Marketing Analysis Report

Option 2: Marketing Analysis Report

Analyze the role of technology and social media in effective marketing strategies.

Criterion

Analyze metrics to measure effectiveness of the social media marketing strategy for the selected business.

Your result: Non-Performance

Non-Performance

Does not describe metrics to measure effectiveness of the social media marketing strategy for the selected business.

Faculty Comments:

With the first submission specific social media metrics did not seem to be provided for your chosen company’s existing social media presence. You needed to provide existing metrics in your paper along with analysis. Please note, this is not the same as providing ideas concerning metrics or metrics that could be considered. You need to provide actual metrics that already exist and are publicly available. Examples of metrics that are freely available to public users of social media include the number of followers on the firm’s Facebook page or the number of Twitter followers or the review rating of the company on Facebook or ratings or rankings on the site Yelp. Remember, even companies that do not have a social media presence maintained by the business may have reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google Reviews and the metrics (i.e. numbers) related to those reviews can be reported on and analyzed. Many other social media platforms, and metrics on them, could be considered as well.

The 2nd submission of the paper still needed specific social media metrics for your chosen company along with analysis of those metrics.

Option Two: Market analysis for an additional location for Walmart

Company Description

Walmart  Inc.is a publicly-traded family-owned business that operates a chain of retail stores in the format of hypermarkets, discount stores, and grocery stores. Walmart also operates e-commerce websites. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, and offers a variety of services including retail, and pharmaceutical goods, financial services, and wireless as well as photo lab services. Founded in 1962, Walmart operates within three main divisions, Sam’s Club, Walmart USA, and Walmart International. Together, the divisions operate about 11,200 under 55 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries employing approximately 2.2 million employees with 1.5 with million based in the U.S. alone (Walmart, 2020).

NAICS & B2B Characteristics

Because of the nature of its operations, Walmart has several NAICS codes, as shown below; NAICS 1: 452210 for Department stores; 2) NAICS 2: 452319 – all other General Merchandise stores. The SIC is as follows; SIC 1: 53119901-Department/Discount Stores; 2) SIC 2: 53310000-Variety Store.

Walmart is both a Business to Business (B2B) and a Business to customer (B2C) company. According to Investopedia (2019), B2B is a business model that focuses on selling its products and services to corporations, whereas a B2B focus is on serving the consumers. Walmart is a B2C in most markets, including the USA, Canada, the UK, and so on. The company creates a seamless experience to let customers shop anytime and anywhere through mobile devices, online platforms, and stores. However, its membership only format under Sam’s club falls under Walmart for Business. Sam clubs lists the provision of several services such as business furniture, janitorial and sanitation supplies, shipping and moving goods, Food Service Equipment, industrial products, and much more.

 

Industry Analysis and Competitive Outlook

According to the U.S. Census Department, the retail industry is the second largest industry in the country, driving almost 70% of the economic growth with more than four Million retail establishments. Retail businesses provide more than 30 million jobs and add about 9%, which accounts for about $1.5 trillion of the US GDP. While about 90% of all the retail stores are single-store, they account for less of the sales; thus, a majority of the retail revenues come from big-box players such as Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, Best Buy, and so on.

There are more than four million retail establishments in the country. Conceivably, competition is at its peak. Indeed, over the years, some of the largest retail giants have closed their retail stores partly because of competition (IBIS, 2019).  There has been an increased saturation of brick and mortar stores as consumers increasingly prefer to buy through the internet. A majority of retailers are responding to consumer preferences by adjusting their provisions. A report by McKinsey (2019), indicates that big boxes are soon to remain irrelevant. In retrospect, Walmart is no longer opening a ton of supercenters because they seek to introduce the click-and-collect program. However, Amazon controls the online market, albeit lagging behind the Amazon revenues has been growing over the years. According to Marketing Daily, Walmart accounts for about 8.9% of the total consumer spending with amazon controlling about 6.4% of the market share.

 

Identification of Additional Location

As of July 2019, there were a total of 4,759 Walmart U.S. stores and 599 Sam’s Club. The states with the highest number of stores are as follows; Texas-329, Florida-191and California-167. The states with the least number of stores are as follows; Delaware- 8, Hawaii-8, Alaska-7, and Vermont 4 (Walmart, 2020). According to the United States Census Bureau’s statistics (2010), the highest populated states in descending order are California, Texas, Florida, and New York. Yet, in New York, Walmart has only 87 stores. There are only 127 Walmart stores in Arkansas, which is the companies headquarter. However, the heaviest concentration of stores is within States that share a border with Arkansas such as Texas, or those that are a mile away.

In this respect, we recommend that Walmart opens a store in New York City. New York is an urban market with customers from varied demographics.  New York is the most populous city, with 40% of the population residing in New York State.  More than 66% of the State living on Long Island (US Census Bureau’s statistics, 2010).From this background, the idea is to have an online store because of the regulatory restrictions currently in place (NYC.gov, 2019). Walmart can deliver a broad selection of general merchandise, food, and groceries to Brooklyn to the Upper West Side. The best place will be to put up a warehouse in the Bronx (40.8448° N, 73.8648° W) to enable timely delivery across the city.

According to the US Census Bureau’s statistics (2010), New York has a population of almost 9 million people with a household income of $ 63,799, and a poverty rate of 19.6%. This means that the majority of the population can easily afford Walmart’s services.

 

Figure 1: Median Household Income in New York City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Age Pyramid New York City

 

 

Source: https://urbanage.lsecities.net/data/age-pyramid-new-york-2010

 

The median age for the population is about 32 years; this represents millennials and individuals who are starting life, thus a potential market for online orders.  Statistics from Edison trends (208) highlight that  New York is most suited for online deliveries of foods and groceries because people are mostly gridlocked in traffic, thereby having little time for shopping. Moreover, over a third of the population, aged 25 and over, have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, meaning that the literacy level is higher (NYC.gov, 2019). Conceivably, meaning that they are able to use their smartphones or the internet without much difficulty. With this in mind, New York seems like the most suitable market for a new store.

 

New York is currently a flooded market, Report from IBIS highlight the following as being the leading supermarket and grocery retailers in New York; Wegmans Food Markets Inc., Ahold Delhaize USA, Whole Foods Market Inc. and Tops Holding LLC.  Apart from these, there are also key online players such as Amazon, Jet.com, Peapod, and Fresh direct. It is a hard market to crack; strong marketing promotions will come in handy.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3: New York City Grocer Orders according to the major players

 

 

Source: https://EdisonTrends/status/1073675679764369408/photo/1

 

Interestingly, an article in the Wall street journal by Mahoney (2019), highlights that Walmart failed to open a store in New York because of resistance from labor activists and unions. It wasn’t until in 2018 that Walmart gained its footing after buying an apparel startup company known as online Bonobos, Walmart also later acquired jet.com.

 

Social Media Marketing Promotions

As a general merchandise retailer, Walmart shall serve all significant demographics. The millennials provide a potential market for food deliveries; however, Walmart will have to strategize its pricing approach against its competitors. In this regard, we recommend that the company deploy a variety of channels to announce its presence in the market. Considering that the basis is to have an online store where orders will be made through online platforms and mobile apps, then social media marketing will come in handy. Recent statistics from McKinsey (2019), highlights that about 40% of consumers are influenced to make purchasing decisions through social media networks.

Thus, Walmart can use a combination of Facebook and google adverts, plus celebrities and influencers, to promote its products. Social media platforms also provide an interactive forum where consumers can easily make inquiries. With this said, the company should include its links in significant advertisements. By Trailing Website cookies, the company will be able to measure the effectiveness of its social media advertising (Stern, 2010). At the same time, consumer’s inquiries and feedbacks on social media websites can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising approach.

The Effectiveness of social media campaigns can be measured using several metrics. To begin with, the volume clearly captures the number of followers or the people that are talking about the company’s brand on social media. Conceivably, the more the followers, the higher the number of people who interact with the brand. While volume appears to be an essential metric, equally important is the level of engagement, which is the measure of how many people talk about the brand. This includes the number of engagement metrics, such as comments, likes, shares, and retweets. Stern (2010) adds that high engagement rates measure how responsive the audiences are and also brand awareness. Equally important is the rate of mentions from the company’s followers. Facebook typically give notifications when someone tags the business user name. Such metrics are vital to know what your followers are saying about the business. Demographics metrics are also crucial to monitor the demographics of the audience. Knowing the demographic can inform on the strategy and also help the company to modify its posts and ads for future promotions. Most social media platforms provide access to audience information. For example, the company can track the fun base under the fans section on Facebook.

References

IBIS World. (2019). Retail Market Sector in the US. Retrieved from https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/retail-market-sector/

IBIS World. (2019). Supermarkets & Grocery Stores in New York – Market Research Report. Retrieved from https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-reports/new-york/retail-trade/supermarkets-grocery-stores-in-new-york.html

Mahoney, S. (January 24, 2019) Walmart Continues To Gain Market Share in Most Categories. Marketing Daily. Retrieved from  https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/331054/report-walmart-continues-to-gain-market-share-in.html

Nassauer. S. (2018). Walmart to Enter New York City—Not With a Store, but an eCommerce Center. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-to-enter-new-york-citynot-with-a-store-but-an-ecommerce-center-1531218600

New York city.gov. (2019). Population – New York City Population. Retrieved from  https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-population/population-facts.page

North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) (online) U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). 2012 NAICS

Sterne, J. (2010). Social media metrics: how to measure and optimize your marketing investment. John Wiley

U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). New York City — NYC demographic and housing estimates(1-year estimates) [Table]. Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov/

U.S. Census Bureau. (2012). Retail trade: Geographic area series: Summary statistics for the United States, states, metro areas, counties, and places: 2012. [Table]. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/econ/overview/re0200.html

Walmart USA. (2019). Retrieved from https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-busines