online provides various products, including electronic goods, financial services, and books. In 1995, Sainsbury's started the e-commerce operation when it had launched 'Wine Direct' for online wine sales. The following year on 30th December, Sainsbury's announced that they had joined forces with Hewlett-Packard to develop an online-based market offering a wide range of results. In 1998 with the launch of 'Orderline,' customers can shop by television fax or online and have it brought to their front door. On 1999, 22nd November, Sainsbury's, in partnership with LineOne, started an e-business (the Guardian, 2021). The following year on 23rd March, they rebranded the home shopping services to 'Sainsbury's entertains you' and 'Sainsbury's to you.' With the assignation of Justin King to be the chief executive of Sainsbury's in 2004 (Lloyd pg. 23, 2016), the home carriage service was once more rebranded to the now-famous Sainsbury's online. Still, in 2007, the home shopping service was closed down due to losses. They had to sit down and develop a better strategy for the online world. In July 2009, Sainsbury's set in motion 4,500 food products on the internet and later on in September increased them to 8,000 products, enabling them to participate with asda.com and tesco.com. They also relaunched their website and included the main categories of technology, food and beverages, home and gardening, games and toys, appliances, leisure, finance, and sports. The website is arranged, appealing, and straightforward so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can use it easily. One strategy is for Sainsbury's to offer catalog services like Tesco and Asda competitors.

Conclusion

This report focuses on digital marketing at Sainsbury's supermarket. An introduction was provided on Sainsbury's supermarket outlining its history, headquarters, growth, leadership, and operations. After the overview of the company was given, there was a profound explanation about digital and traditional marketing approaches. Sainsbury's has a lot of marketing strategies that may have peaked in the digital market to acquire more customers. By using tools such as Facebook, they have been able to attract a large number of followers, and through that, they can all share their videos, photos, and hashtags on it. Sainsbury's also use promotional strategies to build their brand. The company has also seen that it endorses celebrities to emphasize their sponsorship. The supermarket also came up with a way to maintain their customers by using loyalty schemes, coming up with nectar reward cards which one customer shop they accumulate points, and redeem the points by purchasing goods with the points. In looking into Sainsbury's Online, assessing its website showed when it was launched, the products available on the web, the different categories of products, and how the website has attracted customers. After that, it gets to see the challenges faced when in transition to digital marketing transitioning from traditional to digital marketing is relatively challenging because of different aspects the company has to maintain its customers using specific strategies while maintaining the budget of the organization and maintaining the brand's value. Finally, the transformation in the supermarket marketing practices towards digital marketing has seen Sainsbury's adjust to the online market and since they started their online venture in 1995 up-to-date.

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