Executive Summary
The marketing plan of Costa Coffee has been discussed, whereby situational, SWOT, marketing objectives, marketing strategies, and their implementation & control have been talked about.
Company Overview
Costa Coffee is one of the significant international coffeehouse enterprises as it is world’s 2nd biggest coffeehouse chain. The company has more than 3400 stores in more than 31 countries. Being the largest coffeehouse chain of the UK, it has 2121 restaurants and 1289 overseas outlets.
Situation Analysis
The marketing plan consists of auditing business’s current scenario and position (situation analysis), conducting and analysing marketing research, critically scrutinising the coffeehouse industry and the opportunities for Costa Coffee in the market.
Internal Business Environment: It influences the business control. The main attributes comprise production efficiency, management skills and strategies, and effective communication media (Karunakaran&Vadivelu, 2016). To control and manage the internal business environment, Costa Coffeeshould carry out regular business’s operations appraisal and immediately take measures to discard the factor causing inefficiencies.
External Business Environment: These factors can influence the whole business economy. Factors affecting the external business environment can create threats or opportunities in the business world. Changing customers’ needs, attitude, behaviour, etc., highly influence the marketing conditions of Costa Coffee.
SWOT Analysis
Strength
Known for its quality and good taste.
Largest coffeehouse chain in the UK.
It has a premium image around the world.
Weakness
Weak marketing and advertising campaigns.
Lack of aggression in the growth as it is operating in only 31 countries while Starbucks operates in 70 countries.
Higher prices than the no. 1 Starbucks.
Strategies are more UK-centric instead of global-centric.
Opportunities
Expansion in other countries
Merge or acquire local coffeehouse chains
Set up strategic alliances with restaurants
Use of pull strategies and innovative ideas to attract youths.
Threats
Dominance of global competitor- Starbucks in the market.
Indirect competition from substitutes like Tea can also affect the sales.
The dropping brand value due to ill marketing strategies.
Marketing Objective
The objectives of marketing plan of Costa Coffee is to trigger the sales of the coffee and increase the market share of the organisation globally while keeping the quality and brand image eternal.
Marketing Strategies
Implementation and Control
Implementation of the marketing strategies of Costa Coffee can be done through three processes described below.
Conclusion
It was seen in this section that Cost Coffee has the potential to expand and with the aforementioned marketing plan it can improve its market share.
Various strategies can be used in order to achieve the marketing plan objectives. These are discussed below:
Contacting the researcher: This helps in figuring out new tactics and changes in market situation (Khan, 2014).
Social advertisement: Since the target market include the youth population, company should use social media marketing as its prime media.
To position the Costa Coffee services, the main emphasis is put on the quality of the product rather than the prices. Costa Coffee is known for its high standards and quality. The promotional strategy includes the use of personal selling, advertisements, public relations, and sales promotion (Ferrelland Hartline, 2012).. This could be really helpful in building the brand image. The creative strategy consider the consumers opinion, integrate the trust with honesty. The company uses three forms of strategies, such as market segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
The 7P’s used by the Costa Coffee in order to accomplish the marketing goals are discussed below:
7P’s
Marketing Planning
Product
The product is designed in accordance with the demands of customers.
Place
The outlets of Costa Coffee should be on the major routes of a town or at a shopping place so as to be in the reach of the customers.
Promotion
The Costa Coffee company can make the famous celebrities of every country as their brand ambassador for their promotion. This can be useful in making less effort in branding and advertisement.
Pricing
Once the segmentation of the market is achieved, the price of the product can be set according to the specific segment (Loo and Leung, 2016).
People
The stakeholders must be considered in the planning for development. The managers should develop strategies according to that.
Process
The processes and operations can help in getting an edge over the competitors. Lean thinking can be the best option for the same.
Physical evidence
For future planning, evidence of the organization can help in launching the new services.
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