Boots Marketing Strategy

Boots Marketing StrategyINTRODUCTIONBoots (UK) Ltd is in addition kn hold as boots, It is the leading wellness and steady retailer with around 1400 branches a pertinaciousside in United Kingdom and Ireland. It has to a fault much(prenominal) than 300 branches of Boots optician. Boots is previously known as The Boots Comp both, it has to the mellowest degree its out allows in high streets throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. Boots is subsidiary confederacy of Alliance Boots. After merger of Alliance Boots and Boots Group Plc., Boots launched. Boots be dealing with 8 million customer every week. Boots develops and sells own gull fruits, a number of which are leaders in their respective food trades. The Boots put up is founded on the trust, expertise and heritage, which comes with its longevity in the commercialise.Boots Group operates three principal business organisationes Boots The Chemists Boots Opticians and Boots Retail International. Pharmacy is a fundame ntally all-important(a) part of the brand representing one quarter of gross sales, it is the foundation of Boots authority and credibility. Boots stores are broadly speaking located on high streets but, in line with modern shopping trends, its presence in skirt of town retail parks is rapidly increasing. Over the last three years 48 much(prenominal)(prenominal) stores have opened, as well as a flagship London store on Oxford Street. Overseas, Boots is workings about with other major retailers in their topical anesthetic markets, to open Boots branded within their stores. at that place are soon 758 implants in 13 countries. Boots also has 96 standalone stores in Thailand. Boots has had an illustrious history. From its beginnings in 1849 as an herbalist shop, Boots has continually developed impudent product strands, m any(prenominal) of which are now ho white plaguehold names in their own serious. By the 1930s, Boots had more than 1,000 stores selling a wide range of pro ducts. Over the years Boots has successfully introduced brands such as 17 cosmetics, aimed at teenagers, which was introduced in 1968 and wise business ventures such as Boots Opticians now a major division of the business. In 1985 the Research Department received the Queens Award for technical motion for the discovery and development of ibuprofen. The analgesic ibuprofen was introduced in 1969 as a prescription drug, but launched as the over the counter brand, Nurofen, in 1983. Boots internet business has become increasingly important in the new millennium and a successful part of the brand. Improvements have been made to the online customer experience making water travel easier, resulting in boots.com sales becoming bigger than those of the largest Boots store. Boots is best known for selling a wide range of products under the Boots brand name across health and smasher. The merger between Alliance UniChem plc. and Boots Group plc. was perfect on July 1 2006, creating an exter nal chemists shop-led health and spectator group operating in more than 15 countries across the world. The Alliance Boots network will include two retail formats, both under the Boots brand, ranging from round 1,500 smaller dispensing pharmacies to approximately 800 larger destination high street and edge of town health and sweetheart stores. In addition, Alliance Boots will also operate approximately 300 additional retail outlets, including freestanding Boots Opticians practices. Boots is also developing in-store health zones in its bigger stores, which will include extended wait areas for customers collection prescriptions. Consultation rooms for pharmacists are also being introduced, as part of a political science green light to alleviate the pres received on GPs surgeries.Boots uses a wide range of media on an ongoing basis, including TV, press, and direct mailings to its favor Card members to highlight new products, offers and armed renovations. Jesse Boot, the son o f John Boot, the brands eponymous founder, took control of the business in the 1870s. He had a business philosophy of buying in bulk and passing the benefit of reduced prices on to his customers. His policy of superior goods at competitive prices delivered with expert foreboding meant that the Boots name became synonymous with type, value and religious service. His earliest market was carnald around the concept of Largest, Best and Cheapest Branches Everywhere. This philosophy is still an important part of Boots today. It aims to speak its customers fairly and to act with integrity in everything it does, which results in the brand regularly being rated as the UKs most trusted brand. Boots also believes that it has an enormously valuable role to play in promoting the health of the nation. It achieves this by forming innovative, long bourn partnerships with charities, particularly decocting on womens go forth the axecer. Boots has worked with Breast Cancer Care for 11 year s, and this year conjugate with the Eve Appeal to highlight ovarian pleasinglecer. Boots also supports the health of the UK everyday through its 15,000 healthcare advisers working in store.MARKETING STRATEGYMarketing schemais a process that back tooth allow an Boots to change state its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainablecompetitive advantage. A marketing system should be centred around the key concept that customeris the main goal. Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your efforts to attract customers are wish wellly to be haphazard and inefficient. The focus of your strategy should beto makesure that your products and serve meet customer need andthat you develop long-run and profitable relationships with those customers. To achieve this, you will need to create a on the table strategy that groundwork act to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also succor you rang e whole new markets that you squirt successfully objective. The purpose of your marketing strategy should be to identify and then communicate the benefits of what your business offersto your target market. in one case you have created and implemented your strategy, you should monitor its effectiveness and make any adjustments required to maintain its success. This guide serve ups you identify which customers to focus on and your key objectives in reaching them. It explains what to include in your marketing strategy and how it can be used as the basis for effective action.MARKETING MIXBoots has a marketing strategy that tries to increase turnover. Look carefully at this strategy (page 6) and suggest ways in which the strategy could be improved. How can Boots improve the image of its brand products? How can Boots boost the potent market for beauty products? withdraw about the target group and the 4 Ps.Marketing is non just about selling, It involves-PriceThis is the term used to describe what a customer pays for a product and service. It includes the actual selling price, any commendation terms and profitability. Boots has to decide price of product as per local market conditions and customers.PlaceThis part of the marketing mix is about many things. It is about Location where it is located, how easy it is to get there. Access when is it open, are their spare access facilities for people with special needs. Distribution channels how can you buy the product or service provided or buy tickets for the attraction. Boots has to open their outlets at opportunities market at initial stages.PromotionThis is about how you let people know about what you have available. There are many different ways you can go about this Advertising, Direct marketing, Public relations, Personal selling, Displays, Sponsorship, Demonstrations, Sales promotions. Boots have to promote their product topically by sponsoring local events and local advertisements.ProductThis is what the Boots provides for its customers. It is what they buy or what they experience. What they buy are tangible goods or products. They are things that can be taken away such as tennis rackets from a sports shop. loosely what the customer buys is intangible. You cannot take them away but you can experience them like a white-knuckle ride at a theme park. All of these are part of the product. When looking at the product, there are a number of things to think about to make sure it meets the needs of the customer Product and service features, brand name, after sales service, product life cycle, Researching the market to find out what customers want. Developing and designing a product that customers desire/want. Producing the right amount of the right quality. Getting the price right so that the product is affordable and profitable. Making sure that the customer know about the product through promotion. Making sure the product is on sale in convenient aimsThese combination of factors adds up to the marketing mix or the 4 ps.This Could improve strategy by aiming to increase turnover during other periods other than Xmas. And also vex to increase their business with the potent market. Boost brand products could be improved through publicise television, magazines and so forth target specific consumer groups. In order to boost the male market Boots needs to distance the male products from the womens and target marketing and promotional campaigns at the male consumer group.The Marketing Strategy for boots going to international market should be as follows. The below are the epitome, how boots can achieve success by going it internationally. By exploring key market drivers they can make wide success. Brand Tracking data showed that Boots continued to be rated much higher than competitors on the quality and choice of healthcare products and on customer knowledge and advice. However, still 19 per cent of dispensing customers identified Boots as their first choice pharm acy. The reason Boots isnt first choice is because just now 20 per cent of Boots stores are more conveniently located than their competitors and convenience is the primary driver of pharmacy choice. The audience are the key factors which can make differences. The dispensing audience is critical to Boots. More importantly when you examine the audience it becomes apparent that the pare to principle applies to Boots pharmacy. 60 per cent customers are on repeat medication, this 60 per cent generates 90 per cent of the Boots pharmacy revenue.In addition it is important to remember that our audience is heavily skewed towards those over the age of 60 (57per cent). This was important for us to keep in mind as we develop the strategy and Mother developed the creative work. We had to ensure that our positioning and messaging were relevant and do to a certain type of consumer.Brand positioning is important for boots as they are going internationally. authorities legislation makes it illeg al for any keep company to claim that their prescription Collection Service brand is ruin or different from competitors.So in the absence of a distinct USP, PCS is effectively a simile service. As such, the positioning, creative and use of media became even more critical.Operational store visits revealed that the staff dont understand the PCS service and cant explain its benefit. Competitive every competitor has an equal service to us. nigh are exploitation television advertising to raise awareness.Communications the previous agency had tried to use TV advertising to drive PCS sign-ups. While it may have driven awareness. Consumer qualitative research revealed that customers didnt understand the benefits of the service all. They needed a few minutes of someone explaining it, and then they really understood how it saved them having to stand in a queue. Upon deeper interrogation of the brief, it was apparent that the required campaign was not an awareness one. This was not a p ush-down stack message or proposition this was aimed specifically at people on repeat prescription. Therefore handed-down ATL channels would prove to be an inefficient way of meeting our clients business objectives.Theres totally one place where youre really receptive about a message about not having to get tired of waiting in a queue. Its when youre standing in one. So we spent most of our media budget on huge signs hung above the queue. And then when customers got to the front of the queue, we got our staff to offer customers the chance to sign up to a service where you never have to queue again. So we were now communicating the right message at the right time. Remember the staff in-store didnt understand the service. And we were now using them as the primary communications channel. We couldnt just give them a T-shirt and a badge and expect them to sign customers up. So the final part of the strategy was to train our staff on how to sell the service incentivise the staff by giv ing them longer chocolate breaks if they reached their target number of sign-ups introduce a standard operating procedure so they knew how to enter.MARKETING milieuThe marketing surround surrounds and partakes upon the Boots. There are three key perspectives on the marketing environment, namely the macro-environment, the micro-environment and the subjective environment.The micro-environmentThis environment influences the Boots directly. It includes suppliers that deal directly or indirectly, consumers and customers, and other local stakeholders. Micro tends to suggest small, but this can be misleading. In this context, micro describes the relationship between firms and the driving forces that control this relationship. It is a more local relationship, and the firm may exercise a degree of influence.The macro-environmentThis includes all factors that can influence and Boots, but that are out of their direct control. A company does not generally influence any laws (although it is accepted that they could dorm or be part of a trade Boots). It is continuously changing, and the company needs to be flexible to adapt. There may be aggressive contestation and rivalry in a market. Globalization path that there is always the threat of substitute products and new entrants. The wider environment is also ever changing, and the marketer needs to compensate for changes in culture, politics, economics and engine room.The internal environment.All factors that are internal to the Boots are known as the internal environment. They are generally audited by applying the Five Ms which areMen,Money,Machinery,Materials andMarkets. The internal environment is as important for managing change as the external. As marketers we call the process of managing internal change internal. Essentially we use marketing approaches to aid communication and change management.The external environment can be audited in more detail using other approaches such asPESTLE Analysis, Michael PortersFi ve Forces Analysisor grind away Analysis. gadflyle analysisThere are many factors in the macro-environment that will affect the decisions of the managers of any Boots. tax income changes, new laws, trade barriers, demographic change and government policy changes are all examples of macro change. To help analyse these factors managers can categorise them using the PESTEL model. This classification distinguishes betweenPolitical FactorsPolitical factor includes government policy, wars and conflicts, legal issues, some employment laws, revenue policy, environmental laws, trade policy, current legislation, future legislation, international legislation, governments stability, international trading policy, are the political factors that affect Boots.Economic FactorsEconomic factors includes economic crisis in country, employment problems, transposition rate, condition of stock market, change in international trade policy, fluctuation in tax, pretentiousness rate, process in economic ar e the economic factors that affect the Boots.Social FactorsSocial factors includes literacy rate, minimum wages, change in lifestyle, living condition and standards, demographic changes, population changes, occupation of people, earning capacity, consumers attitude, ethical problems, marketing and publicity pattern, religion issues are the social factors that affects the Boots. Generation gap between young employees and old age employees to fulfill both sine qua non and satisfied both according to their thinking strategy are work as a medicine. overabundant religion if they are religious, they will not work on the day they are worshipping like the Sabbath for Christians. Some religions favours certain animals such as in Hinduism, the cow is sacred if cows were used in scrutiny the chemicals or Boots sell anything that has beef in it, Hindus will probably not work there. Attitudes towards immaterial products and services they dont like stuff for foreign companies they are not l ikely to attract people who dont like foreign products. If people think foreign stuff are cheap and it compromises the quality of the product, their self-image may be an issue. thousand issues If Boots were to do all sort of environmental harm, environmentalists will not work for them. Likewise, if environmentalists found out that Boots does recycle and is dedicated to planting a hectare of trees each month out of its own pockets, it will attract more environmentalists to work for them. Animal testing if Boots products were animal tested, protesters will not work for them, let alone any animal lover. Roles of men and women if there is any sexism in the company, women are likely to leave. If there are only a selected go under of roles that each sex can apply for (e.g. facial cream sales rep, beauty treatment), then that would restrict the number of applicants and workers Boots will get. Health consciousness if people are health conscious, they can use their knowledge to promote products Boots has. On the other hand, if the applicant wasnt health conscious, he/she will not really guarantee a job as a sales assistant in any section to do with health products. If people have a choice of jobs with equal pay anyplace and they were not all that health conscious, then they are not likely to be applying for jobs at Boots.Technological FactorsTechnological factors includes arrival of new technology, quick acceptance of new technology, competing technology development, Information technology, intellectual technology issue, communication, replacement of technology, maintenance of machines, outsourcing of technology, Research and development activity, Customer relationship management are the technological factors that affects the Boots.environmental FactorsBoots has to take care of Staff, they have to increase morale of staff periodically by giving gratifying them. This could be satisfy by hierarchies needs. Boots has to reverences about staff engagement. Enjoyment between staff is necessary to increase productivity and quality of product. Boots has to conduct workshops for employees to increase product awareness, customers service lessons, and all other aspects which can help Boots. Boots culture is most importing aspects which can helps them to be a success in international market. Boots has also take care of pollution which may be created from Boots products or services or both. They has to more concern about recycling of products which can help to boost international image. They has to help government and consumers towards environment by giving service in environmental activities.Legal FactorsLegal factors are important for a company who is going to internationally. Boots has to take in mind that what is happening in our sector that will impact what we do, they also have take care of minimum wages, working conditions as per local government rules. Governments is most important in legal factors. Boots have to take care of food items, Indus trial training and take care of local child labour laws. The below legal factors affects boots and which will be Legislation in areas such as employment, competition and health safety, future legislation changes, changes in government law, trading policies and Regulatory bodiesPest analysis gives brief knowledge about key factors which is affect the Boots and Stakeholder to fulfil their needs .PEST analysis looks at the externalbusiness environmentand is an appropriate strategic tool for understanding the big picture of the environment in which business operates, enabling the company to take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the threats faced by their business activities. Whenstrategic planningis done correctly, it provides a solid plan for acompanyto grow into the future. With a PEST analysis, the company can see a longer horizon of time, and be able to clear up strategic opportunities and threats that the Boots faces. By looking to the outside environment to see the po tential forces of change looming on the horizon, firms can take thestrategic planningprocess out of the arena of today and into the horizon of tomorrow.PEST is not a set of rigid compartments into which ideas need to be sorted. It is better thought of as a set of hooks that can be used to fish for important facts. Once the factors have been fished out, it does not military issue which hook they were attached to. When it comes to writing up the analysis, there is no need to mention the PEST labels at all.Porters Five Forces for Competitive PositionPorters five forces is strategy for competitors, deals with issue regarding the suppliers, Rivalry, threat about their competitors, substitutes, and threats of new market entrants are the porters five forces. index finger of SuppliersIt includes concentration of supplier on business, importance of volume to supplier, separation of inputs, and impact of inputs on speak to, panic of future assimilation, cost relative to total purchase in i ndustry, switched cost of Boots.Power of BuyerIt includes bargaining leverages, volume of buyers, detail information of buyer, identity of buyer, and sensitivity of price, incentives of buyer, threat related to past integration, differentiation of products.Entry barriers Both new and existing competitors feels threat. It includes absolute cost advantages, access of inputs, Economic scale, chapiter requirement, and identity of brands, governments binding policy, and access of distribution channel.Threat regarding substitutes Buyers tendency to substitutes, price performance of substitutes, switching cost of buyers, buyers opinion regarding the product and its separation and amount of substitutes product available in market.Rivalry It defines when some scheme competes with each other in same business for same thing. It is important to make strategy to deals with competition in same business environment. It determines attractiveness of Boots.Swot AnalysisEnvironmental scanning inclu des internal analysis of the Boots and external macro environment and task environment. Internal analysis and external analysis of Boots is known as a SWOT analysis. This analysis gives brief knowledge about auditing of Boots and details of products. SWOT Analysis is the base of making strategy and to manage risks regarding to the products. It is very important to understand general techniques and functions of managements. .SWOT analysis makes suitable environment for identifying and analysing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat. It also gives clear vision regarding situation and making suitable strategies and business formulas.There are adjacent stages of SWOT analysis.StrengthsAppropriate Environment, strong brand name, Strong background, good reputation, strong distribution channels, good quality natural resources, exclusive rights of products are the strengths of business Boots. Boots turnover and current sales are marginal to enters worldwide market. Boots have c lear objectives which can help to understand the global market easily. Boots is successful manufacturer of health and safety products. There customers are loyal to the brand which can helps to enter global market.WeaknessBoots failed to attempts to modify in Halfords. Saturated global market is also important factor for boots in this segment. Boots is also failed to thrive their business in European market. Weak background, inappropriate environment, inferiority raw material, deprivation of natural resources, lack of manpower, unreliable product and services ,lack of finance, weak brand name, poor reputation, lack of distribution network are the weaknesses of business Boots. At present situation of credit crunch, their operating profit is falling. Boots market strategy failed to target socio-economic groups .OpportunityBoots has opportunity by some success with implant in south east Asia. There is a possibility of 100 million savings if they merger with Alliance Unichem. Women ar e the key customers of this kind business and at present that 11 million people have an advantage card, but only 9% being male. Now a days internet selling is important and Internet sales becoming popular. They have an opportunity to lead their business in ethical market. Male healthcare and beauty products are also opportunity for boots. Increasing production when low revenue cost, increasing production when inflation rate is low, quick acceptance of latest technologies, take benefits of international trade policy, investments which is favourable for Boots are the opportunities of Boots.ThreatTesco and other supermarkets are threats after deregulation of Boots. Competitors sales of product through the internet is remarkably high as compared to Boots. Competitors, less interest of customers in product, fluctuations of price between competitors, changes in government policy like tax, revenue and inflation rate, Demographic changes in target market, changes in population age are the threats of Boots.CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONSBoots could have a fit their business overseas. Because it has had failures but can benefit from this experience. Boots could look for further mergers to give it access to more markets either in the UK or abroad. Unichem does have pharmacies and hospitals abroad. Boots could continue with the idea of implants. Boots could continue with its core activity of developing new products in healthcare. It has a great deal of expertise in research and development and an understanding of the market. The male market is under-developed and needs to be expanded. The Advantage Card is not used by male customers. I would recommend that Boots concentrate on its core business for a number of reasons which are Boots should not radiate because it has failed in markets, Boots has only recently merged with UniChem. If this proves to be successful it should merge with other companies as this increases market share and lowers cost, The UK market is saturat ed, Boots should expand its internet sales worldwide. Boots should re-design it marketing strategy toward young male customers. This would expand its core business. The Advantage Card needs to be launched to male customers to improve the core business.